Hoover Institution: Uncommon Knowledge With Peter Robinson- Dennis Prager: The New Left in America

Source:Hoover Institution- Right-wing talk show host & columnist Dennis Prager.

Source:The New Democrat

I’m going to actually explain why I actually not just respect, but like Dennis Prager and if I actually met him I would shake his hand enthusiastically even if we spent an hour talking and disagree with ninety-percent of the points that we just made. Because he gets it unlike a lot of people on the Right. He understands the difference between Liberals who defend liberty like Jack Kennedy to use as an example and people on the New Left in America who are interested in equality at all costs through a collectivist state.

Liberals vs. Illiberal’s in America at least and perhaps the rest of the world. Liberals who believe in liberty and the individual. Socialists or collectivists who believe in equality and that the job of the central state is to provide equality for all of its people. The Liberal wants to see that everyone has the opportunity to live as free as they allow for themselves to base on their skills and production, character and everything else. The Socialist lets say says, “liberty is risky and if we allow individual freedom, some people will do very well and others won’t. So why don’t we just move forward together to see that everyone does well, even if that means subtracting freedom.”

Liberals built and created America and built liberal democracy the liberal free state that we all live in as Americans. And created things like Equal Justice Under Law, our Bill of Rights which all of its individual rights, Equal Opportunity Under Law. Created things like the 1964 Civil Rights Act that says no American can be discriminated against based on race, ethnicity or gender. That is the state that Socialists and other collectivists want to tear down or at the very least transform and create their collectivist state and perhaps a social democracy that looks like Scandinavia.

This is not just a battle between the Center-Left and the Far-Left. But a battle between Americans who believe in individual liberty in general and those who see individualism as dangerous and risky. I don’t say this to be insulting or to put people down. But to actually layout what a lot of our American political battles are. People who believe in freedom, between people who don’t essentially other than basic human rights relating to torture, cruel and unusual punishment, voting and anti-discrimination laws. What the New-Left believes in is what Rick Perlstein and others call welfare rights. The right for people to live well and be taken care. And is by the central government even if that means subtracting freedom.
Source:Hoover Institution

The National Interest: Jack Matlock: The House That Stalin Built

Source:The New Democrat

I saw a show on Book TV on C-SPAN last weekend with Stephen Kotkin who just wrote a book about Joe Stalin perhaps the most evil and worst dictator that at least Russia has ever produced if not in the history of the world. And it was a good show and Kotkin goes into how Stalin built the Soviet State essentially on his own and how he built Russian authoritarianism. He he was able to centralize so much power inside of not just Moscow and the Russian central government, but in how own presidency. And someone who was stupid at some people see Joe Stalin would’ve never had been that successful and been able to stay in power in Russia as long as he did.

Russia was a peasant third if not fourth world society like that of China fifty-years ago when Stalin became President of the Soviet Union in the mid 1920s. And he knew enough about economics and his own as well as Russia’s future that for them to accomplish what he wanted that they needed to develop their economy and move to the industrial age. Probably the only good thing that Stalin did for Russia was to create and industrial society and economy even under Marxist state-control. But he did that by creating state-owned industries and companies and then he would nationalize the Russian people. And make prisoners and slaves out of them in Soviet work camps. Sounds like North Korea, right.

Joe Stalin served as an inspiration for future evil dictators. Including Adolph Hitler, but then later Saddam Hussein in Iraq and I’m sure many others. You were either on Stalin’s side or he killed you. And even if you weren’t against him, he might still kill you anyway because of the horrible working conditions you were put under in his forced work camps. As far as the amount of innocent people who Stalin murdered including Russian-Jews and other non-ethnic-Russians in Russia, as well as ethnic-Russians, Joe Stalin is the worst dictator in world history. And should only be remembered as such.

The American Mind: Charles Kesler Interviewing Francis Fukuyama: The Final Form of Human Government

Source:The New Democrat

At risk of sounding insulting, wasn’t Frank Fukuyama a Neoconservative 10-15 years ago and one of the big backers of the Iraq War? I liked his first line about “democracy will only survive if the people want democracy.” I just wish he believed and wrote about that during and before the Iraq War. And now I’ll get off that because we’ve all taken positions before that we now disagree with and even regret. And saw new evidence and perhaps old evidence that we didn’t see before and saw that we were wrong and changed course appropriately.

