In Richard Brautigan’s Sombrero Fallout, the titular Mexican hat appears inexplicably in the center of a small town, having recently descended from the Heavens like some empty, woven-straw signifier. To those inclined to map teleological import to such an event, the hat is much like a Jesus-faced pancake or a Central-American statue of the Virgin Mary weeping blood. Or perhaps it’s the mark of an alien visitation, a gift from some far-flung taco-loving race of slightly zany oversized hat-sharers. Or else it’s part of some sinister government psy-op to gauge how a town, confronted by such a conveniently fraught occurrence, will react to an epistemological crisis made frighteningly immediate by the appearance of an unclaimed, unmanned Bandito bonnet. It is, in short, to them a sign rather than a signifier. As such, it must be reacted to, made to mean something. The plan of the town’s political bosses is to control the framing, to own the narrative it must first invent and then defend. The pols seek to determine meaning and browbeat recalcitrant interpretative apostates into joining in a united front proclaiming the portent of this sudden sombrero — the hope being that to define the event is to control it and somehow constrain its trajectory.
— Which may just be the perfect metaphor for the Trump “movement” and the current RNC campaign to validate it — from Reince to Newt to Noonan to whatever program it is that runs the Hannity talking points generator FNC props up all Max Headroom-like on the TV screen most nights — save the nagging regret that Trump’s YUGE Skull Island Kong Wall, had it been built just a little sooner, would have kept the rapey Mexican hat out of our American street to begin with. Because Trump, like that sombrero, is an outsized blank slate dropped in front of a gawking crowd. He is a gibbering physical signifier to which the hopes of desperate, needy, and largely pig-ignorant voters have been pinned, the whole mess then punctuated with a signature red ball cap.
But that’s just me spitballing.
In an important column this morning, radio host Steve Deace spoke to the longer-term aims of what is now known as the #NeverTrump movement, and in it he all but spells out the relevant undercurrent: #NeverTrump — for conservatives, at least — isn’t some short-term political strategy to replace Trump with someone less repulsive and less inclined to shockingly frank authoritarian impulses. Instead, it’s a long-term political goal, one that recognizes that there is very little left the GOP has to offer actual conservatives, and that the GOPe’s prior ploys to water-down to an Oliver Twistian-gruel the conservative label have allowed progressive populists to declare conservatism’s failures in the absence of a real conservative referent, as well as to tether — to the ill-informed and intellectually incurious — Constitutionalists like Ted Cruz to the institutional rot at the heart of GOP establishment he has demonstrably and vigorously fought against, be it for religious liberty, the 2A in his Heller amicus, or for US sovereignty in Medellin.
So the question becomes, what are Republicans to do with a Republican party that would allow a progressive populist boasting Mondale’s trade policy and McGovern foreign policy — that is, a leftist Democrat that looks for all the world like an angry and retouched Circus Peanut — to carry its flag? And the answer is simple: get the hell out and don’t look back.
Half a decade ago I wrote about the American revolutionary impulse as an atmosphere of sorts, something that could disappear and reappear under a variety of labels as establishment elites in both parties sought to destroy each new uprising. At the time, the TEA Party was working within the GOP to try to regain our Constitutional moorings, and true to its self-interested insularity, the GOP establishment, having first pretended to embrace this movement, was getting to work infiltrating it, undermining it, and — as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell famously vowed, buoyed by Trump money — hoping to “crush” it.
If this primary season taught movement conservatives any one thing, it’s this: there is little to be gained working within the GOP for conservative and classical liberal ends. The Party stands for nothing; it is the playground for opportunists and hucksters, for influence peddlers and those who feed off of that particular locust swarm, be they media parasites or recently unearthed Republican relics looking to resurrect their political fortunes. And so it follows — for me, at least — that the time is now finally right to break free. We needed first to try the controlled demolition of a TEA Party insurgency. That having been rebuffed, we can in good conscience — and with a sense of righteous resolve — move on to more aggressive ground clearing.
Towards a new party
I am not a political scientist. But I am someone who understands the power of principles — a word that, along with “purity,” is these days often used pejoratively to shame those who resist the putatively nuanced pragmatism that establishmentarians use to defend their own supposed intellectual superiority and depth of thought.
And it should be a principal goal of a new party to beat back such anti-intellectualist nonsense. I’ve discussed elsewhere how appealing to principle is itself the most effective pragmatic weapon in the classical liberal arsenal. I’ll now add that “purity” in the name of Constitutional fidelity is not remotely untoward, vapid, or regressively rigid, but is rather the imperative of a propositional compact like the one that is the basis for American Exceptionalism properly understood.
Many of Trump’s populist-nationalist-progressivist-agragrian-racial-realist-tribalist adepts and cultists have declared the death of both conservatism and Constitutionalism — even as they simultaneously acknowledge that Constitutionalism’s failure, as they see it, arises from the various political removes from Constitutional fidelity that (ironically!) progressivism and populism have wrought, and that conservatism has sought to staunch. That is, they’ve determined that the problem with Constitutionalism is that Constitutionalism hasn’t been practiced — an observation closely akin to arguing that dieting fails because people break their diets, or that a steak fails at being a carrot because the steak comes from a butchered cow and frustratingly resists growing under ground.
My answer to them is this: are you people for real?
And unfortunately, they are — though to me they appear less as thinking agents than a base coagulation of political half-thoughts and old ideologies made prominently manifest in a preposterous Orange bore whose garish and phony alpha-male shtick is undercut by his whiny threats at lawfare and his string of blustery Mean Girl Tweets.
The rest of us want no place in such a populist phlegm ball. And for those willing to stare down the Blob, I seek to outline the simple and clear platform for a new party, one that rejects the barren wasteland of today’s GOP, whose sole remaining virtue — save its institutionalized advantage in getting on ballots — is a cluster of House Dems and less than a handful of Senators.
The platform
Six items. Listed. Cleanly, clearly, in a form even those reared on PowerPoint can readily digest. For a party as yet unnamed. That’s all that’s necessary to lay out the makings of a new movement, I believe — one that isn’t really new at all but rather has been bracketed by the “progress” of the Gramscian long march the left has deployed to devalue American Exceptionalism, and that too many of the “right” have either adopted or surrendered to. Here are those six items, in no particular order:
1) Individual liberty
2) Federalism and representative republicanism
3) Constitutionalism
4) Judicial originalism
5) National sovereignty
6) Free-market capitalism
These are the foundations of a new and potentially revolutionary party, one that does not react defensively to being principled nor considers “purity” in defense of its core beliefs anything but solid earth upon which to pitch its tent. Anyone can join this party; but to do so they must accept as inviolable the 6 foundational platform items. The price of admission, in other words, is a belief in the social compact upon which this country was founded. Nothing more.
1) Individual liberty: the Constitution exists to constrain government and delineate its proper function. It is a physical realization of the ideas found in the Declaration of Independence, chief among which is the concept of natural rights that government exists to protect but can never remove. These are individual rights. And as such, the perversity of contemporary nationalism — which attempts to homogenize the state around a national government that claims to stand in for a supposed collective will — is rejected. We are a nation of individuals. Not of individuals subservient to a mythologized nation state.
2) Federalism and representative republicanism: Those powers not enumerated as belonging to the federal government belong to the several states. Period. No longer will the states be satellite clients of a federal government whose prime lawmaking function now flows from the Executive branch through an unelected and untouchable bureaucratic apparatus. States and the citizens of those states will choose representatives to speak to their interests. Direct democracy was considered a danger by our Founders and Framers. Our party will hold caucuses, not primaries. We will work to choose those we believe will reflect our interests most rigorously. We won’t be held hostage by open primaries or preference polls open to those swayed solely by name recognition, incumbency, or temporary emotional pique. One goal of the party will be the repeal of the 17th Amendment — a result of a prior populist push that rendered the current Senate redundant. Too, we will use the power of legislative local recall to thwart those who wish to run under our brand but then refuse to govern as it demands.
3) Constitutionalism: We are a nation of laws. Equality before the law is a central conceit of Constitutionalism and to the very idea of equality as we understand it. Equality of outcome is anathema to individual liberty as a social project. We are born of the American Revolution, not the French Revolution. We are a propositional nation, not a tribal one. Those beliefs that prove incompatible with the Constitution are to be rejected and never willingly imported: Fabian socialism, Marxism, communism, Maoism, Sharia — these are alien and destructive parasitic political philosophies seeking a host in our body politic, with the long-term hope of hollowing out the host to make of it a puppet disguised in Constitutional garb. Religious freedom is not freedom from religion; tolerance is not a right never to be offended; a well-regulated militia is not a delimiting descriptor but rather an all-encompassing one, etc.
