TaraElla Report:: The Moral Libertarian: July 2019

THE TRUTH? Marianne Williamson vs Bernie Sanders on Medicare For All | TaraElla News

Welcome to TaraElla News, where we examine the latest political and cultural news from the perspective of upholding classical liberal values like individual freedom, equal opportunity and free speech. We'll be doing this on most days of the week, subscribe if you're interested.

In yesterday evening's debate, a main theme was Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren defending their Medicare For All policy against the objections of the more traditional candidates. I actually think Bernie put it excellently when he said that, a few minutes from Detroit there is a country called Canada where everyone has health care coverage, and people walk out of hospitals without a bill. I agree it's time that America provided health care coverage to all its citizens, especially since this has long been in place in Canada, Britain, Europe and Australia. There really isn't any reason why America shouldn't aspire to this goal.

But one thing that is disappointing about the Medicare For All debate is that it sometimes sounds too much like an ideological fight on both sides. During last night's debate Marianne Williamson voiced what many people are probably thinking. That it is, on one hand, very admirable of Bernie and Warren to fight for universal health care coverage in America, but that others also raised some concerns she agreed with. At the end of the day, what will work is a policy that can attract broad support, and such a policy will need to deal with concerns from all kinds of people. Going forward, the productive thing to do would be to work out a policy by seriously taking in all kinds of input.

Medicare For All is an attractive name, but it doesn't speak too much about the details of the actual policy. I mean, Bernie to his credit has a bill that lays out the details of his version, but of course, like any other proposal, it should be open to comments and potential amendments. On the other hand, many other candidates that say they are either for or against Medicare For All don't even have a detailed proposal available, so they are essentially saying nothing but platitudes. I mean, if you look at what Medicare For All looks like in the countries that actually have it, they do differ by quite a bit. Firstly, neither Canada nor Australia has abolished private health insurance. As I understand it, in Australia, high income earners are in fact required to buy private health insurace if they don't want to pay extra tax. Furthermore, what private insurance covers in each country also differs, with the private sector being much more extensive in Australia than in Canada. Finally, the Australian system is administered wholly by the federal government, while the Canadian system is administered mostly by the provinces. Hence, even among the two existing Medicare For All systems, there are plenty of differences. If America is to move to a Medicare For All system, there needs to be extensive work on the details. Platitutes and ideogical grandstanding won't help this work at all.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on the internet. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

Is Boris Johnson Really That Bad? | TaraElla News

Is America Racist and Related Questions | TaraElla News

NOTE: None of this discussion is meant to take away from my commitment to fix the problem of racism itself, which sadly still exists in today's world.

Welcome to the new TaraElla News, where we examine the latest political and cultural news from the perspective of upholding classical liberal values like individual freedom, equal opportunity and free speech. We'll be doing this on most days of the week, subscribe if you're interested.

This week, the age-old argument of whether America and other Western countries are racist is firmly back on the agenda. Frankly, I'm not surprised. Regarding President's Trump's tweets that kicked off the latest conversation, I have already responded to those a few days ago. Basically, while I dislike the 'squad' personally, I believe in an absolute right to free speech, and I think Trump didn't respect that right enough. For me, it's an issue of the President failing to properly respect the moral right to free speech rather than who's racist or not. But then, the mainstream media were always going to fixate on the identity angle. Especially at this moment. I mean, with Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren now both in the top 3 for the 2020 Democratic nomination, expect to hear these 2016-style arguments everywhere, all over again.

And people are still just as emotional, dare I say less than rational sometimes, over this topic as they were back in 2016. Take the example of what happened to left-wing commentator Kim Iversen in the past few days. Kim Iversen is definitely left-wing, a self-identified progressive liberal who supports Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard. But a few days ago, she went against the left-wing party line, saying that America is one of the least racist countries in the world, and providing some evidence to back her claim. Predictably, this upset the Woke faction of the left, which, as you would expect it, called for her to be cancelled. It may not be 2016 anymore, but apparently cancellation culture is still alive and well. In 2019, a single claim that America isn't racist can cause outrage in some circles. Not rational debate. Not thesis and antithesis. But outrage and cancellation. Also predictably, Iversen has been called the new Dave Rubin, which is nonsense, because Rubin is for capitalism and small government, and Iversen, as I understand it, is for the opposite. Of course, for the Woke faction of the so-called left, economic issues don't matter, cultural and identity issues is where it's at.

