Reverb Press: Opinion: Akira Watts: The Greatest Threat To Bernie Sanders Is His Supporters: Bernie Sanders, The Moderate of The New Left?

Democratic Socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

Democratic Socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders


Reverb Press: Opinion: Akira Watts: The Greatest Threat To Bernie Sanders Is His Supporters: Bernie Sanders, The Moderate of The New Left?

Keep in mind, Senator Bernie Sanders, now Democratic presidential candidate, is a self-described Democratic Socialist. Not the only Democratic Socialist in Congress, but the only self-described Democratic Socialist in Congress. So if he’s a moderate in comparison to his supporters, what would his supporters be? Marxists, Communists, welfare statists, nanny statists, political correctness warriors, a combination of all of those things? If any of those labels are your answer, or more than one of those labels are your answers, you would be right.

Bernie Sanders, like capitalism, he likes private enterprise, he supports property rights, he’s a fan of the U.S. Constitution and even Bill of Rights. He likes our military, he’s one of the biggest supports of our military veterans and he’s not a pacifist. I believe he voted for the Afghan War when he was in the U.S. House in 2001. He wants a bigger Federal Government especially as it relates to the economy and more social insurance programs and more investment in those programs. But he’s not looking to replace the states and localities and our federalist system with a unitarian superstate central government. So when he says America should be more like Sweden, not in every area.

Of all of those things that I listed that Bernie supports, a good deal of his followers who in many cases are coming over from the Green Party and Democratic Socialist Party, as well as the Far-Left of the Democratic Party, all have issues with several if not all of those functions of the U.S. Government and those parts of the U.S. Constitution and parts of our capitalist and private enterprise economic system. Bernie, wants to reform our Federal Government and economic system. He’s not looking to destroy it and create a new one. And not only that, the only constitutional amendment that he’s offered is overturning Citizens United. And moving to public financing of all Federal campaigns.

I believe the way to look at Bernie Sanders, is from a Democratic Socialist point of view. But take Sweden’s socialist economic system with the huge welfare state, funded by a private enterprise system. But then also add the Canadian federal form of government. Generous welfare state, but where the provinces and localities have a good deal of responsibility and autonomy over their own domestic affairs. Whereas his supporters, would probably scrap the U.S. Constitution, write a new one, or not bother replacing it. Scrap Congress, or at least the upper chamber the Senate and move to a unitarian parliamentary form of government. Where the House of Representatives picks our head of state.

As a Liberal who believes in, well liberalism and not socialism that is disguised as liberalism, I do not see Bernie Sanders as a threat and certainly not dangerous, even though he’s Democratic Socialist. He’s doing very well now, but the weather is still hot and perhaps even in New England. And most of the primaries and caucus’ will be held next year when the weather is cold. Two, even if somehow he wins the Democratic nomination and becomes president, he’ll be dealing with Congressional Republicans that most likely will still control the House of Representatives. So he won’t get a lot of what he wants to accomplished done. But three, again he’s not looking to blowup the system and completely change the American form of government. But reform certain areas and reform certain parts of the American private enterprise system. His supporters, are a different story.

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PJ Media: Opinion: Rand Simberg: The Far-Left Hijacks The Word Liberal to Serve Their Agenda

New-Left

New-Left


PJ Media: Opinion: Rand Simberg: The Far-Left Hijacks The Word Liberal to Serve Their Agenda

I think the only thing that I would disagree with Rand Simberg in his piece other than the line about ‘murdering unborn babies’, is that liberalism is alive and well, but it is in the Democratic Party. Liberals, are center-left and by in large so are Democrats. But like with the Republican Party, the Democratic Party has a far flank, or fringe even. With the Republican Party, it is the Christian-Right and Far-Right in general. With the Democratic Party, it’s the New-Left and Far-Left in general. Socialist, I guess would be the easy way to describe the New-Left, but it goes even further than that.