4) Judicial originalism: long-time readers of protein wisdom will know instantly how this plank is perhaps the most crucial in the platform. In the absence of some metaphysical force that can arbitrate all disagreements in textual interpretation, the best we can do is embrace the very model that performs our Constitutionally prescribed lawmaking function: law is written and ratified by a legislature made up of corporate agency that intends; law is therefore to be conceived of as a fixed product of that intention — albeit within the conventional constructs we abide by when it comes to judicial interpretation. To that end, the role of the judiciary is to as closely as possible determine that intended meaning and appeal to it as the fixed meaning of any law. Laws are made by a specific collection of individuals in a specific spatio-temporal context. They mean what they mean, not what they can later be made to imply. Stare decisis is often the bane of judicial conservatism. No more. Deference is given to the Constitution, not to some faulty misrepresentation of its meaning by those inclined toward linguistically incoherent hermeneutics.
5) National sovereignty: We are a nation state. We can and must determine our own parameters for national autonomy. And that determination belongs to the people through their representatives, not a unitary Executive. Thus, we are entitled to control immigration, provide whatever obstacles to it we think in our best national interests, and remove those who have broken our laws — including secreting themselves into the country illegally, whether through border jumping or visa overstays. Our foreign policy will be designed to reflect our national interests. The Reagan model of Kirkpatrick/Weinberg will hold in check the impulse toward Wilsonian democracy projects and neoconservative nation building exercises. But it will also recognize the importance of allies and of American presence in international relations.
6) Free-market capitalism: Milton Friedman and Thomas Sowell. Ted Cruz at the FTC. This is to be vigorously juxtaposed against the destructive forces of corporatism and crony capitalism preferred by the two major parties, their lobbyists and donors, and influence buyers like Donald Trump. Such “capitalism” is the foundation of liberal fascism, which is the political stage nearly all proto-socialist countries eventually settle into, with government choosing winners and losers, rewarding friends, punishing foes, and using mere caprice to determine policy. It fights to quell competition at the behest of those already at the latter’s top. It is an attempt to kidnap and zip-tie to a radiator the Invisible hand. The idea that Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders might be allowed to dictate where a company settles or whether or not it qualifies for “punishment” is, to put it as clearly as I can, batshit crazy.
Conclusion
And that’s it. Six items. Listed. Cleanly, clearly.
My aim here is not to limit the foundational assumptions that may wind up animating such a party. It is to publish a relatively simple and I hope easily understandable and memorable umbrella platform that can be fleshed out w policy using the 6 items as guides. And importantly, from the perspective of our Founding and Framing, this enterprise is to be marketed as a centrist party, one that marries classical liberalism and libertarianism to a federalist delivery system. Through it, we who agree to its terms can work as a coalition to take the stink off of “principle” and embrace the liberating “purity” of accepting the terms of the social compact that joined the civil society to limited government with the belief that a free people can and will make the best choices for themselves.
And it sure as hell beats the incomprehensible and always-fluid nostrums of an orange septuagenarian and those Republican cheerleaders and party appartchiks insisting we find a way not only to support them but to then spend the next 4 years defending them as representative of our own political philosophy.
Because screw all that.
And of course, outlaw. Pass it along!
I’m in. Do we get free stuff, or do we have to earn it?
In better days, the Republican party went from formation to the presidency in 8 years. Can that be done today by a new party, or even in 4? If not, we will be picking through the wreckage for whatever remains.
this is awesome but i still hope Mr. Trump demolishes pee-stanky hillary
also i think “limited government” should stand on its own as #7
or #1
I try to avoid making political tweets and I don’t have many followers in any case, but I tweeted a link to this post and think it needs wide circulation.
Thanks, TaiChiWawa.
I doubt it will, but at least I posted it. In the short term, I think if Ted Cruz would agree to run as Austin Peterson’s VP, we could see a game changing election and a viable Libertarian ticket.
I’d like to think that maybe this was an opportunity to get the Libertarian party interested in something more substantive than snorting lines of coke off of a prostitute’s backside.
I’d like to think that. . . .
And may I humbly suggest that the first means of implementing the platform would be a constitutional convention. Given that we know our current constitution means nothing beyond the Commerce Clause and 14th Amendment, no matter what the rest of it says, there has to be a way of demonstrating to the public how we get from platform to practicality.
The problem is politics in this country is no longer about the product, its about packaging and marketing, Trump has proven that. He is no more a Republican than Hillary is, but he is a great salesman so he can sell himself as the second coming of Reagan and the masses eat it up.
Talking with RTO Trainer on Facebook and I think we pared this thing down to its essense: you are facing a choice between the classic bought politician or you can cut out the middle man and elect the traditional buyer. Do you want retail or wholesale corruption?
Mr. moe!
It’s the most beautifulest days of spring and there you are!
Hi, bmoe —
I’m not as yet willing to go fatalist. I agree (as most know) with the Convention of states; and one important point I placed in the platform was the ability to recall those who attempt to govern outside the parameters of the 6 foundational items. No more running as a one thing and then changing once elected.
As Jeff knows, I was part of the founding of the American Conservative Party – started in 2008 in response to McCain, we have never gotten traction – in part because of all the people claiming that we had to ‘fix’ the GOP from the inside. Frankly, that is why and how the ‘tea party’ was co-opted. And we argued that the GOP would continue to ‘support Conservatives’ only as long as they shut up and got in line with their nominee. Well, suck it. Those that have supported the GOP as the lesser of two evils manifest evil – who would have thought.
I was thrown off Red State for making the above argument. Now, NOW, they want to 3rd party?
You got what you wanted, a Conservative running – a serious candidate with less political experience than Obama had in 2008 – but with policy positions that are practically out of our Platform and MY proposed Federal Budget hand delivered to Congress in 2013. And he lost. Why? Because the GOP hasn’t been Conservative since 1964… I will note the two biggest platform items for Reagan: America’s standing in the world and the Economy. Hmmmm….
Sorry if I don’t feel bad about all the crocodile tears… I will say the same thing that I have been told for 8 years – suck it up.
Of course, you are welcome in the ACP.
Excellent. I like the Richard Brautigan tie in too (can’t say he generally comes to mind when thinking about classical liberalism, but you made it work).
whaaaa?
food stamp gets all the credit for this I think.
and here is my parings, down to the essence:
giving the choices we have
do we want food stamp’s legacy to be securing four-eight years of pillaging by pee-stank hillary and the clinton global criminal cartel
or Mr. Trump?
I think if the day comes we as a people look back and say that food stamp begat Mr. Trump, this will tarnish food stamp indelibly
and that’s proper as pink blossoms in springtime, proper as a spanish gin and tonic, proper as a free plastic bag to carry home your groceries, proper as a heartfelt apology when you accidentally hit a bicyclist with your car
we have plenty of time to build a foundation
but first let’s tear food stamp’s down
I think you meant “principal” here.
While I have to admit that there is some truth to the wag about Libertarians being Republicans who want to smoke pot, I have to say that I’ve been impressed with Austin Petersen’s stated platform, which is quite close indeed to Ted Cruz’s platform. Not sure if Petersen will win the Libertarian Party nomination (convention is in a couple of weeks), but if he can pull it off, perhaps he can shape the Libertarian Party into something that is basically what Jeff has laid out here.
As I have made clear here and elsewhere, Tracy, I felt we needed to try and fail to go thru the GOP before a new political party could be viable.
Trump is a protectionist; he’s an advocate of socialized medicine; he’s a prog.
When the GOP is taken over by a leftist Democrat, you either leave the GOP or you are subject to progressive Democrat rule.
I’m sorry your party idea didn’t work out. I pitched outlawism at about that time, as well. And I think NOW is the time to strike — because we can no longer fool ourselves that we are even voting for a Republican to defeat a progressive Democrat.
If you don’t like the ideas here, I’m cool with that. If you want to tell me to get stuffed, I’m cool with that, too. But don’t for a moment believe your displeasure with the GOP was any more than was (and has been) mine.
he’s a prog
i disagree so much
if he were a prog he would stand with the progs, that’s what progs do – they flock they herd they speak with one voice they conform they unite
Mr. Trump isn’t a prog he’s fabulously bereft of any ideology we’ve yet invented a label for
you might could call him a pragmatist, but i don’t think even that’s terribly apt
Mr. Trump represents an honest cri de coeur I think
the honest expression of the political will of people what have been abandoned by the ruling class of this benighted little country
abandoned by every and all party and institution
but they’re still there
and not unlike katy perry they got the eye of the tiger
and we’re gonna hear them roar
He’s a prog.
well i hope we get to find out for sure as opposed to electing pee-stank
I stay here because more often than not, substantially so, I agree with you. I’ve tried to stay out of the debates – not all – not because I wanted to argue, but because I agreed and I LIKE your style. Being an outlaw is fine….for yourself and the posse. But a PARTY needs a different appeal.
Yep, I’ve been disappointed at the response – but most of the people jonesing for a 3rd party now have been spittle spewing haters of the concept for 8 years. I am NOT including you in that group.