You know, it's OK if you hold the opposite view. Personally, I don't think any Western country can be called racist, but if you think America is racist, then you can also present your evidence and join the debate, and I'm all for hearing it with an open mind. But the point is, if we can't discuss our different viewpoints in a calm and rational manner, then there is simply no hope for the future of humanity. The whole Western Enlightenment tradition goes down the drain. But how did we get here? Those on the Woke left would probably say it's because the West is somehow getting more racist, while those on the right would probably blame college SJWs. But both are wrong, because they miss the most important point: the rise of Critical Theory.

So what is Critical Theory? It is a worldview that is popular in the humanities, and has somehow filtered through to mainstream society in the past decade. It is a way of theorizing about society, with an aim to change society, with the goal of liberating people from all forms of cultural oppression. Now, I'm all for human rights and social justice as traditionally defined, but Critical Theory is not real justice. Firstly, for the Critical Theory worldview to be valid, a dynamic of oppression must first be defined. Therefore, Critical Theory doesn't even start from a neutral place! Secondly, to change society, consciousness must first be raised of society being problematic. Therefore, thoughts like that America is not racist, and that identity politics distracts from the most important issues, are not to be allowed, because they depress this so-called 'consciousness' of oppression. It follows that people espousing such ideas need to be silenced. If Critical Theory sounds like a receipe for an authoritarian social engineering program, then well, if it looks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, you know the rest.

And silencing people is just the tip of the Critical Theory iceburg. Many of you have also probably heard the of the wacky idea that racism is prejudice plus power, and hence white people can't experience racism. Which is effectively a self-justifying rule that dismisses every bit of racism ever experienced by any white person. Predictably, this offensive idea was not well received by the majority of people, and it wasn't just white people who were angry. But what many people missed was that this idea has roots in the postmodern branch of critical theory, particularly the thinking of Michel Foucault, who tried to explain almost everything as power dynamics. Now, you understand why the 'Woke' crowd is so obsessed with power. People who don't know where these wacky ideas come from often blame the college campus SJWs who repeat these talking points without fully understanding it, but this would just lead to nowhere. If you want to expose the Emporor with No Clothes, you need to go to the real source of these dangerous ideas, and they certainly don't come from college SJWs. That's why we need a society-wide discussion on Critical Theory thinking and its implications for freedom and the social contract. I'll be trying my best to bring about this overdue conversation.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

Why Dave Rubin Couldn't Hear Marianne Williamson Properly | Moral Libertarian View

Welcome to Moral Libertarian View, a program where we discuss news events that are worth looking at from the point of view of the Moral Libertarian idea. I hope you subscribe if you are interested.

Today, I want to take a deeper look at the recent interview of 2020 Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson by Dave Rubin. As you probably know by now, most people have declared Williamson the winner in this encounter, an assessment that I agree with. But where some people have labelled Rubin as unintelligent, I actually don't agree there. I think the reason why Rubin didn't perform well in this interview, was because he was too focused on what he already had in mind, and missed the opportunity to have a constructive conversation with Williamson on what she brought to the table. I mean, Rubin did make several very important points throughout the interview, but he couldn't quite turn it into a full-blown fruitful conversation.

