Right now, I think I need to talk about the latest controversy Tulsi Gabbard has found herself in. And this is no small controversy. I mean, supporters of Tulsi have been saying they're walking away from her. People are saying on Tulsi's Reddit that they may not be able to support her in 2024 now. Even Shoe0nhead, otherwise known as Brainlet, previously a big Tulsi fan, is apparently reconsidering her support. The situation looks like it's even more serious than the controversy surrounding Tulsi's refusal to vote to impeach President Trump last year.
So what is it about? Apparently, Tulsi introduced a bill into congress, to amend Title IX, in a way that could prevent trans people competing in women's sports. Now, I don't know why she's chosen to do this now, and frankly, if the bill were before me and I had to vote, I think I would vote against it. Not that it matters, because I don't think the Democratic controlled House is going to bring it up for a vote anyway. Besides, Tulsi is leaving congress in a few weeks' time anyway. In other words, the bill is very likely to be going nowhere at all. However, people are getting upset that Tulsi is taking a stance that they don't agree with, even if it won't have any impact in the end.
My perspective is that, just like Tulsi's decision not to impeach President Trump last year, it's not the content of the bill that matters, but the fact that people are able to act on their sincere beliefs without social backlash. Last year, Tulsi's decision to abstain from the impeachment vote was met with backlash, led by people like AOC, who clearly didn't understand what freedom of conscience meant. As I said back then, it's okay to disagree with Tulsi's decision to abstain, but it's not OK to disrespect her for it, or pressurize others to toe the party line in any other way. The important thing is, politicians have to be able to be honest about their views, even when their supporters may not agree with it. Anything less would be an unacceptable limitation on free conscience and free debate.
Besides, it's this 'someone is either with us or against us' kind of attitude that is ultimately feeding into the cancel culture machine. This attitude is severely restricting public debate, because people are scared to say anything about all sorts of hot button cultural issues, like guns, abortion, police reform, and many LGBT-related issues. I know this very well, because I have received backlash from comments about some of these issues, and now I have learned to keep quiet sometimes. It breaks my heart that we live in a world like this. It's some serious regression, compared even to back when I was in college, which was like just 15 years ago. Back when I was in college, we used to be able to talk about anything, but nowadays, it's not like that anymore, and I seriously think it's unfortunate. I mean, if only we were able to talk about cultural issues like we talk about economic issues. Medicare For All and UBI gained lots of support in the past few years because of all the debates people had. But on the cultural front, it's all just silence and stalemate.
Finally, I want to talk about the wider context of this current controversy. I mean, what actually happened was that Tulsi has been busily working to introduce many bills into congress for some reason. This trans sports bill is actually only one among many controversial bills she's introduced, and arguably has the least widespread impact. I mean, I thought people would be more worked up about issues like Section 230, but I was wrong. For some reason, LGBT issues have been particularly hot button and divisive in the past year or so. And, as I commented during the JK Rowling wars, I think this is likely to be the work of people with ulterior motives on both sides, and the LGBT community would be wise to water all the controversy down with a big hose, and tell everyone to just chill. I seriously hope the LGBT community stops falling for this trap.
Doing sociology and philosophy in real time by looking at developments in contemporary Western politics and culture, from a Moral Libertarian perspective. My mission is to stop the authoritarian 'populist' right and the cultural-systemist left from destroying the West.
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The Free Speech Case Against Cancelling Tulsi Gabbard | TaraElla Report S8
Why Trump is Closer to the Illiberal Left than Classical Liberalism | TaraElla Report S8
In the past few days, I have been thinking about my increasing discomfort with President Trump's style of politics. To be fair, I have never been a fan of Trump, but the intensity of the discomfort has been getting much greater recently. From his abandonment of his party's famous 2016 promise not to appoint a Supreme Court justice in an election year, to his repeated allegations of widespread electoral fraud without evidence, to his decision to schedule five federal executions in the lame duck period, knowing that Americans have elected someone opposed to the death penalty. Not to mention his often hypocritical stance on free speech.
Through deeper thinking, I realized that what I felt most uncomfortable about Trump was his lack of respect for the idea of the social contract, and more specifically, his responsibility to uphold his end of the contract. You know, acting in good faith towards others, respecting the established processes and conventions of democracy, keeping the promises that you or your team made, and so on. The gentlemens' agreements that keep liberal democracy running. Trump has demonstrated that he has no time for these things. And this has very important implications.