As to your proposals, I will pose the same questions I did to local candidates:
“I have read your proposals, your reason for running and I find it very lacking for two pretty fundamental reasons:
You do not share why you going to Congress would serve your constituents.
You do not share any reasons why (the Dem incumbent] has failed to serve her constituents.
You can not change Congress – not even 100 of you can. However, you CAN serve your constituents. I’d like to know how….”
The intellectual appeal works with those deep in the fight…to the ‘masses’, they want specifics of what you would do with that power you seek… They aren’t wonks, spell out how Originalism works for them. Tell them how ‘free market capitalism’ works with companies shifting manufacturing overseas and how ‘cronies’ get government to let foreign workers take their jobs at home.
I’m a wonk. I’ve been in the deep weeds for years. Selling me is easy. Selling 100 million others with ‘high falutin words’…been on the tip of that spear….
I agree with the real-world examples of the principles in use. That wasn’t however the rhetorical objective in this piece. It was to serve as an outline.
The why of running will be to reaffirm and reinvigorate with likeminded allies American exceptionalism by standing for its precepts.
The Ds (and Rs) have failed whenever they deviate from those precepts, because to do so is to deviate from Americanism.
One goal of the party will be the repeal of the 17th Amendment — a result of a prior populist push that rendered the current Senate redundant.
Oh my yes!!!
I am reminded of the saying, “Don’t make a federal case out of it”, meaning, “don’t make a big deal of a small issue. And the tendency to make a federal case out of *everything* pretty much happened from the 17th Amendment forward.
I would also like to see the 23rd and 24th Amendments repealed, although the demogoguery one would face here will be overwhelming.
It would be nice to repeal the 16th Amendment as well, as it would make sales taxes and tariffs into serious fights again, but fat chance.
From your keyboard to God’s monitor, Jeff. (And I hope whoever I appropriated that formulation from will forgive if I can’t remember exactly where I saw it – maybe here!)
We can dream!
Count me in. I’ve already resigned my state GOP executive position and changed my party affiliation to Unaffiliated. I’ve been waiting for a long time for something like this.
Sign me up.
This is a terrific mission statement for a party that the Founders would recognize and support.
Im willing to do whatever it takes to make this idea a reality.
I’ve been around for a while and have always looked askance and the would be difference makers in Presidential politics. People like George Wallace, John Anderson, H. Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, Pat Paulsen, and those that supported their doomed ambitions so earnestly. I guess it just wasn’t My Ox being gored at the time.
Well, my ox is dead, and I’m ready to chase a windmill or two. Maybe my grandchildren will someday live in an America, unlike the current one, that bears a passing resemblance to the one I grew up in.
I’m afraid we’re going to have to hit the wall before America will be willing to pay attention even to such clear, concise message. It’s perfectly sensible, which is why it won’t get any traction. The Gods of the Marketplace rule the day now and they’ll continue to do so until the Gods of the Copybook Headings limp up to explain it once more. This is a solid effort, but America has lost it’s fucking mind. We’re a country that’s no longer sure what having a cock and balls makes you, ferchrissakes.
It’s times like this I’d sure like to hear Ric Locke’s take. I miss that guy.
He’s a prog who doesn’t realize he’s a prog because he doesn’t have a set of guiding political principals to steer by, nor are his instincts particularly conservative. He’s the Holly
Golightly of politics —a real phony.
And another word for pragmatist is unprincipaled.
Aaaand Mr. Wood can correct me too.
SECOND way.
Given that both parties have fully succumbed to the Totalitarian Temptation, and there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between their trajectories, what Jeff describes is a pull in exactly the opposite direction, not a sideways tug or third-dimensional escape.
Besides, “third way” was the locution used by 20th-century monsters to suggest that they were offering a way out of Business As Usual, a way to transcend the squabbling parties (however many they were) by doing something completely different.
The Trumpsters believe that Trump is a third way, neither Democrat nor Establican but a champion who will hoist us out of this morass of corruption by the sheer force of his non-PC drivel.
The way Castro saved Cuba from Batista’s corruption, that is.
Not even a third party is needed: the GOP arose when the Whigs accepted slavery alongside the Democrats, leaving the Abolitionists with nowhere to go.
This time, the plain old constitutionalists have been cast out and have nowhere to go except SECOND party.
Well, my ox is dead, and I’m ready to chase a windmill or two.
Don Quijote wasn’t an idealist; he was flat-out delusional.
The narrator says that Quijote read so many books about chivalry that his brain dried up, which in the paradigm of bodily humors means that he lost his judgment, even while his other mental faculties remained intact.
When Sancho Panza pointed out to Quijote that the windmills were not giants, Quijote said that Sancho obviously didn’t wasn’t much familiar with matters of chivalry, else he’d KNOW that Knights Errant are constantly running into giants and suchlike and having to dispatch them.
Quijote’s makeshift lance delivered a stiff dose of reality to the old loony when it contacted the windmills inexorably moving vanes, sending him and his horse tumbling arse over teakettle down the hill.
Which, because the windmills of La Mancha are sited at the top of a rather tall hill, was a long way to go.
Quijote as an idealist is a Romantic-era interpretation of the story, which is what the musical embraces with that “Dream the Impossible Dream” nonsense.
Cervantes was demonstrating how absurd the conventions of the chivalric universe were by having Quijote play them out in the real world.
Which, arguably, just shows that Cervantes didn’t understand the chivalric universe, because, as Peter Burke might say, the universe had changed.
Or, I suppose it might just mean I’ve read enough C. S. Lewis to be dangerous to myself and other medievalist children. . . .
Not that C.S. Lewis is dangerous per se, just that I’ ve read enough Lewis on chivalry & medieval romance to think I know what I’m talking about, but not enough to know that I know what I’m talking about.
And now that I’ve remembered what I wanted to add to the main topic of discussion.
The perhaps unavoidable problem you’re (we’re) going to run into is widespread and pervasive anti-foundationalism and linguistic incoherence (I hope I’m using the jargon properly).
For example: “1) Individual liberty: the Constitution exists to constrain government and delineate its proper function.” [ital. add.] Jeff explains clearly what he means by that in the remainder of the paragraph. But there are way too many people that are going to ignore all that and argue that under the Constitution, it’s a proper function of the Federal government to constrain state and local governments from keeping a man who wants to be treated like a woman out of women’s restrooms and locker rooms. Because is he can’t be treated the way he wants to be treated, he’s not truly at liberty.
Now I think JEff has taken pains to try to address that in the other points. But as sdferr has been at pains to try to point out, as a people, we’ve become collectively so dumb-assed stupid, unmoored, as it were, that a program of political reform, absent a prior program of intellectual, moral and (pace sdferr) cultural renewal is almost certainly bound to become tainted and corrupted by the current rot.
No intention of being a nit picker or nay sayer, here just, trying to point out that the problem is bigger than the Stupid Party being stupid, the Evil Party being evil, and the Power Elite (to use a really old metaphor) being stupid and evil.
It wouldn’t be a function of some collective, I’d hasten to add there Ernst, that makes each of us individuals so detached from ourselves (in ancient-speak, caring for our souls) that we’re often properly described as dumb assed-stupid . . . to the extent that we actually are frequently exceedingly ignorant of ourselves and our circumstances — meaning our antecedents, our heritage, our “world”, along with its present conditions, which though far off-shore betimes may turn upon us, or return here to affect our lives for the worse (gnothi seauton can still be watchwords): nope. It’s each of us, individually. Each, not holding ourselves to account, nor being held to account by our nears and dears, our formal teachers among those nears and dears, along with our families who are our first teachers. We each can demand of ourselves; we each can choose; we each can refuse to be or to remain ignorant of the important things.
And hell, it’s said, it isn’t fun to be held to account, so perhaps no surprise about our reluctance to it, particularly in an hedonically grounded civilization (i.e., this modern world with its wonderful contraptions — we wink at Mr. Burke) such as ours. But then, nor is it fun to have our ignorance blow up in our faces. So we have then some reason to accept an unpleasant medicine on occasion to ward off worse ills to come.
But why unpleasant? Ah, and there’s the true teaching, still hidden by the so-called conventional wisdom. Because it isn‘t unpleasant; that’s one secret we can let out of the bag. As Allen Bloom liked to point out, once exposed to learning he found his students often discovered beauties and wonders they’d never dreamed they’d find, whole lives they never imagined they’d have, and who questioned then, “Why had no-one said?”
Making America Really Great Again
https://pjmedia.com/michaelwalsh/2016/05/07/making-america-great-again/
[…] Jeff Goldstein on Protein Wisdom: On Trump, sombreros, and a newish Third Way […]
[…] Jeff Goldstein does a better job than Scott Adams in unpacking the hermeneutics of Trumpism, and while Adams seems to hint that we ought to smile and enjoy the ride, Jeff Goldstein has a much better solution in mind. […]
Everybody’s doing it, looks like, eh newrouter?