Collectivists, people who believe in the collective, or communitarian and even social democrat, would be the best way to describe the Democratic New-Left in America. Collectivists, whether it is Socialists when it comes to economic policy, or nanny statists when to comes to social issues, see individual freedom even something as basic and fundamental as free speech, as dangerous in America. They see individual freedom as freedom to make mistakes that the collective meaning society as a whole has to pay for. This covers both economic policy with a huge welfare state and high taxes across the board. But also a nanny state to make sure people aren’t making bad decisions with their personal lives.

So again we’re not just talking about a massive welfare state and high taxes across the board and an over regulated private sector with what is left of the private sector after the New-Left is through, but personal freedom would become very limited in America if the New-Left were in charge. Forget about free speech if the political correctness warriors were ever in charge. Say goodbye to that, because that would be replaced with collective speech. With some central committee getting to decide what is appropriate and what isn’t appropriate for individuals to say to each other. So people who don’t deserve to be criticized and offended from the New-Left perspective aren’t offended.

But we’re also talking about a nanny state as well with the New-Left. So imagine Mike Bloomberg being in charge of the Special Committee on Human Behavior, or whatever it might be called. Anything that the New-Left either sees as dangerous, or inappropriate would be outlawed. It started with alcohol in the 1930s, so perhaps we would go back to alcohol prohibition and perhaps add tobacco, sugar and salt to that as well. The New-Left wouldn’t end the War on Drugs. Just release all racial and ethnic minorities who are in jail and prison as a result of the War on Drugs. As well as expanding the War on Drugs to include sugar, salt, caffeine and tobacco. Gambling would become illegal, because its, well gambling with your own money. Actually money that New-Left lets you keep.

The New-Left , Far-Left really in America, always say how much America should be more like Europe. Well they could start with that by being honest and accurate with how they label their own politics. And leave the words liberal and progressive for people who actually live up to the values of liberalism and progressivism. Liberals, believe in liberation, liberalization and liberty. The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. That we should have a limited government to see that everyone can achieve those things for themselves. Not a big government to run their lives for them.

Progressives, similar as Liberals, but compare Franklin Roosevelt with Jack Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson with Jack Kennedy, which is probably a better comparison. Progressives, believe in individual freedom as well, but would have a bigger more centralized government than Liberals. To run the safety net, to use as an example. But not big enough to try to manage people’s lives for them. The New-Left, whether you want to call then Socialist, Statist, or Collectivist, believe in big government. The only God they really have is Karl Marx. That individuals don’t exist and people are members of the collective and should move and act together, not individually. And there’s nothing liberal about that. Not progressive either, because it doesn’t create progress.

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Liberty Pen: John Stossel- The Fight For Education Freedom

John Stossel
This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

What they’re talking about is that most school districts in America require kids to go to school based on where they live. That is if they are going to a public school in that district. Which means if you live in a middle class, or upper middle class, lets say white-collar neighborhood where the people aren’t rich, but doing very well, or you live in an upper class neighborhood, you’re going to be able to good schools from K-12. But if you live in a low-income neighborhood, which I’m guessing the mother in this video does, you’re going to get stuck in a high impoverished school. That simply doesn’t have the funds to teach their kids well and pay their teachers enough. And anyone wondering why we have such a high poverty rate in America?

What this mother wants to do is be able to send her kids to the best school that is for them. Which is what any responsible parent would want to do. Why should kids be stuck with a bad education, or practically no education and end up working dead-end jobs their whole lives just because their parents, or single-parent didn’t make enough money for them to live in a good neighborhood with good schools? Which is what this is about. Kids being stuck in bad schools, because their parents make very little if any money. And can’t afford to live in a good neighborhood. Whereas middle and upper-income kids get good education’s, or at least the opportunity to get one simply, because their parents and generally both parents are economically successful.

