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A Manifesto –It is Time to Subvert the Narratives
It is time for a language and identity reset.
The Left has no ideas that work, no history of success, no new plan for the future. All they have is a narrative of stolen words. Let’s take it back.
The Right has ideas that work, and those ideas have a long history of success, but the Right has conceded to the Left the very language needed to clearly express these ideas. They have acquiesced to a ban in using certain words to the detriment of successful communication. It is time for a language and identity reset.
With Trump’s nomination, both existing parties are now defeated opposition parties. So what is the face of this new movement. It’s time for change. It is time to subvert the narratives of both parties.
We are Progressive
Yes, we are the true progressives. We want to make progress and change the culture and government radically. We want to dismantle the vast administrative state. We want to liberate the oppressed captives of government control. We even want to reverse some of the constitutional amendments (for me that is the 11th, 16th, 17th, and 26th). We have drifted so far, there is now little left to conserve, so conservative is not applicable any more.
We are Liberal
We are the true liberals. We support individual liberty, private property, an unhampered market economy, the rule of law, constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of the press, and international peace based on free trade. We adhere to the foundation of liberal thought as expressed by David Hume, Adam Smith, and John Locke and in the 19th century by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.
We are Pro-Choice
We want choice in schools, in work, in the use of our private property, and in the practice of our religions. We want to dismantle the monumental amount of regulations that strangles individual choice. And the most important choice, we want people to be free to chose life and not be forced into government mandated support of abortion. We want the unborn to be allowed to be born so they can have choices.
We want Social Justice and Equality
We want a just society, a society where every person is equal before the law, every right is equally distributed, and where the society and the law are completely color and race blind. We want elected officials to be subject to the same laws as citizens, and governments to lose their sovereign immunity where governments and bureaucrats cannot commit a legal wrong and are immune from civil suit or criminal prosecution. We will fight against special privileges for any group that disadvantages others. We want social justice and equality.
We are anti-Crony Capitalism and anti-Monopoly
We want free-markets with minimal government regulation. Economic freedom is a necessary foundation for political freedom. We reject Crony Capitalism where an economy is controlled by a few wealthy capitalists who own or otherwise control the means of production (Marx’s definition). For similar reasons, we reject private capitalist monopoly control of the money supply through the Federal Reserve. Indeed, we reject any form of monopoly or economic central control including socialism.
We want Freedom of Expression and Thought
We want issues of marriage and sexual orientation to be left exclusively to individual conscious with the government having no role whatsoever. We want all criminalization of thoughts and ideas ended with government regulation limited to situations of provable personal, physical, or property harm. We want every person, civil organization, and religious entity to have the right to live as they chose without the coercive and punitive power of the state dictating moral or social edicts. We want the state’s power to issue marriage licenses terminated. We don’t want the state in our marriages, bedrooms, bathrooms, meeting halls, or places of worship. We want freedom of expression and freedom of thought.
We are pro-Diversity
We want race, color, and sex to be made irrelevant, so diversity can be unbounded. We want diversity in culture by removing laws against any culture or heritage, we want diversity in religion by removing laws against religion, we want diversity in state and local government by removing the centralized-federal control on everything, and we want diversity in education–thereby enabling a diverse culture–by removing single national education templates. We want diversity by removing the centralized control wherever it emanates and empowering local diverse civil society and individuals.
We are the American Party
These have always been our ideas, and these are now our words again. We are taking them back. We are the new political center where every generation of America is comfortable. The media’s cultural control is unraveling, both parties are exhausted and expiring. We must destroy the narratives. Death to the narratives, long live the new narrative!
Published in Politics
It’s funny – I just read this, so clear and positive and bracing and sanity-affirming, right after I watched the video below of the guy in a dress and cheap pearls showing us the current state of what passes for sanity on the Left.
The magnitude of my head-shake is rocking my sailboat.
Your opening statement needs to be shouted from the rooftops: “The Left has no ideas that work, no history of success, no new plan for the future. All they have is a narrative of stolen words (!!!!)”
(I added the exclamation points. Couldn’t help myself.)
That is so true. The Left claims to be the source of Ideas and New Plans – but they haven’t had a new idea in a hundred years, and not one single working plan ever. Ever.
The Left needs to be mercilessly and relentlessly exposed for the empty bag of air that it is. Every Leftie college professor should be challenged daily in his or her classroom. Every Leftie news reader needs to be called out on the air. Every Leftie celebrity needs to be told to shut up and sing.