For example, Rubin rightly raised the question of government tyranny, the need to limit the reach of government to preserve individual liberty. Williamson also agreed with him there, at least half the way. But then, Williamson also brought up the topic of corporate control, and I think it could have turned into a fruitful conversation about government vs corporate control, and how to maximize effective personal liberty by creating some balance there. Rubin really dropped the ball during the interview by not looking into this deeper. I mean, we do live in a time when corporations are limiting free speech more than governments, so this is an important conversation to have from a classical liberal point of view. I used to be a political libertarian on-and-off, but it was through thinking about corporate control that I evolved into a Moral Libertarian, where the focus is not solely on cutting government itself, but rather on creating the conditions for equal and maximum moral agency for all individuals, which would require checks on corporate power too. Indeed, political libertarianism can be used to create a tyranny based in the private sector, where individual liberty becomes practically absent for most people. I'm not talking about so-called positive freedoms, I'm talking about even basic stuff like free speech and religious freedom. This is not just theoretical: there is a good reason why people who are sympathetic to neoreactionary thinking also sometimes call themselves libertarians, and look up to figures like Hoppe and Rothbard. Of course, what they forget is that a corporate tyranny in the 21st century is going to be culturally 'Woke', and they certainly wouldn't like it.

But back to Rubin and Williamson. I think the main reason why Rubin didn't properly engage with Williamson was that he already had a picture of what she represented in his mind, which turned out to be a wrong picture. Let's go back to Rubin's famous video, Why I Left The Left. In that video, he paints the left as those who support social engineering, play identity politics and the oppression olympics, and don't respect free speech. Rubin has also been hanging out with people who think that kind of attitude is representative of the left, people like Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, and so on. But in reality, the so-called left is a very big place, just like the so-called right. What Rubin is opposed to is the postmodern and Critical Theory left. While this type of leftist is overrepresented in college campuses, in real life they are only a faction of the broader Democratic coalition. I mean, having had conversations with people like Bret Weinstein and Andrew Yang, Rubin should have known better.

I guess because much of the interview was focused on Rubin's differences with Williamson over reparations, Rubin could have come away with the false impression that Williamson was part of the identitarian left, and hence harbored a Critical Theory style worldview. But if you listen closely, you would find that Williamson's case for reparations doesn't sound like postmodern Critical Theory at all. It isn't based on any oppressor vs oppressed dynamic. Rather, it is based on the idea of spiritual atonement. I actually don't entirely agree with the idea of seeing economics as spiritual, and I think Rubin made a very valid point about the lack of guilt of the individuals who must cough up the money, but you don't even have to be sympathetic to reparations to see that Williamson is not playing identity politics as we usually understand it.

Why Political Escalation is BAD | TaraElla News

Welcome to the new TaraElla News, where we examine the latest political and cultural news from the perspective of upholding classical liberal values like individual freedom, equal opportunity and free speech. We'll be doing this on most days of the week, subscribe if you're interested.

Today, I want to respond to a recent interview of Michael Malice by political commentator Lauren Chen. There are a few points where I strongly disagreed with Malice, and I think Chen also didn't explore in enough depth. In that interview, Malice described something he calls the 'New Right', which is more united by their shared opposition to what is sometimes called the New Left than by any common shared belief. I mean, what he describes is effectively diverse groups of people who have in common an opposition to postmodernism, identity politics and Critical Theory thinking. I think it's sufficient to state this plainly, and using a new label like the 'New Right' ironically risks encouraging identity politics. Besides, many people who are opposed to postmodernism, identity politics and Critical Theory don't necessarily identify as any type of 'Right'. I personally refuse to identify as either left or right, for example. I believe that thinking in terms of left vs right unnecessarily limts our horizons either way, and I rather like Andrew Yang's idea of 'not left, not right, but forward'. It should also be noted that, when this 'New Right' idea was raised by an article in Quilette earlier this year, many people responded that they wouldn't want to be a part of some 'New Right', because while they oppose identity politics and postmodernist thinking, they are lifelong Democrats, and they believe in Democratic policies on most issues from health care to climate change. In effect, the adoption of a label like the 'New Right' needlessly divides the coalition that opposes identity politics and postmodern critical theory, and is a most unwise move.

