Liberty Pen: Glen Beck & Andrew Napolitano: The Right to be Left Alone

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Ederik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

The Right to be Left Alone is not an anti-government viewpoint. But this belief that free adults or free Americans are exactly that. That we own ourselves, our bodies and our minds. What we do with our own lives is exactly that. Our own lives and that we and only we should be held accountable for our own decisions. And where government comes in when it comes to personal and economic behavior as far as regulating is when we hurt innocent people. Whether we hurt them intentionally or unintentionally.
And as a country really since the Great Depression have moved away from that, or even go back to the Progressive Era of the early 1900s when Progressives believed that government needed to do more than that. That it couldn’t just be there to protect our freedom. But to protect the general welfare of the country even if that meant restricting or even contracting individual freedom both personal and economic. So you get alcohol prohibition of the 1930s which inspired the Neoconservative War on Drugs in the 1970s. To today with big government paternalists believing government should prohibit what we can eat and drink and even smoke. Or what we can do in the privacy of our own homes.

When it comes to government in this country there now seems to be consensus that government needs to protect people from themselves. And there are factions on both the Right and Left who believe in this, but believe government should protect us for different reasons. Paternalists on the Left so-called today’s Progressives want to stop us from junk food and soft drinks. Paternalists on the Right want to tell us who we can marry, sleep with, when we can have sex and who we can marry.

Big government gone wild on both wings, but a growing number of Americans on both the Left and Right who believe big government is too much and are finally fighting back especially as it relates to privacy.
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Washington Examiner: Michael Barone: Why Even Ronald Reagan Couldn’t be Ronald Reagan Today

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Rik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

To put it simply the Republican Party has moved away from Ronald Reagan. When President Reagan was in office in the 1980s he was that unifying force that could keep a large and very politically diverse political party together because they all lived Reagan.

The real Conservatives the Barry Goldwater faction that still makes up the conservative libertarian wing of the party. The emerging Religious-Right, or as I call them the big government wing of the party. And the business Conservatives who are really not interested in social issues and only foreign policy as it relates to the economy. And of course the Neoconservatives defense hawks that were inline with the Religious-Right on social issues. But perhaps further to the right of them on foreign policy. President Reagan was able to keep all the different GOP factions together and not going off in directions and focused at beating Democrats.

That type of leader that Reagan was for the GOP have never been replaced. And they haven’t that one person that can keep the party together. So you are left with a Republican Party with all of these different tribes accusing each other of not being real Republicans and on many cases mad at each other. But the other issue that would be there for Reagan is that as much as Republicans like to call themselves Reagan Republicans, they really aren’t. He wasn’t inline with them on the social issues in many cases. He just spoke to those groups because he wanted their support. And he wasn’t as big a unilateralist defense hawk for today’s Neocons.

The closest Republicans to Ronald Reagan and his vision of conservatism or conservative libertarianism would be the Rand Paul conservative libertarian wing of the party. People who are viewed by the Religious-Right and Neoconservatives as not real Republicans and far enough to the right for them. And because of these things Ron Reagan would have a hell of a time running for president as a Republican today.

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Constitution Center: Lyle Denniston: What Would James Madison Think About Newt Gingrich?

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Erik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

To say the least it is almost impossible to tell how James Madison and the other Founding Fathers of the United States would think of current American political discourse. They put the country together pre-radio and TV let alone the internet and social media. But from their writings they did like good political debate as long as it was intelligent and based on the facts. With all sides being able to make their case. They did write the First Amendment and free speech is a big part of that.

That is not current American political discourse. We are long past the times when we had two competing sides who believed the other side means the best for America and that we not only believed the case that they were making was the best course for the country. But that they loved America as well. And are now at a point where the fringes on both wings not only see the other side as wrong, but that they are trying to destroy the country and don’t even deserved to be heard. And in some cases with the haters of Rush Limbaugh believe government should step in and kick Rush off the air.

I’m a proud Liberal Democrat and believe the Tea Party wing and their allies on the Far-Right are largely responsible for the negative political discourse. With their claims that the other side Progressive Democrats are “Un-American and that Americans who don’t believe in their traditional way of life are Un-American as well.” Not just saying these things as a Liberal or as a Democrat, but as an individual and that is what a lot if not most of the credible evidence points at. With FOX News being their main mouthpiece to go along with right-wing talk radio.