I’m not calling for private school vouchers, or abandoning low-performing schools in America. Actually the opposite is true, because I want public school choice and allow for every school district to set that up if they choose. So their parents can send their kids to the best school for them. Especially if they’re low-income, while we reform the low-performing schools and invest enough money in them so parents would want to send their kids there. Instead of parents getting stuck sending their kids there simply because they’re low-income.

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The National Journal: Opinion- Peter Beinart- The Cost of Disowning Jimmy Carter

39th President of The United States

39th President of The United States

This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

Jimmy Carter, is one of those president’s who looks a lot better 30 years later than he did, really at anytime he was in office. By late 1977, President Carter’s approval rating was dropping he never gained any of the political momentum that he had when he entered office in January, 1977 with a Democratic Congress. That had a 2/3 majority in the House and a 3-5 majority in the Senate. Where Democrats and Republicans were becoming the Democrats and Republicans that they are today ideologically.

President Carter, had the economic crisis, or economic malaise and the Great Deflation on his plate. Which was at its strongest point by 1978 and the economy goes back into recession in 1979. High inflation, high interest rates, high cost of energy, energy shortages, the rise of Japan economically, all of these things led to a very weak American economy. With so many Americans simply struggling just to pay their bills. All of these things that the Carter Administration inherited, not created, but serious problems that they didn’t seem prepared for and have any answers for.

And then you go to foreign affairs, where America was still prompting up the Shah of Iran and seemed to not have any idea how unpopular he was at home and that the young people there especially wanted the Shah to fall. And be replaced by a different regime. I’m not sure its clear yet if they wanted the Shah to be replaced by an authoritarian Islamic theocratic dictatorship. But hated what they had in their leadership and President Carter and his team telling people in public how great a leader the Shah was with again not knowing how unpopular he was at home just made things even worst for everybody. So that is sort of the negative aspects of the Carter presidency.

The positive side and really the brilliance of Jimmy Carter and where he really is the Richard Nixon of the Democratic Party as far as pure intelligence and knowledge and the ability to see things way out in the future as happening in the short-term that know one else could, has to do with where the country was going politically and where the Democratic Party was going. President Carter, knew the days of the New Deal and Great Society were over. Not the support of those programs, but that America wasn’t looking to pay more in taxes and take more money out of their wallets to pay for knew welfare programs. That they believed there was a limit to what government could do for them.

I believe that President Carter, started to move the Democratic Party back to the Center-Left. We go from the George McGovern and the New-Left running the Democratic Party in 1972, to a Center-Left New Democratic in Jimmy Carter in 1976. Someone who didn’t believe in an expansionist unlimited government that could do practically everything for people if they just give them their money, or have it taken away from them in higher taxes. Carter, believed that government needed to be more practical, live in a budget and watch what it spends. Use government more to empower people to take control over their own lives. Instead of using government to manage people’s lives for them. Jimmy Carter in 1976, paved the way for Bill Clinton in 1992. Similar to how Barry Goldwater in 1964, paved the way for Ronald Reagan in 1980.

When it comes to foreign affairs. Who was the U.S. President that made human rights and freedom part of his foreign policy? President Jimmy Carter and he did that as part of his 1977 Commencement Address at Notre Dame. One of the best foreign policy speeches and speeches about human rights that you’ll ever hear an American President give. Which will be up on this blog hopefully next week. Where he said that, “recent democratic development’s and movement’s in Greece and India would free up the United States from the inordinate fear of communism that one led America to ally itself with brutal dictators who agreed to help fight the communist menace. What was needed in the New World that America faced was a policy based on constant decency in its values and optimism.”

The so-called Eastern Bloc of Eastern European Communist States in Slavic countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia, that were considered Russian satellite states during the Cold War, fell in the 1980s and the former Eastern Germany was part of the Russian bloc as well. The movements that led to those authoritarian regimes falling in the 1980s and led to democratic government’s coming to power there, said that President Carter’s 1977 human rights speech was part of their inspiration. President Ronald Reagan, gets a lot of credit for those communist states falling and perhaps he deserves some. And a lot of those states fell under President George H.W. Bush. But the fact is those movement’s started under President Carter’s watch and his administration helped them. The famous military buildup of the 1980s that partly led to the end of the Cold War, started under President Gerry Ford and President Jimmy Carter.