Malice went on to say that, one of the most important differences between the 'New Right' and the 'Old Right' is that the 'New Right' is much more skeptical and unforgiving of mainstream establishment media. However, this phenomenon is not just confined to the right. Rather, younger generations across the political spectrum have become very skeptical of the establishment media and its agenda. This awareness is strong on the right, the left, and even the moderate center. There are very few pro-establishment young people either way.

Another criticism I have of Malice is that he seems to think that political polarization and escalation may be a good thing because this way the center 'can't hold' anymore. This echoes an increasing feeling on both the left and the right that perhaps it might be a good thing for the status quo to give way to chaos, and for all out political war to break out, because they would be the winners in the end. However, this fantasy portrays a lack of understanding of history. Imperfect as it is, even the current status quo represents the accumulation of thousands of years of trial and error in human history, and an abrupt break with the past without careful consideration and consensus would almost certainly bring more losses than gains. Furthermore, history teaches us that periods of chaos are most often followed by long periods of authoritarian rule, and it may take a very long time just to get back to where we are today.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

It's About LOVE: Why Marianne Williamson is Rising Quickly | TaraElla News

Welcome to the new TaraElla News, where we examine the latest political and cultural news from the perspective of upholding classical liberal values like individual freedom, equal opportunity and free speech. We'll be doing this on most days of the week, subscribe if you're interested.

Today, I want to look at the recent interest in 2020 Presidential candidate Marianne Williamson. At the beginning of this year, she received relatively little attention, and many counted her out of the race. But just these few weeks, she has been receiving a lot of attention. It probably started with the debates last month, when many people first learned about her. She has also had a few more media appearances, including, most recently, on the Rubin Report, where people from all over the political spectrum thought she did unexpectedly well.

So what's so special about Marianne Williamson? If you look at her policies, most of them are also offered by at least a few other candidates. They mostly look like what is now mainstream Democratic Party stuff. I mean, I love that she has promised not to bail out the big banks, but it's something several other candidates are also offering. Instead, her main message is love. Yes, it's all about the love. So does this mean she is for feelings above policies and fact?

Judging by her recent media appearances, Williamson is actually one smart woman, and she's pretty no-nonsense when she has to be. For example, when Dave Rubin claimed that the Democratic Party was veering towards open borders, Williamson quickly pointed out that this simply isn't true, that none of the 24 or so candidates actually support open borders. During that interview, Williamson also talked about the people who are surviving on low paid work and can't pay the bills, and the need to put corporate power in check, and she made a good case for her viewpoints. Many people have noted that Williamson was able to essentially correct many of the biases Rubin brought to the discussion. I mean, I think this is the problem with Rubin. I think his experiences with the 'Woke' cultural left being anti-free speech has colored his entire perception of the Democrats, and somehow he got the cultural issues and the economic issues mixed up. But then, Williamson used facts and logic to make a good case for her economic policies, and that's what's made her the winner in this encounter.

So Williamson is someone who cares about both facts and feelings. Is that OK? I think so. I mean, ever since Ben Shapiro popularized the slogan 'facts don't care about your feelings', many people have been thinking that the so-called left has been losing because it has been overtaken by a concern for feelings. But then, this oversimplifies the problem. Instead, as I have always argued, the 'Woke' cultural left's problem is their embrace of Critical Theory thinking, and in particular aspects of postmodern Critical Theory. The lack of concern for facts only applies to the postmodernist faction of the far-left, which the majority of Democrats, including Marianne Williamson, clearly don't subscribe to. For example, she has been keen to point out that the majority of Americans are not racist. For Williamson, it doesn't matter that some people feel like every Trump supporter is racist, because facts are facts, and the fact is that this is not true. Furthermore, the cultural left's problem with feelings is not that they care about feelings, but rather that they only care about the feelings of so-called oppressed groups, while being often quite cruel towards those they consider privileged. This comes from their Critical Theory worldview, which is where the whole Oppression Olympics thing originated. But if you look at Williamson, her love is for everyone. She doesn't divide people into the oppressors and the oppressed. She cares about the feelings of everyone, including those who struggle to pay their bills, a group that isn't generally considered oppressed in the Oppression Olympics worldview. I mean, there's still one big identity-based policy where I don't agree with Williamson, but overall I am satisfied that her brand of love is for everyone, and is not just for select groups.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

The Lion King is Patriarchal? Critical Theory, Here We Go Again... | BreadBusting #13

Welcome to BreadBusting, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, and the ideology of Breadism more generally. Basically, it's like Myth Busting, but for Breadism. We also talk about BreadTube adjacent phenomenon, that is, things that fans of BreadTube also happen to like or support, or have a strong opinion on.

