"Reason and Ignorance... influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it."—Paine, Rights of Man
"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected."—Thomas Paine, "First Principles of Government" (1795)
"The history of free men is never really written by chance, but by choice—their choice. It is a matter of national will, of political decision, of moral purpose."—Dwight Eisenhower. Speech, Pittsburgh, Oct 9, 1956
"The thinnest-skinned person on Earth is the so-called businessman that tries to go into politics and do a political job... They can't take what I have to take every day."—Harry Truman, Conference w Business and Trade Editors. Apr 23, 1948
"Americanism is not a matter of birthplace, of ancestry, of creed, of occupation; Americanism is a matter of the spirit that is within man's soul."—Theodore Roosevelt, speech NYC, February 14, 1905
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Democrats participated in McConnell's charade of a confirmation instead of boycotting because they didn't want to "politicize" it. Now Trump has a party with Barrett, proudly desecrating the separation of powers.
The GOP wants tribalism, with no separation between Republican presidents and GOP in Congress and in the courts. This is not politics as usual at all. It's an attempt at one-party rule, a minority party at that, and it's dangerous.
Turning parliament and the courts into loyal servants of the president is the goal of every would-be autocrat. From Russia to Turkey to Hungary, this has been the roadmap. The US is far stronger, but not immune.
It looks like Facebook's "community standards" are set by Azeri trolls. My Russian FB page has been shut down after I posted this interview, in which I mentioned the Armenian Genocide and the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. echo.msk.ru/programs/perso…
So Holocaust denial is now banned on FB, according to Zuckerberg, but those who deny the Armenian Genocide are very welcome on Facebook--and even rewarded by having their targets' pages blocked.
My Russian FB page is back with nothing more than "After reviewing your appeal, your Page Гарри Каспаров has been published." Now it can return to being flooded by trolls telling me I don't know anything about Azerbaijan and Armenia!
Trump's entire point is to remove the distinction between him and the state, as with all autocrats. And once again, America is finding out its laws against such corruption are unwritten, unenforceable, or too slow to matter.
When I said in Feb 2017 that America was about to find out that its government is based on the honor system, this is what I meant. Trump will do what he wants and say "so sue me," as he has all his life. And the GOP protects him.
It's not just GOP officials, it's supporters who love Trump's lawbreaking. It's a show of power, a freedom from constraints they see as outlaw macho. Opposition outrage is the goal because it makes them look helpless against him.
Trump has trashed American global leadership to side with dictators, but is the free world alliance still wanted and needed? Now more than ever, yes. My long new piece @dallasnews: dallasnews.com/opinion/commen…
Trump's attacks on US institutions have destroyed American
credibility as a symbol and defender of the
values on which the nation was founded. Leading the world by example requires cleaning house. Nov 3 is the beginning, not the end.
Other democratic powers have been
unable and unwilling to step up after
being carried by the US for so long. Putin's assassination campaigns and China's brutal actions against the Uyghurs and in Hong Kong illustrate what a world order in their image would look like.
Alexei Navalny's poisoning again demonstrates that for Putin, assassination is policy—inside and outside of Russia. amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/08/20…
I don't want to hear any garbage about if Putin knew, or rogue elements, or that it looks bad. Putin doesn't care how it looks, he cares if it works. He obviously thinks it does, because he keeps doing it.
Don't insult my intelligence by suggesting that anyone would act against Navalny without Putin's approval. As with Nemtsov's murder, as with Politkovskaya's, as with Litvinenko's. No one would take such a risk. It's policy, and it's Putin's.
Stupid headlines like this in the free world, and the thinking behind them, are why dictators like Lukashenko still bother with 'democracy theater'. Don't use the vocabulary of democracy for authoritarian states.
Western media & politicians talking about "popularity" or "landslides" in police states is absurd and damaging. Call them what they are. Lukashenko is a dictator. There weren't "irregularities" or "disputed" votes. It was a sham and anyone saying otherwise is complicit.
A big part of the success of modern dictatorships is that the free world goes along with the democracy charade instead of treating them like the repressive rogue states they are. If they admit the truth, there would be pressure to act.