The idea of a universal social contract, one that applies equally to every individual, and that every individual must uphold, is core to the foundation of liberalism. Indeed, it goes back all the way to thinkers like John Locke. Without a healthy and fair social contract, there cannot be the conditions for liberal democracy, and its associated values like free speech and free debate, to exist. It's why it's important that, if liberal democracy is to be respected, that every candidate who lost an election must concede defeat gracefully, for example. Trump's refusal to do this thus sets a dangerous precedent, indeed not only for America, but for the whole of the liberal democratic Western world.
An even more troubling thing is that some Trump supporters actually love this aspect of Trump. They think it's inspiring that a politician, indeed a President, would regularly trample on established processes and conventions to get what he wants. They think this represents strength, while following the rules represents weakness. This kind of thinking actually has a long history, going back to thinkers like Nietzsche, who despised the equality-based order inherent in the liberal social contract, and the limitations it inevitably placed on acts of grand social projects. Nietzsche's hostility to egalitarian politics is mirrored in more recent movements in the authoritarian Right, many of which explicitly define themselves against liberalism's pro-equality assumptions, and sometimes even directly attack foundational liberal thinkers like Locke and Mill. Not surprisingly, people from these movements often strongly support Trump.
Of course, Nietzsche is equally popular in many parts of the far-left, and Nietzscheism is prominently felt on the Left too. Indeed, postmodernism is heavily influenced by Nietzsche. While Left Nietzscheans are not inherently opposed to equality, they focus on the somewhat related belief that truth and morality are relative to social conditions, and their resulting actions are just as disrespectful of the liberal democratic social contract. Examples include activists who use their numbers to de-platform speakers they don't like, and of course, the very despicable act of getting people fired from their jobs. Cancel culture as a whole is a clear rejection of the liberal social contract. It has just as much of an 'I can do whatever I want to shape the world how I want, as long as I can get away with it' mentality behind it. The only difference is that the illiberal Left uses more sophisticated justifications, often drawn from critical theory, to justify their trampling on liberal democratic norms. You know, like justifying the undemocratic destruction of public property as an act of democracy, when it's clearly the opposite of democracy.
Looking at it this way, the illiberal Left, what people like Dave Rubin call the 'regressive Left', actually has a lot in common with Trump. This is why, taking the Dave Rubin approach, supporting Trump as a so-called 'bulwark' against the illiberal Left, is ultimately self-defeating. Given that Trump and the illiberal Left are actually similar at their root, they can only serve to reinforce each other, which they certainly did in the past four years. Biden may not be perfect, but at least he is dedicated to upholding the liberal social contract, which means a lot in times like these.
Going forward, I guess liberal minded people need to confront the ideas being spread by the malcontents of the liberal social contract. These people reside on both the far-left and the far-right, and their justification for opposing liberalism is ultimately simply because it is not as exciting and satisfying as the alternative, that is, being part of some grand social project. But what we need to remember is, we support liberalism because liberal values build a truth-orientated and moral society. The reason why Moral Libertarians demand that every individual be given an Equal and Maximum share of moral agency, is because this would prevent the morally wrong from ruling over the morally right, and this would eventually allow the morally right way to be proven correct, by its long-term results. You can't have that in a society based on grand schemes, where everyone is merely a part of a larger plan or struggle. Thus, liberalism, respect for democratic procedures, and respect for each others' free speech may be the boring and frustrating way, but it is the straight and narrow path that will lead us gradually closer to the truth, and also to a more moral future. This is why we must insist on it.
How the Culture Wars are Turning People Away From The Truth | TaraElla Report S6 E15
Let's start with Locke. Among some sections of the Right, there has been a new found fascination with Locke. Long used to worshipping another great British thinker by the name of Edmund Burke, often considered the father of conservatism, recently many on the Right seem to have swapped Burke for Locke, perhaps because the current iteration of the right doesn't really resemble Burkean ideals of conservatism anymore. Perhaps it's because the Right is more likely to defend free speech than traditional institutions nowadays. Anyway, recently Ben Shapiro recorded a video for Prager U titled 'If We Lose John Locke, We Lose America', in which he explained the basic ideas of Locke, and how America's Founding Fathers were greatly influenced by his work.