The release of the remake of Disney's Lion King, coming 25 years after the original release, was greeted with excitement in many places. This is especially true of people around my age, many for whom back in 1994 The Lion King was one of their first movies. But just like everything in 2019, the culture wars are threatening to devour and ruin this classic too. In the wake of the remake, some feminists have raised concerns about The Lion King being supposedly patriarchal. Now, I can hear the trouble brewing, and screams of 'not again' from everyone. Most of us probably don't want another round of the good old SJW vs anti-SJW stuff that most people are probably tired of hearing about by now. Especially not to ruin a childhood classic.

But is The Lion King patriarchal? Let's examine some of those claims. The first claim is that lions are matrilineal, thus a realistic story about lions should feature a matrilineal society. Since The Lion King doesn't do this, it must be assuming patriarchal values. The second claim is that The Lion King features very few prominent female characters, especially by contemporary standards. But then, I think you need to understand that The Lion King is based on Shakespeare's Hamlet, which means that it's not meant to accurately reflect lions in nature, and it's not going to reflect 21st century pop culture feminism's standards either. As many have argued, forcing it to do either of these things would probably destroy the plot. Thinking about it from another angle, if The Lion King is problematic, then Shakespeare is problematic, and that is a stance that would go against many generations of literary consensus. Besides, there were no 'Lion King is patriarchal' complains back in 1994. Therefore, the idea that The Lion King is patriarchal and problematic reflects some very recent change in the perspective of some sections of society, and it's a fundamental change that goes against both the social consensus of many generations past, and even the social consensus of a time as recent as the 1990s.

I guess this shows that, the worries of many people that contemporary wokeness is out to destroy some aspects of our long-standing shared culture, can be seen as a valid concern, at least to some degree. As I often say, I totally support human rights and social justice as it is traditionally defined, but I have several major problems with the 'woke' ideology. One of those problems is the Critical Theory worldview, a worldview that informs a lot of the so-called 'woke' discourse, and also many of the common BreadTube perspectives. For those who are unfamiliar with such jargonistic terms, Critical Theory is an approach to examine society based on the belief that change is needed to liberate people from oppression, and that philosophical theory should not just examine society but should provide the needed change. Sounds noble, right? It's not so simple, though.

The problem is, if we always look at things from this viewpoint, we end up assuming that things are oppressive way too often. Instead of only seeing oppression when people actually complain there is oppression, those who see things through Critical Theory glasses see the potential for oppression in almost every situation. There are several pitfalls with this approach. Firstly, this creates a strong tendency to justify the dismantling and destruction of whatever culture we have. This is further compounded by the fact that Critical Theory culture often incorporates elements of Antonio Gramsci's theory of Cultural Hegemony, which further paints existant culture in an inherently bad light. We end up with an attitude that everything is bad, everything is problematic. We end up in a state of effective cultural nihilism, which is not healthy for either individuals or society as a whole. Secondly, the focus on critiquing existing things channels our energy into being against what is there, rather than looking to create what is not yet there. We need to remember that, most human rights advances in history have come during times of positive imagination, not times of negative introspection. For example, if feminists feel that The Lion King doesn't reflect their narrative or their ideals, they are welcome to create something like The Leopard Queen for example. To heavily focus on critique is to waste energy that could be channeled into more creative and constructive activities. Finally, the collective anxiety generated from destroying the things that people used to value, the things that used to connect us as a community, leads to increased conflict and weakens the social fabric. This eventually brings political instability, which risks descending into complete chaos. Students of early 20th century political history would know how dangerous that can be.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

Why Andrew Yang is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT on Free Marriage Counselling | #YangGang | TaraElla News

NOTE: While I did support certain candidates in the 2019–20 Democratic primaries because of their ideas (e.g. UBI, anti-war, broad tent approach), it doesn't mean I endorse their other positions.

