Thursday, April 18, 2019

4-18-20, The Day America Died.

Today, 4-18-20, America died.  We are now a fascist country. No one really cared.  They're too busy to notice.  Busy with personal stuff.  The pubic stuff for most is out of view.   Today, the Mueller report was released.  And what it revealed about corruption, appeasement, conspiracy and obstruction are important, but not the most important thing.  What it revealed is that the pillars of American republican democracy are mostly gone.  What remains, mostly, is an authoritarian tyrant.

The pillars are torn down, excepting a free press we can be thankful for and a House of Representatives who might keep us breathing with some brain activity.   Gone are an Executive branch that we can count on to do the right thing, a Judiciary with a balance of conservative and liberal justices to try and do the right thing and a Senate than we can count on to take a broad view of what the right thing is to do.  The Senate majority has abrogated its responsibility to provide its work in checks and balances vis a vis the Executive, to whom it has offloaded all power, including appointing massive numbers of right wing hack justices, rather than give us a balance of differing views on the intent of the Constitution.  The rule of law now is disabled.  The Justice Department, through the highly partisan Attorney General Barr, has assumed the role of the President's counselor and defender rather than the role of the people's ultimate lawyer.

What remains is a fascist regime designed to disrupt the rule of law and the provision of services and protections Americans have mindlessly ignored or have been ignorant of and don't care.  Democracies require alot of work to maintain and correct when they fail to deliver and American's aren't into this kind of work.  Most don't vote regularly, let alone stay informed on policies being put in place by people they haven't voted for.  So, they've let it slip away from their control.  Americans are into instant gratification and quick results.  Authoritarians give more results, faster.  And that is who we allowed to lead us through disengagement.  Let someone else do the work; we're too busy with self gratification or with about 40% of us, just hard scrabble daily coping for survival. 

Rest in peace, America.  Maybe enough of us will be concerned about a Resurrection to bring back the hope and promise America offered, but I for one am not counting on it.  Given that we didn't rise up to release and help innocent children caged in camps on our border, there's little evidence enough of us will rise up to save ourselves.   RIP.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

Liberals Have Accommodated Conservatives From Our Beginning

From the first immigration to what became the USA, immigrant liberals accommodated fellow immigrant conservatives in their belief systems.  Non-religious liberals tolerated those wanting to practice a religion.  They tolerated those who wanted to convert the original occupants of the land we began to annex.  They tolerated taking those original residents land and in some instances, killing them for it.  They tolerated herding indigenous Americans into isolated and unresourced territories and violation of agreed upon treaties.

As the colonies matured, liberals participated in debates that argued for the creation of organized governments in the colonies.  Liberals wanted to create a new country and conservatives wanted to continue affiliation with England  The Constitutional Convention was a classical face off between liberals and conservatives; the latter wanting to continue with some form of monarchy governance.  Liberals wanted to create a new system of governance that was actually not so new, dating back to the Greeks and Romans called a democracy.   Liberals argued for governance by ordinary people, conservatives wanted educated elites to rule in a modified version of democracy.   The liberals accommodated the conservatives in forming this democratic republic.

Conservatives wanted to continue slavery as a means of building an economic system.  Liberals acceded to this demand in maintaining slavery while its continuation was being hotly debated in Europe.  Further demands of giving slaves a partial identity for purposes of population count to accommodate conservative concerns about the power of smaller colonies, later becoming states.  Some liberals questioned why women were not given participation in governance in the colonies, later to become states,  observing that even in some indigenous American cultures, women were recognized as government leaders. 

And so it goes through today.  Liberals accommodate conservatives who wish to practice religion, even though many liberals find this magical thinking, including ;positing that men are deigned to rule over women in life, making all the rules for them. This includes limitations on the power of women to make their own choices about parenthood and pregnancy termination.

Liberals accommodate conservative support for basically minimally or unregulated commerce in public policy today.  Liberals accommodate limiting funding government through taxation in order to enable some to become quite wealthy through investment and corporations, leaving the bottom 40% near or in poverty. 

Liberals support a conservative world order of USA military and commercial domination across the planet, though they'd prefer to focus on domestic needs.  Liberals have accommodated unnecessary and immoral war advocated by conservatives over humanitarian resources and diplomacy.

Liberals accommodate those conservatives that prefer to shun association with people of differing racial background and country of origin, as long as those shunned are able to maintain their civil liberties and obtain citizenship. And liberals support conservatives who prefer not associating with those of differing sexual preference, while resisting their efforts to limit their civil liberties.

And so it goes.  One accommodation after another resulting in this  very dysfunctional society and resulting in conservatives enabling the election of a very flawed and ill equipped President Trump who now interprets his political success as an endorsement of leading our governance into a fascist paradigm.

What more do you want, conservatives?  When is it time to recognize that the conservative model for the U.S.A. has mostly not worked for most of us?   For a very long time. Conservatives claim to value taking personal responsibility.  When are you going to take responsibility for the factual reality that while much of this has worked for you. a minority of our population, it is not working for most of us.   Or, under conservatism, is all that counts what works for you ? This is the core principle of conservatism; what works for you.  We're tired of accommodating.