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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
You’re right, the feds cannot ignore marriage while our entitlement and welfare systems are intertwined at the federal level. Yes, it can given married people different tax rates, and does so. It does not need to issue separate licenses; it simply needs to codify what state licenses meet its criteria. The federal Defense Of Marriage Act, signed by Bill Clinton, did this, as well as codifying the recognition of marriage licenses from state to state. Much the same way that the feds codify the recognition of drivers licenses from state to state. Relations between the states is explicitly a federal responsibility under the constitution.
See my responses to Bob Thompson for more.
Anyways, It’s going to be a long haul to get the federal government out of these topics,
andas so much of the state’s responsibilities for their citizens’ general welfare has been co-opted by the feds. The biggest problem is government’s use, at all levels, of defined-benefit pension programs, including social security. Until all such entitlements (Ponzi schemes) are made illegal, there’s very little progress to be made. As noted elsewhere, progressives ratcheted us into this mess, and we’ll have to ratchet our way out of it, one interlocked little block at a time.{ Edited for grammar. }
+1 for recognizing the Ponzi scheme. I have been making that argument for a while now. And yes, lets get started ratcheting!
Nice idea, but I do not agree.
That may be, but so long as government has policies that impact the married and non-married differently, I believe the impact on the married must be positive.
I strongly disagree. Societies throughout history have publicly favored marriage over other lifestyles, for the simple reason that societies that fail to reproduce, and produce good citizens, are always overrun by societies that do. Societal promotion of marriage evolved with civilization — it is decidedly unconservative to jettison such policies. Hayek’s Knowledge Problem isn’t just economic, it is social, too.
Politics is the venue for culture wars and religious wars, and ever shall be. Whether you choose to fight those wars or not. And choosing not is simply a different form of surrender.
This should be taught in the classroom, as the new generations have been hoodwinked into believing the labels and not the actual results.
I snipped your points because they’re all valid, but non-responsive. The comment you are responding to was part of a larger discussion, which pre-supposed all federal interference is phased out.
If you are talking about it in that context, I still think the basics of my points are still valid. I do not hold the optimism that the federal government will ever be so small that it does not have significant effects. I do not think you will ever see an insignificant tax rate . Or, even if it is that small, then the benefits to subsidizing families disappears since there is no need. Again, I do not want to pay people to have children so the most a government can do is tax deductions and legal framework. I think the legal aspect is more important
The way I see it, either there is such a small effect to government taxes that there is no need to incentivize family or the fed is large enough that the incentives will corrupt. I would rather the desire for family come from society and culture than politics. The government is naturally bad at choosing incentives. Culture is naturally good at finding value where it truly exists.
Think about it. Even though we have these messed up policies that incentivize all the wrong behavior, many people still live good lives through finding value in good living
I think society would benefit more from the simplified tax/incentive structure than any government subsidies.
I agree with this.
Are we though? I used to think so, but this cycle has made me suspect a large chunk of the right (possibly the majority) are anti-immigration, period. They want less legal immigration too, some even calling for a total moratorium on immigration, on the grounds that immigrants (including legal ones) take jobs from Americans and drive down wages, especially for blue collar workers.
Isn’t that essentially accurate, though, even without “cronyism?” For instance, who keeps the lion’s share of Apple’s profits: the shareholders (who control the capital) or the workers in the Asian factories who actually build our iPhones?
Phil, you are missing my point. I believe that is because you are caught in a government is the solution paradigm and don’t see it. Before you reject that, let me explain. A nation’s society is divided into civil society (businesses, civic organizations, religious organizations, families, individuals, i.e. private) and government. Would the sanctity of institution of marriage be more under the control of religious institutions if 1) marriage laws were completely controlled by the civil society or 2) marriage laws were controlled by the government?
You are wanting government to be the solution for marriage. You have drunk the government is the solution Koolaid.
I understand your point and am uncertain about what I really believe. You see, immigration has many downsides just as there are many upsides. So, the fact that I wouldn’t mind a moratorium on immigration for, lets say, 6 months while we decide what to do long term does not make me anti-immigrant, I think. Also, I am in favor of the quality based immigration and limited to the amount that our country can withstand especially with social welfare programs.
Otherwise, I fear that the immigration of people who do not agree with the American way of life will corrode our country. I want there to be a great America for the people we do let in. Also, I am very concerned that if we let all the best and brightest into America, there will less talent and fewer people who care to make other countries better. I have heard that this is happening in India.
To summarize, I feel that the not-so-positive-about-immigration group isn’t anti-immigrant. They just want to conserve the values of America for everyone’s sake.
