Nearly all of the party-platform you cited makes me wonder if I smell a rat. Take, for example, "a culture that celebrates difference and ... rejects hate ..." This culture has gone insane celebrating difference, and shows no signs of stopping, as shown by the ubiquitous, unquestioning obeisance of authorities to the tranny craze. And as for "hate": that's merely one of the left's many weasel words designed to stifle debate and dissent, to clear the way to a one-party state.
Exactly. A true new way “forward” would totally reject the language of a movement that is subverting the language for its own evil agenda. Red states should start removing hate crime laws and language from their books.
You put your finger right on it. But -- and I hate to admit it -- the Left has long been brilliant in subverting the language to get its deviant ways implemented.
The Forward Party is just socialism with a smiley face. Perhaps slightly more honest than their good friends in the Democrat party. The climate change cultism is the dead giveaway. The Democrats just ran a literal brain dead zombie for US senate in Pennsylvania and “won”. And we are now supposed to believe that ANY outcome in political office at the national level is legitimate. Lol.
I wouldn't be that severe with them. I admire that they are trying to find some solutions to problems. Applaud the effort. I would not call them "bipartisan" since it's really Democrat moderates, Democrat left, and Republican moderates in the room. In her statements, Ms Whitman had criticism for Barry Goldwater, which I didn't agree with. I do agree with your assessment of the new junior Senator from Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately in the current environment there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat. They all end up toeing the party line and voting with the hard left. Factions like the Blue Dog Democrats have disappeared.
The English language does not contain the appropriate words to express how much I agree with you. The Penn Senate race elected a zoo animal, not a rational human.
Every organization that uses the name "Forward" is communist. The "Forward Party" will be a communist front party. The Jewish magazine "Forward" is severely tilted to the left. The slogan "Forward" has long been used for communists. Whitman and Christie are "far left" among Republicans, enough so for me to consider them "fellow travelers".
Climate change? It's an absolute hoax. Earth's climate is driven by minuscule changes in the SUN, changes that run in cycles; cycles that are hundreds or thousands of years long. 2000 years ago, the Earth was warmer; warm enough that the Romans had wineries in London. A thousand years later, Eric the Red sailed west from Iceland and found a new land that he called "the green land", and his followers settled there and built cattle farms.
Ranked choice voting? It's been a disaster every place it has been tried. I've never read a coherent description.
Funny how the Forward Party has "Free People" as among their core principals, but at the same time, it "rejects hate." As such, they don't really want free people.
Agree on ranked-choice voting: An absolute disaster. All you need do is look at Alaska. Same thing with open primaries. Those don't work at all.
Christie Todd Whitman is as out-of-touch with reality as they come. She was out of touch when she was governor of NJ (we then lived there.) She exemplifies the phrase "being born with a silver spoon in her mouth."
Being born with a silver spoon doesn't automatically make you out of touch. I would be a bit more charitable with an assessment of Ms. Whitman's character but I still disagree with her.
You're 100 percent correct. The two could be, and often are mutually exclusive. I'm still not a fan of hers. Never was. Nonetheless I voted for her in the general.
I haven't read the full column, but this jumped out at me--as you noticed re: Free People.
"Revitalize a culture that celebrates difference..." I read that phrase as a rejection of E pluribus unum.
The cultural warriors advocating the celebration of difference (diversity) are, in actuality, demanding conformity with a specific, particular approach to the polity--in contradiction to the one that already exists (E pluribus unum).
It makes difference the key to any resulting politics--because there is no end state to that dictum. Meanwhile, human genetic diversity--the greatest possible diversity exists in all of us.
Perhaps what we need more of, is acknowledgement of our common humanity, not a celebration of our differences. There is a banality to the celebration of difference--as we are all different.
The first problem with most feel good campaigns is who gets to hold the mythical yardstick to measure the feeling and how does the feeling feel?
Classic emotional politics.
What can be measured, can be managed. Conversely, what cannot be measured, cannot be managed.
If you want a safe world, then you need a robust defense. To have a robust defense you have to be able to field a competent army that can shoot straight with good weapons that work that is equal to the magnitude of the threat as it really exists.
If someone says, "We stand for a safe world." And I say, "The US Army is way too small. We need to standup six more Army divisions and four more Marine divisions to meet the threat in Europe and the Far East." -- my statement is MEASURABLE.
The second problem is that emotional issues are emotional on all sides and aspects because the zealots are emotional tyrants.
If I had control of the environment, the first thing I would do is to build nuclear power plants. Everywhere.