Egypt, recognized the Jewish State of Israel during the Carter Administration. Still the only Arab state to do that and that wasn’t an accident either. And Egypt and Israel have been at peace ever since. It was President Carter that brought Egypt and Israel together to sign the 1978 Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel. Which meant that Egypt would recognize Israel as a Jewish State and that Israel would give back some of the land that it won during the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. And what would become what is known as the Palestinian Authority today, which is essentially the State of Palestine was part of that agreement as well. Where Israel would pull out of the West Bank and Gaza in Palestine and be replaced by a democratic Palestinian government.

How about the Panama Canal Treaty of 1977, where America finally gave up the Panama Canal to the Republic of Panama. Ending some American colonization in Latin America. And allowing for Panama and the Panamanian people to take control of their own country and land. Neoconservatives, obviously hated this, but this has been one of the most successful treaties that America has ever signed. President Carter, recognized the People’s Republic of China in 1979. And the United States normalizes relations with the Communist Regime there, the largest country in the world in people. And they have remained one of our largest trading partners ever since. President Nixon, went to China in 1971 and got the ball rolling there. But President Carter and his administration got the ball in the end zone.

Energy policy, which has both to do with out economic policy and foreign policy. President Carter, knew that one of our foreign policy problems and economic problems had to do with the over reliance on Middle Eastern oil and foreign oil in general. A big reason why we were so close to the Shah of Iran and the Saudi Kingdom all of these years. Because we’ve needed their oil so much, even though they were both authoritarian states. President Carter, knew that we needed to get off of foreign oil and become energy independent. That we had all the resources to do that and that it was just a matter of developing them. He actually got an energy policy out of Congress in 1977 that started the development of alternative renewable energy sources in America. Solar and wind, are a couple of examples of that.

Not trying to make Jimmy Carter look like one of our top five greatest president’s, or even a great president. The reason why he lost reelection in 1980 had to do with his administration’s inability to deal with the economic and energy crisis of the late 1970s and political situation on the ground in Iran that led to the 1979 Islamic Revolution there and Iranian terrorists taking American hostages there in late 79. But to look at President Carter as a failure and as a weak President when he actually had a lot of great accomplishments during his term even just in four years, similar to President George H.W. Bush, is a big mistake.

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The Daily Beast: Michael Kazin: The Radical Left—Always a Bridesmaid

Democratic Socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

Democratic Socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders

The New Democrat

I agree with Michael Kazin that the New-Left, lets say has always been the bridesmaid in the Democratic Party. George McGovern in 1972, would be the exception to that, where the New-Left got exactly the presidential candidate that they wanted. But where the Democratic Party is smarter than the Republican Party, is the Democratic Leadership knows how to use their radicals to get them to vote for their mainstream Center-Left establishment candidates. 2008 and 2012 with Barack Obama, are perfect examples of that.

Where the New-Left, thought they were getting Dennis Kucinich, or Ralph Nader ideologically, they instead get someone more like Jack Kennedy in Barack Obama. Whereas the Republican Party will go out of their way to make it clear to their Christian-Right and Neoconservatives that their candidates are just as stuck in the 1950s as the people the Far-Right rather have representing the party. John McCain, in 2008, Mitt Romney, Mr. Northeastern at best a Moderate-Conservative Republican, depending on which Mitt you’re talking to. Are good examples of this from the GOP.

The term radical, is not necessarily bad. It just means you’re out of the mainstream in the time and place that you happen to live. Which is where the New-Left has been in America since it was created in the 1960s. America, is not Scandinavia ideologically, or anything else and never has been. We like our Constitution, we like our property rights, we like our federalist form of government, with most of the power not being centralized with the national government, unlike in Scandinavia. We like all of our individual freedom. Including the Right to Privacy and Freedom of Speech. Which even includes the right to offend. All things that the New-Left in America has been against at point, or another.