But my side of the aisle and our fringe have some blame and guilt here as well. Whether you want to call it the MSNBC wing of the Democratic Party or Occupy Wall Street we have an element as well that believes the Tea Party and their Republican supporters are not only wrong. But are “bad people looking to destroy America and everything that is good about this country especially as it relates to social insurance from their point of view. And that they need to be shut up and destroyed and not just defeated for the good of the country as well.”

We are past the day when senators and representatives can have a long spirited, but respectful debate in Congress and then have a beer with their colleagues after the debate the people they just debated and even work with them to come up with a bipartisan consensus that they both could vote for. And are now at a point where the fringes on both sides who in too many cases have the loudest voices and get the most airtime and print because it is really partisan bickering that sells the most papers and get’s the highest ratings. Who believe the other side is not only wrong, but evil and must be destroyed. Which makes consensus building and governing especially with a divided government almost impossible.

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The Bully Pulpit: JR Benjamin- William F. Buckley on Drug Legalization

Posted on June 20, 2014 by kireschneider

The Bully Pulpit

William F. Buckley’s basic position on the War on Drugs was that it was a failure. That he wasn’t in favor of legalizing illegal narcotics which is really what the War on Drugs is. And that is just one problem with the War on Drugs. It is simply not real and not a real war for multiple reasons. And two of them being wars are fought between militaries and armed forces. Not between law enforcement, prosecutors and drug addicts just looking to get high who wouldn’t hurt innocent people intentionally at any point. But the other reason is that even the title War on Drugs is fake because it is not a War on Drugs. But a war on drugs that the U.S. Government views inappropriate for private use.

Bill Buckley didn’t favor legalizing narcotics because he liked them and wanted to consume them and other Americans to consume them. But that he disliked the War on Drugs even more and believed the War on Drugs with all the people it arrest’s and in many cases good people who are again just looking to get high and need to be in drug rehab, prison and lives that the War on Drugs ruins. That the War on Drugs is worst than illegal narcotics itself.

I tend to agree with that myself, but I’m not in a position where I believe we should legalize all illegal narcotics. I support marijuana legalization and even would go as far decriminalizing all the other illegal narcotics to prevent more good Americans from having criminal records and filling up our prisons even more. And getting them in drug rehab. But the War on Drugs is worst than illegal narcotics and we need an approach to illegal narcotics that is better than legalization versus continuing to fight the bogus War on Drugs.

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Contra Corner: Michael Krieger: Mission Accomplished in Iraq

Posted on June 20, 2014 by kireschneider

Source:The New Democrat 

Whatever you think of the War in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 when it officially ended with American troops pulling out the “mission has already been accomplished”. If you look at what the original neoconservative goals from the Bush Administration and outside of the Bush Administration were and what they wanted to accomplish in Iraq they’ve already been accomplished. “A peaceful democratic state in Iraq with a functioning government that can defend itself”. Yes they meaning the Maliki Administration and the Iraqi defense forces lost Northern Iraq. But it was there’s to lose and they were the ones to lose it.

Governing and defending Iraq is not an American responsibility especially if the country is not in danger of going under and being replaced by some type of fringe authoritarian rule. And Iraq doesn’t want us there. It would be one thing if Iraq was being invaded by another power private or another nation and they weren’t in position to defeat that force similar to Britain being under attacked by Nazi Germany during World War II. Then at the request of the Iraqi Government we would then be put into a position of whether we should help them or not.

But that is not the situation in Iraq now. Parts of Northern Iraq are under the control by Islāmic terrorists that seek to create an Islāmic state in Iraq. And it looks like they may be going through the early stages of an Iraqi civil war that the Iraqi people are going to have to figure out for themselves. This is not the business of Americans and our soldiers and our broke taxpayers that one way or the other would have to fund any involvement in Iraq. This is the business of the Iraqi people.

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Moshe Z. Marvit: A Liberal’s Call to Real Liberty

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Derik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

So President Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms were a Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Speech, civil liberties and Freedom from Want. Hum that is very interesting especially since The Roosevelt Administration essentially inspired the George W. Bush Administration in their call for reduced liberty for more security with the Patriot Act, government spying, indefinite detention and you can go down the line. But compared to locking up ethnic German, Italian and Japanese-Americans during World War II. Because the Roosevelt Administration believed these Americans were loyal to their mother countries. Germany, Italy and Japan the countries we fought during World War II. The Bush’s look mainstream.