All that was said in the video was correct. Locke's ideas of individual liberty and equality, and the existence of natural rights that a government should not be able to take away, revolutionary back in his own time, have since come to form the political consensus of the majority of people in the West, and we are very lucky indeed for that. Shapiro is also correct that, if we do lose the ideas of John Locke, it would be very terrible, because we would be losing liberal democracy itself. Furthermore, he is also correct that the ideas of Locke are currently under attack in many parts of the West, and they must be defended at all costs. Just a few weeks ago, 150 prominent intellectuals signed a letter defending free speech and open debate published on the Harper's Magazine website, and this was swiftly met with severe backlash. It is clear from this that the values of Locke and classical liberalism more generally are no longer guaranteed as the conensus position in Western society.
What wasn't discussed was why Locke's ideas are being rejected by more and more people, and how we can reverse this trend. I guess the immediate cause is the rise of critical theory and postmodern thinking, particularly thinking inspired by the dangerous ideas of 20th century thinkers like Herbert Marcuse and Michel Foucault, who saw power in everything and celebrated subjectivity over objectivity. However, given that these ideas have an increasing following, there must be a reason. There must be something that is making people abandon objectivity and commitment to truth, and embracing a power struggle worldview where defeating your enemies matter more than the truth. And I think that thing is the culture wars.
John Locke's great ideas didn't come out of a vacuum: he had a lifelong commitment to the truth, and as a physician he had a strong commitment towards science, including precusors to what we would now consider the scientific method and evidence based medicine. Classical liberal values are indeed the natural values of people who are committed to the truth, and principles like free speech naturally flow from that commitment. When one is instead committed more to destroying one's enemy, one simply cannot stay true to classical liberal values like those of Locke. In that context, postmodern values would make much more sense. Which is why, conservative politicians and commetators, who are equally guilty as those on the left in pouring fuel onto the cultural war fire, and especially conservative pundits whose brand are strongly tied to 'destroying' those on the opposite side, should hardly have any claim to John Locke's legacy. They are part of the cancer that is killing classical liberalism, they are not part of the solution. This is, of course, also why I have made the decision to leave both the right and the left behind, because there's no way you can stay committed to the truth, and all that it entails, when you take a side in these culture wars. Indeed, I believe only those who refuse to participate in the left vs right fight can have any serious claim to the classical liberal heritage.
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Welcome back to the second part of this special episode of the TaraElla Report. We'll now leave John Locke, and move onto Noam Chomsky, one of the most respected leftist thinkers in the world today. You would think Chomsky would be the last person to be in the bad books of a big chunk of the left, but yet this has happened. As I mentioned in Part 1, recently 150 prominent intellectuals signed a letter defending free speech and open debate, which was published on the Harper's Magazine website. The fact that Chomsky was among them was taken as a sore disappointment among many people in what I would call the neo-New Left.
The simple fact is, Chomsky has always been a free speech absolutist, and the neo-New Left just cannot accept it. Chomsky supports free speech because, while he is a socialist, he has a strong appreciation of the foundational classical liberal ideals. Besides, he is an old-school leftist, you know, the kind of left that existed before the corruption of Marcuse and Foucault. While some leftists today, including Bernie Sanders, are still that kind of worker-first left, and I have great respect for that, many parts of the left have been overtaken by the Professional Middle Class dominated post-1968 New Left, which has an agenda for radical cultural change that most working people would be opposed to. Now, I'm not talking about ending racism or things like that. That, I totally support. What I'm talking about are the ideas of radical critical theory, ideas from thinkers like Herbert Marcuse, whose infamous 1965 essay Repressive Tolerance justified the withdrawal of free speech from certain people, and thinkers like Michel Foucault, who saw power in everything and dismissed the importance of objective truth. This agenda is hugely responsible for the mess we are in today, where people see their fellow citizens not as comrades but as enemies, and where commitment to the truth is at an all time low across the political spectrum.