Welcome to the new TaraElla News, where we examine the latest political and cultural news from the perspective of upholding classical liberal values like individual freedom, equal opportunity and free speech. We'll be doing this on most days of the week, subscribe if you're interested.

Today, I want to talk about the recent exchange between Andrew Yang and Meghan McCain on Yang's policy of providing free marriage counselling for all couples who want it. While Yang is most well-known for the Freedom Dividend, his platform is actually full of interesting and unique policies, you should go check it out if you haven't already. Yang justifies his policy of free marriage counselling on the fact that studies have proven children who grow up in two-parent households have a range of better outcomes. In other words, since it is better for the kids and hence better for society that mom and dad stay together, it is justified to spend money to help moms and dads everywhere stay together. Very logical.

In fact, I would add that there are other equally important reasons for providing free marriage counselling, that perhaps couldn't be proven by academic studies. For example, strong and stable families mean a stronger social fabric and a higher level of social trust, which would also mean that we can have more conducive discussions on social issues, and hence a more functional free market of ideas. There's also a case to be made that a strong social fabric and strong social institutions are needed to satisfy people's need for meaningful relationships and attachment, and if we improved on that front we are likely to see less tribalism and identity politics. Overall, there are indeed many reasons to support free marriage counselling, and I am actually surprised that not more candidates are having this in their platform.

So what problems did Meghan McCain have with Yang's policy of free marriage counselling? She seems to think that it's a one size fits all thing, and it wouldn't benefit people like herself, because her version of marriage counselling is more like drinking Jack Daniels, shooting some guns and hanging out. She goes on to say that, the universal peg for every hole approach is her problem with the 'left' right now. But then, as I understand it, it's not like couples must go to a particular state sponsored service to qualify for the benefit. As I understand it, couples who go to any licenced marriage counsellor can qualify for the benefit, and since different therapists have very different approaches, there is a large element of choice here, and it certainly isn't one size fits all. Of course, it won't cover couples who only want to drink some beer and shoot some guns. But then, we need to remember that the program is targeted at couples who are most at risk of marriage breakdown, and thus would benefit from some form of professional therapy. In other words, it's not meant for all couples, it's meant for those who need it. And even for couples who don't need it, they will still benefit from the general norm of stronger families and a stronger social fabric, so they will still get something out from it.

The other thing is, we should also probably remind Meghan McCain that Andrew Yang isn't necessarily in the 'left'. Anyone familiar with him would know the slogan 'not left, not right, but forward'. Besides, even the left, just like the right, is a diverse bunch, and I really hate seeing people who generalize and stereotype those on the opposite side of politics. Not everyone on the left believes in one size fits all policies, just like not everyone on the right is against gay marriage, for example.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

Trump Feud With AOC, Omar Reveals Sad Truth About 2019 Tribal Politics | TaraElla News

Welcome to the new TaraElla News, where we examine the latest political and cultural news from the perspective of upholding classical liberal values like individual freedom, equal opportunity and free speech. We'll be doing this on most days of the week, subscribe if you're interested.

The news headlines in the past few days have been dominated by the feud between President Trump and a 'squad' of four left-wing Democrats, AOC, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley. As a classical liberal and a free speech absolutist, my perspective is simple. Even though I have had plenty of disagreements with what AOC and Ilhan Omar have said in the past, they have every right to say what they believe, and it is clearly wrong to tell an American citizen to pack her bags and leave America just because she said something you didn't like. This would be morally no different to the de-platforming that happens in college campuses. Note that I don't stand with the 'squad' and what they have said at all, but I stand with the principle of free speech at all times, as any liberty loving individual would.

