My last post was a review of Colin Woodard’s book, “American Character”. I’ve organized and analyzed his thoughts from the final chapter, “A Lasting Union”. They are definitely worth considering, and I’m going to do it here. Most of these are proposed remedies; what we can do differently in choosing the next President. It’s fairly obvious to me that Woodard is a Democrat, so take it or leave it.
1. The Promotion of Human Happiness. That’s a core part of the Bill of Rights. But it seems to be lost on politicians that either want to cause citizens suffering or don’t care.
2. Accept who we are as a nation. We are a Union, but we are not unified, and likely will not be for awhile. We are a federation comprised of eleven countries that share little regarding universal ideals, goals, and views on the meaning of freedom. Those nations are First Nation, New Netherland, The Midlands, Yankeedom, New France, Tidewater, Greater Appalachia, The Deep South, El Norte, The Far West, The Left Coast. These are the American Nations today regarding function, culture, values, and history. To understand the cultures of each of these, you could read the book, “American Nations.” by the same author.
Time and again, with no more discussion wasting our time, Americans will not accept and have not allowed in the past:
- Social or Democratic Libertarianism-The Gilded Age (aka Trump and many Presidents from the South, gold all over everything by the elite)
- Democratic Socialism-(aka Bernie Sanders)
- Christian Social Collectivism (The Christian Right minority)
If you don’t know what these are, please google them. You will find relatively short definitions, easy to understand, and there are entire libraries littered with stories of leaders attempting to get citizens to swallow this. Americans won’t.
3. A Leading Northern Alliance that
- Checks on corporate power
- conservation of natural resources
- A champion for collective action for the common good
- We consistently favor active central government to act as a federal referee
4. Free and Fair Competition between individuals and the ideas, output, and institutions they produce.
5. Leave people alone to be themselves.
6. Use the government to protect individual freedom be it economic or civic. It is a collective referee. Stop hereditary privilege. (How?)
7. Let go of the projections of “handouts.” or “trickle down.” Neither or those is happening, and neither do they work. They are myths.
8. A supportive government that has your back for a time, not forever as you make your way up in the world or keeping your power in check if you are 0.1% at the top.
9. Let go of labels, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican.
10. Equality of Opportunity. Individuals are obviously not equal by nature, but the society owes it to each person to make sure they have a chance to do better. Then it’s up to them to apply themselves.
11. Destroy special privilege that hasn’t been earned. (What if their ancestors earned it,)
12. The Doctrine of Fairness is equality of opportunity and intervention against oligarchy. Again, my question, who gets to define justice?
Conservatives may accurately say that this is contrived. Some people are born into wealth that was earned by their ancestors. I don’t have an answer to this yet.
13. Re-channeling wealth
14. Defensive Regulation
- Conserve the nation’s patrimony
- protecting human health and stability of ecological systems that sustain us.
- Maintaining a competitive marketplace
- preventing abusive and monopolistic practices
15. Investment in schools and basic scientific research
16. Isolate, ignore, and move against Greater Appalachia and The Deep South in all elections.
17. Economic fairness as the central moral issues of politics (I disagree with this.)
Now as I look at this list I see Robin Hood. Steal from the rich to give to the poor. That is ASSUMING the rich have ill-gotten gains. That simply is not true for all rich people. Forcing the wealthy who legally have money, to share is called stealing. It can also be tinged with jealousy from those who have not. So, the rich can look to Warren Buffet and Bill Gates who are fine examples of philanthropy for the world. But the Democrats can’t force the rich to behave a certain way.
If I’m rich someday, I will be delighted to be a philanthropist, but you have to watch out for takers, users, and offloaders, even if you’re just an open-hearted real person, money aside!