It’s hard to win politically in a country, when you represent something that is completely different from what the country is use to and what they want to keep. Where you’re literally running to remake the economic system and trying to convince hard-working middle class workers that they’re simply under taxed and need big government to take more of your money from you to serve you. Where you literally want to get rid of the Constitution and rewrite it, or simply not bother to replace it. And be able to do everything that you want through majority rule and referendum.

The New-Left, is part of the Democratic Party to a certain extent, because they need the Democrats and to a certain extent the Democrats need them. Not because ideologically even though at times they may have similar goals, are very different ideologically. Where the New-Left, ideologically would be better off in the Green Party, or Democratic Socialist Party and perhaps even the Communist Party. But are smart enough to know that if the bolt the Democrats for a Far-Left third-party they’ll lose their place in one of the major parties in the United States. The New-Left, are the bridesmaids of the Democratic Party. They come close, or at times look that they are, but in actuality simply get used by the Democratic Leadership time and time again.

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The National Interest: Scott MacDonald: This Is Not Your Parents’ Caribbean

Source:The New Democrat 

There are a lot of opportunities and challenges in the Caribbean especially with Cuba coming back from the dead so to speak with its economy and having restarted diplomatic relations with America again. And will become heavy trading partners that will benefit both economies. Cuba, the largest island nation in the Caribbean will see a lot of money coming into their country as a result. Cuba, very similar to Florida as far as its physical beauty climate and tourist attractions. And culturally South Florida is very similar to Cuba. But with a much better economy and infrastructure system.

With Cuba on the move again, that could hurt struggling little Caribbean states that are already struggling economically and could do even worst in the future with more money and people going to Cuba. Which is the challenge for Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Dominican, Haiti, Bahamas and others. But with challenges tend to come with opportunities. The whole Caribbean region is an area of forty-five-million people roughly. But with the biggest country being Cuba with a eleven-million people. The Dominican, has around ten-million people. Maybe its time that these countries get together and restructure their debts and deficits and do what Europe did back in the 1940s and 1950s.

To look at a Caribbean Union, or some type of West Indie Alliance where they become one economic market. That everyone would want to trade and invest with. Because one Indie market would be a lot bigger and wealthier than fifteen, or so mostly very small states like the Bahamas and Barbados. As well as having a joint defense alliance and foreign policy coordinator and even law enforcement alliance. Because Cuba, is coming back and will be even stronger economically than they were pre-Fidel Castro and the Marxist Revolution there. And Cuba could become part of this West Indie Alliance as well. Especially if their human rights record improves and perhaps even lead the Alliance.

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Lew Rockwell Show: John V. Denson- Strategy For Peace

Lew Rockwell & John Denson
Source:The New Democrat 

I’m not going to touch the thing that John Denson said implying that Britain, started the war against Germany. That is just the type of thing that you have to listen to when you listen to Lew Rockwell. As well as things like the CIA and Lyndon Johnson assassinated President John Kennedy.

But as far as what this is supposed to be about a Strategy For Peace, looking at it from a Liberal Internationalist perspective the policy for achieving that I believe is fairly simple. Harder to execute and perhaps even harder to get passed. But at risk of quoting Ronald Reagan, you do that by being strong at home. You don’t waste tax dollars on the military, but you’re strong enough to the point both militarily and economically that another country would be crazy to want to attack you, or attack one of your embassies oversees. Because they know you could either destroy them militarily, take out their current regime, or economically bankrupt you, or a combination of all of those things.

Instead of trying to police the world by yourself, or taking our regimes simply because you don’t like them, (2003 Iraq War comes to mind) you work with your allies to keep potentially dangerous, or dangerous regimes at bay and in a box. You work with the people on the ground who you can work with in those states to see if they can knock the current regime out of power. You also incentivize those rogue states to improve their behavior. To not be so authoritarian with their own people. To not invade other states, to not fund terrorists. And you work with your allies so these rogue states don’t become so strong that they become such a problem that a military option could never be on the table.