I could write a whole blog on why President Franklin Roosevelt wasn’t a liberal. Simply based on his big government superstate beliefs when it came to civil liberties and the personal affairs of Americans. He also had a tendency to believe that Congress wasn’t much more than an annoyance and that he didn’t need them to make decisions on his own and went around them as often as he could get away with it. The Senate stopped him at least temporarily with the court-packing scheme.

As far as Freedom from Want. What do you mean by that? The freedom to not have to make your own decisions and manage your own affairs? The freedom to not earn a good living and be economic independent because Uncle Sam is going to take care of you for you with high taxes and a boat load of welfare programs? A big part of being a free American is the Right of Self-Determination. The ability for one to chart their own course in life and make the best of their life that they can. Since they are responsible for the good and bad that happens in their lives.

Forget about the Four Freedoms and then just look at the U.S. Constitution. Because that is really all we need to be able to live well in America just as long as the Constitution is enforced properly by government and enforced equally well. And then I would add just one more that which would be the right to a good education however you want to phrase that. Because no one is free unless they have the education and tools they need to be able to govern themselves well and aren’t hurting innocent people.

The only free society is an educated society. Once you have an educated society you at the very least have the potential to create a free society if you are not already free. Because you have the people who you need to build that economy that expands economic freedom for everyone. Individuals managing their own economic and personal affairs with everyone contributing to that. With the personal freedom and civil liberties as well that are also needed to live in that free society.

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Democracy Journal: Opinion: Paul Starr: Al From, The Frame-Maker: How New Democrats Re-Defined Liberalism

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Ederik Schneider
New Democrats

Democracy Journal: Opinion: Paul Starr: From the Frame-Maker

I agree with most of what Paul Starr said in his piece about New Democrats which I’m one philosophically and what part of the Democratic Party I’m from and how New Democrats have effected the Democratic Party. My only differences would be I don’t know how new we are since we’ve really been around at least going back to the Kennedy Administration in the early 1960s with Jack Kennedy who would definitely be a New Democrat today. And then came back to power in the White House with the Carter-Mondale Administration in the late 1970s with Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale. And of course Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the early 1990s.

And my only other  difference being with Paul Starr and here is where I’ll make my argument about the New Democrats has to do with this notion that New Democrats are “moderate or center-right”. No we are not, we put center-left back in the Democratic Party with a liberal flavor. Pre-1993 or so Democrats “were seen as tax and spend, soft on crime, soft on defense, anti-personal responsibility, Uncle Sam big federal government know best all the time. Americans are too stupid and can’t be trusted with their own lives”. We looked like European social democrats or Socialists even putting all of our faith in the state over the individual to create a fair society.

Democrats until the early 1990s whether this was fair or not and I believe a lot of it was fair were seen as big government statists even in a democratic sense. The way the far-left of the party actually is in reality then and today. The New Democrats led by the Democratic Leadership Council and others started changing that right after the Mondale landslide presidential loss in 1984 and started working on an agenda that would counter the Reagan Revolution of the early 1980s. That moved us ahead of the New Deal of the 1930s and the Great Society of the 1960s.

This New Democratic agenda wasn’t anti-government, but moved us away from big government and into an era that saw government as one tool that could be used to empower people who needed it to get the tools that they needed to live in freedom and live a self-sufficient life and off of public assistance. By focusing on education, job training, vocational training, infrastructure especially in underdeveloped areas. Empowering the non-profits to help people in need and looking for the states and localities and getting their input to empower people who are in poverty or struggling working class.

When Bill Clinton becomes President in 1993 Democrats were seen as the “tax and spend fiscally irresponsible soft on defense and crime party”. As well as being “soft on welfare”. To twenty years later we now especially the New Democrats are beating Republicans on all of those issues. To the point that the George McGovern or MSNBC/The Nation social democratic wing of the party badly dislikes if not hates the New Democrats for taking over the party and badly want to reclaim the Democratic Party and take us back to the late 1960s and 1970s where Democrats used to carry all of those stereotypes.

