Gabbard Takes a Stand for the Constitution

 It's really impressive to see a Democrat speaking out against the zeal & excesses of Democrat lawmakers who are attacking the US constitution:

Former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, made headlines on Tuesday for asserting in a social media video that Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and former CIA Director John Brennan should be considered "domestic enemies" of the U.S., deeming them a greater danger to the country than the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6.

Gabbard doubled down on her comments on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Tuesday. During her appearance, she denounced the violent demonstrators, but warned of efforts to combat domestic insurgents through surveillance and other monitoring activities.

"We recognize that those who stormed the Capitol on January 6 trying to stop Congress from fulfilling their constitutional responsibilities, they were acting as domestic terrorists undermining our Constitution," Gabbard told host Tucker Carlson.

"[However,] those like John Brennan, Adam Schiff and others are also acting as domestic terrorists because they are also undermining our constitution by trying to take away our civil liberties and rights that are guaranteed to us," she added.

Gabbard pointed to a video of Brennan telling MSNBC that Biden’s nominees and appointees "are now moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can" regarding activities that he said were reminiscent of "insurgency movements" that have risen up in other countries. In the same interview, Brennan likened libertarians to "religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, [and] nativists."

"This is the extent that they are going to try to undermine the rights and freedoms that are guaranteed to every one of us, and it's incredibly dangerous," Gabbard said.

Gabbard blamed tech industry leaders for assisting in this effort after social media companies like Twitter and Facebook blocked accounts that they say have posted inflammatory comments, including those of former President Donald Trump.

"Big Tech is culpable in this that they are using their monopolistic power to pick and choose whose voices are heard and whose voices are squelched, whether it’s based on who they agree with, disagree with, political affiliation, who you voted for," she said.

The former congresswoman urged viewers to "take a stand and unite around these principles in our constitution and continue to speak freely."

Citizens committed to upholding their constitutional freedoms "need to urge President Biden and every member of Congress how critical it is they take a stand and denounce the likes of John Brennan and Adam Schiff's actions.

"If we do not and if they do not," said Gabbard, "then this country that we love and cherish will no longer exist."

Fox News

What we are seeing is nothing short of a second Red scare, except this actually isn't the pursuit of Communists in the state department. 

It's attempting to get people who disagree with election results and have peacefully & patriotically made statements to be treated as pariahs and domestic terrorism threats. 

It's absolutely astonishing that it has gotten this far, but completely unsurprising given the way that democracy functions in the Western world. 

I think this is why so many great philosophers have no faith in democratic institutions because, as Plato pointed out, they eventually factory reset to oligarchy or anarchy. 

Bernie's Campaign Killed by Diversity?

The 2020s will likely be defined by the push for diversity among the Democrats and left wing parties throughout the Western world. Nothing will be considered good enough unless there is adequate representation of each group. The recent DNC convention shows as much: 

Top Latino activists and politicians are criticizing the lack of representation during this week's Democratic National Convention. 

Only three Latino speakers have their own speaking slot in the Democratic National Convention’s primetime lineup: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.

 ,,,

 "I’d be lying to you if I said that I’m not disappointed that there aren't more Latinos and Latinas generally speaking on that program," Castro told MSNBC Saturday, adding that he's also disappointed that there isn't someone who is Native or Muslim American speaking during this primetime hour.

"You think about the beautiful coalition that has become the Democratic Party over the last few years, I'm not sure right now that it's fully represented on that stage," he added.

 USA Today

Ultimately, we can imagine that every single political campaign will see its diversity credentials brought into question. 

Indeed, it is potentially the case that some campaigns may even sabotage themselves by putting too much faith in diversity, as may be the case with the Sanders campaign. Some have put forth the theory that the bid of Bernie Sanders to win the nomination was ultimately destroyed by clamoring about making the staff more representative, which led to incompetent people being placed in key positions. 