A lesson from the Vietnam War and the Iraq War. Don’t attack and invade countries that aren’t threats to you. Don’t try to fight for people who aren’t willing to fight for themselves. Some countries are destined to fail and fall simply because the people there aren’t willing to do what it takes to see that their country can succeed, or at least become stable. And that is when you sort of have to let nature take its course. Even if that means a new authoritarian regime that you don’t like comes to power there. Like the Communists in Vietnam. We stayed out of Cuba for the most part at least during their civil war and we should’ve done the same thing in Vietnam and perhaps Korea as well.

Peace is not easy which means it is not easy to achieve. America has its own experience with their own civil war when the Unionists won the battles and the war. But where the Confederates won the aftermath and whatever peace that both sides were able to achieve. With the brutality that the Confederates were able to get way with against the former African slaves. But you can achieve peace when you don’t try to do everything yourself. You play your part and allow and demand that your allies do the same thing. You live by the standards and human rights that you say you want for the rest of the world in your own country. And you’re strong enough to make it clear that it would dangerous if not suicidal to try to attack you.

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Academy of Ideas: John Stuart Mill On Liberty

Social-Liberal

Source:Academy of Ideas– John Stuart Mill.

Source:The New Democrat 

“In this lecture we look at John Stuart Mill’s influential work “On Liberty” in which he argues for the importance of individual liberties, especially freedom of opinion and expression.”

From Academy of Ideas

When I think of liberty, I don’t think of the liberty to do whatever the hell I want without any consequences. I think of individual liberty, self-determination, free will, the ability for people to make their own decisions and make their own beds, just as long as they also sleep in them.

Individual liberty is exactly that, for the individual. That the individual has liberty over their own lives, but not the liberty to manage someone else’s and certainly not to hurt innocent people with what they’re doing. Not talking about anarchy, but individual liberty, balanced by rule of law there to protect the innocent from predators and to handle the predators who hurt the innocent.

Individual liberty, again is exactly that. Not talking about economic freedom, or personal freedom, but individual freedom which covers both, plus political freedom. The ability to run for office and for voters to pick from a wide variety of candidates and to publicly weigh in on them. As well as to weigh in on government policy and potential future government policies.

This blog covers freedom of choice a lot and has a whole section dealing with that. But that is exactly what freedom of choice is: the freedom for people to make their own choices in life, but then have to deal with the consequences of their decisions.

To me as a Liberal, a free society is an educated society. Without education, liberty doesn’t exist. So what you need for liberty to exist and be real is for the public to be educated. And once they are educated they’ll have the tools and freedom to make the right decisions with their own lives. From where to work, where to live, what health insurance plan they should have, how to invest their money, whether, or not they should gamble or not, to smoke, or not to smoke and that includes marijuana, when it get married, or if to get married and who they should marry if anyone and even things like prostitution and pornography. Just as long as they know what they’re getting into before they make those decisions and the consequences that come with those decisions.

Now if you’re lets say a Religious, or Christian, or even a Conservative-Muslim in America and tend to look at politics from lets say a religious, or traditional perspective, the way I just described liberty probably sounds immoral and dangerous. That I want to destroy America and our traditional moral values and everything and perhaps even have anarchy.

And if you’re part of the Paternalist-Left in America, people who I and others both Liberals and Libertarians call nanny statists, because you believe in the collective over the individual, you probably also see my politics as dangerous. Because I’m calling for free will and free choice and you don’t tend to trust the individual. And want a big government big enough to even protect people from themselves.

But that is not what I’m calling for all. Something that both Progressives and Religious-Conservatives have in common is the belief in education and that people should be educated and intelligent so they can live well and make good decisions. The only thing is that I take that a step forward and not just call for an educated society, because without an educated society you can’t have a free society.

