Communication and Change
Watching the Trump lawyers’ impeachment defense, I was reminded again how closely life in Trumpworld matches life under the old Soviet bloc as described by dissidents like Vaclav Havel and Czeslaw Milosz: Everything is a lie, everyone knows it’s a lie, and everyone goes along with the lie anyway.
Thus they become both victims of the lie and partners in keeping it going.
[Read more…] about Life in Trumpworld Looks a Lot Like Life Under the Soviets
Our free speech rights are very broad, which is one of the greatest things about America. Part of what that means, though, is that it’s legal for dishonest profiteers like Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, and Rush Limbaugh to lie every day and, thanks to our free market, get rich doing it.
But those same rights mean each of us is free to object. We can call on radio and TV stations not to carry these liars’ shows, we can tell advertisers we won’t buy their products if they advertise on these shows, and those advertisers can choose to stop.
Free speech and free market.
Would this be appropriate if the issue were simply that the shows are biased? No. I believe democracy works better if we hear opinions of all kinds — especially ones we disagree with.
But I’m not talking about bias, I’m talking about lying.
And not just lying. Flagrant, deeply irresponsible lying that stokes the fear and hatred that have now led to violent attacks on our democracy.
[Read more…] about How Do We Stop Big Lies but Keep Free Speech?If a thing is wrong, but profitable and legal, someone will do it. Rush Limbaugh has gotten very rich by exploiting his listeners’ ignorance and fear, leaving them knowing less and hating more every day. And he’s doing it even now, no matter the cost to the democracy whose freedoms make it possible — as you can see in this excerpt from his Inauguration Day show, via Media Matters for America.
But what must it be like for him? Imagine being condemned to spend every moment of your life with someone who would do what he does for money. In other words, for him to be trapped with himself. And when he looks around, to see only the kind of people who want to be with someone like him.
No wonder he seems to have such a low opinion of humanity.
[Read more…] about Limbaugh’s Inferno
With his experience, knowledge, and skills, Joe Biden will be one of the most qualified presidents in history. He will also be one of the best-liked by virtually everyone who has encountered him.
He is a thoroughly good man.
And by itself that will make a transformational difference. Leadership isn’t about what you impose on people, it’s about what you summon from them.
The Capitol rioters and their supporters seem to think they’re reenacting the American Revolution. They’re about as close to the real thing as Civil War reenacters are.
Actually, strike that. I understand many Civil War reenacters are careful students of American history.
The Revolution reenacters don’t seem to know much of anything about American history, beyond what fits on the Gadsden flag. And even that they misunderstand. The “me” in “Don’t tread on me” meant the united colonies, not the lone “me” at the center of the narcissist’s universe.
Neither do they show much understanding of the conservatism they claim to believe in. Conservatism advocates individual liberty, but it must be “ordered,” so as to protect the other individuals who make up a society. As conservative forefather John Stuart Mill prescribed in his classic On Liberty: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”
That’s very different from unbounded selfishness.
And so with the Constitution they supposedly revere. It was designed to promote both private and public freedom, both the “Blessings of Liberty” and the “General Welfare.” Getting that point only requires reading the first paragraph:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
And the Second Amendment to that Constitution? While gun control advocates may be disappointed to hear that the Founders did recognize the right to bear arms as a crucial guarantor of liberty, the Second Amendment’s phrase “well-regulated militia” was crucial. In no way did the Founders think everyone had an unregulated right to guns. An excellent, unbiased source on this is A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origin of Gun Control in America, by Saul Cornell — as is any open-minded study of primary sources. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist 29:
If a well-regulated militia be the most natural defense of a free country, it ought certainly to be under the regulation and at the disposal of that body which is constituted the guardian of the national security.
But no, the reenacters don’t understand such things, or simply don’t believe in them.
The real Revolutionaries fought a monarch to establish a democracy. The Revolution reenacters fight democracy to establish a monarch.
The democracy born of the real Revolution was based on equality, and it defeated an uprising by slave-owners.
The Revolution reenacters wave the Confederate flag with their Gadsen flag.
It’s time for them to take off their “patriotic” costumes.
They aren’t reenacting the Revolution, they’re attacking it.