[…] I also referenced two of my fellow bloggers who have reached the same decision as I have, their thoughts are well worth focusing on as they are two people I admire, and that I share many values with. Then, last night, I came across this from Jeff Goldstein. It is powerful and touches on another view of not only November 2016, but the future of the GOP as well […]
Let’s do keep in mind, if neither the Unindicted nor the Indecent gets 270 electoral votes, the election gets thrown into the House.
I haven’t given up my GOP membership yet (CA primary is 6/7 and I’m going to vote Cruz), and I figure on working the down ticket as much as possible.
This is a great platform, Jeff. One thing I’m curious about, along the line of the comment above by Beemoe, is that there is an element of marketing involved.
Personally, I think that the Obama candidacy was the finest marketing campaign ever perpetrated against the American public. It was simply superb. Now, we all know that the incumbent rarely loses and so I’m going to discount the Romney campaign in ’12. Hence this cycle is the next in line after 2008, and we’re in the same boat with an empty-suit populist viz Trump. The platforms, in the context of which I am speaking, are irrelevant.
I think that if you surveyed voters about what’s important to them, and actually I know this for fact, they overwhelmingly agree with the conservative platform. However, a big problem is that not only are the media liberal, they are businesses that want to be profitable. And to be more profitable they need more viewers. This is why media promotes populism – they literally need a larger population to make more money. This is a big reason why both Obama and Trump are where they are.
If I were to think of the platform as metaphysics, it is only imagination unless it gains traction and folks vote for it. Considering the media as a problem to be overcome, that is not ever going away, the message must carry to the individual. It must go around, must discount and disregard mass media via 1/1 connections that spread amass. If the term ‘grassroots’ hasn’t lost all meaning, this would be the definition. And social media is the fuel that feeds the fire.
I think it’s a safe assumption that no campaign has ever reached-out in attempt to connect on an individual-basis. Yes, believe it or not, campaigns know who you are individually, and have a pretty solid guess as to what issues are most important to you. But what has been lacking is an effort to actively connect with you, and in such a way that you perpetuate the message. Sure, campaign messages are tested for effectiveness; but remember these messages are largely filtered through mass media – who have an agenda that largely doesn’t square with voters.
“If I were to think of the platform as metaphysics . . .”
If one were to do that, one would annihilate the meaning of metaphysics. Politics is not philosophy, and especially not first philosophy (as Aristotle referred to the subject of his treatise which his students named “Metaphysics”). Philosophy, on the other hand, studies p0litics. See Plato’s Republic, and in particular, the cave metaphor, for an account of these relationships. Best to keep them well ordered, lest we get lost in confusion altogether.
“Too, we will use the power of recall to thwart those who wish to run under our brand but then refuse to govern as it demands.”
Umm. No. I’m on board with pretty much everything else you’ve said, but not this.
Recalls, referendums, and similar “innovations” are the hallmark of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Progressive movement. You know this. They were specifically designed to allow the people to exercise their own power directly, instead of through representatives. Which may have sounded fine in theory, at the time…but it’s part of what led us to where we are.
And no, I don’t think the recall power can be justly trusted to any group of people, no matter how restricted that number may be. Placing the recall power in the hands of some convention, or committee, of the faithful is not much better than granting the power to the broader electorate. In fact, it may be worse. The more restricted the number of people who wield the power, the smaller a “takeover” movement has to be to infiltrate the power structure and warp it to the pursuit of antithetical aims. At least when the power is in the hands of the broader electorate, their general apathy acts to protect us.
Besides, we already have recall elections for our elected officials. We hold them every two, four, or six years, depending on length of term. And if we’re not satisfied with a representative of our party, but don’t believe we would be satisfied with a representative of any other party, we have recall elections for that too, held on a similar timetable. They’re called primaries.
So…no to recalls.
“I think it’s a safe assumption that no campaign has ever reached-out in attempt to connect on an individual-basis. Yes, believe it or not, campaigns know who you are individually, and have a pretty solid guess as to what issues are most important to you. But what has been lacking is an effort to actively connect with you, and in such a way that you perpetuate the message.”
At the local level, and in states where political districts are still incredibly local (like New Hampshire’s House of Representatives), this is all politics is. At the national or state level, or even over a large chunk of a state like a congressional district, it is almost impossible pretty much everywhere.
I believe my congressional district has over 700,000 people in it. During presidential years, perhaps 250,000 of those people vote. How much money would you have to spend to attempt to engage every registered, or even every likely, voter on an individual level?
To design and send out one mass mailing costs six figures, easily. Cutting a commercial and purchasing airtime is more expensive. Yes, yes, I know, your whole point is to get away from mass media. My point, though, is that to craft a bunch of individual messages…and then to identify the target audiences for those messages…and then to put the messages where those people are likely to see and respond to them, instead of ignoring them out of hand…is going to be something like an order of magnitude more expensive. Mas-media platforms that allow for greater levels of individuation, like Facebook and Twitter, are not the answer either. They may cut down on the expense, but it’s also very easy to block or delete a message. Easier, in fact, than it is to dispose of a mailer.
Recall is a tool. If you object to it, abolish it. But if it stays in the toolbox and you refuse to use it on philosophical grounds, you’ll quickly find yourself right back here in a few short years.
Let’s do keep in mind, if neither the Unindicted nor the Indecent gets 270 electoral votes, the election gets thrown into the House.
Where, since the vote will be counted and taken by the EXISTING House, rather than any potential freshly elected House (since the Count takes place in December, before the January 3rd calling to order of the new Congress), the votes will be taken State-by-State (with each State getting together and deciding how that State will vote), and will almost certainly result in the GOP-controlled House electing whoever the hell they want (which does NOT mean that it is limited to those candidates the People just voted for), and the GOP-controlled Senate electing the new VP, although each Senator gets his/her own vote.
Would the GOP(e) choose to vote for Donald Trump, knowing that they outnumber the Dems 2-1 when counted State by State (33 Rep – 14 Dem – 3 States evenly split), so any opposition would be worthless, and they can do effectively whatever the hell they want? Even the TEA Party members wouldn’t make enough of a difference at that stage.
“…and will almost certainly result in the GOP-controlled House electing whoever the hell they want…”
Well, whoever they want from the top three electoral vote-getters, anyway. The Twelfth Amendment governs this process. If the top three vote-getters were, say, Clinton, Trump, and Gary Johnson, the House couldn’t just go and elect Ted Cruz. Or Mitt Romney. Or Oprah. Their choice is limited by the choices made by the Electoral College.
“… (which does NOT mean that it is limited to those candidates the People just voted for)…”
Literally true, because the People don’t vote for candidates. They vote for slates of electors. Those electors, by the way, are not bound to follow their word. They could decide to elect Ted Cruz, or Mitt Romney, or Oprah, and their decision would be binding on the nation. The most that could be done would be to charge them under “faithless elector” laws afterward — and then, since you can’t add local or state qualifications to a constitutional office (which an elector is), probably watch those laws get thrown out in court or on appeal.
“…and the GOP-controlled Senate electing the new VP, although each Senator gets his/her own vote.”
Again, the Twelfth Amendment limits this process — in this case, to the top TWO vice-presidential electoral vote-getters. So, assuming Clinton picks Sanders, Trump picks Kasich, and Johnson picks — oh, I don’t know — Rand Paul…and further assuming that the Libertarian ticket comes in third among the electors when the votes are counted, our next veep would be either Sanders or Kasich. There’s no none-of-the-above option.
DemosthenesVW wrote:
I think Jeff is talking about here a specific kind of Recall – the kind a Legislature of one of the Several States can use, if Amendment XVII is repealed, to bring terminate the term of one of it’s Senators if he has gone off the reservation [I’m part Cherokee, so it’s okay].
I have always felt uneasy about the Referendum Process because it is one of the tactics used by Democracies. That uneasiness has evolved into an absolute despising as I’ve gained more Wisdom.
“I think Jeff is talking about here a specific kind of Recall – the kind a Legislature of one of the Several States can use, if Amendment XVII is repealed…”
Of course, that would be fine. Senators were effectively supposed to be ambassadors, and you are right that they could be recalled at will…and sometimes were.
Having said that, Jeff’s statement seemed more sweeping to me.
If my interpretation is correct, I think he needs to revise the language.
One of the flaws in the language of The Constitution is that it was, essentially, written by Lawyers and, as is their wont, contains phrases that are rather easily subject to different interpretations. This has ended-up undermining their Intent over the long-haul.