Right now, that would would be a two handed dunk shot with a ladder. You would eliminate all coal plants, which is the primary objective of every climate zealot on the planet.
But, the emotional climate zealots do not want nuclear power on an emotional basis. They don't desire to achieve just an outcome; it must be done they exact way they want it to be done even when it is more costly and less effective.
The way to percolate emotion out of the equation is to require objectives that are Specific, Measurable. Achievable, Realistic, and constrained by Time and money. We used to call this COMMON SENSE.
If a policy objective cannot be written as a SMART objective then it is not measurable and will never happen.
Last thought -- we spend a lot of time discussing diversity which is based on the differences amongst us while the country was founded by focusing on what was common to all of us, what was the same amongst us: the thirst for freedom.
What was that really? This sameness?
Our values. If you take a look at our most contentious issues you will find a confrontation between and amongst values.
Individuals are driven, in order, by religion, philosophy, culture and law. The environmentalists are a new, alien religion. They believe in Gaia and Government Enforcement (their theocracy). We, the People, need to take charge of our Church and our Schools. We need to rebuild the nuclear family.
In 1965 Dan'l Patrick Moynihan oversaw an infamous, but brutally insightful study on the status of the Negro family. That was the vernacular of those times.
In the study, he identified the dissolving black family, specifically the lack of a patriarch to lead as the greatest threat to racial harmony and equality.
At that time it -- Dads -- was 35% missing.
Today that number is arguably 85% which I have a very hard time believing.
Nonetheless, we have to solve the real problems as they exist.
We are caught in a Ground Hog Day sort of cycle here and we have to fight back.
Aww c'mon. AOC could claim she's for the exact same 3 things. Who isn't? I assume she's also for the sun setting in the west. She's been awful; and continues to be awful. She wouldn't take a tough position if a gun was held to her head. Classic.
I am not calling Mr. Carter naive, but anyone who gives ANY credence whatsoever to Christine Todd Whitman is a fool and isn't, nor has been for the past 30 years, paying attention to how she governed as Gov. of NJ and as EPA chief. She is nothing more than a lefty without the obnoxious approach. She has been talking "centrist" for her entire career and then doing "lefty".
30 years ago this was bad for the country but not deadly, yet. However, at this point in our country's history, we can't afford this nonsense. We must only support those willing to fight and defeat the Left. Full stop.
Also, Climate Change is total bullshit. It is all built on MODELS folks, not actual temps. Global mean temps haven't risen since 1998, hence the transition from "global warming" to "climate change". "Climate Change" is nothing more than the Left's latest attempt to control us and to gain more power. I am old enough to remember when "Global Cooling" was going to kill us. BTW, global cooling would kill WAY, WAY more people than "Global Warming". Just check on those Danes who got trapped on Greenland with their FREAKING DAIRY COWS when the Little Ice Age hit and they couldn't get out because their bays froze and they couldn't get back to Denmark for the winter. (Shortcut, they all froze to death). In case you didn't know, in the 16th, 17lth and 18th centuries a little Ice Age hit the Northern Hemisphere. Before that event Greenland was not the ice sheet it is today, but was actually GREEN in the summer. Green enough for dairy farms to thrive.
Story for another day, the Little Ice Age actually was instrumental in assisting the colonists to defeat the British in the Revolutionary War. Hint: It has to do with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, Fort Ticonderoga, Gen Knox and a bunch of oxen, and the Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor and West Point New York. Also, every river in New England froze solid during the winter of 1775. Yeah, climate change indeed.
"Personally, I am against ranked-choice voting. It leads to bad outcomes." Can you please cite specifics - where did a bad outcome occur due to RCV? And not Alaska, where I think the analysis showed Palin would have lost in any system.
If ranked choice were a thing Bill Clinton would never been president. And Trump would not have made it out of the primaries in 2016. Trump understands! He's now seeming to want a bunch of people to join the 2024 primary. I'd always rank Trump last and rank DeSantis lower than first. But I'd be OK with DeSantis winning. Who will win in a re-run of the 2016 circus in a first past the post system?
Alaska is a perfect example. Alaska is a red state with a Democratic Congressperson. Lisa Murkowski doesn't survive without ranked choice voting---it takes CHOICE away from citizens and gives it to machines/incumbents. Non-partisan is bullshit. Pick a side. Compete. Optionality isn't always good.
I got a chance to hear Sarah Palin on the radio yesterday trying to talk down Meatball Ron (will the monicker stick?).