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The Federalist: Scott Lincicome: A Free Market Guide to Assessing Reform Conservative Policies

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Rik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

Hum ‘reform conservative’, that almost sounds like an Oxymoron if you take the official definition of conservative seriously which I do. Because reform means to change and generally improve something whatever something is. A conservative is supposed to be someone who believes in the status-quo. That is keep as is. To put it simply and risk stating the obvious a conservative believes in conserving. It’s the progressive who is supposed to believe in changing and moving forward, adapting with the times.

But having gotten past that and lets say reform minded Republicans are only throwing out terms like ‘reform conservative’ because they grasp the obvious of the current state of the Republican Party. Which is a party that simply doesn’t appeal to enough Americans to be a governing party. A party that can run more than just the lower chamber of Congress the House of Representatives with a tight divided majority. But could also run a united Congress that includes the upper chamber the Senate and win back the White House as well.

And for the Republican Party to be able to achieve these goals they are going to have to appeal to more than just their business lobby, libertarian anti-government right and the religious-right. As well as Americans besides their Anglo-Saxon Protestant base. And however they label an agenda that can do that ‘reform conservative’ or whatever it is going to have to bring in non-traditional (going back forty-five years) Republicans for them to be a true national governing party again.

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Slate Magazine: Jamelle Bouie: Neocons Already Destroyed Iraq

Posted on June 20, 2014 by Erik Schneider

Source:The New Democrat 

There’s an old American expression “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”. Which basically translates if you are dumb enough to get fooled multiple times by the same person, you are a fool who deserves to be fooled. The Neoconservatives lost the argument over Iraq as early as early as 2006 when their Republican allies in Congress were kicked out of the House and Senate because of Iraq and how badly the Bush Administration botched that war and occupation. And for all of the Republican support and American tax dollars to pay for those failures.

And because of all of this and the trillions of dollars added to the national debt and the thousands of lives America has lost in Iraq and the millions of lives Iraq has lost in Iraq a country of twenty-five-million people. Not a large country America except for portions of the Far-Right has no interest in going back in and trying to save a country from itself. Iraq has been left up to Iraq which was an original goal of the Bush Administration that the Obama Administration followed through on. Because they wanted to get us the hell out of Iraq a situation they knew couldn’t be fixed by Americans themselves.

Iraq now has a functioning federal government and military even as flawed as it is. But at least it represents Iraq and they have the responsibility to govern and defend themselves. And if they aren’t willing to live up to their own responsibilities they can’t expect Americans to do that for them and be left with the bill for those operations.

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The Nation: Opinion: Robert Borosage: Time to Stand up For a More Perfect Union

Posted on June 19, 2014 by Derik Schneider

The Nation: Opinion: Robert Borosage: Time to Stand Up For a More Perfect Union

I didn’t see much from Robert Borosage about as far as how to build this movement to “build that more perfect union”. And what exactly what that would look like and what policies should be developed to make that happen. So what I’m going to do as a Liberal and not as a Socialist or Progressive is layout what a more perfect union would look like in a liberal democratic society like America.

One of the areas that liberal New Democrats and I’m one of them disagree with the old FDR Progressives and today’s Bernie Sanders Socialists is what should be the goal and role for government in Americans when it comes to the quality of Americans lives. Lets say today’s Progressives or Socialists (to be more accurate) believe in equality and that government should be so big and having so much authority to take care of people and make sure that no one has too little or too much.

Liberals believe in freedom pure and simple that an educated society is a free and developed society. Because an educated society has the tools that they need to live well and live in freedom. As the great libertarian Economist Milton Friedman said “you can’t have equality without freedom”. That for people to get everything that they can have succeed as much as possible they have to be free. And you become free by having a good education with the tools that allow for you to get that good job and the ability to make the decisions that you need to make to live well.

Today’s Progressives or Socialists would say that “freedom is risky or dangerous. And when you allow for people to have so much freedom over their own lives you give them the freedom to make mistakes that we as a society as a whole will end up having to pay for down the road. So what you need is government that is so big that it keeps people at the top who live in freedom from having so much and takes a lot of their freedom away in the form of money to take care of everyone else”.

And this is really the two competing visions in the Democratic Party now and not just as it relates to the economy, but personal affairs as well. The differences between freedom and individual decision-making from the JFK/Bill Clinton New Democrats. Versus the Bernie Sanders socialist wing of the party that trusts government over people and business’s and puts their faith in government to make the best decisions for everyone involved.

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