Jeff, I think, is just offering us a draft to work from, because I have no doubt that he does not see himself as a First Among Equals.
a 3rd party might make sense. logistically ,after cantor’s lose in va. and the gope’s recalibration after that, see thad cochran, the only way to fight entrenched gope regionally/nationally is with a 3rd party. the dude running against ryan in wi republican primary should be instead running 3rd party. the same was true of boehner opponents in his last election. that district has alot of independents who don’t vote in closed primaries. so on election day they have a choice between gope and clown demonrat.
going forward: 2018 state gov’t elections should be about an Art V conv. of the states. it is time to wake up these folks; representatives,delegates and senators, that they have some responsibility about righting the problems of the federal gov’t.
in my idiot mind i see 2 and only 2 propositions being considered at this convention:
1) term limits of all federal gov’t employees of 12 years employment with the federal gov’t in all capacities combined, no more lois lerners;
2) the debt ceiling can only be increased with the consent of 40 states legislatures, no more 218 house 60 senate 1 sign it.
if art v is the tool to use i urge folks to use it wisely. a cos could be the restoration of the republic or a total cluster sumthing with only smod left standing.
good luck with that:
SARAH PALIN Announces She Will Work to Defeat Paul Ryan in Primary (VIDEO)
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/05/sarah-palin-announces-she-will-work-to-defeat-paul-ryan-in-primary-video/
Preach it, Brother Goldstein!
Only one problem:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (John Adams, October 11, 1798
Brokaw & Rose: Who Is Obama?
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2008/10/31/brokaw_rose_who_is_obama
well trump is fabulous!!11!! and if you don’t like him we knee cap
leaders vs virtue signalers:
>In 1965, Buckley ran for mayor of New York City as the candidate for the new Conservative Party. He ran to restore momentum to the conservative cause in the wake of Goldwater’s defeat.[71] He tried to take votes away from the relatively liberal Republican candidate and fellow Yale alumnus John Lindsay, who later became a Democrat. Buckley did not expect to win; indeed, when asked what he would do if he won the race, Buckley responded, “Demand a recount.”[72] and used an unusual campaign style; during one televised debate with Lindsay, Buckley declined to use his allotted rebuttal time and instead replied, “I am satisfied to sit back and contemplate my own former eloquence.”
To relieve traffic congestion, Buckley proposed charging cars a fee to enter the central city, and a network of bike lanes.<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_F._Buckley,_Jr.
you go grrl
william fu buckley and ‘feel the bern’ sanders. ahole new england clowns both.
This will be one of the humps we’ll have to get over, RI Red.
However, it is my hope that the Spirit that infused the Second Continental Congress will prevail in our new-Party-forming efforts. What I speak of is the compromise language: ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God’.
Some members of the Congress believed our un/in-alienable rights came from God and some believed they arose out of Nature. The latter were Agnostics. So, to cover both beliefs, the language above was included.
I believe John Adams was dead solid perfect in his observation, but, as long as we in this effort all believe that there are rights that are not Mankind’s to grant, that they are inviolate and, dare I say it, ‘Sacred’, then we will be ‘blessed’ in our efforts to Restore Freedom and Ordered Liberty with a Harmony that will amaze our Enemies.
As Tracy pointed out – there’s got to be a manifesto with reality based examples of policy that people can fucking understand.
My dh runs a couple of factories and we use the term “factory workers” to denote anyone with a 5th grade intelligence level and no internal motivation. So our preteens are often “factory workers” as are most of the general electorate. Everything has got to be spelled out, in simplistic language, and include how this is in their best interests. Dangling rewards in front of “factory workers” to get hoped-for compliance yields results in roughly 25% of cases usually. Carrots and freebies don’t fix anything because the sheep have to care enough to reach for it. Lean manufacturing systems involve placing brightly colored tape on the walls with “shadow pictures” of the tools placed in the outline so that the right tool always gets put back in the right spot, which cuts down on the reading requirements.
Really. If a third party could implement Lean, they’d get somewhere faster.
I think – sadly – until we get rid of the notion that VOTING is the most important thing EVA (instead of INFORMED voting) we’re going to have a problem. Rock the vote and all that bs is what turned elections into the ultimate Marketing endevor.
But I’m in .
This is just my opinion, but the Franchise must be restricted to those who pay to support the government.
Of course, the question then arises: what do we do if a Flat Tax is implemented?
Looks like someone is channeling Jeff:
https://pjmedia.com/michaelwalsh/2016/05/07/making-america-great-again/
Bob, there really has to be some kind of “come to Jesus (deity/Gaia) moment” to reverse the course we are on. We don’t have the hundred years the left took to hijack the system.
A few people above have already touched on what I think is the primary barricade to succeeding with this almost entirely agreeable platform. Namely, the extension of suffrage to those without investment in the Republic.
I think we can have rational discussion over what exactly should constitute “investment in the Republic”: taxes paid, land owned, military service, and so on. And I think we can make a case that “breathing while 18 years old and (probably, maybe, sortakinda) a citizen” doesn’t qualify.
The problem is, we’ve passed that marker on the highway to political Hell. These people do have the franchise, and while this platform can make all the sense in the world to rational beings with a real sense that principles have value only as long as we do our best to apply them in accord with reality, those who don’t/can’t/won’t understand these will not sign on. Because they’ve been “educated” into believing that they need to be ruled by the Great Non-White Parent One enthroned in D.C.
Anyway, if this ever does get off the ground I’m all for it (with some very minor quibbles, but I’m willing to get along).
Agreed, RIR.
This is why the Spirit that animates the Convention Of States Movement – to further restrict the government – must be translated to any new Party efforts.
Sadly, because of the depravity of the American People in 2016, their total loss of Virtue, we are forced to advocate measures that treat those operating the government like children.
Time is short because we are in the first stages of a new Dark Age.
Dead solid perfect, d’Arth.
This is, perhaps, our biggest dilemma as we set out in this Noble effort. Dangers lurk around so many corners.
Bob asked…
If they’re on the dole and a net Taker, no franchise. If they’re a net Giver, then OK.
Or alternately, any kind of check from Uncle Sugar automatically DQs you.
I’m kinda good with either.
-I was just thinking the latter.
-Speaking of The Dole: I think it should be returned to the city/town [in rural areas, county] level.
I’ll flesh out my reasons [which will take some time/space] later, but, generally, it would place control of it in the hands of the most immediate population, who, I think – as in the past when it was so – would be able to curb abuse much more efficiently.
In the small city I have lived in all my life and my family has since 1922, they used to publish the names of those on The Dole – Shaming properly used, methinks.
But as long as we’re discussing the franchise, I think we need to bear in mind that there are only a small number of offices that would obtain at the Federal level: House representatives, and electors for the Chief Executive. (and Senators until we get the abomination of 17A repealed.)
Every other thing we vote on is either local or state. While I think it’s appropriate for the law to exclude those on a Federal dole (net or otherwise) from participating in elections for Federal offices, I would propose in accord with Planks 2 and 6 that the States could decide to extend the franchise for its elections to anybody it chose.
No arguments here.
I’m a big fan of the principle of subsidiarity.
Shaming properly used, methinks.
Jesus. I try to belong here because i really want to, I’m onboard til the comments betray this authoritative mindset. I guess my notes on factory workers and Lean are totally lost in this world.
Treating the citizenry like 30 yr old mom’s basement dwellers won’t work. Treating them with dignity seems more in line with the principles in Jeff’s post. you draw pictures for the illiterate- not publicly shame them.
I guess my notes on factory workers and Lean are totally lost in this world.
One may wonder why the requisites of a citizen are fully comparable to the products of a manufactory? Why is a widget applicable to a citizen with political opinion? Is it because human beings are nothing more than machines, if yet extremely complex machines?
So anyway, I was noodling over the problem of how to deal with the obstacle of an Entrenched Entitlement-driven Electorate. And I came up with something that may seem a bit out there, but as a basic idea…
If You Sit Out An Election, You Get $1000 From The Government
This assumes of course that we can keep people from cheating (yeah right), but as an idea it would be interesting to see how many LIVs are willing to sell their franchise.
Using Shame is only authoritative if you don’t believe in holding people responsible for their actions.
Further, it is often an incentive to change one’s situation.
Further, further: the taxpayers, who are funding The Dole, have a every right to know who THEIR money is going to and how much.
Mansfield on Manliness and the Liberal Society.
Talked to a Trumpy friend of mine who was also a huge free trader at one point and tried to pin him to the wall on that. His response was that free trade was great, but it doesn’t exist and only one guy running as a republican was willing to mention that the game was rigged and not in our favor. That shook me a bit, since I didn’t pay much attention to the eleventy-hundred jackasses who ran for the GOP. Anyone know if it’s true?
Full disclosure, I’m still registered as a republican, but after Romney and the Ryan budget I won’t vote for the Republican presidential or congressional candidates.
How do you go about shaming someone when the culture is increasingly comfortable with “letting it all hang out” for the world to see 24/7 —literally.
I think we’re going to lose the idea of personal privacy before we can bring back the concept of shame.
(On that other hand, I think you can make a case, historically speaking, that societies without a strong sence of either the individual person or privacy, are, in fact, governed by norms of honor and shame.)
Ever notice how the folks complaining that the game is rigged never complain about the rigging, only that it doesn’t work in their (our) favor?