1) As I said, I'm not a fan of open elections. Alaska combines open election with ranked choice
2) As Arrow shows, there's no pefect system. The major goal of ranked choice is to force candidates to broaden their appeal. The presumption is that deep and narrow is not good. Candidates need to understand the incentives of the system and adapt.
3) In Alaska the Rs had 3 chances and blew them all. First, they could have decided as a party to run a single candidate, Second, one of the R candidates could have made the case to 50% of the voters. And third, Palin could have worked harder to persuade Begich voters to vote for her next.
4) This is a good article from an R. Candidates matter. Based on reading the article it looks like Palin was the spoiler. She makes Kamala Harris look like a Nobel award winner. Also talks about how parties/candidates learn the system with Australia as an example. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/01/palin-loss-ranked-voting/
5) It's pretty easy to see the potential for a re-run of 2016. Ranked choice would prevent it. Haley is right - the Rs need to find a way to get a majority of voters and not rely on electoral college particulars.
Ranked choice, blah blah blah eliminates competition and takes voters rights away-handing it over to machines. Palin wasn't a great candidate, but neither was Fetterman in PA and he won. Anyone in the Kristi Noem camp? She should be nowhere near a ticket, cabinet position only.
In PA Oz would probably not have won a RC contest and the R would have likely gone on to win over Fetterman. The major thing RC does is to force candidates to broaden their appeal - which the US desperately needs. That dynamic gives more power to individual voters than today's system. I'd encourage you to find & have a discussion with a Booth prof who knows Arrow and choice theory. Don't pay attention to the "conservative news" BS-ers who look to appeal to the most deeply partisan, least curious people around. (The Dominion lawsuit releases are truly damning.)
Nearly all of the party-platform you cited makes me wonder if I smell a rat. Take, for example, "a culture that celebrates difference and ... rejects hate ..." This culture has gone insane celebrating difference, and shows no signs of stopping, as shown by the ubiquitous, unquestioning obeisance of authorities to the tranny craze. And as for "hate": that's merely one of the left's many weasel words designed to stifle debate and dissent, to clear the way to a one-party state.
Exactly. A true new way “forward” would totally reject the language of a movement that is subverting the language for its own evil agenda. Red states should start removing hate crime laws and language from their books.
You put your finger right on it. But -- and I hate to admit it -- the Left has long been brilliant in subverting the language to get its deviant ways implemented.
Ranked choice voting is another scam where the candidate that gets the fewest actual votes can “win” the election. Ridiculous
The Forward Party is just socialism with a smiley face. Perhaps slightly more honest than their good friends in the Democrat party. The climate change cultism is the dead giveaway. The Democrats just ran a literal brain dead zombie for US senate in Pennsylvania and “won”. And we are now supposed to believe that ANY outcome in political office at the national level is legitimate. Lol.
I wouldn't be that severe with them. I admire that they are trying to find some solutions to problems. Applaud the effort. I would not call them "bipartisan" since it's really Democrat moderates, Democrat left, and Republican moderates in the room. In her statements, Ms Whitman had criticism for Barry Goldwater, which I didn't agree with. I do agree with your assessment of the new junior Senator from Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately in the current environment there is no such thing as a moderate Democrat. They all end up toeing the party line and voting with the hard left. Factions like the Blue Dog Democrats have disappeared.
Ms. Todd Whitman would say that is because the primary system is broken. But, in the Senate, it's a statewide election and we still have extremists.
The English language does not contain the appropriate words to express how much I agree with you. The Penn Senate race elected a zoo animal, not a rational human.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Infinity percent agreement!
Every organization that uses the name "Forward" is communist. The "Forward Party" will be a communist front party. The Jewish magazine "Forward" is severely tilted to the left. The slogan "Forward" has long been used for communists. Whitman and Christie are "far left" among Republicans, enough so for me to consider them "fellow travelers".
Climate change? It's an absolute hoax. Earth's climate is driven by minuscule changes in the SUN, changes that run in cycles; cycles that are hundreds or thousands of years long. 2000 years ago, the Earth was warmer; warm enough that the Romans had wineries in London. A thousand years later, Eric the Red sailed west from Iceland and found a new land that he called "the green land", and his followers settled there and built cattle farms.
Ranked choice voting? It's been a disaster every place it has been tried. I've never read a coherent description.
Funny how the Forward Party has "Free People" as among their core principals, but at the same time, it "rejects hate." As such, they don't really want free people.
Agree on ranked-choice voting: An absolute disaster. All you need do is look at Alaska. Same thing with open primaries. Those don't work at all.
Christie Todd Whitman is as out-of-touch with reality as they come. She was out of touch when she was governor of NJ (we then lived there.) She exemplifies the phrase "being born with a silver spoon in her mouth."