As I said before, there are still many leftists today who want to bring back the worker-centered left, the left that also championed free speech unconditionally, and in both these endeavors I consider them solid allies. But these people are rarely heard among the dominant voices on the left these days. Even those voices on the left that seem to focus on material issues often end up disappointing me, because they turn out to be not that far from Marcuse and Foucault in their cultural thinking. For example, BreadTuber NonCompete recently made a video critiquing Chomsky's decision to sign the Harper's letter. His argument was full of the 'institutional power' angle, and although that could be construed to be about the exclusion of pro-worker voices, the specific examples he gave were mostly purely cultural. I am especially troubled by his view that James Bennett deserved to lose his job at New York Times for publishing an article from Senator Tom Cotton, much as I dislike and disagree with Cotton. In essence, I saw it as very similar to those pieces written by pro-identity politics types arguing against the letter with quotes from Marcuse and Foucault. Indeed, quotes from Marcuse and Foucault wouldn't sound out of place at all, had they been inserted into the video. It just shows which side of the free speech cultural divide a lot of these apparently economic, but not explicitly anti-IDPol, leftists are taking. And frankly, it worries me a lot.
Which is, of course, why I don't identify with the Left anymore. Even as the economic woes of the West are getting worse, even as I perhaps take a more critical stance against our current economic system, I still wouldn't identify with the Left as it currently exists, because much of the Left these days are in the grip of critical theory, and that's not OK. Don't get me wrong, I am all for racial and social justice, as well as economic fairness. Don't get me wrong, I'm still pro-worker and pro-working families, and I am actually increasingly passionate about economic fairness. It's just that I cannot, in my good conscience, claim to be in the same boat with the significant faction of the left that has almost fully internalized the ideas of Marcuse, Foucault, and other very problematic thinkers, and have become effectively hostile to free speech as a result.
Why Michael Brooks & Other Progressives Should Take the IDW Seriously | TaraElla Report S6 E13
Welcome back to TaraElla Report Season 6. Today, I'm going to talk about socialist commentator Michael Brooks's take on the Intellectual Dark Web, which he has both detailed in his book titled 'Against The Web' and also elaborated on at length in his own show. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I understand, his basic argument is that he sees the IDW as repackaging stale right-wing arguments in a new and intelligent sounding form, in order to preserve the status quo and prevent change, which has always been the right's primary aim anyway.
I think this is actually a biased take on the IDW. Surely, some prominent members of the IDW like Ben Shapiro are conservatives, and they do want to preserve the status quo. But the IDW is actually quite diverse, and I don't think Bret Weinstein is that interested in preserving the status quo, for example (Note: I generally disagree with him on his many controversial ideas.). However, the even more important thing is that, in his rush to label the IDW as a conservative outfit, Brooks is actually missing out on opportunities for having important and fruitful conversations about ideas, some of which may actually end up benefitting the promotion of the social democratic policies he champions. The other thing is, many people of our generation, the people who grew up after the end of the cold war, don't have that much attachment to the left-right ideological divide. We are much more flexible in appreciating great ideas from all sides. Which means that ideologically syncretic ideas are often very appealing for us. After all, there must be a good reason why other progressives like Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, and to some extent Bernie Sanders have been much more eager to reach out and do interviews with people associated with the IDW, and they often get loads of new supporters in that process too.
Let's start with Brooks's view that Jordan Peterson is too uncritical of free market capitalism. It's a point that Peterson critics on the Left often bring up. This is a point I actually agree with. While I'm not a socialist, I do agree that unregulated capitalism is a disruptive force that can be detrimental to strong families and the social fabric. No matter how economically sound the free market is, there can be no excuse to allow it to simply take its course and exact its toll of broken families and a fractured social landscape on human society. Capitalism as it exists has contributed greatly to a society where 40% of marriages end in divorce, where birth rates are plummeting to all time lows, and where fake news and misinformation has meant that people don't even live in a shared reality anymore. A society where it's often too expensive to start a family is a society that is fundamentally broken and inhumane. Market fundamentalists like Hayek may have had no problem with that, but the rest of us certainly do. For those of us born after 1980, we weren't even given a choice of whether this is the world we want to live in; we were simply born into this world. This dystopia is, in fact, the only world we have ever known. No wonder many of us want to change things.