Part of the explanation for this lies in the 2020 iteration of the Sanders campaign being predicated on multiple concessions to bad-faith critics. Immediately upon his official entry into the race last February, Sanders apologized for the 2016 campaign having been “too white and too male-oriented.” ... To make amends and preempt any future identity-related attacks, the 2020 campaign staff was heavily diversified. And at least in the case of South Carolina—in retrospect the most important primary state of the 2020 cycle—many of these personnel were hobbled by remarkable incompetence, while internal campaign criticism became impossible.

 Much of the day-to-day logistics of the Sanders South Carolina campaign were run de facto by Nina Turner, a talented orator and popular media surrogate, but someone whose skill set was clearly not suited to bolstering the image of a socialist from Vermont among southern black voters. For one thing, Turner’s political background was in metro Cleveland, which provides no necessary insight into best practices for winning over elderly, churchgoing black Democrats in the Deep South.

 In November 2019, Turner installed Jessica Bright as state director. Former staff members said Bright, who served as a Hillary Clinton delegate at the 2016 national convention, was hired in large part because her mother had filled the seat of Clementa Pinckney—the state senator killed in the 2015 Charleston church shooting. The idea was that such a transactional arrangement might compel the mother to endorse Sanders. “She couldn’t spell, she couldn’t speak coherently, and her mother ended up endorsing Biden,” one anguished former staffer recalled.2 Not only did basic tasks go unfulfilled, phone-banking and canvassing data were outright fabricated, multiple former staffers alleged, and sent to the national campaign headquarters to give the false impression of good progress being made in the state. “But you can’t say anything,” one staffer recounted thinking, “be­cause you’d be called a racist.” Communicating rationally with the twenty- and thirtysomething campaign staffers who dominated the South Carolina operation, this person said, was virtually impossible—almost like some kind of impenetrable generational and ideological divide had been erected. “I felt like I was in a daycare facility. These kids were just so clueless, and so full of themselves,” the person lamented. “It was a really dystopian feeling to work there, it was not like anything I’d ever been involved with.”3

American Affairs Journal 

Had Sanders received reliable data, he may have campaigned entirely different. Had there been a competent staff, the campaign may have made headway instead of rotting on the vine. 

While these sorts of what-ifs are impossible to resolve, it is certainly worth considering, especially as this problem looks like it will not be going away anytime soon. 

Power to the People Corrupts People

When the democratic process becomes combative and unpleasant, it is basically a sign that the democracy has failed. The political body may still stay together, but it is holding captive a significant amount of citizens who are well aware that they will be forever cut off from representative government. 

Representative government to them becomes insulting, not fulfilling. The idea that they could benefit from representation vanishes, and they begin to feel alienated from the very society that they were born into. This perhaps brings up an interesting side point: democracy works best when it is localized, and when it is happening in a homogeneous body where nobody is being categorically cut out from representation. 

It is probably only in those circumstances where democracy is sustainable over a long period of time, but even then, a single-culture city changes through rifts between rich and poor, young and old, and developments in religion or culture. 

We can sort of conclude that Democracy is on a crash course... but it is resilient, because its system is open to change. It's more of a demolition derby than a one-off crash course or even series of crashes, because the wear and tear makes it necessary to reach for the reset button frequently. 

It's also true that we can look at the way that America has evolved and come to the conclusion that there are perhaps 2-4 Americas that have respectively lived and died, and this is not even counting the American groups that were born & went extinct without ever tasting any of the power. 

When we invariably have one voting bloc or a united group of voters imposing their will on the people, we also begin pitting the people against one another. They see each other as competitors with conflicting interests as opposed to seeing themselves as subjects united with purpose under the same banner. We also create groups among people -- groups of empowered people, and groups of people that are at the mercy of the majority -- the famous two wolves and a sheep deciding what is for dinner analogy. 

It's also worth thinking of the idea that "power corrupts," and "absolute power corrupts absolutely." What happens when we give power to the people? 

Giving power to the people makes our systems more resilient, but it also brings to the people the corruption that power also often naturally brings to individuals. Power to the people corrupts people. And when people have become corrupt, we see toxic democracy -- democracy which no longer benefits its own citizens but turns them into competitive, disparate groups competing to dominate one another.  