Being born with a silver spoon doesn't automatically make you out of touch. I would be a bit more charitable with an assessment of Ms. Whitman's character but I still disagree with her.
You're 100 percent correct. The two could be, and often are mutually exclusive. I'm still not a fan of hers. Never was. Nonetheless I voted for her in the general.
Your Democratic choice then was? Lesser of two evils.
I haven't read the full column, but this jumped out at me--as you noticed re: Free People.
"Revitalize a culture that celebrates difference..." I read that phrase as a rejection of E pluribus unum.
The cultural warriors advocating the celebration of difference (diversity) are, in actuality, demanding conformity with a specific, particular approach to the polity--in contradiction to the one that already exists (E pluribus unum).
It makes difference the key to any resulting politics--because there is no end state to that dictum. Meanwhile, human genetic diversity--the greatest possible diversity exists in all of us.
Perhaps what we need more of, is acknowledgement of our common humanity, not a celebration of our differences. There is a banality to the celebration of difference--as we are all different.
The first problem with most feel good campaigns is who gets to hold the mythical yardstick to measure the feeling and how does the feeling feel?
Classic emotional politics.
What can be measured, can be managed. Conversely, what cannot be measured, cannot be managed.
If you want a safe world, then you need a robust defense. To have a robust defense you have to be able to field a competent army that can shoot straight with good weapons that work that is equal to the magnitude of the threat as it really exists.
If someone says, "We stand for a safe world." And I say, "The US Army is way too small. We need to standup six more Army divisions and four more Marine divisions to meet the threat in Europe and the Far East." -- my statement is MEASURABLE.
The second problem is that emotional issues are emotional on all sides and aspects because the zealots are emotional tyrants.
If I had control of the environment, the first thing I would do is to build nuclear power plants. Everywhere.
Right now, that would would be a two handed dunk shot with a ladder. You would eliminate all coal plants, which is the primary objective of every climate zealot on the planet.
But, the emotional climate zealots do not want nuclear power on an emotional basis. They don't desire to achieve just an outcome; it must be done they exact way they want it to be done even when it is more costly and less effective.
The way to percolate emotion out of the equation is to require objectives that are Specific, Measurable. Achievable, Realistic, and constrained by Time and money. We used to call this COMMON SENSE.
If a policy objective cannot be written as a SMART objective then it is not measurable and will never happen.
Last thought -- we spend a lot of time discussing diversity which is based on the differences amongst us while the country was founded by focusing on what was common to all of us, what was the same amongst us: the thirst for freedom.
What was that really? This sameness?
Our values. If you take a look at our most contentious issues you will find a confrontation between and amongst values.
Abortion? The sanctity of life.
So does feel good politics work? No.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.com
Individuals are driven, in order, by religion, philosophy, culture and law. The environmentalists are a new, alien religion. They believe in Gaia and Government Enforcement (their theocracy). We, the People, need to take charge of our Church and our Schools. We need to rebuild the nuclear family.
In 1965 Dan'l Patrick Moynihan oversaw an infamous, but brutally insightful study on the status of the Negro family. That was the vernacular of those times.
In the study, he identified the dissolving black family, specifically the lack of a patriarch to lead as the greatest threat to racial harmony and equality.
At that time it -- Dads -- was 35% missing.
Today that number is arguably 85% which I have a very hard time believing.
Nonetheless, we have to solve the real problems as they exist.
We are caught in a Ground Hog Day sort of cycle here and we have to fight back.
JLM
www.themusingsofthebigredcar.comn
Aww c'mon. AOC could claim she's for the exact same 3 things. Who isn't? I assume she's also for the sun setting in the west. She's been awful; and continues to be awful. She wouldn't take a tough position if a gun was held to her head. Classic.
She can dance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMCzuWB4bwQ
Forward!
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-russian-communist-propaganda-poster-lenin-at-the-tribune-1920-159972163.html
HA, he's pointing left. I wonder why?
I am not calling Mr. Carter naive, but anyone who gives ANY credence whatsoever to Christine Todd Whitman is a fool and isn't, nor has been for the past 30 years, paying attention to how she governed as Gov. of NJ and as EPA chief. She is nothing more than a lefty without the obnoxious approach. She has been talking "centrist" for her entire career and then doing "lefty".
30 years ago this was bad for the country but not deadly, yet. However, at this point in our country's history, we can't afford this nonsense. We must only support those willing to fight and defeat the Left. Full stop.