Where the Left fails is that it doesn't appear to be serious enough about tackling these issues, nor does it appear to have the solutions to do that. A fact that often goes unacknowledged is that, the current iteration of the Left is in fact the baby boomers' left, a Left they built back when they were students, back in the 1960s and early 70s. They were a generation that were way too obsessed with critiquing and dismantling traditional cultural norms, to even consider that the breakdown of these norms would only leave room for the more ruthless side of capitalism to come in and make society more inhumane in the pursuit of profits. In this kind of worldview, there's simply no room to talk about the importance of strong and stable families, because that's the stuff that 60s radical students found 'oppressive' by definition. It's a fact that some of those students even destroyed books by sociologist Talcott Parsons, because he praised the nuclear family. The fact that many of our generation are simply finding it too expensive to live the white picket fence life makes their attitude look all the more out of touch to many of us. I think this out of touch attitude straight from the 60s, still so prevalent in many parts of the Left today, is why so many young people don't bother to turn up to support the Left, even as they offer things like Medicare For All. We simply can't have faith in people that don't have enough faith in rebuilding a society of strong families and a healthy social fabric.
Michael Brooks appears to recognize people's need for things like continuity in life and he has called for the Left to take this more seriously. He also said the Left should deal with the problem of the so-called Vampire Castle, that toxic mixture of cancel culture, outrage over things like 'cultural appropriation', and so on. What he doesn't recognize is that the IDW actually has the solution to deal with all that, even if it's not in a very polished form as yet. Somewhere in the IDW, there lies the very ideas that could bring the Left back onto the correct track. You see, the baby boomer Left is one that is fundamentally based on critical theory, and later influenced by its offspring postmodernism. These academic theories are all about deconstructing, dismantling, seeing everything as oppressive, and so on. That's why they were so attractive to the youth of 1968. However, we don't need any more deconstructing and dismantling nowadays. Things are already too fluid, too uncertain, and have too little continuity to the past. What we need is the opposite, in most cases. Which is why the Left would be much more successful if it made a decisive break with all that critical theory and postmodernism, and instead embraced the ideal of supporting and nurturing everyday working families. The IDW has all the arguments needed to end the reign of critical theory on the Left. The remaining question is just whether the Left would take it up.
What many people want most nowadays is stability and continuity, rather than even more dismantling and deconstruction. If the Left can convince people that this is what they deliver, through countering the worst of capitalism's tendencies, I'm sure they will get much more support. However, if they can't, then people would naturally turn to the Right. Which is why, seeing statues of Christopher Colombus, Winston Churchill and Thomas Jefferson being targeted everywhere on the evening news, at the hands of people who identify as left-wing, can only benefit the Right. I wonder if conservative politicians around the world secretly enjoy seeing all this drama play out, and their electoral implications.
The Right Needs to be Held Accountable | TaraElla Report S6 E9
Welcome back to TaraElla Report Season 6. Today, I'm going to reflect on the generally broken state of affairs across the political landscape right now, where nobody cares about truth and accountability. I'm going to start with one of Andrew Yang's most profound insights yet, which explains why many of us have been disappointed with MAGA culture, as for example seen in President Trump's most controversial twitter drama episode yet. On a related point, I'm also going to talk about why Trump has set out on a dangerous course that may bring the end of internet free speech as we know it, and why the usual free speech warriors on the Right aren't even concerned about it at all. I'll end with why we should all take the real 'Red Pill', which is not the version that the conservatives are giving us. Before I continue, I have to warn any new viewers that, as someone who identifies with neither the Left nor the Right, I'm going to give harsh criticism to both sides. My show is not a safe space for people who can't think independently, or can't take criticism of their own side.
Recently, Andrew Yang made a profound tweet about accountability. He wrote that, 'one reason things seems so bleak is that there is so little accountability. Crash the economy? Bonuses and bailouts. Kill a jogger? Walk free for weeks. Botch a pandemic? It’s politics. Kill a man arrested for a nonviolent crime? People are fed up.' And I think people are surely fed up with those in positions of power having next to no accountability all the time. It's something that unites conservatives, progressives and moderates alike. One of the reasons many people don't like the establishment is that they believe the establishment shields vested interests from any demands of accountability, thereby perpetuating unfair situations everywhere in life. This is one major reason why many people voted for Trump in 2016. However, many of them now stand disappointed, because things just haven't changed.
