I pretty much agree with this entire column . I’m a centrist democrat and I think that this particular left (there are others) has made the Democratic Party unelectable and is in any case totalitarian in its basic preferences. I have no problem with the more ordinary left that wants a bigger government to spend more money to solve every last one of the worlds problems. I think they are wildly wrong but not evil. However … I wish all of them would take a brief recess, focus on defeating the much more profound evil that is on the verge of taking over’America.
Nice try but it’s too late for this election. After the Progressives give us another four years of Trump perhaps they’ll come to their senses but I wouldn’t bet on it.
I was a Republican my whole life, but when all the "Tea Party" craziness started I read the writing on the wall. When they decided that Richard Lugar(!) was a RINO I knew where this was going. I've spent the last eight years suggesting to anyone that would listen that the Democratic party could steal a march by, literally, ditching the far-left and co-opt more voters from the middle. I guess I can only speak for myself but I will never join the Democratic party in it's current version.
So what it essentially comes down to is this: Just as in the child's fable of the "Three Little Pigs," the pig who builds his home of brick and stone withstands the huffing and puffing of the wolf, while the less stable structures cannot withstand the wolf's hot air.
So, too, democracy as defined by free speech, a free press, due process and all the other virtues that sustain it retains that strength against the relentless efforts of the progressive Left to undermine and ultimately collapse it.
The choice is between upholding and strengthening the liberties that bind us, or diminishing us. them in a manner certain to further divides us. For those identifying as liberal patriots, one would hope the choice has been made.
The name of the ideology is not Intersectionalism. It's Democratic Centralism: the Leninist organizational system in which policy is decided centrally and is binding on all members. Harry Truman and JFK would NOT approve.
Interesting. I noticed my Legislative District Dem group proposed to make it against membership rules to continue supporting a candidate they didn’t endorse.
I read both of the articles by Iglesias. There are truly things to learn from both sides (if we can leave off the 10,000 white supremacists in the country and however many leftists are far-left). The part of me that is conservative is the overly cynical part of my mind. I will pick an idea apart a thousand ways before I support it. I should stop doing that as much. The more liberal side of me wants to remind conservatives that if they are voting for more government or institutional power anywhere, in almost any way, that's not small government. The point is that excesses are bad for all sides. And, we can't be afraid to say so.
As one person said long ago, those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, which neither the Progressive Left of the very far right these day do, which means, reasonable arguments like this go both unheard and unseen, by those who need to both hear and see them. Alas!
This is an excellent commentary. Another dimension would be to look a the Gaza controversy as a matter of "epistemic closure" -- on both sides. The pro-Palestinians (not to be caricatured as pro-Hamas, as the right tends to do) are living in a romantic fantasy of "resistance" that has little to do with the sufferings of the actual Palestinians on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza. The pro-Israelis (perhaps it would be better to say, pro-Netanyhus because plenty of Israelis do not share this view) are ginning up a dystopian fantasy of rampant antisemitism, to stoke their own virtue, to stoke the fears of those who are rightly concerned about the (exaggerated) reports of growing antisemitism, and, especially to stifle advocacy for the Palestinian people. Both sides are locked into exaggerated caricatures of the evils of the other. Both sides claim the sanction of "history", not to explain the mess on the ground, but to fabricate slings and arrows against the other. It is indeed time to ditch this particular epistemic closure and get both sides working on some kind of accommodations to the reality of two peoples in one land. The Irish have (more or less) done it. It has to be done in Israel/Palestine too. There's a severe lack of good-will and an exaggeration of self-indulgence on both sides.
I pretty much agree with this entire column . I’m a centrist democrat and I think that this particular left (there are others) has made the Democratic Party unelectable and is in any case totalitarian in its basic preferences. I have no problem with the more ordinary left that wants a bigger government to spend more money to solve every last one of the worlds problems. I think they are wildly wrong but not evil. However … I wish all of them would take a brief recess, focus on defeating the much more profound evil that is on the verge of taking over’America.
Ruy Teixeira is the main reason I subscribe to the Liberal Patriot.
Nice try but it’s too late for this election. After the Progressives give us another four years of Trump perhaps they’ll come to their senses but I wouldn’t bet on it.
I was a Republican my whole life, but when all the "Tea Party" craziness started I read the writing on the wall. When they decided that Richard Lugar(!) was a RINO I knew where this was going. I've spent the last eight years suggesting to anyone that would listen that the Democratic party could steal a march by, literally, ditching the far-left and co-opt more voters from the middle. I guess I can only speak for myself but I will never join the Democratic party in it's current version.
So what it essentially comes down to is this: Just as in the child's fable of the "Three Little Pigs," the pig who builds his home of brick and stone withstands the huffing and puffing of the wolf, while the less stable structures cannot withstand the wolf's hot air.
So, too, democracy as defined by free speech, a free press, due process and all the other virtues that sustain it retains that strength against the relentless efforts of the progressive Left to undermine and ultimately collapse it.
The choice is between upholding and strengthening the liberties that bind us, or diminishing us. them in a manner certain to further divides us. For those identifying as liberal patriots, one would hope the choice has been made.
Nice analogy.
Thank you.
Epistemic closure and intersectional politics are weak attempts at left-wing fascism.
If only the liberals and conservatives participated in the parties. Instead they leave it to the fundamentalists on the left and right.
The name of the ideology is not Intersectionalism. It's Democratic Centralism: the Leninist organizational system in which policy is decided centrally and is binding on all members. Harry Truman and JFK would NOT approve.
Interesting. I noticed my Legislative District Dem group proposed to make it against membership rules to continue supporting a candidate they didn’t endorse.
I read both of the articles by Iglesias. There are truly things to learn from both sides (if we can leave off the 10,000 white supremacists in the country and however many leftists are far-left). The part of me that is conservative is the overly cynical part of my mind. I will pick an idea apart a thousand ways before I support it. I should stop doing that as much. The more liberal side of me wants to remind conservatives that if they are voting for more government or institutional power anywhere, in almost any way, that's not small government. The point is that excesses are bad for all sides. And, we can't be afraid to say so.
As one person said long ago, those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, which neither the Progressive Left of the very far right these day do, which means, reasonable arguments like this go both unheard and unseen, by those who need to both hear and see them. Alas!
This is an excellent commentary. Another dimension would be to look a the Gaza controversy as a matter of "epistemic closure" -- on both sides. The pro-Palestinians (not to be caricatured as pro-Hamas, as the right tends to do) are living in a romantic fantasy of "resistance" that has little to do with the sufferings of the actual Palestinians on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza. The pro-Israelis (perhaps it would be better to say, pro-Netanyhus because plenty of Israelis do not share this view) are ginning up a dystopian fantasy of rampant antisemitism, to stoke their own virtue, to stoke the fears of those who are rightly concerned about the (exaggerated) reports of growing antisemitism, and, especially to stifle advocacy for the Palestinian people. Both sides are locked into exaggerated caricatures of the evils of the other. Both sides claim the sanction of "history", not to explain the mess on the ground, but to fabricate slings and arrows against the other. It is indeed time to ditch this particular epistemic closure and get both sides working on some kind of accommodations to the reality of two peoples in one land. The Irish have (more or less) done it. It has to be done in Israel/Palestine too. There's a severe lack of good-will and an exaggeration of self-indulgence on both sides.
I wasn’t familiar with the term “epidemic closure”. It makes sense.