The short answer is no. A slightly longer answer, Marx taught that Capitalists extract all profits and hoard them and that all laborers were destine to live subsistence level lives due to this hoarding. That is what they teach millennials in college. That is completely inaccurate to how real Capitalism works. Capitalism has been the greatest single engine to lift billions of people out of poverty in the last century and into the middle class. Markets and labor markets specifically operate to increase wages in contradiction to Marx and keep greedy companies in check.
Does civil society make laws? I would say law is properly in the domain of government.
Civil society makes cultural standards and creates a form of law called “contract law.” For example, if two people enter into a contract, the government will enforce it through the court system just like it is law. It becomes enforceable “law” but only between the parties of the contract. The contract is the enforceable document (it is law for the bound parties). The court that handles this is appropriately called a civil court.
Thanks for mentioning this because people might not put this together and think that marriage is not enforceable unless mandated by the government. And that is simply not true. Even if there was no government marriage licensure or a single regulation on marriage by the government, marriage contracts (vows) could be enforced through the civil courts. That is how it works now.
This makes sense only if you believe we got to our present condition by the actions of one party. The truth is that many—perhaps most—of the GOP’s so-called leaders are (and have been for some five decades) more than content to play D.C.’s go-along, get-along game with Democrats. You don’t get our hyper-regulatory federal government, a $20 Trillion debt (growing $1.1 million every 60-seconds with no end in sight), well in excess of $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities, a nearly 80,000 page IRS code and an IRS that’s weaponized to boot . . . you don’t get all that through the actions of a single party that hasn’t had control of both the Executive and Legislative branches simultaneously but a few years in the past quarter century. You get that because there’s really only one party in Washington: the Incumbency Party.
Trump is a rejection of status quo GOP leaders—at least as much if not more than he’s a rejection of the virulent Left-Fascists the mainstream GOP alleges to oppose.
Yup. Agree.
I agree, although I would add that —as I’ve explained at length in other threads—marriage is useful (indeed, crucial) to a well-ordered society not only because it produces new little citizens, but because marriage creates family relationships between non-kin which the society builds its own structures atop.
Hmmnnn. I’ve been wondering about this. Could/should the polis work out certain questions—e.g. whether boys can use the girls bathroom and vice versa—without the government sticking its big fat nose into the matter? I ask, because I too think a radically limited government might actually allow or force all of us to strengthen or, where necessary, re-create non-governmental institutions that used to “regulate” a lot of life. Churches, for example, but also social organizations, charities, clubs, mutual aid societies and so on.
So, we juxtapose this:
with this:
Government chooses which contracts it will enforce and which it will not. And it gives greater weight to publicly registered contracts like mortgages, wills, and marriages. What kinds of marriages government recognizes and enforces is inseparable from what kinds of marriages government endorses or favors. If it fails to endorse traditional marriage, or endorses as marriage anything other than traditional marriage, it sets the stage for replacement of that society with the strongest neighbouring society that does endorse traditional marriage.
Marriage equality activists are only willing to debate the fairness of marriage for love being available only to heterosexuals. But love and passion and romance are none of the governments business, and never have been (marriage for love is a really new phenomenon in the history of the world). Children and their upbringing is governments business, as it is one of those things that left to itself does not result in liberal democracies like ours.
We’re going round and round here, and I doubt we are going to resolve the SSM wars in this topic. Suffice to say, your manifesto is a rebranding of much of the Libertarian Party platform. Rebranded, but still excluding SoCons. It’s not gonna fly. At least not with me.
Yes, though left to purely natural processes you get tribalism. Our political structures, particularly local government, provide a non-tribal alternate structure which, I would argue, provides a better superstructure. But yes, the nuclear family is the core of civil society.
Yes, but the non-governmental institutions can only regulate society if they are allowed to discriminate, using any criteria they deem important to their mission. The basic tools are shaming (free speech), shunning (free association), and boycotting (free markets). Personally, I believe that discrimination based on behavior — any publicly identifiable behavior or behavior inferrable by public means — must be permitted for self regulation to succeed. Note that the basic tools can be used by both people and institutions against other institutions‘ bad behavior, including the target institution’s use of unacceptable forms of discrimination.
You are confusing the issues again. Government does not chose which ones to enforce, because they are private contracts. In specific, marriage is a private contract between two people that is formalized typically at a religious ceremony – the government is not a party to the contract (was the government at your wedding?). Private contracts get enforced when people sue for a contract to be enforced or in the event of marriage, file for a divorce in a civil court. In either case, they are asking the court to intervene and enforce a private contract. The government is not doing the choosing.