But then I also say that free individuals should have the education, power and liberty to use that power to make the best decisions for themselves. That you put out all the information there and let free people make their own decisions with that knowledge and hold them responsible for their own individual decisions. Individual freedom and responsibility.

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POLITICO Magazine: Jason Sokol: How a Young Joe Biden Turned Progressives Against Integration

U.S. Senator Joe Biden

U.S. Senator Joe Biden

The New Democrat

Just to give a little background on Joe Biden the current Vice President of the United States and a six term U.S. Senator from Delaware before that. He would be described today as a New Democrat, or what I like to call the real Liberals in the Democratic Party. And a moderate New Democrat at that. He grew up part of a generation that loved and admired John F. Kennedy and is a big fan of him. He’s to the right of myself and a lot of other Liberals in the areas of criminal justice and civil liberties, War on Drugs, to use as examples.

So this idea that he would be in favor of what really is forced busing, when you’re talking about taking middle class kids out of good schools and forcing them to go to inferior schools just to make those schools more racially balanced, would be hard to believe. Joe Biden, has always supported and believed in a strong public education and education system. His record in Congress and as Vice President indicate that. I mean first we had forced desegregation from the Far-Right, where Caucasian and African-Americans were separated because of race. To then forced integration from the Far-Left to try to equalize and make up for the forced desegregation.

When what we should’ve been doing all the time is allowing for parents to send their kids to the best public school that is for their kid. Instead of having to send their kids to school based on where they live. Which would’ve meant kids from low-income communities being able to go to good middle class schools and get themselves a good education. And then as adults no longer having to live in low-income communities with high crime rates and everything else that people rather not have to live with. And with kids leaving low-income low-performing schools, school districts would’ve been forced to better fund their low-performing schools and get better results out of them.

I’m not a mind-reader obviously, but if I had to guess the goal of Senator Joe Biden when it came to public education in the 1970s for all Americans regardless of race, was to have a system where everyone would be able to go to a good school. Where low-income kids wouldn’t be forced to go to low-income schools. Where middle class kids, wouldn’t be forced to go to bad schools. And if I had to guess and not play a cynic here that is why he was against forced busing in the mid-1970s. 1974 and 75 is where forced busing happened in the Northeast and other places in the country.

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The National Interest: Tom Nichols: No Other Choice

Atomic Drop

Atomic Drop

Source:The New Democrat 

I mostly agree with Tom Nichols about President Truman and the atomic bomb being dropped in Japan. The only thing I would differ on is that President Truman had no good choice. Continue the war and risk losing another hundred-thousand American soldiers in the Pacific, or drop the bomb in Japan and kill at least a million innocent Japanese. Who were guilty of nothing other than living in Japan during World War II. But the old cliche war is hell has never been more true than during this war. When you’re the head of state in your country during wartime, your loyalty is to your own country. And that even means leading a war and ordering missions that can kill a lot of innocent people on the other side. Without the dropping of the atomic bomb in Japan, how and when does that war end?

Japan, wasn’t interested in preserving their own people. If anything America showed more mercy to the Japanese people then their own government. We didn’t use the Japanese as targets and human shields. Japan, was only interested in saving their dictatorial regime. Not surrendering and risk being thrown out. Didn’t matter to them how many of their people had to die to preserve their regime. Not that different with Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the current Islamic State in Iran. So what President Truman and his National Security Council was left with was how to end a war against a country that refuses to surrender and stop fighting.

President Harry Truman, was President of the United States. And because of that was responsible for the lives and national security of the American people. Which included German-Americans as well as Japanese-Americans back then and today. America, fought both Germany and Japan back then. And had the Japanese Government been more interested in preserving the lives of their own people than their regime, the atomic bomb is never dropped. Because the war would’ve been over a long time before the bomb. Because Japan would’ve figured out the obvious. They were beat and losing thousands of their own people everyday and would’ve just lost more the longer the war went on. And that they couldn’t beat the United States.

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