Looking at the controversy from another angle, many people have also asked the question of, why would President Trump give four very junior congresswomen so much attention? And I think here lies the more important lesson. In fact, many right-wing commentators have already given the game away. They are overjoyed that this episode has given the 'squad' so much prominence, imagining that perhaps they are now the public face of the Democratic Party going into the 2020 elections. In other words, they are happy to play up this identity-based culture war thing so that Trump and the Republicans can do better in November 2020. This shows that, as I have always argued, while identity-based culture wars have generally been launched by the Critical Theory wing of left, many actors on the right are also not below pouring gas on the fire if they think it would benefit their team.

In the past few years, with the rise of Critical Theory inspired identity politics in some sections of the left, some people have sought refuge from identitarianism by moving to the right. But ultimately, this is not an entirely satisfying solution either, to put it mildly. I mean, independent freedom fighters like myself are always committed to opposing the identity culture wars, whatever the consequences. To people like us, this chaos distracts from the important policy debates, and more importantly, fractures the social fabric and tears up the social contract with disasterous long-term consequences. Therefore, we believe that whatever your political affiliations are, it's simply never justified to encourage this chaos. On the other hand, commentators on networks like Fox News love to say that they are in the same fight as ourselves, especially when they denounce the latest outrage in college campus politics. But are they really in the same fight as us? I think their rather positive takes on the events of the past few days, and their strong focus on the potential boost for Trump going into 2020, speaks volumes on what their real priorities are.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

Wokeness is Not Social Justice. It’s Establishment Elitism. | BreadBusting #12

Note: This article is a commentary on ‘wokeness’, as in the critical theory and postmodernism inspired worldview. Wokeness aside, I am still committed to being against racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and bigotry in all forms. However, I believe our approach should be guided by liberal values.

Welcome to BreadBusting, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, and the ideology of Breadism more generally. Basically, it's like Myth Busting, but for Breadism. We also talk about BreadTube adjacent phenomenon, that is, things that fans of BreadTube also happen to like or support, or have a strong opinion on.

Today, I want to discuss the recent controversy surrounding an interview on the website Spiked, featuring Chapo Trap House host Amber Frost and Red Scare host Anna Kachiyan, two anti-woke lefists according to the article published on Spiked. Frost, as you might know, is famous for coining the term 'dirtbag left', and Chapo is basically the home of dirtbag leftism. I have always found dirtbag leftism interesting and sort of respectable. I mean, they probably won't return my respect. Still, despite our differences, I can tell that the dirtbag left is the real deal when it comes to being anti-establishment, hence they know the value of being anti-woke. More on that later.

But first, what did Frost and Kachiyan do wrong to trigger the anger of the Woke Left? Nothing, in fact, besides being anti-woke.

So why is being anti-woke so cool? Because it's anti-establishment. I don't know why the Woke Left can't see it, but wokeness is literally a 1% establishment elite agenda, promoted by people from academics in humanity departments, to corporate CEOs, to Hollywood celebrities. To be anti-woke is to choose to side with the ideals of the silent majority, the good sense of everyday individuals, against the dogma of the elites. It is one thing to be pro-human rights, and I'm certainly pro-human rights, but being woke is actually just following dogma enforced by the elites. For me, and for many other people, the fact that the majority of people out there are not woke is good enough reason to be anti-woke. Being woke is to play into the elites' agenda, and is by definition pro-establishment, if you think about it. I guess you can't be truly anti-establishment without also being anti-woke.