When they get a taste of power, the democratically engaged winners believe that they are filling a divine mandate, just like a King whose power has gone to his head, and they think that it is not just their right but their obligation to history to exercise this will. This is especially true when they are confident and their rhetoric is strong -- just like a petty tyrant, they vanquish their enemies, and then they put into the history books how glorious it was. 

The "Republic" that we have built was supposed to prevent this by coming up with inalienable rights for the minority, and this will continue to hold as long as the jurists and the unchanging forces within government are able to withhold the line on democratic will run amok. But we see the rhetoric gets dangerously hot, and the rights of the minority begin to look quite distant and irrelevant when a lot of effort has been made to dehumanize them and write them off as if they already belong in the dustbin of history. 

Naturally, we want the jurists and the Constitution to hold strong and to create a political 'safe space' that endures. But there's an even easier way to take care of all of this...

Skip the promotion of democratic engagement and simply rely on learned jurists, a hereditary executive branch, and localized democratic action that is relevant for each region but does not spill over into the backyards of others and, at the same time, constantly promoting self-sufficiency and cooperation between the subjects of the realm so that they have a sense of interconnectedness and can flourish without recourse to government at all. 

When we remove democratic power brokering on the national level, we can begin removing toxicity from democracy by keeping it localized, polite, and prevent it from coming off its leash and resulting in mob rule. 

Buying the Election & Gaming the People

One of the most important questions when it comes to Democracy is whether or not we are actually following the will of the people. Sometimes the will of the people can be obstructed through something like gerrymandering or some other systemic flaw, but perhaps the most poignant critique of all is the idea that the will of the people is so easily manipulated. It can be bought, lied to, manipulated, or manufactured.

The American election has given us a reason currently to ask this with the runaway success of candidate Bloomberg. Without many public appearances and just through his billions and media connections, the guy is having an enormous impact.

An impact that appears to be proportional to his spending:

Some of the other candidates are concerned and put off:

“Tomorrow night, for the first time, you’re going to be on a debate stage with the former mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, perhaps you’ve heard this. Two polls out today show that he’s your closest competition,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said. “Right now, do you see him as the biggest threat to you, to getting the nomination?”

“This is what I do know and this I feel very strongly about,” Sanders said. “You know, Mr. Bloomberg has every right in the world to run for president of the United States. He’s an American citizen. But I don’t think he has the right to buy this election. … I think it’s a bit obscene that we have somebody who, by the way, chose not to contest in Iowa, in Nevada, in South Carolina, in New Hampshire where all of the candidates – we did town meetings, we were talking to thousands and thousands of people, working hard – he said, ‘I don’t have to do that. I’m worth $60 billion. I have more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans. I’ll buy the presidency.’ That offends me very much.”

Moments later, Sanders was asked by an audience member, “If nominated, would you accept help from billionaires like Bloomberg and if not, why throw away something that can make a huge difference in winning 2020?”

Sanders repeatedly refused to answer the question.

The Daily Wire 

If it is the case that the American people can so easily be influenced and guided in the polls through message crafting and advertisements, we have a lot more problems than just this one time showing of Bloomberg. It means that many of our elections have solely been determined by the people who got out the most clever messaging to the most people.

It means that maybe even "Russian trolls" are capable of diabolically influencing the average American voter.

Traditionally, my response to the accusation of trolls winning the election has been one that is very much in good faith with the spirit of democracy: American people are able to see through lies and, moreover, the candidate that wins the election is the one that appeals most successfully to the will of the people by addressing their concerns and coming up with plans that they believe will positively benefit their life.

So, in a sense, there can be no meddling. Democracy is not open to meddling in the sense of being won through "trolling" or shallow advertisements because it is the people coming together to reach a consensus. The only meddling there ever could be would have to be direct.

The position of the Democrats appears to be one that suggests that the American people can and are manipulated, consent is totally manufactured, and the election is not about the consensus but about gaming the people. Politics becomes a game of deceiving good people.