Example: You can’t support a family of four on a X-d0llar minimum wage! The game is rigged! We need a $15 dollar minimum wage!
Setting aside all the other stuff about socio-ecoomic model families, zero being the real minimum wage, and minimum wage laws benfitting union workers most,
I can’t afford to feed a family of four on $12 dollar cheezburger meals! The game is rigged! We need fast food price controls!
The flat tax has bugged me for this reason; The first million is a lot harder to make than the second. Or, it takes money to make money. A reasonable tiered tax rate makes sense to me. Even the gubmint we SHOULD have needs operating expenses.
On the other hand, having a majority or plurality of voters with “no dog in the fight” and just trying to get what they can get sucks too. So a minimum tax rate for the poor makes sense. ~3%? If said voter wants to avoid paying taxes then they lose voting privileges. Of course the rich would like to have that option as well but they dont get it. harumph!
Trout fishing?
Old hat, proteins, extremely old hat.
Listen, let me tell you something, look, suckers are the new game fish, and we’ve going to have, and we’ve already got, really, creelfulls of suckers. Creelfulls. And they’re all marvelous creels, brimming with, overbrimming, to be honest with you, with stupendous suckers, just stupendous.
And, truthfully? Not only that, but America’s going to have to find a bigger Mexican Hat to satisfy our amazing head, believe me.
Way bigger.
Huh, Well we’re not not starting from there are we? We are starting from here. I’m trying to think of ways to get it done. This has to be sold, and I am trying to sell. I’m not sure what you are trying to do.
Besides, there’s an argument to be made* that the West hasn’t had rooted prinicipals since Machiavelli, or Luther, or Hobbes, etc.
*(Not that I’m the one to make it)
Sightly off-topic:
This episode of Midsomer Murders features an annoying little bureaucrat who shows up at people’s places to inform them that they’re not properly entered in the social services databases, saying “You can’t opt-out of the system, after all.”
When he spouts this line in a hippie artistic commune, they gleefully hoist them in the air and dump him in the river.
Interesting that in England, those who want to be off the radar are the “lefties.” I guess they don’t have another equivalent to isolationist militias or other “leave me the hell alone” contingents, as we Yanks do.
Ernst wrote: How do you go about shaming someone when the culture is increasingly comfortable with “letting it all hang out” for the world to see 24/7 —literally.
I would concede that, at first, such a shaming would not be too effective, but, over time, Human Nature being what it is [Fallen], I believe those not on The Dole would start demanding those on it take Responsibility because they would become ‘sick and tired of supporting the bastards’ while they’re ‘out there making an honest living and working hard’.
Shaming can work and does work when it takes Human Nature into consideration. [As an example, see the ‘Welfare Queen’ meme of the 1980’s and first half of the 1990’s.]
Di: I’ve mentioned to Mrs. B. to be on the lookout for the sniveling little weasel, because she watches the Show religiously.
I would as well, as we both enjoy British Crime and Regular Drama, but I’ve got too many shows to keep up with and still do this here Interwebby Thing [Shetland, Granchester, Endeavour, Inspecter Lewis, Miss Fisher, Father Brown, Dr. Blake, The Last Kingdom – not to mention the few American Series I follow [ex: The Last Ship, Vikings, The Knick]
I wish I could retire now and spend those nine hours, Monday through Friday, researching and writing and reading – ain’t happening anytime soon.
How do you go about shaming someone when the culture is increasingly comfortable with “letting it all hang out” for the world to see 24/7.
You can’t shame the shameless, and sociopaths (4% of the populace) are immune from shame by definition.
Their non-sociopath fellow travelers become inured to any shameful behavior soon enough, the head-rush that comes from seizing power being strong enough to bury any bourgeois notion of shame.
Alinsky’s methods were predicated on the assumption that his targets were capable of shame, hence the injunction to make them play by their own rules.
Those who operate on the basis of principle or who care what other people think are susceptible to shaming.
The rest are not.
>what other people think <
eff their collectivist "thinking". time to defund and defraud the "system".
so language: defund vs defraud.
Hmmm. Ferry Interestink. Or, Art of the Deal bitches:
What I want to know is, what happened to asking for two, three, four times as much as you really wanted, so you could “settle” for what you wanted all along?
Also, you know that stupid Olympic contest, the distance run where they have people running through water hazards and stepping on and over these little fences, like they were horses or some damn thing? I want to know how long it will be before Trump’s massive Kong Wall looks like that. Because Trump doesn’t want to beat the Democrats into irrelevance. He wants to make a deal.
You fucked up Trumpers. You trusted him.
Voice Of Truth – Casting Crowns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwsvqVmFV6Y
Casting Crowns – Set Me Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2HwtWLokSc
A reasonable tiered tax rate makes sense to me.
You start out with a “reasonable” tier system; you end up with the monstrosity we have now or worse.
The point of the exercise is to make it hard for the powerful to game the system — either to fill their pockets directly or to create clientele — and so a flat rate means that taxation cannot be a method to engage in social engineering but solely a means of raising revenue.
We’re so used to Taxation As Manipulation that it’s hard to remember that it doesn’t have to be that way, and actually shouldn’t be.
Sounds good but I think RI. Red upthread is ultimately correct — a Government of the people will perforce reflect the character of the people, one way or the other, which doesn’t portend well going forward. As a practical matter, we are but one justice appointment away from absolute executive power so there may not be many more real political cycles left to get this sort of thing along. We live in interesting times.
I find this trump phenomenon particularly disheartening because while the left has been the left for decades if not centuries, I’ve always thought the mainstream right was the last man standing, but now they went on to select Donald Trump, a man who has not and cannot formulate a single coherent idea with respect to governance or public policy.
Naftali and others: What is to be done, then?
I mean: we do not have the luxury of time.
Think locally, act locally; do your best to keep the castle people out of our agoras; cultivate the small and intermediate subsidiary institutions that allow people to cooperate*; stop relying on imperfect men for perfect solutions to permanent problems; trust in God.
(*I wonder if there’s not some kind of analogy or metaphor to built around cooperation vs. coordination. As in me and the neighbors cooperate towards some goal of our choosing vs. government coordinates our actions toward some goal of it’s choosing.)
I see the term subsidiarity popping up here and elsewhere recently. It is, I take it, a term of Roman Catholic doctrine, and as such, not something I’ve studied nor believe I understand. Regarding that, I wonder, what is the genealogy of the concept? When did it arise, and in answer to what questions interesting to the Church (and what political questions possibly, in distinction from what theological questions, in particular)? Now I don’t begrudge Roman Catholics their doctrines, whether theological or political, but do wonder how Americans professing adherence to modern natural right theories of politics (and certainly not Roman Catholic political teachings as such), social contract theories implemented in the American founding — modified by the unique American dispositions, both theoretical and geological as being situated in the New World far across the seas from other older powers, whether those powers were kingly or churchly powers — should now integrate this Roman Catholic doctrine into their political ideas? Does subsidiarity necessarily fill a theoretical gap left behind by our founders and framers, some inadequacy of which they were unaware? Or, does it reconcile other questions, other issues pertinent to Roman Catholics as such? Or what?
Bob, I think Ernst, above is ultimately correct.
I am Jewish and our history threads through numerous political epochs, some good, most not so much, and we’ve seen much, much worse, so no need to lose faith. In the end what will always stand are the eternal values, those which makes man, man and not beast. So I suggest a return to basic principles at the local level, the principals that will one day in the future fuel the founding of something better politically with the help of G-d.
An open minded reading of the founding exposes the degree to which this whole edifice was founded on a pervasive religiosity. The founders recognized G-d, and therefore they recognized man. Modern man has thrown off the yoke of the creator and the exalted status of man, and has now all but run through the interest accrued on that fine original foundation.
Without G-d there is no American idea (the founders said as much themselves, and they were right). Ironically, only service of G-d negates service of man (in the form of an individual or the collective) because service of G-d requires agency and freedom of conscience, the most important of the natural rights.
So the answer is a religious revival frankly, which means more time in church (churches of G-d of course) and shul, more children, many more children, more focus on ethical education based on timeless and absolute standards and if history is any guide, which it is, we may believe and know that G-d and mankind will keep on keeping on, and all the foolishness will fall by the wayside eventually.
The world was created with a purpose and that purpose is soon at hand and it will be good for all good people.
This is waaay off topic, but I thought it was intensely cool and worthy of notice. It also gave me some hope for the future: Star pupil finds lost Mayan city by studying ancient charts of the night sky from his bedroom
In politics it’s akin to federalism i.e. respect for competent local authority out of the belief that they are best positioned to deal with local problems.
In economics, it’s a mess.
Does the doctrine arise before or after Martin Luther’s break, as a matter of intellectual history? What was the context, what the pressing need?
And I went with the Catholic metaphor because I couldn’t remember the quote I was looking for. I think it’s Burke, but it might be out of The Federalist Papers. Something about respecting the little things that run interference between you and Big Brother (so to speak).
