It’s been a long time since I posted here. Watching the primaries unfold has been a painful distraction and has turned me off to politics in any form. Nevertheless, life goes on, and we will have to live with whomever we get as elected leaders. So one cannot but continue to educate in the hope that someone somewhere will gain some kind of insight, some kind of logical ability to cut through the jargon and distill the basic veracity of the concepts.
I can’t remember the quote exactly, but it goes something like this:
“Liberals push the agenda to make radical departures from constitutional government, and conservatives try to preserve those departures for future generations.”
There was a time when the whole concept of constitutional government and elected representation were truly radical concepts in the world. Back then, to be called a liberal reflected your support of the liberal application of the liberties granted by the Constitution. Such men as George Washington, who sought to educate and liberate the slaves that he had inherited, were truly liberal men. Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, while overtly a champion of liberal constitutionalism, was covertly much more conservative, afraid to liberally apply these freedoms to all for fear that most people could not handle the responsibility.
In the end, it seems to bear out that Jefferson had a good reason to fear the unbridled liberal application of these freedoms to all. And, as time passed Jefferson’s reservations passed down to his spiritual children in the Democratic Party. They constantly sought hedges against unbridled freedom. Over time, they began to realize that there was great power to be had in restricting the flow of liberty, and they recognized in a new nationalist fervor, fascism, a way to institutionalize their methods of control.
In the meantime, Washington’s liberal advocates of constitutional freedom watched as those in the Democratic Party who tried to conserve power for the elite slowly, through legal subterfuge, were able to dupe the ever more uneducated masses into believing in their benevolent despotism. So the liberal descendants of Washington began, in a reactionary way, trying to conserve the constitutional freedoms for all people. Along the way, though, they began to try to beat the Democrats at their own game, proposing all sorts of bills to counteract the subterfuge of the Democratic legislation.
Eventually, as the economic boom created the new elite, and as these elite began to resent the old Democratic elite, a new Republican elite arose, whose goal was not so much to conserve the constitutional operation of government as it was to conserve their own ability to amass fortunes and conserve them. In time, they also began to sense the great power of the political machine and how covert appeals to fascist ideas could benefit their cause.
So, we arrive at politics today, where the terms have switched places but have also lost most of the original meaning. Today, liberal people believe they conserve American freedom by virtue of the benevolent police state that enforces the coddling of the underclass as truly compassionate. Meanwhile, conservative people continue to try to insulate themselves from the redistribution of their “hard-earned” wealth by the liberal use of legislation to “protect” their rights. Two seemingly different ideologies have therefore converged in the central thought that central government ought to fix everything. And one’s ideology is no longer a concern as long as there are pockets to line and favors to curry. The “new money” bootlegger Joe Kennedy was perfectly happy to align with old money Democrats when it came to elevating his children to power.
I, to this day, am a registered Republican. That is actually a lie. I actually should be registered as Right Wing. But there is no such registration. The closest I would get to that is Libertarian. But Libertarians are so Right Wing that they begin to look like Left Wing people. Why is that? I believe that it has a lot to do with the fact that truly aware people realize that everyone gravitating toward the middle ground has made any kind of real debate over ideological differences about the issues impossible. Also, I believe that the political spectrum operates a lot like the visible light spectrum.
Near my house, there is a drawbridge which is marked by very bright lights. These lights are LED and are operated by a computer program that continuously changes the color from one end of the spectrum to the other. As the spectrum reaches the indigo and violet end, it almost unnoticeably begins returning to the red end of the spectrum. In the same way, I believe that people who are really interested in fundamental change, by which I mean a switch from bureaucratic morass, tend to polarize on the left end (red) or right end (violet) of the political spectrum. A deep red can hardly be distinguished from a violet on many issues, and both seem to wildly contrast with the yellows, greens and blues in the center.
I give you some instances. I fully agree with Bernie Sanders that the pharmaceutical industry’s collusion with the FDA, AMA, and insurance companies is ruining the health care system. And yet I do not believe, as he does, that the answer lies in more government control. I fully agree with the far left that GMOs and synthetic fertilizers have killed our land and are the other half of our nation’s health crisis. I fully agree that hemp should be legalized to help rejuvenate our land. And yet I am not against allowing oil fracking, coal harvesting or ore mining. I think that every person should have a right to ingest whatever they want, be it cocaine or cheese burgers, without government regulations. And yet, I believe that anyone who does so should have no protection from being fired by an employer who disagrees with their way of life, nor do I want to have to pay for their bad choices (as I am forced to do under the Affordable Care Act.) I want to protect the environment, but I am not afraid of breathing or anything else that causes more CO2 emissions. I favor protection of animal species but am not against hunting. (I do chafe at trophy hunting, though. If you take a life, you should have a good reason, such as feeding your family.) I find it ironic that radical leftist tree huggers are called “conservationist”.
If I would have to boil it down to a label, I would say that a Right Wing person is a strict constitutionalist. As such, it is easy to see how that differs from today’s view of a conservative. I would boil down a Left Wing person as someone in favor of absolute government control, be that under a fascist, socialist or communist moniker. As such, it become apparent that most Democrats are decidedly left wing and that most Republicans are also left of center.
Both the true left and true right recognize that the center is headed for destruction. And this is why was chafe at those who call for “compromise.” Let’s face it, compromise almost never works. Let’s take an example from the evolutionist play book. It is hypothesized that bats came from mice. What cannot be explained is how this could have happen by gradual mutation, since the creature stuck in the middle with large webbed front feet would have had a decided problem surviving without the ability to nimbly run or to fly. Whether or not such creature ever made the evolutionary jump, we do see that there are bats and mice today, both of which survive quite well. But there are no “compromise” creatures extant.
The whole idea of socialism, as it appears in modern American law, is a kingdom fighting against itself. Free market capitalism made America the richest country, by far, in history. The country that continues to place the responsibility for success on the individual producer, while at the same time shackling that producer’s freedom to reap the benefits of labor, is basically built on a lie that cannot be sustained. Eventually, such producers will have no choice but to fold and let the government do it.
At the same time, a socialist system that must rely on revenues from outside itself, finds itself shackled to operate in the totalitarian method that it demands. “Compromise” is stifling and prevents its full utilization.
We know from recent history, Germany, Italy, USSR, Maoist China, etc, that totalitarian regimes never quite work properly because human self-interest never allows them to work anywhere near their potential. Nevertheless, America, both Democrat and Republican, keep pushing us in that direction. We have not learned our lessons from history and so we will repeat the same mistake. It is virtually inevitable. It is the consequence, ironically, of the greatest fear of Thomas Jefferson coming true–we created an uneducated populace. We have created at least one generation that believes it is purely socialist while it simultaneously drinks Starbucks lattes, drives expensive cars, funds the extravagant lifestyles of it’s higher-education and entertainment industry socialist gurus, and totally denies the inherent truth of it’s capitalist right-winged self-interest. As long as someone else must pay for it, then let’s be socialist. That is why they do not consider themselves left-wing. They somehow have this disconnect that they must sacrifice to the socialist machine. It is all about tearing down their parent’s capitalist pig ideas.
I have a sneaking suspicion that, within another generation, liberal will once again take on a new meaning. Once the socialist loop has been closed and the current clueless generation has had a chance to chafe under the true reality, another generation will come forth to rebel against it’s parents’ willingness to conserve Amerika. However, it will be difficult to overcome on their own, because eugenics will keep their number small. And, of course, that will only be the case if Amerika has not yet be replaced by Shariamerika. This new, young Rebellion had better hope that euthanasia has not wiped out the last of the Jedi. They will need help from inside, because the ones who have the guns have the power.