CEDAR GLEN
UKC Forum Member
Registered: Apr 2009
Location: ST. MARYS,WV
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Found This...
An Appeal for Political Reform: A Classic Liberal’s Manifesto
By: Joe Bakanovic (aka Black3Actual)
Introduction
This will be lengthy. Originally, I set out to write three separate essays, I ended up writing a manifesto. And even at that, this is but an abbreviated version of my complete philosophy. I’ve much work left to do on it, so I beg you to keep this in mind as you read. Still, I offer it to the readers of the RNL for their consideration, but I do so with fair warnings. To my conservative friends: your political ideology has some inherent contradictions which you would be well served to address. To my liberal/progressive friends: you would do well to acknowledge the perils which history has repeatedly shown await those who follow down your path. And to all of you who read this: we must understand that the majority of the social, economic and political problems we face are the result of violating the natural order of human interactions. If we are to survive as a free and self-governing people, we must correct these violations and re-structure our society such that it operates within this set of natural laws. If you will allow me, I’d ask that you please think of natural law as a coin, and the political agendas of the American Conservative and Progressive movements as flip sides of this same coin. As both sides of this coin have competing agendas, neither of which is in accord with natural law, these opposing sides tend to pull the coin in opposite directions. If either side succeeds in pulling the coin too far in its direction, the natural order of things is disrupted and society grows even more dysfunctional. Either the two sides must exist in a constant state of equilibrium, or they must both come in line with the natural order of human interaction. Any other option will yield the same results as though one side of the coin had won out against the other, and society will suffer for it either way.
The Parties
Before we go any further, I must address an issue that I’ve come to see as an obstacle to our making any real progress in finding solutions to our problems: Party politics. I’ve heard all the arguments for why political Parties are necessary. I simply reject them. For the rank and file member, they are the product of ignorance and sloth. For the Party leaders, they are evil; tools by which these leaders seek to enslave their followers. Either a Party represents all of the people or it represents itself. Under a system of Party politics, this is a self-defeating proposition. When we focus on Party politics, the goal becomes beating the other Party. The business of the people that Party is supposed to represent naturally becomes of secondary concern to winning the next election. One need but look to our current state of affairs to see the proof of my assertion. Even our media has chosen sides in our political struggles, relinquishing its necessary function as watch dog in voluntary pursuit of propagandist for their chosen Party. This is not the path that preserves individual rights and liberty; it is the path to tyranny because all of this is in violation of the natural order of a free people. I defy anyone to prove to me otherwise.
Likewise, I refuse to accept that I have to count so large a portion of my fellow citizens as “enemy” just to be considered a member in good standing with my Party’s ideology. How is it that I can ever live in harmony with my neighbor if he is a member of an opposing Party? This would make him in opposition to what my Party leaders tell me is the only correct course of action, with all others representing the path to national ruin. Thus, my neighbor becomes an enemy not only to me and my family, but to my very nation. Worse, as a member in good standing of the opposite Party, my neighbor is compelled to see me in like kind. So it is we find ourselves in a state of artificial war with our fellow countrymen. But how can this be if my neighbor and I are citizens of the same nation? How can a house divided such ever hope to stand? Better still, how can a house originally built on the belief of individual rights and liberty have been so grossly disfigured into a house of Party more easily associated with Orwell’s world on “1984” than with our founding fathers’ Revolutionary America? The answer is simple: demagoguery, the tool of Party leadership.
I, for one, choose not to count my neighbor foe any longer. Thus, I say enough with Party. My allegiance is with individual rights and liberty, and not to any man who tells me I must forfeit this goal in order to obtain it, or at best, preserve what little he so graciously agrees to leave me in exchange for my willing servitude to his next election.
Terms and Definitions
Let’s next turn our attention to defining two of the most confused and misused terms in American politics: the American Conservative and Liberal/Progressive. To be sure, both terms do have fundamental characteristics which are unique to each ideology, but too few of those who identify with either of these movements have any real idea as to what the core principles of their camp actually are. Everybody seems to have their own idea as to what these terms means. Therefore, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we’re forced to accept that there is no longer a practical way to define either term because no definition we provide will be accepted by any but a small few who are already predisposed to agree with ourselves. Worse yet, too few people even care to define the terms conservative or liberal/progressive beyond their practical use as a pejorative to be used against political foes. I’ve had enough of this.
I was a dutiful draftee in this partisan struggle for far too long, but my eyes are open now and I refuse to be a part of it any longer. My eyes were opened when I stopped listening to my Party and ideological leaders and started to research the history of “my side” for myself. This is when I started to understand that the struggle between conservatives and progressives goes on inside each Party; effectively creating a second divide within each Party that parallels the divide the Parties create among the nation as a whole. Lost in this multi-layered quest for power and control is the business of finding real solutions for real problems faced by real people in the real world. All of this conservative/progressive, left/right, democrat/republican fighting is just insanity and it doesn’t need to be.
For this reason, I have chosen to reject the idea of conservative and progressive, as well. Instead, I prefer to use the terms that Thomas Sowell coined in his book, “A Conflict of Visions.” In his book, Sowell explains that politics can be boiled down to two basic ways of looking at human nature. He calls them the “constrained” and the “unconstrained” views. In simplified terms, if you believe the nature of man is flawed or fallen, and that it cannot be changed, then you have a “constrained” view of human nature. On the other hand, if you believe that human nature can be changed and that men can perfect their own nature, then you hold what Sowell calls an “unconstrained” view of mankind. Sowell goes on to argue that all of us fall in to one of these two camps, and that this explains why we always seem to find the same people on opposite sides of social issues. For the rest of this essay, I will use these terms because they are far more descriptive of reality and, thus, far more practical in terms of helping us understand the problems we face. This leaves those of you who still prefer to think of yourself as a conservative or progressive to face one of the toughest tests of rationality: an honest and sincere self-examination of your core beliefs.
Reality Check
It isn’t enough that you’re willing to take a good, hard look at what you believe and why you believe it. You have to be willing to learn your opponent’s positions well enough to state them in terms to which he will agree. If you can’t do this, then you can’t say that you really know what you believe. This is one of the primary problems with our Parties and the progressives and conservatives within them: no one really understands what the other actually believes or why. Once you can state your opponent’s position honestly and accurately, you have to be willing to ask yourself some tough questions like: what if your opponent is right about some of the things he believes? But this still isn’t enough. You also have to be willing to accept the answers to questions like these, no matter where they may lead you. This takes real courage because, once you start, you will find that you are wrong about a great many things, and your opponent is right about more than you ever allowed. But it doesn’t matter: unless and until you can do all of this, you can’t really say you “know” anything to be true; all you can say is you “believe” something is true, and “believing” is just another way of saying you take it on faith.
So, whether you consider yourself to be conservative, liberal/progressive, libertarian or something in between, I don’t care. I’m tired of fighting over such silliness. As you continue to read this, I’m just going to leave you to compare whatever you believe to what I have to say about the problems we’re facing in America. Feel free to apply your own labels and definitions however you see fit. All I ask is that you be intellectually honest enough to give my arguments the careful consideration I believe they deserve, and to have the courage to accept whatever you might find as a result. In the end, you may decide I’m wrong about everything I have to say, and that’s OK with me. But then again, you might see that I’m arguing for something that can be turned into a national campaign which could finally yield real political results in the shape of meaningful reform.
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12-08-2012 05:08 AM