In fact, the MAGA culture that surrounds Trump has discouraged his better instincts, and encouraged his worse instincts. I suspect that it's all a plot to use his character flaws to slowly push him towards the pro-war establishment neoconservative agenda, a topic I will leave for a future episode. And no, I certainly don't have Trump Derangement Syndrome, as seen in the fact that I was never excited about impeachment, and I vigorously defended Tulsi Gabbard's decision to not vote for it back in December. However, when things go wrong, people need to be accountable, and MAGA culture's unconditional support for Trump is a harmful thing. For example, the cultures of the Yang Gang and the Tulsi Train are much better. Those people love Yang and Tulsi very much, but they still speak up about their disagreements all the time. In MAGA land, if you take Trump to task, you get the mob running over you, and you get downvoted into oblivion. What I'm concerned is that, there can be no accountability in that kind of culture.
Let's start with the fact that the Right has many free speech warriors, and that's one thing I like about them. They rightly point out the free speech crisis on college campuses, and give it the attention it needs, while many progressives often avoid the topic altogether. Things like de-platforming people and so-called safe speech really need to be called out for the dangerous censorship it is, and I congratulate the Right for doing that. But how about Trump's recent executive order to water down Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, and his calls afterwards for the repeal of Section 230 altogether? You see, Section 230 shields companies from being responsible for the content of their users, and it is the thing that allows social media to operate without censoring its users. The existence of Section 230 has long guaranteed internet free speech, because without it, every platform would be aggressively policing its users in fear of legal liability. A president threatening to repeal Section 230 is thus a much bigger problem for free speech than all the college SJWs in the world combined. The even worse thing is that Trump did that simply in response to Twitter putting fact-checking statements on his tweets, which essentially represents ill considered policy on the run done for personal reasons. It is disappointing that none of the free speech warriors on the Right have even shown the slightest care about this. Some people have even defended Trump, saying that the executive order was about properly enforcing Section 230, by forcing social media to be platforms that allow free speech rather than publishers that curate their content. But if that were Trump's real intentions, why would he be tweeting repeatedly calling for the complete repeal of Section 230? It just looks like some people really want Trump to be good for free speech, so they make up their own reality where this is the case. As people say, denial isn't a river in Egypt.
Here's another good example. Trump is known for his controversial tweets, but his most recent one is on another level altogether. Indeed, it led to some people interpreting it as calling for violence. Taylor Swift apparently saw it that way, among many others. Since then, Trump has come out and explained that he was only stating the fact, that 'looting leads to shooting'. Well, it certainly didn't sound like he was 'just stating the fact' to many people, including myself, no matter his intentions. I guess it's fair to say that, even if it wasn't his intention to stir up the tense mood, Trump should have apologized for the wording that led to the confusion, like a properly accountable politician would have, because it was his own words that started it all. Nobody likes to admit being wrong, but it's what accountability is. But then, Trump just ain't into saying sorry, it seems. Rather, he has taken up the victim mentality, painting a picture of people out to get him on social media. You know how much I hate victim mentality. I hate it when the critical theory and postmodernist Left encourage it in minorities, and I hate it equally when conservative politicians use it to deflect from being accountable. What I hate most about victim mentality is that, in every case, it leads to a cycle of cultural and political polarization. I've always believed that conservatives share my views on personal responsibility and victim mentality. But apparently, they don't really, as seen in their rush to defend Trump once again.
I guess all this is because many conservatives are effectively living in a simulated reality, like the one in The Matrix. Now, I know many so-called progressives are living in a simulated reality too, but let's focus on conservatives for now, especially since people on the Right like to talk about taking the Red Pill. You know, like taking the Red Pill in The Matrix, and getting to know the truth, breaking free from the lies the establishment tells you, and so on. It's a really attractive idea, and as I said two years ago, it's really a shame that people on the other side of politics don't use it too, because such a profound idea shouldn't only belong to one side of politics. But then, what the Right has prescribed is not the Red Pill, but just another Blue Pill. When you listen to right-leaning talking heads too much, you effectively enter a simulation like the one in the Matrix. It's a different program than the Woke Establishment's one, but it's no less a simulation, it's no less a blue pill. In the Right's simulated reality, everything is the fault of the Democrats, and college SJWs are the only threat to free speech. Trump is here to solve all this, and he can do no wrong. Keep watching your favorite right-leaning talking heads on TV and on the internet, and you keep taking the blue pill, to stay in this simulated reality. The result is they won't take Trump to account, even when his actions are literally dangerous to the free speech they say they cherish. It's why I refuse to drink the Right-wing kool-aid, like how I also refuse to drink the Left-wing kool-aid. I think it's time we all take the real Red Pill, and exit all simulations of reality set up to benefit partisan interests, left-wing or right-wing.