Also, Climate Change is total bullshit. It is all built on MODELS folks, not actual temps. Global mean temps haven't risen since 1998, hence the transition from "global warming" to "climate change". "Climate Change" is nothing more than the Left's latest attempt to control us and to gain more power. I am old enough to remember when "Global Cooling" was going to kill us. BTW, global cooling would kill WAY, WAY more people than "Global Warming". Just check on those Danes who got trapped on Greenland with their FREAKING DAIRY COWS when the Little Ice Age hit and they couldn't get out because their bays froze and they couldn't get back to Denmark for the winter. (Shortcut, they all froze to death). In case you didn't know, in the 16th, 17lth and 18th centuries a little Ice Age hit the Northern Hemisphere. Before that event Greenland was not the ice sheet it is today, but was actually GREEN in the summer. Green enough for dairy farms to thrive.
Story for another day, the Little Ice Age actually was instrumental in assisting the colonists to defeat the British in the Revolutionary War. Hint: It has to do with Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, Fort Ticonderoga, Gen Knox and a bunch of oxen, and the Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston Harbor and West Point New York. Also, every river in New England froze solid during the winter of 1775. Yeah, climate change indeed.
I respectfully listened to her argument. I don't agree with it. Ranked choice voting is anti-competitive, as are open primaries.
"Personally, I am against ranked-choice voting. It leads to bad outcomes." Can you please cite specifics - where did a bad outcome occur due to RCV? And not Alaska, where I think the analysis showed Palin would have lost in any system.
I'm sure you are aware of Arrow's Impossibility Theorem. There's no perfect way of aggregating individual choice. Plurality voting (also called first past the post) is probably the worst way of aggregation. Ranked choice isn't perfect, but it does help to temper the extremes. https://electionscience.org/commentary-analysis/voting-theory-remembering-kenneth-arrow-and-his-impossibility-theorem/
If ranked choice were a thing Bill Clinton would never been president. And Trump would not have made it out of the primaries in 2016. Trump understands! He's now seeming to want a bunch of people to join the 2024 primary. I'd always rank Trump last and rank DeSantis lower than first. But I'd be OK with DeSantis winning. Who will win in a re-run of the 2016 circus in a first past the post system?
And IMO open primaries are the largest scam. Look at Chicago. The reason for moving to open primaries were for anti-good governance reasons. https://www.chicagomag.com/news/january-2019/why-chicago-has-a-nonpartisan-mayoral-election-runoff/
Alaska is a perfect example. Alaska is a red state with a Democratic Congressperson. Lisa Murkowski doesn't survive without ranked choice voting---it takes CHOICE away from citizens and gives it to machines/incumbents. Non-partisan is bullshit. Pick a side. Compete. Optionality isn't always good.
I got a chance to hear Sarah Palin on the radio yesterday trying to talk down Meatball Ron (will the monicker stick?).
1) As I said, I'm not a fan of open elections. Alaska combines open election with ranked choice
2) As Arrow shows, there's no pefect system. The major goal of ranked choice is to force candidates to broaden their appeal. The presumption is that deep and narrow is not good. Candidates need to understand the incentives of the system and adapt.
3) In Alaska the Rs had 3 chances and blew them all. First, they could have decided as a party to run a single candidate, Second, one of the R candidates could have made the case to 50% of the voters. And third, Palin could have worked harder to persuade Begich voters to vote for her next.
4) This is a good article from an R. Candidates matter. Based on reading the article it looks like Palin was the spoiler. She makes Kamala Harris look like a Nobel award winner. Also talks about how parties/candidates learn the system with Australia as an example. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/09/01/palin-loss-ranked-voting/
5) It's pretty easy to see the potential for a re-run of 2016. Ranked choice would prevent it. Haley is right - the Rs need to find a way to get a majority of voters and not rely on electoral college particulars.
Ranked choice, blah blah blah eliminates competition and takes voters rights away-handing it over to machines. Palin wasn't a great candidate, but neither was Fetterman in PA and he won. Anyone in the Kristi Noem camp? She should be nowhere near a ticket, cabinet position only.
In PA Oz would probably not have won a RC contest and the R would have likely gone on to win over Fetterman. The major thing RC does is to force candidates to broaden their appeal - which the US desperately needs. That dynamic gives more power to individual voters than today's system. I'd encourage you to find & have a discussion with a Booth prof who knows Arrow and choice theory. Don't pay attention to the "conservative news" BS-ers who look to appeal to the most deeply partisan, least curious people around. (The Dominion lawsuit releases are truly damning.)
Say no to low energy losers! https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1626573605814386689