If the Communists can have their own vision of government and governmental system and call it communism, than so can Liberals especially Liberal Democrats and we can call our vision of government and governmental system liberalism. Because that is what this is about which is liberal democracy and not just the right to vote and the majority generally rules. And generally rules is key because unlike social democracy the majority in liberal democracies don’t always get their way. Just ask U.S. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell when it comes to appropriations bills that Congress has to pass.

Liberal democracy is yes of course the right to vote and majority tends to win, but where there’s also minority rights. So strong majorities can’t vote away our individual rights and protections. Like the right to vote to use as an example, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Right to Privacy, Right to Self-Defense, all our personal and economic freedoms that most Americans love having. Liberal democracy is not simply about the right to vote. It is really about the right to be free with a responsible limited government tasked to doing the basic services that we all need. And to protect our rights and freedoms.

Frank Fukuyama wasn’t talking about voting. He was talking about liberal democracy in general where yes of course we have the right to vote. But where we have broad set of individual rights with a responsive, but responsible government that is limited to doing the things that we need it to do. But not run our lives for us, but protect our ability to run our own lives under Rule of Law. Which is are things that Neoconservatives and Social Democrats simply don’t understand. That both put order and equality over individual freedom for people to manage their own lives.

Commentary Magazine: Ben Cohen: Venezuela on The Brink

Source:The New Democrat 

I guess Venezuela at its best would be like Scandinavia where you would have a mid-size country or so of twenty-five million people who is not only energy independent, but a net-exporter of oil, gas, food and other resources that we all use. Social democracy is not my preferred system as a Liberal, but that type of government and economy could work very well in a country like Venezuela. Because of its natural resources and that with an educated society they would be able to afford a large welfare state for the country. Now I guess that would be Venezuela’s utopia as a developed country.

But the Venezuela of today is Hugo Chavez’s Neo-Communist Cuba inside of Venezuela. But not as bad, because Venezuela still has multi-party elections both for their National Assembly and presidency. And this is not 1959 Cuba where the central government nationalizes all sorts of different industries in the country. They’ve nationalized a few, but there is still a good deal of private enterprise in Venezuela. Which was essentially gone in Cuba by the early 1960s or so as the Marxists took over there. What you have in Venezuela is a country that is trying to develop socialist system through the welfare state financed by their energy sector, as well as private enterprise. But where political and personal freedom is very limited.

A country like that with that type of system that is heavily dependent on their energy sector and then treats its political opposition as the enemy even though they are peaceful and not armed rebels, doesn’t tend to succeed. Because the economy will only do well when the energy sector is doing well. When oil and gas prices are high and there’s a big need for that energy especially in other countries. And then add in economic sanctions coming from developed countries because of your bad human rights records just makes your economic problems even worst. What Venezuela should be doing is developing their entire country and not be so dependent on one sector. Regardless of type of political system and human rights record that they have.

Again I guess the dream for Venezuela would be Scandinavia. A social democracy with a social democratic economic system and political system. Where they use the energy sector not to power the entire economy, but resources from it to develop the rest of the country economically. Infrastructure, education, health care, the business sector, technology, things that all developed countries have. Not to try to just finance the current regime and eliminate the opposition so you can stay in power indefinitely even if the rest of the country suffers as a result.

The Federalist: John Daniel Davidson: How ISIS Spells The End Of Regime Change

Source:The Federalist.

Source:The New Democrat

Actually President George W. Bush’s preëmptive War in Iraq spelled the end of regime change in America. At least in the sense that America would unilaterally invade and occupy another country to knockout the authoritarian regime there and replace it with a new government. Some people might point to Libya to contradict that, but Libya was an international effort where the Europe played a large role in knocking out the regime there. After two or three years of trying to stabilize a country that wasn’t ready to be stabilized because it didn’t have a government that could govern and defend the country, Americans were fed up over Iraq. And as a result non-interventionist Democrats came to power in Congress in 2007 that were perhaps led by Barack Obama and Barack Obama becomes President in 2009.