Why I Left the Left AND the Right #2: Biden Gaffes & Dishonest Culture Wars | TaraElla Report S6 E8
Welcome back to TaraElla Report Season 6. A few weeks ago I did an episode titled 'Why I Left the Right AND the Left', in response to Hunter Avallone's video titled 'Why I Left the Right'. In that episode I focused mainly on the issues Avallone raised, and I didn't really talk in-depth about why I became disllusioned with both the Left and the Right. Since then, I thought of doing a whole episode on why I became disillusioned with both sides, but there's just too much material to cover in one video. Besides, this disillusionment is an ongoing process. Which is why I've decided to turn the whole thing into an ongoing series. Given we're in the middle of a US Presidential election year, there's going to be a lot of stupidity from both the Left and the Right, so I expect I'll have a lot to say.
Today, I'll first talk about the latest Joe Biden gaffe and the over-the-top reaction to it. I'll then respond to the Rubin Report interview with Karlyn Borysenko, an ex-Democrat who 'left the left' after attending a Trump rally. Finally, I'll take a look at the controversy over a Bernie campaign post-mortem piece by Angela Nagle and Michael Tracey.
Firstly, let's look at the latest drama surrounding Joe Biden. While I would have prefered either Andrew Yang or Tulsi Gabbard getting the nomination, I've come to realize the unexpected upsides of having Biden as the Democratic candidate this year. You see, Joe Biden is literally the most politically incorrect Democratic nominee in living memory, and he probably can't change himself to suit the culture warriors on the Left either. Whatever else you might say about Uncle Joe, he tells it like it is, which probably explains his folksy appeal that won him landslide after landslide in the midwest and the south. Biden's latest gaffe was that he said something like if you ain't supporting him over Trump, you ain't black. Now, this is, of course, not literally true; it's more like he's bragging about his popularity in the black community, which is, however, very much real. Of course, the politically correct cultural New Left is having none of this, they expect a much more deferential manner of speech, especially towards minorities, and they sort of want Biden to pay for violating their sacred speech rules once again. They don't want Biden to get away with being politically incorrect, but they don't want him to lose to Trump either; it's basically lose-lose for the politically correct crowd under Biden. I have to admit that I love watching the cultural New Left having to play along with Biden as the leader of their party, a man whose speech they simply can't police, no matter what. And to the frustration of the cultural New Left, nothing Biden has ever said has ever impacted on his polls, which is not that surprising since Trump got away with saying all kinds of controversial things and still won in 2016. The fact is, people vote on policies, words don't actually have the power postmodernism says they have, manner of speech don't matter that much for most people at the end of the day. In fact, I suspect Biden's gaffes may be part of his enduring popularity, because, let's face it, most people just aren't into Hillary Clinton levels of political correctness.
On the other hand, it's fun to watch parts of the Right, who have been posturing as the biggest defenders of politically incorrect speech, suddenly turn into SJWs at the sight of Joe Biden. Even Fox News has gotten into line, showing clips of Biden's politically incorrect gaffes, and getting someone on to complain that 'Biden ain't woke'. So Biden ain't woke, we all know that already, and I thought that the Right wasn't into performative wokeness. Well, I guess Biden's existence exposed their hypocrisy, which I guess explains why much of the Right never enjoyed the prospect of Biden being the nominee. Even right now, they fantasize that Hillary would somehow step in and replace Uncle Joe, so that they can play the 2016 game all over again, saying how the Democrats are now over-the-top politically correct and people are walking away because of this. It's what won them the election last time, but unfortunately for them, lightening doesn't strike twice.