It wasn’t in reaction solely to your use of a similar term Ernst that I’m wondering, but more others, even someone upthread, though also someone just within the hour on Jeff’s twitter timeline using the same term — and elsewhere. It’s just more frequently brought up, is all; and I have no doubt of my ignorance of the thing, and therefore want help.
Grrr, I had a whole thing on subsidiarity up with links and everything, and I fat-fingered it all into electronic oblivion.
In a nutshell: “Things should be handled at the lowest social level possible, and higher social levels ought not butt in.” This is with the understanding that, in the Catholic sense, the lowest social level is the family.
For the fuller treatment, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church sections 1883 and 1885 here, and CCC 2207-2213 starting here
But it goes back to Aquinas in Contra Gentiles and Summa Theologica and got a big push in the encyclicals on the progressively-captured term “social justice” in 1891’s Rerum Novarum from Leo XIII and 1931’s Quadragesimo Anno from Pius XI.
It was Mr. Burke and his ‘little platoons’, I believe, Ernst.
Thanks for the precis Objet D’arth. So it rose to some (newish?) prominence in the late 19th cent. in reaction to (predominantly European?) Marxist challenges then? And if that’s roughly so, then one might make a simple link to our fundamental socialist challenges today, I suppose. Though it would be well to look a bit further too, into whatever unreconciled frictions hold between our remnant American constitutionalism and the Church (or Aristotelianism, whichever comes first — heh).
Exactly that, sdferr. Rerum Novarum was a scathing reaction against the new theories of socialism/Marxism, and also what was termed “capitalism” in that document or what we would understand as “cronyism” today.
And it’s very true that some in the Church would have no problems with most social functions being driven by Gummint, and some (raises hand) don’t want Gummint in the mix at all outside a Constitutional framework. Hence the friction.
In number 1885 we see the terms “tends toward the establishment of true international order”. With “true”, we don’t think, say, of Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace right off, but rather of the meaning of “catholic” [kata–holos: according to the whole, universal] instead. The political arguments — the big ones, anyhow — seem always to be disagreements about the whole, the cosmos, and the order of that.
Interesting Tidbit from Glenn Beck, today:
A few weeks ago, Reince Priebus and his crew were eager to spend a day at Beck’s studio, doing the radio program and TV, in order to court Glenn’s audience. They were going to do the same thing with Hannity and Limbaugh.
Then Cruz dropped out. Reince was on Hannity, but now he won’t return Beck’s calls. “So when are you guys coming down?” “We never actually said we were coming down.”
Meaning that we conservatives are now in the position of the black population relative to the Dems: The GOP despises us and threatens us with, “It’s your fault if the other guys win. Where else you gonna go?”
Instead of earning our votes.
Which, not gonna happen. No supplication at the altar of the GOP; no “lesser of two evils” for me.
Because they’re not lesser at all.
Not at all.
Yep, di. I’m through with being told I have to treat my vote as a sandbag against the Dem flood.
My FIL tried to give me the “Not voting Trump is the same as a vote for Hillary” bullshit over dinner Sunday and I was irritated enough to blast him for it.
Naftali and others: What is to be done, then?
Shelter in place. Survive the collapse. (When the currency bubble bursts, all this political crap will be absolutely moot.)
The populace will not be open to First Principles until it has been humbled, humiliated, and ground into dust.
If at all.
Thus has it ever been with human societies. We’re in the season of madness, wherein the crazier the situation becomes, the crazier the “solutions” people embrace.
*I wonder if there’s not some kind of analogy or metaphor to built around cooperation vs. coordination.
The biosphere in north-west Wyoming was for time immemorial a self-organizing system.
Then Teddy Roosevelt designated it a National Park and immediately the Smart People began “managing” it.
— Such as destroying out the predators so that the deer & elk could thrive.
— And suppressing the wildfires so that Bambi and Smokey won’t get burnt.
— And letting the bears feast at the garbage dumps so that the tourists would bring in their Precious.
— And air-dropping hay to distant herds in the winter…
It’s worked out famously, as they say.
Yep, di. I’m through with being told I have to treat my vote as a sandbag against the Dem flood.
If I thought for one minute that a Trump presidency would change our country’s direction, I’d vote for him.
But I don’t. I have no reason to. He is who he is.
“I know he’s been beatin’ on me during the engagement, but after the wedding he’ll change.”
Mr. Burke and his little platoons
You are correct sir!
he said in his best Ed McMahon impression.
Thanks
You’re welcome.
Of course: Jimmy Madison was a little fellow.
Interesting observation by Mark Malvasi, back in 2012:
Source:
http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2012/12/barbarism-and-history.html
moral idiots
About sums it up, doesn’t it?
Ok, haven’t posted in a long time, I hope y’all remember me. I’m torn Trump is a circus clown and the devil is Hillary!! I know I’m going to be votiing for the down-races, but here in mass? That makes no sense either. A little advice please?
Yup.
A little advice please
1) Be Not Afraid. Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to Hate. Hate leads to Protectionist Populist Nationalist Billionaires masquerading as conservatives.
2) Always listen to di.
3) Don’t worry about it. Russia, China and/or Iran, or some combination therof, will sort our shit for us. One way or another.
for what it is worth
>According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “subsidiarity” in English follows the “German usage Subsidiarität (1809 or earlier in legal use; 1931 in the context of Catholic social doctrine, in §80 of Rundschreiben über die gesellschaftliche Ordnung (“Circular letter [idiomatic English: ‘encyclical’] concerning the societal order”), the German version of Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Quadragesimo anno (1931))”. More distantly, it is derived from the Latin verb subsidio (to aid or help), and the related noun subsidium (aid or assistance). The concept as discussed here was first described formally in Catholic social teaching.[9]<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity#Origins
>. Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid to welcome Christ and accept his power. Help the Pope and all those who wish to serve Christ and with Christ’s power to serve the human person and the whole of mankind. Do not be afraid. Open wide the doors for Christ. To his saving power open the boundaries of States, economic and political systems, the vast fields of culture, civilization and development. Do not be afraid. Christ knows “what is in man”. He alone knows it.
So often today man does not know what is within him, in the depths of his mind and heart. So often he is uncertain about the meaning of his life on this earth. He is assailed by doubt, a doubt which turns into despair. We ask you therefore, we beg you with humility and trust, let Christ speak to man. He alone has words of life, yes, of eternal life. <
https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/homilies/1978/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_19781022_inizio-pontificato.html
Not in the form of advice, Blitz, but if the Libertarians nominate Austin Petersen he’ll have my vote in November. Failing that, the Constitution Party may be too social-con for a lot of us here but I’ll take fealty to a Higher Power over fealty to an orange combover any day.
McG, Blitz, others who . . . you know who you are: today is May 11, in the calendar way of the circling year. Coming soon around again is May 14.
So here’s a proposal to us pw people. Look at this calendar. How about if, for the approaching season marked in those linked dates on that calendar of five months duration, we make one post on each day there noted, and at minimum, re-print and read Mr. Madison’s note on that day?
Possibly more. Possibly discuss some major aspect of each day’s proceedings: the whos, the whats, the hows, the whys? One by one, one passing day by passing day, right through to September 17th?
Me likey, SD.
Glenn Beck’s crew has been On Fire, lately.
They are So Not Getting Behind Trump, just because he’s the nominee.
Stu made a salient point: “If my not voting for Trump = a vote for Hillary, then my not voting for Hillary = a vote for Trump, right?”
On account of Trump didn’t have my/our vote in the first place. It’s like saying a tax cut to a business is a gubmint subsidy.
Under what circumstances would they vote for Trump?
If, during his first term, he governs like a Constitutionalist and has worked to turn back the leftist agenda.
I agree with that 100%. Sign me up for Constitutionalist!Trump. That one I’ll gladly stump for and vote for.
But no other.
Just FYI, Beck plans to interview all the libertarian candidates next week on the radio.
So there’s that.
Stu made a salient point: “If my not voting for Trump = a vote for Hillary, then my not voting for Hillary = a vote for Trump, right?”
I made that point to my brother. It’s like I get TWO votes, now!
Brad Thor, he makes a POINT: https://www.facebook.com/BradThorOfficial/posts/10153693576823990
Read the whole thing™
Someone on Twitter pointed out that if a third candidate <cough> Petersen <cough> were to win enough states to keep both of the Blunder Twins from getting 270, it throws the election to the House.
I’ve previously seen that the House will only consider candidates who received EVs in their balloting so it would almost certainly be Trump who wins. Still, it’s a way to stop Hillary without voting for Trump.
If that’s important to somebody.
No long essays from me. I am tired of Hillary and I don’t want her to be first woman president. Voting for Trump wont hurt my conscience but, I do hate to reward all those Trumpsters but, what ya gonna do?
yes yes Hillary’s no good she smells like pee
Mr. The Donald is a cross I’ll just have to bear.
