If you care to, you will be able to watch me make a political paradigm change in real time.
Basically, with the ascendancy of @AOC and The Squad, and the obvious intent of The COVID Lockdown to get more people hooked on Govt subsidy, and then correspondingly increase taxes, I just figured the US Left was pretty clearly Socialist.
However comma...
Someone made the argument yesterday or the day before that Democrats have no understanding of what the means of production are, have no intent to seize it, don't want a classless society, etc., etc., etc., yadda yadda.
Meaning, they are agnostic about several Socialist elements.
I can't find that tweet now.
But it was more than slightly persuasive to me.
I had noted before that what Democrats & GOPe were pushing for was to be designated as a NeoNobility, with special privileges, exemption from the rules they impose on the rest of us, and pushing the poor, middle class, non-metro areas, and all production into NeoFeudalism.
Everything the Left pushes for, like ballot harvesting, making the Senate proportional, making DC a state, giving illegal aliens representation in the House, a National Popular Vote or the elimination of the EC, & packing SCOTUS so it can be their private Super Legislature again~
...are *ALL* attempts to establish themselves as ruling class without any accountability. Exactly like the EU bureaucracy.
Sure, Socialism always develops this unelected, unaccountable cadre caste.
But it doesn't *require* Socialism to get there. And so they're going for it now.
When do you get to vote out CDC directors or OSHA directors that impose illegal mandates?
Never, that's when.
That's exactly what Democrats and the US Left (a broader set of people than just Democrats) are pushing for.
Heck, when I was searching for that tweet arguing Dems aren't actually Socialist, I found a bunch of tweets from Democrats saying to either pretend to or even actually reject Socialism.
But they still want to be unaccountable administrators of law to the lower class.
So I think you will see me use the term "Socialist" less and less.
They are Totalitarians.
They want EVERYTHING to be political, and they want to be in charge of it.
They believe all rights are conditional, and they will control the large, all-powerful central State that will assign these conditional rights by identity group, and then enforce them.
They have contempt for the common person.
They reject individuality in anything except sex.
And they will get power from the support of people who prefer to be ruled if it reduces risk, who are *happy* to accept reduced options if the reduction comes with a govt *guarantee* that all the remaining options are acceptable.
And, of *EXTREME INTEREST* to me, the first attempt to link that quote was from the Federalist Paper website, and Twitter blocked it as "dangerous".
Find that link by searching for "Jefferson two parties" and click on the "federalistpapers.org" link.
This, then, is the current version of the Left vs the Right.
It obviously doesn't track well at all to Dem vs GOP at the leadership level. It tracks somewhat well to Progressive vs Conservative.
If you believe in universal, individual rights and agency, you're on the Right.
If you don't, you're on the Left.
There really is no middle ground on this.
You are in the Rule/Be Ruled paradigm, or you are in the "govt should be a servant" paradigm.
here's the tweet that persuaded me (tip o' the hat to @Tex_968 ):
In a thread recently, I came out in favor of the Wisdom of Crowds.
I firmly believe in it.
Not that I believe the crowds are always right, but that it is a principle that *must* be embraced and adhered to.
Wisdom of Crowds is either based on or underpinned by or related to the most basic foundation of the philosophy of the United States' Experiment in Liberty.
We all have the individual (and universal!) right to Pursuit of Happiness.
We *all* have agency.
The US is not a Free Market Capitalist nation by Constitution.
But it inevitably ended up there, because Free Market Capitalism (the sum of individuals making individual decisions on the value and exchange of good and services) is agency writ large.
To be fair, releasing oil from the National Strategic Reserve *can* be an effective way to lower prices.
But not in isolation.
It works to deal with some temporary spike in prices, like if a major oil producer decides to halt production, or a refinery blows up.
It works because it signals to the speculators that this POTUS is committed to increasing the supply of oil to lower prices. So future prices are most likely to be lower, so they short oil futures, and the price drops.
But if EVERYTHING else you say and do signals that you aren't committed to increasing supply, that you kinda actually *want* higher prices, then it does nothing to convince any speculators. They still expect prices to rise.
The release from the Reserve doesn't last, prices rise.
Fellow conservatives, moderates, and GOPers:
The Left thinks their *best* (and maybe *only*) chance to win is to run against Trump.
They are going to use the same playbook to get him nominated, and then shift to lying about him to re-toxify him afterwards.
IF THIS HAPPENS, don't fall for it.
Don't let your dislike of Trump sway you.
As much as you dislike Trump, they loathe him a million times worse.
If they manage to get him nominated, PUNISH them with another Trump administration.
There are plenty of reasons another Trump administration would not be ideal.
Set that aside.
First, Democrats being in power is an Existential crisis for the US. As @AndToddsaid the United States is at war with America. The Deep State is trying to destroy the American Dream.
A thread in which I muse about writing, including why I can't seem to do it. @Jringo1508@WriteGrlProbs you can help me figure out where I'm right or wrong, but don't just blow "You can do it!" smoke up my butt.
A few days ago I mentioned that I had started reading a book that was already clearly going to be filled with bad writing, but also had a decent enough plot to keep me reading.
And, boy! The writing *was* bad.
It was using the "Replay" concept of going back to a previous point in life every time the main character died, including the fact that things were slightly different each time.
Brainfertilizer's/Gitabushi's 4th Law:
Every insult/dis that leaves a mark on Leftists will become THE go-to insult for the Left to use within 6 months.
This one is too wordy, and kinda too stupid to be a law, but the applications of it matter enough to still explain.
At one point, someone responded to some stupid Leftist proposal saying "That won't work, because Math".
It became popular.
Then a few months later, Democrats/Leftists would criticize a tax cut or respond to some conservative criticism with "because math".
It took a few months before Democrats took up calling conservatives "snowflakes" and asking us if were "triggered" or telling us to "cry more".