In a sense, this is denying the agency of the people. It leads us to only one conclusion: Americans are easily fooled. This undermines the very basis of democracy -- if the electorate can be swindled so easily, why even have elections? Why have what really matters in the long-run determined by the fickle and malleable crowd?

People who advance these arguments do not actually believe in democracy but at the same time they accuse President Trump and the Russians of "undermining democracy."

Do we really have to believe that elections are really about charlatans practicing demagoguery? Does it all really not matter? Do we really have no foundation? Can we construct a system which would actually represent the people's will...? Do the people even have something that we can point to and indicate is their will..?

It's our duty not to our partisan politics, but to truth, to try to answer whether or not it is the case that our democracy is fundamentally invalid.

The Truth is In Between 

It is hard to say that the average American voter has no idea what they are doing. It's overly cynical and makes the average man, who we are all fighting and working for, seem incapable of distinguishing right from wrong, and he comes off as a complete rube. There's something utterly nihilistic and against the Christian spirit to suggest that people are incapable of knowing the truth.

Yet, it is ridiculous to suggest that people cannot be fooled, or that people cannot be manipulated into a completely disagreeable state. For we do know that there have been regimes that have practiced evil with a startling amount of consent from huge parts of the populace, and we also know that there were cultures that practiced cannibalism and torture as if it was a normal, everyday part of life.

A healthy, educated populace that have a media actively trying to report the truth objectively, without spin, and who is open to dissent in its editorials and hasn't created a complex system of sacred cows by which they manipulate and dazzle the people can be expected to be a good electorate. These are people that won't be "gamed" or "bought," because they are interested in patiently hearing the candidates out, discovering the reality, and voting based on their principles but not based on prejudices and unproven absolutes that they are goaded to believe by overzealous personalities in the media.

We can actually achieve something like an organic community where man is not being relentlessly manipulated by the managerial class, and where man is free to come to his own conclusions which would then be reflected in an electoral process.

Yet, it seems to be that these circumstances are rare, and this is not due to the shortcomings of the people at the bottom, but because of the lust for power of the people at the top.

It is easy to then say that the truth really is in between with man, and even in the best of circumstances, there will be people who are being manipulated and lead around. This will either be due to their personal fault  (a lack of real interest or education), systematic failures of the government or media to do their job, or even from manipulation of the managerial classes.

Nobles, Elders, & Bishops to Guard Them

Every system needs a series of checks and balances. We should always have votes, of course, because it is important for the will of the people to be known to some degree, but we should also be weary of the fact that naked democracy does turn into mob rule, and that people are entirely capable of being manipulated. 

In the current American system, the checks and balances are the government being a balance on themselves, and perhaps the unspoken check of the 2nd amendment. There is no apparent check on the media and the machinations of billionaires and the mercantile class, and with the religious institutions becoming increasingly powerless, it appears that only libertine impulses have taken over among the people. 

The fact of the matter is that we need a more dynamic system that has more factors in play, ensuring greater stability and safeguarding the people not just from the government, but from a media and culture that is dominated by money and one-sided ideas, all originating in NYC or LA.

What ultimately is required is a system in which there are static forces to offset the massive cultural shifts, and this can actually come in the form of strengthened religion and cultural institutions -- namely, cultural institutions that act independent of those which are designed solely for monetary gain and cheap entertainment. In short, we need more active participation in our society by our elders and our Bishops, and it would behoove us to have a class of ennobled people that served as cultural icons of greater importance than celebrities. 

We should not be under the illusion that all of nobility was always noble, but we should remember that strict codes of honor being regularly enforced are vital to the well-being of the national spirit. 

Since we do not have these things, our culture boils and spills over, and the rights that our Constitution guaranteed us are under threat. The electorate is in a bad position to making serious decisions because it is hopelessly partisan and often voting for either their won direct financial benefit, or they are under the influence of a culture of nihilism and libertinism that should have no role in how any society is governed. 

This is certainly a low point for democracy, and even though it can be said that our electorate continues to have plenty of healthy actors in it, we are not in an enviable position at all. 

I will try to write more on the theme of democracy and culture through the course of the election and try to unpack these problems more.