Marriage was and is a private contract, yet you continue to think governments create marriages. George Washington was married without a marriage license. There were no marriage licenses in the US until the 20th Century. Once you realize that you don’t need governments to have marriages, you will have that ah haa moment. Then come back and we’ll talk shop.
Marriage license have become a topic, so here is a short history of marriage licenses in the US.
George Washington got married without a marriage license. Indeed there were no marriage licensure in the US until the 20th Century. Blacks Law Dictionary points out the the first marriage licenses were given as “A license or permission granted by public authority to persons who intend to intermarry.” If your were of the same race, you did not need a license, only if it was a “mixed marriage.”
I’m sure that seemed unfair, so not long after “intermarry” licenses were issued, some states began requiring all people who marry to obtain a marriage license. In 1923, the Federal Government established the Uniform Marriage and Marriage License Act (they later established the Uniform Marriage and Divorce Act). By 1929, every state in the Union had adopted marriage license laws.
This was all started by the government trying to regulate inter-racial marriage.
@wiley, @philturmel
As much as I have agreed with Wiley, I must side in part with Turmel on the issue of whether the government is involved with marriage licenses.
This I think is partly true. The government has a habit, wrongly perhaps, of only enforcing strictly certain types of contracts. For example, there is no such thing as a slavery contract even though it could be created privately since the government would not enforce it. Whether the government should allow less extreme but still unorthodox contracts is a good question.
However, I do not agree with Turmel’s conclusion. For example, there are prenuptial agreements that are almost completely private while the concept of a government marriage still exists in parallel.
Therefore, I believe that both arguments, that the government is involved and that the government does not need to be involved, are both partly correct.
My conclusion is that the government should not be involved in the marriage itself, but should be involved in making the relation between family a well understood and government supported contract. For example, any person should be able to give another person the ability to control medical decisions when the first is incapacitated. This is just one example of many where the government can be of great value in helping society function smoothly and support family formation.
Perhaps I am missing the point, let’s review what you guys are seeing cause I’m not seeing it.
Tell me what the “concept of a government marriage” is and how the government enforces it?
You gave an example, but I don’t see how it makes your point. Seems like it supports my understanding. A medical “Living Will” and a “durable healthcare Power of Attorney” already allow the transfer of end of life health decisions to another person. These are private agreements. The government is not a party to the contract. All the government has to do is allow these private contracts to be processed through civil courts, which they already do.
I don’t see you guy’s point.
Only works if the hospital can be sure that it is legal and easily obtainable. Imagine having to contact your lawyer before the hospital would be able to let you agree on your wife’s behalf to an emergency medical procedure. The government can and should enable people to have common, easily enforceable, and sometimes implicit (like the assumed Power of Attorney by relatives). Also, these default social contracts save a lot of hassle leading to a better society.
However, not every aspect should be defined by the government. Thus the parallel constructs.
Also, as someone mentioned before, because the government is the default enforcer of contracts (except when other arrangements are specified in the contract itself like arbitration), all contracts have a government aspect. That is that the government has to be willing to enforce the contract or the contract looses much of its power.
And one more, there is need for government enforcement of such things as child custody laws. As much as I would probably dislike the current rules, many people will not create sufficient private contracts to cover all scenarios. Therefore, I would want government as a backup to private marriage contract. I just want the government to mandate as little as possible in order to have a stable society.
Both Living Wills and durable healthcare POAs are free online. It could not be simpler. You and I have agreed on so much so I am at a loss how you can envision the government bureaucracy providing “easily enforceable” anything. I can hear it now “You can keep your Living Wills.”
I’m generally OK with that last statement. But child custody issues and restraining orders are all local government, usually at the county and municipal level. These issues must not be Federal regulation, that is my point.
Because it would not be the bureaucracy, but the legislature. A simple law or two would suffice. For example, a law that says that the courts will respect a persons right to create those documents. Perhaps a law requiring hospitals to follow such contracts when known and a law giving hospitals liability protection for following the document.
Now this is not to say that I want government people running around actively enforcing these rules, not to say that there are different options about what is needed. To be fair, I am not familiar with the other options like the different documents you mentioned or how well they would work without the government to back the contracts up.
When you look at the entirety of my point, I hope you see that there is areas where a little government action, mostly law because it create the framework for civil interaction, can do a lot of good and virtually no harm.
Do I need a regulation that emergency care centers must obey personal will/DOA? No, if we don’t need one. I don’t claim to know all the details, but the idea that there is no place for the government in defining relations between individuals in the family is not true.
If nothing else, the government must define the age of majority, before which parents must be legally liable for actions there kids do to some extent.