The interview also included other, interesting, anti-woke criticisms of the modern so-called left. There was a good point about how race shouldn't matter, something the modern left seems to have forgotten. I have often said that only a colorblind society is true liberation, and only a colorblind society can have true solidarity, and it seems that at least some leftists still agree with this traditional progressive wisdom. Another point I liked was their support for free speech. As a free speech absolutist, I have become disappointed at the erosion of free speech on the left in recent years. People like Frost and Kachiyan give me real hope that the spirit of the 1960s Free Speech Movement is still not entirely dead on the left. Yet.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

Little Mermaid Backlash: A 'Cultural Appropriation' Outrage Tragedy | BreadBusting #11

Who is Jackie Jackson Anyway? | Re ContraPoints | BreadBusting #10

Welcome to BreadBusting, where we attempt to examine the problematic ideas that come out of BreadTube, and the ideology of Breadism more generally. Basically, it's like Myth Busting, but for Breadism. Please note that, while I do have my personal political beliefs, all this is done in the name of intellectual discussion and seeing things from different perspectives. This is the third and final part of my response to the latest ContraPoints video, titled Transtrenders. Today, we will focus on Jackie Jackson, host of The Freedom Report.

Is Jackie meant to be a classical liberal? Probably. Her show is called The Freedom Report, she talks about freedom and free speech all the time, and earlier on she gave me some Dave Rubin vibes. But then, maybe she is meant to be a centrist instead, because she jokingly said she would take the 'centrist' position in this latest video. Finally, another possibility is that she has become a hardline conservative as of late, because in this most recent video she clearly sounded more like Milo Yiannopoulos than Dave Rubin! While there have been concerns throughout the political spectrum surrounding some of the topics Jackie raised, her attitude is clearly much more to the right of your average classical liberal or centrist. In short, Jackie Jackson appears to have a political identity crisis, and she doesn't even know what she believes!

In fact, Jackie Jackson is PURE IMAGINATION!

I actually think that Jackie Jackson is a characature of what a leftist would imagine a non-leftist to be. She's not specifically a centrist, a classical liberal, a libertarian or a conservative, but a confused and unrealistic mix of all these things! She's Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Ron Paul, Steven Crowder, Jordan Peterson and more, but all rolled into one person! I still remember Natalie accusing Jordan Peterson of blurring the differences between the different groups on the left, well, Jackie Jackson is the exact same thing, except for doing it to people outside the left. In the real world, Jackie Jackson simply can't exist. To give an analogy a leftist would understand, it would be as if somebody was a fan of President Obama but was also a committed anarcho-communist. In the real world, Jackie's confused politics would mean that she would have no followers at all. Jackie is simply the left-wing's jumbled up collective imagination of what their enemy looks like.

I guess Jackie Jackson is most symbolic of one thing: the left's tendency to imagine straw-man enemies who don't actually exist. Don't get me wrong, the right does this too, for example with their whole 'Comrade Obama' thing, but Jackie is clearly a product of the imagination of the left. In fact, as a non-leftist who is also a regular reader of many left-wing websites and publications, I have found that many leftist writers do this regularly. It often sounds like they don't get why centrist or right-leaning people hold a particular view, but rather imagine that they hold that view because they have an agenda of deliberately oppressing people. In fact, what many centrist and right-leaning people fear most is social engineering, changing society based on ivory tower generated theories, which they fear will bring real world disasterous consequences. Leftists never seem to address this concern.

Conservatives, centrists and classical liberals are also fundamentally different in many ways. In particular, they have different attitudes to proposed civil rights reforms. Conservatives often justify their blanket opposition to proposed civil rights reforms based on fears about some kind of social engineering agenda. On the other hand, centrists and liberals generally hear all sides of the debate, and make their case for a cautious version of the reform by pointing out that it wouldn't lead to enabling the social engineering agenda. The gay marriage debate had plenty of this dynamic, for example. The pro-gay marriage side won by simply convincing most people there's no sinister social engineering plot behind it. As a result of that debate, people like Dave Rubin are happily enjoying their newly won civil right, while people like Ben Shapiro grudgingly admit that the sky hasn't fallen in after all. Leftist commentary seems to ignore all this, and imagine all non-leftists to be a uniform bloc of reactionary people who literally want to oppress other people. This can't be further from the truth!

In these supposedly polarizing times, there has been calls for people from all sides to get together and have constructive discussions. But this can only happen if people stop stereotyping their opponents.

That's all for today. I'll be back next time to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

TaraElla Report:: The Moral Libertarian

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