This I do for you, my countrymen.
The word Pyrrhic is supposed to be in their somewhere, isn’t it?
I think I know Gladly the cross-eyed bear.
It’s like de ja vu all over! again!
As you are ours.
Alison Krauss The Boxer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60vZ__-uJCQ
america eff yea
Alison Krauss & Union Station – Live at The Louisville Palace, KY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_UCz_qaqGk
why don’t i hear a krauss singing in Home Depot? corp/marxism control
Never — I repeat — never give the District of Columbia statehood, nor whatever future area may be the seat of the Federal Government, should the Federal Government ever move from the District of Columbia to some indefinite elsewhere. It is a bad (dangerous) enough situation to have the District acceded pseudo-powers over its corporate life as it is. Statehood would eventually result in civil war, more or less. Don’t. Just don’t.
Hell, they don’t even deserve representation in the Electoral College, let alone statehood.
The question of statehood isn’t a question of deserts: it’s a question of the uses of power.
Giving D.C. Electors was the equivalent of raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. If you want to be treated like a resident of a state, MOVE TO A STATE.
I’d actually cheer if somebody blew up the factory that makes their “Taxation Without Representation” license plates.
Unless it was ISIS. Or a #DonaldChump. It would still be a net positive, but I wouldn’t cheer.
Does anyone in DC actually generate wealth?
Apparently no one is interested in Sdferr’s idea:
https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=58440#sthash.5leFTUHJ.dpuf
I used to live in D.C. for a couple of decades, actually (70s, 80s, 90s). Worked in many enterprises there, even had my own business renovating houses for a time. Would any of that count in your reckoning of the generation of wealth, bg? If so, then yes, there are many people in D.C. who create wealth which did not exist prior to the work they do being done.
For myself, Bob, I’m not exactly looking for more things to do.
I think the federal district prescribed in the Constitution should have no Electoral Votes and consist solely of the buildings in which the three branches of government do their constitutionally legitimate work.
Which, these days, would eliminate it entirely.
Bob, I’d me more than willing to discuss the clown circus that is Trump. SD has a good idea, but we’d just be preaching to the choir here. I do it occasionally on FB, but the mainly millennials I deal with are just too stupid to understand. McG, don’t want to go 3rd party until I can research the candidate.
Going by the short-hand definition of wealth generation as being from farms, fields, and factories, I assume home renovation can be fitted into “factories”.
Look, frankly, we’re all about ideas, incredible ideas, simply incredible. And positions. In fact, we’ve already got as many, if not more, marvelous ideas than positions to fit them. But we’re working on our positions, and once we find out what’s going on, they’ll all be fantastic, just fantastic. Trust me.
**** US Election 2016: Donald Trump softens stance on Muslim ban
Responding to remarks by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, Mr Trump told Fox News Radio the ban was “just a suggestion”.
Mr Khan has expressed concern that he would not be able to travel to the US under a Trump administration because of his Muslim faith.
Mr Trump had offered to make an “exception” for Mr Khan.
Mr Khan refused Mr Trump’s offer, saying the New York businessman’s views were “ignorant” and would make the UK and the US “less safe”.
Mr Trump proposed a ban on Muslims entering the US after attacks in Paris killed 130 people last year.
The suggested ban has been widely criticised in the US and abroad but Mr Trump until now has stood by the proposal, saying it was needed to ensure US security.
“It’s a temporary ban. It hasn’t been called for yet,” Mr Trump said on Wednesday. “This is just a suggestion until we find out what’s going on.”
Mr Trump has shifted positions in the past on a variety of issues only to change his stance days later. ****
And with slewfoot aboard?
Limit up!
C’mon, twinkletoes, let’s dance!
You know what they say about all work and no play…
The 1980’s: I’m at an Election Night Party for the Libertarian Candidate for Governor [who, of course, got trounced]. A lot of wine being consumed, no beer, no hard stuff [someone did bring in some Boone’s Farm, naturally].
Lot of jazz cigarette smoke in the air, but no one would share a toke – a roomful of would-be Bogarts in jeans.
I was the only one with any coke and, since the Libertarians were not obliging, I kept it all for myself and my friends [and that strange Zeppelin chick I tried to pick-up – no sale].
I think Goth Fonzie was there [aka: Nick Gillespie] – there was always one guy in a leather jacket at those affairs, standing in a corner, smoking a Kent, with sunglasses on, looking like he was above it all.
One of the most boring parties I’ve ever been to [how many times can you agree that the all sidewalks and streets should be privatized, man?]
Luckily, there was a phone in the bathroom, so in retaliation, we made some long distance phone calls to old friends in LA. #LOOTERS!
I went home alone, with my dignity – and coke – intact.
Listen, look, let me tell you something, not us.
Here’s us.
is very short song
Good man.
My fallback is to write in Mike Rowe.
He told me his was to vote for cranky-d.
I might write in Oscar Meyer’s Olive Loaf for POTUS w/ Ham & Cheese Loaf for VP.
Maybe I can get some free lunch meat or something.
If nominated I will not run. If elected I will server.
Or serve. Whichever.
Cranky-D is actually a server?
Well…most of the servers I’ve dealt with [or Dell’d with] have often been cranky.
>
BULLSHIT.
Listen up, all ye flaccid effeminates, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS COERCION. The Obama regime can not FORCE you to do ANYTHING. You either freely choose to capitulate or not. This “forced”, “coercion” bullshit is 100% candyass agitprop.
You know what the solution to this is? Every parent who LOVES THEIR CHILDREN WITHDRAWS THEIR CHILDREN FROM PUBLIC SCHOOL MONDAY MORNING.
It is non-violent. It is very, very doable. Workarounds to educating children outside of the public schools abound.
And you know what? No one will do it. Public schools are now LITERALLY open, unapologetic child sex abuse centers, and no one will do a damn thing about it.
And you want me to fricking bayonet charge a machine gun for this? You want me to feel some warm, fuzzy feeling about preserving a culture in which not just the oligarchs are criminally insane, but also 99.999% of the civilian population to the point that they will shrug in complete passivity as their government tells them clearly and in no uncertain terms that they must surrender their children to be sexually abused and psychologically tortured into diabolical psychosexual perversion?
I will not fight FOR this. Never before in human history has there been a population so utterly and completely depraved. Just as I have advocated for the exterminations of the musloid CULTURE and the black hip-hop CULTURE, and cite the agreement by all morally sane people that the Nazi CULTURE had to be exterminated, so too I now declare that what is now the “american” culture MUST be exterminated.
These cultures must be exterminated so that the human beings inside of them might be saved.<
http://www.barnhardt.biz/2016/05/13/the-chesterton-axiom-no-longer-applies/
Related Thoughts from David French at NRO, and The Imaginative Conservatve’s John Horvat at the aptly named Crisis Magazine.
Powerline’s Steven Hayward and Rush Limbaugh both remarked on a Paul Johnson essay in Forbes in which Johnson, I think (for whatever reason –their paywall or my old slow computer– I can’t access) argued, in essence, that Trump was the Man for Our Times (q.v.) because he embodies defiance of culturally enervating political correctness. For myself, I’m skeptical of the notion that rudeness, crudeness, braggadocio and puffery is in any way a meaningful demonstration of speaking Truth to Power. Insulting a Fox News media vamp is easy. The cultural cognoscenti hate Fox News. Defending a state’s right to acknowledge objective reality over subjective feelz? Now that’s hard.
Which is why I don’t think I can support Austin Peterson. He just cedes too much ground in the culture wars, which, even though he’s not particularly interested in, remains, nevertheless, accutely interested in him, and us.
So I think I’ll just focus on down ticket races this November. Or maybe, seeing how my GOPe Rep and GOPe Senator are both of them a couple of useless Partei über Alles loyalist hacks, maybe I’ll just get blind stinking falling down drunk that day.
You know who claims the opposite of political correctness is rudeness? Progs.
Yeah, that means Comboverlord and his DonaldChumps have embraced the prog mission to annihilate the language while claiming to seek otherwise. See my shocked face for more details.
When Comboverlord runs for re-election in 2020, that’ll actually be counted, by the official orange-shirted vote counters, as a vote for him. As opposed to this year’s “it might as well be a vote for Hillary” if you don’t vote for him.
As others have already mentioned, the moral law as the framework/limits for individual liberty is vital as a 1st point to the other 6. It can’t be assumed either. Our moral matrix has been so badly leavened that it has to be intentionally pitched in. The Libertarian party’s mascot is appropriately the porcupine; this 1st point is their soft underbelly and it has been strategically exploited. Freedom cannot survive when we allow ourselves the ability to self-destruct, even by metered degrees. Without this point, all the others rot.
Listen, our moral matrix, we’re looking at, twelved, fantastically marvelous twelved.
http://slice.seriouseats.com/images/20100923%20windowpane%204.JPG
i do not understand this picture at all
It’s cheese, louisefoot.