Good post.
We are the party of Freedom – the party that knows Americans are grown-ups, and treats them accordingly.
I truly wish for this. I don’t disagree with any part of your post.
We are pro immigrant/immigration.
Just renaming illegal aliens as ‘undocumented immigrants’ does not make them immigrants, they are squatters. Opposing illegal aliens is NOT opposing immigration.
Yes you are right, I missed that one.
I am not so sure that Americans are grown-ups anymore. Our electorate voted for Obama twice, and we now have Trump and Hillary as our nominees.
May I suggest changing anti-capitalist to anti-mercantilism.
I am not sure what would be the better term, but capitalism as I know it is a good thing. Not suggesting you change the content, just the name.
The Marriam-Webster definition of capitalism: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capitalism
This is a pretty good thing. Wouldn’t want people to stop using this idea. And naturally I am in complete agreement about monopolies.
You are of course correct. Mercantilism is a more exact term for our present corruption (I see your Rothbard libertarianism coming through). And if you don’t know Murray Rothbard you must read his section on mercantilism in his Economic History before Adam Smith.
Back to the topic… we on the right have accepted the term Capitalism and use it to mean good things. But that is not the origin of the term, Marx coined it to refer to a system dominated by “capitalists” who keep all the profits due to their control of the assets of production (capital). On the left it is still viewed correctly in its original meaning and we should not use a term of denigration to describe one of the wonders of human society. I much prefer “Free Markets” because that is what it is.
Besides, millennials have been taught it is a bad thing, and we want to reach them without having to reprogram their language.
This post only needs one more recommendation….
Then qualify it somehow. “Crony Capitalism” or some such. “Free Markets” is good.
Done. See updated main post.
Excellent post, Wiley! I love how you have reframed the narrative by simply stating the truth! It makes me proud to be an American!
I like it. I will use this.
I was cheering until I reached the section on Freedom of Expression and Thought and found this:
Sorry, but us social conservatives understand that a classically liberal society is not inherently compatible with human nature — children have to be born, and then raised to become productive, generous, and respectful of others. The only historically successful system for doing so is the nuclear family headed by a permanent mother-father partnership.
Government has no business dictating who anyone loves, but remaining neutral on how and by whom children are raised is societal suicide. Until your manifesto excises the above and adds a section declaring “We are Pro-Family”, it will neither deserve the name “American Party”, nor will it have any more success than today’s Libertarian Party.
I would further point out the the very inclusion of these statements in the “Freedom of Expression and Thought” section implies that anyone who disagrees with them disagrees with freedom of thought and expression. How very Orwellian.
I certainly agree with your high regard for family and the need for a mother and father in the rearing of children. How we gather the strength and character to maintain this institution is critical. Government’s role in this seems to be completely failing. What do you recommend that addresses this issue without infringing other individual liberties?
We are in complete agreement about the centrality of the family. It is the fundamental building block of society and every person. So the best Pro-Family strategy is to remove the government right to license and therefore, regulate and determine what a family is. That would return the power to civil institutions like religious institutions. How is that not completely consistent with your statement “Government has no business dictating who anyone loves, but remaining neutral on how and by whom children are raised is societal suicide.”?
Where I think you miss read me is here “conservatives understand that a classically liberal society is not inherently compatible with human nature.” Classically liberal is a tricky term, and I use it to refer to pre-20th Century liberalism which is the opposite of 20th Century liberalism. If you are familiar with Hume and Locke you will understand it to be very consistent with Judeo-Christian view of a fallen human nature. It is not tainted with “social construction” concepts as is current liberalism.
Agree with the mercantilism sentiment, otherwise, Concur without comment.
Hmm. I did not realize this. I will need to look for better terms then. Well, I guess you might keep the anti-capitalist term and add anti-mercantilism. However, what one term can we use to label ourselves as proponents of all that is good. Saying “free market federalists” is quite the mouthful.
These would be a start. I’m sure others could offer more.
About the family, I am somewhat in the middle. While I do see the family as the most important aspect of human lives and as the only thing that can keep society civil (without parents to teach children how to be civil, who will. Certainly not the state).
