Category: thoughts

Contributing to the fediverse

Post author By David
Post date January 16, 2024
No Comments on Contributing to the fediverse

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This is both new and old for me. I wrote consistently on political policy topics for over 10 years but then life happened and I tapered off nearly 10 years ago. I was writing before social media was a thing – back when decentralized personal publishing was the norm rather than everybody using one or more monolithic mega-platforms to share their thoughts. (Also before short form content dominated all the conversations online.)

In the nearly 10 years since I stopped writing with consistency we have stopped being a nation where I felt that our constitutional order was secure and have become a nation where it is clear that significant populations of voters across the political spectrum (but especially among the flag-waving rightward fringe of the political spectrum) either do not understand our constitutional order or no longer believe it can or should be maintained. That is why I think it is critical for me to again share a perspective that is unabashedly pro free-market and fully committed to defending our constitutional order from all enemies, foreign or domestic.

I’m also intent on contributing in the decentralized social web to help foster that healthier ecosystem that harks back to earlier days before our discourse got toxic enough that rabidly anti-constitutional positions are now treated as fairly normal. (This isn’t unlike efforts to save the Great Salt Lake from spiking salinity levels due to dangerously low water levels – I hope it’s not too little, too late but there’s no way to know in advance.)

Tags civic participation, fediverse, history, thoughts

National politics thoughts

An Age Problem

I’ve mentioned that I have a problem with the ages of most of the presidential candidates. Today a thought struck me that I think would put that problem in perspective. I realized that Elizabeth Warren – the third youngest legitimate candidate still in the race is only three years younger than Bill Clinton – who was our president 28 years ago. If I were to rank the candidates in age order relative to Bill Clinton it would look roughly like this:

Bernie Sanders (5 years older than Clinton)
Michael Bloomberg
Joe Biden
Donald Trump (3 years older than Clinton)
Bill Clinton (for reference)
Elizabeth Warren (3 years younger than Clinton)
Amy Klobuchar (14 years younger than Clinton)
Pete Buttigieg (35 years younger than Clinton)

Why is it that we are stuck choosing mainly between candidates who are older than a president we had almost 3 decades ago?

Tags national candidates

culture National politics thoughts

The pundits who cry wolf

We should all know what it means to “cry wolf” and while pundits across the political spectrum are prone to dong so, those on the liberal end of the spectrum should be kicking themselves right about now that because of the way they demonized a very decent Mitt Romney in 2012 (as well many other decent conservatives over many years) they have exhausted the limits of the English language to the point that they can’t effectively expose Donald Trump as being uniquely dangerous in his unfitness for the office that he is dangerously close to holding. (He was dangerously close as soon as the Iowa caucuses were over.)

Having inured the electorate with their constant invective against anyone or anything conservative, they have squandered any moral or intellectual capital they might have had and made it so that wide swaths of voters think that choosing between Clinton and Trump is a matter of choosing their favorite (or least un-favorite) shade of gray rather than a choice between dirt and radioactive waste. (You don’t want to set either one on your dinner table but while one might gross you out the other will eventually prove fatal even if you don’t actually ingest it.)

Pundits on the right are equally powerless because of their history of exaggerated rhetoric to effectively show qualitative differences between political disagreement and a 5 alarm dumpster fire of a candidate. If the Democrats were to nominate someone as toxic as Trump – which they undoubtedly have a few of within their ranks (lets hope they never stoop as low as the GOP did this year) – these talking heads would be left hoping that the electorate could recognize when it was being offered a dirty bomb rather than a conventional weapon.

I wrote the above on November 2nd. On November 6th I came across this video where Bill Maher makes the same “we cried wolf” statement: http://www.mrctv.org/videos/maher-panics-over-fascist-prez-trump-confesses-cried-wolf-bush

Tags Clinton, discourse, Donald Trump

culture politics thoughts

The Liberty Line

In response to my question from yesterday I was surprised to discover that I got an answer and that the answer was an emphatic if ever-tenuous “yes.” We do have reason to celebrate our independence as a nation presently. More important than what the answer was was realizing what line in the sand would determine, at least for me, when the time had come that we no longer had reason to celebrate.

During the course of the festivities yesterday we stopped to pray over our afternoon meal (I’m sure people will not be surprised to learn that we were doing some grilling in the back yard for our meal) and while my brother in law was praying I realized that as long as we enjoyed religious liberty in this country, the freedom to pursue worship as we individually see fit (the only reasonable limitation being that one person cannot compel another to do something based on the first persons religious beliefs and practices), we would have reason to celebrate Independence Day. I don’t recall if there was something said in the prayer that prompted the realization or if it was simply the act of praying itself but the realization was powerful.

There are many other types of liberty in our nation that make our independence worthwhile but for myself I consider that if I had freedom of speech and association, the right to bear arms, protections against unreasonable search and seizure, respect for personal property, and all the other freedoms enshrined in our constitution but had the freedom to practice my religion taken away I would find no cause to celebrate what was left of our independence. On the other hand, if my freedom to live according to my religious belief were adequately protected but all other liberties were unprotected (insofar as they could be without infringing that one right) I would do whatever I could to promote those other natural rights but I would still consider myself blessed to live in a time and place where my religious freedom was recognized.

Tags Constitution, liberty, religion