The official ending of the Vietnam War ended in 1975 and the fortieth anniversary is this year. And there are so many lessons from that war that people especially Neoconservatives on the Right who think interfering in other countries affairs is a good idea, that they haven’t bothered to learn. The biggest lesson I believe is don’t try to fight for people who won’t fight for themselves. We’re not going to send in ground troops to a country to fight for people who won’t fight for themselves. At least since 2009 and even if the next president is a Republican, which is not likely they’re going to have a real hard time getting the country and Congress whoever controls it to back them. If the people in that country won’t fight for themselves.

You don’t see a lot of even Republicans adopting President Bush’s preëmptive war policy. Not even for North Korea which is a bigger problem even now than Iraq ever was and the same thing with Iran. Because at least Iran unlike North Korea has something that looks like a functioning economy where at least the people there can feed themselves for the most part. And this is all because Americans are tired of fighting and paying for other countries wars. For America to help other countries militarily deal with either their own government or a terrorist threat there, the people on the ground have to be willing and able and then do the fighting themselves. Before America will assist them which is why preëmptive war is dead as an American foreign policy.

Weirdo Video: Don't Be a Sucker (1947)

Source:The New Democrat

What you see in this film with the bigot in the beginning unfortunately has a long history in America. But I’m only going to go back to the 1890s or so and talk about bigotry toward non-English immigrants in America. The Irish, even though they are essentially brothers and sisters of the English, but tend to practice a different religion than the English in America and back in Britain. The Italians, the Jews, the Poles and other Slavic immigrants in America, the Chinese and Japanese and then move it a hundred plus years and you have xenophobic attitudes towards Latinos and Arabs and other Middle Easterners.

The guy early on in this video was repeating bigoted attitudes about people who looked different and talked different from he did. And because of that and especially if they were born in a different country, this guy considered them to be Un-American. Even though he was being Un-American with his hatred for ethnic and racial diversity in America. Something as a country that we celebrate by in large and have celebrated for a very long time. But with this guy all you get is bigoted attitudes and accusations about immigrants who look different and talk different from him. And he’s accusing them of taking American jobs and trying to force a different religion on the country.

The same xenophobia in America that we see today is nothing new. That if you’re not Caucasian and of European descent you must be some foreign invader that is trying to poison the flavor and character of the country. And imposed your foreign values on the rest of the country. That you are not here to contribute and produce for America, but to take advantage of our welfare system and take jobs from blue-collar Americans who have been in forever and whose families have been here forever. This attitude is small as far its supporter and people who actually believe it. But you hear it a lot from the Far-Right on talk radio. And is something as a country that we should be educating more Americans about so they don’t end up taking it seriously.

Zip Trivia: Are You a Commie, or a Citizen?

Source:The New Democrat

Just from the outset this looks like a Tea Party propaganda film about what it means to be a real American. And this is coming from someone who believe our form of government and economic system is the best in the world based on facts. But this guys does makes some good points about Europe which did move very Far-Left in the 1940s and 50s after World War II. Eastern Europe becoming a collection of Communist States under Soviet control. And the states west of the Slavic States were becoming or had already established social democracies in their country. Democratic Socialist States like Britain and France to use as examples.

For an anti-communist propaganda film, the guy in this film actually does a pretty good and puts some real facts on the table. And doesn’t try to go after Americans who are left of the center-left in America. People who are left of Liberals and say anyone who supported Franklin Roosevelt or Henry Wallace for president must not only be a Communist, but is Un-American and should either be locked up for that, or not allowed to live in America at all. Which is what you got in a lot of these anti-communist propaganda films from this period. Which led up to Congress launching the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate Investigative Committee that looked at Communists in the U.S. Government.

What the guy in this film does instead is put real facts on the table about communism and the standards of living in Communist Russia and Communist China compared with the living standards in Liberal Democratic America (sorry Conservatives) and how our standard of living was better. And the benefits of things like capitalism, private enterprise and competition. Which is a lot of what the American economic system is about. And allowing for individuals to be able to be as successful as their skills allow for them to be. Instead of having a big superstate big enough to take care of everybody.