However, I am very reluctant to say that the state (especially federal government) is the entity that needs to enforce or incentivize the family structure. As we have seen with the welfare state in the black community as well as childcare benefits and such, many of which could be interpreted to support the family, they do not do what is promised. In fact, the externalities are so large that the policies can degrade the family to a purely financial arrangement lacking the meaning and purpose that we all wanted in the first place.
Therefore, I wonder if the correct method of supporting the family is to have the government allow certain policies like communal property and other important legal abilities like medical decision making etc. but then not directly subsidize the family.
People should want to have families instead of the government wanting people to have families. Make culture value family as an end, not the means to a tax break. So really, even though I am on the side of getting the government out of marriage, I want to have government policies that allow and support the family unit less explicitly.
No, the best (and only workable) Pro-Family strategy is for government to favor the nuclear family, not to remain neutral by getting out of the marriage business. I believe the states should have the power to do so, and would insist the federal government do so until such time as all education and societal charitable systems devolve back to the states. (Progressives ratcheted us into this mess, we need to ratchet our way back out.)
While I disagree with libertarians invoking “equal treatment” to justify gay marriage, even if I were to agree, I would follow Jefferson’s observation: “Strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.” I take support for this from Adams: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
@philturmel
Responding to your idea that the government needs to support the nuclear family and that the sates should hold the power.
Should the federal government give different tax rates for the married? If so, then the federal government must issue a separate federal marriage license. Also, as much as I dislike the gay marriage movement for the ridiculousness of claiming government benefits for gay couples, legally speaking I have to agree that the constitution does give the mandate for the public records of each state to be recognized by every other state. And, since the federal government did not have an independent definition of marriage, there was a legal inconstancy between federal benefits given to gays of each state.
So its not about “equal treatment”, its about rule of law and consistency. In fact, we would be alright if the courts had just allowed the laws defining marriage to go through. It is permissible for the government to create an explicit subsidy of the traditional family, it just has to make it so.
However, all this means that the federal government cannot give the power back to the states. It has to deal with it on its own. This also means that you will need the political power to make it happen at the federal level. I would rather the government got out of it than the crazy policies we have now.
We should support the background legal rights to maintain private control of our lives, not just marriage.
And when this is back with the states (as it should be), what is the extent of this favorable treatment you advocate for state government. I can see licensing for purposes of recognition as a unit legally responsible for children’s health, education, and welfare and for purposes related to disposition of property upon intestate death . What else?
I really like the clarity and simplicity of “Free Market.”
By the way, here is the audio chapters on Mercantilism in Economic Thought before Adam Smith, try Chapter 7:
Chapter 7. Mercantilism: Serving the Absolute State
Chapter 8. French Mercantilist Thought in the 17th Century.
Chapter 9. The Liberal Reaction Against Mercantilism in Seventeenth Century France
Chapter 10. Mercantilism and Freedom in England from the Tudors to the Civil War
Chapter 11. Mercantilism and Freedom in England from the Civil War to 1750
Mises.org also has it in pdf form.
Well okay, I can get behind this. But you know, nothing is ever “free”.
Also, I will continue to look for better terms for the political side since my free market beliefs do not cover all my government policy beliefs.
PS: Thanks for the references. I will look into it.
Off the top of my head, only favorable tax treatment of married couples filing jointly, at least while children are dependents. I expect such favorable treatment would vary by state, as good laboratories of democracy are wont to do.
Marriage licensure by the state was initiated to control racial intermarriage after the civil war. It does not have a good history. You should not be for it. It was never a means to promote marriage. From day one, it was a means of state regulation of marriage.
Using the state to impose religious or moral regulation is very ill advised even if the regulation is pro Judeo-Christian. This strategy will bite back in the future, and is contrary to limited government and constitutional government. Nor do I think it particularly conservative. Your position sounds similar to the Moral Majority from the 80s which did not succeed. We do not need to go back to politics being the venue for culture wars and religious wars.
Yes. Here’s how I envision the federal government’s role: limited and constitutional. As such its regulation and tax structure should not subsidize anything. Once you subsidize one thing, you necessarily disadvantage every other person or institution not equally subsidized. This is the beginning of the state choosing winners and losers. However, I am not necessarily as dogmatic at the state level and especially at the local level. Simply because there are other municipalities and states to escape to if regulation is ill-conceived. But the federal government– get it out of our marriages, bedrooms, bathrooms, meeting halls, places of worship, businesses, wallets, and personal lives.