Tag: moderates

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insider corruption national politics & policies

Rage Against the Machine

Tulsi Gabbard, Democrats, socialism, moderates,

The Democratic Insider Machine’s pushing of sorta senile Biden against socialist Sanders is quite breathtaking.

But that isn’t even the entirety of the Machine’s anti-​democratic agenda.

“The establishment narrative warfare against [Representative Tulsi] Gabbard’s campaign dwarfs anything we’ve seen against Sanders,” writes Caitlin Johnstone on her popular blog, “and the loathing and dismissal they’ve been able to generate have severely hamstrung her run.”

No kidding. But why would the Machine prefer Sanders over Gabbard? 

“It turns out that a presidential candidate can get away with talking about economic justice and plutocracy when it comes to domestic policy,” Ms. Johnstone goes on, “and some light dissent on matters of foreign policy will be tolerated, but aggressively attacking the heart of the actual bipartisan foreign policy consensus will get you shut down, smeared and shunned like nothing else.”

This pro-​war, anti-​Tulsi agenda was seen right after SuperTuesday. 

You see, Representative Gabbard got a delegate, from American Samoa (where Michael Bloomberg’s vast fortune also nabbed a delegate). And, by the rules that have been followed so far, a delegate gets you onto the big debate stage.

But almost immediately, word from the Democratic National Committee hit the Twittersphere: “We have two more debates — of course the threshold will go up. By the time we have the March debate, almost 2,000 delegates will be allocated. The threshold will reflect where we are in the race, as it always has.”

The DNC — the Machine — is rewriting the rules.

Tulsi must not speak. 

Even if her competence and ecumenical appeal might actually save the Democratic Party, were her name to replace Biden and Sanders in the second or third voting round of a contested convention.

Such a fierce opponent of regime-​change wars is obviously unacceptable to the Machine.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tulsi Gabbard, Democrats, socialism, moderates,

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ideological culture partisanship

The False Binary

cards, playing cards, pick a card, politics,

Characterizing herself as a “moderate with a brain,” Bridget Phetasy writes that things have gotten so bad that now “every vote is considered a statement on your personal identity and worth.” Her article in Spectator USA, “The battle cry of the politically homeless,” paints a bleak picture.

“Your value, who you are, what kind of world you want, whether or not you’re a good person or an evil person … it all boils down to which lever you pull. Damn your reasons. Vote for the ‘right’ person, or else you are a fascist, or a racist, or a globalist, or a communist.”

Ms. Phetasy expresses fatigue at “being afraid to voice my own opinions, of knowing how saying the wrong thing at a barbecue while someone is filming on their iPhone could result in a nationwide clarion call for my head on a pike.”

I, however, feel not one whit of a compulsion to cave to what Phetasy says is the “totalitarian-​like” demand of the two parties for “devotion to their ideology.”

How did I become so blessed?

I know that Trumpians have almost no way to rationally defend their major positions — protectionism being the tippy-​top of an Everest of an iceberg. Meanwhile, the far left is worse, flushing the old wine of socialism through the new-​but-​leaky bottles of racist (“anti-​racist”) resentment.

Can we really fear such intellectual paper tigers?

There is a way out: Ranked choice voting. Witless partisanship rests on the A/​not‑A (=B/​not‑B) duality rut of the two-​party system, into which I have never purchased admission. None of us are required to — and won’t be tempted to once our absurd electoral system is swapped for one not programmed to create false binaries.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Photo by Aaron Jacobs on flickr

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Categories
ideological culture national politics & policies

The Murky, Muddled Middle

We’ve seen a lot of insightful reflection about what the recent elections say about the prospects for liberty and the efforts of many Americans to fight for endangered liberties.

One lesson I hope we’re on the way to unlearning is how allegedly “praiseworthy” it is to evade any clear-​cut defense of fundamental political principle. How allegedly “critical” it is to compromise not only on the details of a program that does advance one principles, but also on the basic principles themselves.

In a recent communiqué, Representative Ed Emery rejects the notion that “moderates” lost, sometimes spectacularly, because voters “weren’t thinking.” No, “Moderates lost because voters woke up to the truth that lukewarm does not protect personal liberties; it compromises them [and] protects the status quo.…”

But not even the status quo is protected by huddling in the middle of the road. The premier beneficiaries of the worship of the muddled middle are those who do advocate certain fundamental (and poisonous) ideological principles but who succeed in posing as practitioners of “moderation.” Today, the radical left calls itself “the center” and screams bloody murder about “extremism” when anybody offers cogent objections to their socialist agenda. “Compromise,” to them, means only tweaking the speed at which we hurtle ever closer to full government control over our lives.

Let’s not submit to this intimidation, this fraudulent debate-framing.

Let’s demand a fair and open clash of basic political principles.

That’s a battle we’ll win.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.