One person who is still partying like it's 2016 is Dave Rubin. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Rubin, I watch his show regularly, but I'm concerned that he's settling into a pattern and getting out of touch with the reality out there. He's still complaining that the Democrats are full on SJWs who all have a problem with free speech, as if they were still playing in Hillary mode. Even though he had very reasonable Democrats like Yang, Tulsi and Marianne Williamson on just in the last year, he doesn't seem to get that Hillary-ism has now been abandoned by most of the party. I guess this might have to do with his now very comfortable relationship with the Right. With the recent launch of this book, almost all the people who came to congratulate him were on the Right, Glenn Beck, Ben Shapiro, Douglas Murray, I don't even think there's anybody there that's not conservative. And Rubin himself even admits to identifying as part of the 'Right' now, whatever it means. Well, it probably means that he is swalloing the conservative kool-aid, willing to believe that the Democrats are still the party of Hillary circa 2016 no matter what. And he's got plenty of guests to reinforce his outdated view. Including, just last week, Dr. Karlyn Borysenko, who presented a view of the so-called left where people are always outraged, can't get along with people who disagree, and have Trump Derangement Syndrome all the time. But then, Borysenko lives in New Hampshire, the only non-caucus state where Biden didn't finish in the top 2. In fact, Biden had his worst result there in this entire primary, coming in fifth behind Elizabeth Warren. Looks like New Hampshire just isn't representative of America as a whole. Perhaps they are still SJW-ing like it's 2016 over there, but in the rest of the world, SJWs just aren't much of a thing anymore. Except for those on twitter and those on Fox News attacking Biden all day long.
When Rubin went on to ask Dr. Borysenko why the Left is 'so unreasonable' nowadays, she basically answered with Ben Shapiro's standard answer: the Left is about feelings and the Right is about facts. Well, I certainly agree that the Left is often clouded by feelings, as I said, look no further than how the culturally woke left is now struggling with having to rally around the politically incorrect Joe Biden. But I don't quite agree that the Right is that factual. For example, in the past two days, I've seen quite a few self-identified libertarians say that libertarians should support Trump this year, because he's even better for libertarianism than the Libertarian Party nominee Jo Jorgensen. I frankly don't know much about Ms Jorgensen at this point, and I'm still surprised she got the nod over Hornberger, but I trust that she wouldn't get us worrying about a potential war with Iran like Trump did earlier this year. Not even Joe Biden would have gotten the world into that situation! And somehow some people are trying to tell us that Trump is best for libertarians. That's really a case of putting feelings over facts, of the highest degree!
Of course, the Left is just as guilty of putting feelings before facts. As I said, the Left and the Right are both very unreasonable camps nowadays, which is exactly why I left both the Right and the Left. Last week, Angela Nagle, one of the few remaining independent minded political commentators, wrote a piece together with Michael Tracey, in which they dissected the Bernie 2020 campaign, and made several conclusions from that, including how pandering to the inner-city cultural radicals has made the campaign less attractive to working-class people. They're not even the first to complain about this: right after Bernie dropped out, there were plenty of articles saying how Bernie rallies had too many angry people who were just too unpleasant to talk with. Compare this image to the kind of people who attend Biden rallies. You wouldn't find anything but normally presenting everyday hard-working people at Biden rallies. No wonder Biden solidly won the middle America vote! Now, Nagle and Tracey were much gentler than myself in making their point, but this still upsetted a lot of inner-city DSA-types, you know, the kind of people who were caught at last year's DSA conference objecting to people saying 'ladies and gentlemen'. I'm sorry to have to hurt your feelings, but the fact is, if you keep on behaving like this, you're going to have to suffer many, many more defeats to come.
How Cringe Culture Poisons Politics | Re ContraPoints | TaraElla Report S6 E7
Hi everyone, welcome back to the sixth season of the TaraElla Report, where we try to come up with solutions to heal the polarized cultural and political environment in the West right now. Today, I want to continue my response to the recent ContraPoints video titled 'Cringe'. This time, I will be looking at the discussion around how online Cringe Culture affects the political landscape.
In the video, Natalie showcased multiple examples of so-called anti-SJW or anti-feminist cringe from back when this phenomenon was at its height, arguing that the purpose of these videos were to create contemptuous cringe for feminists and social justice activists through memefied versions of them. By and large, that kind of content produced its desired effect, making one side of politics have so much contempt for these people that they won't even take their ideas seriously, let alone debate them on an equal footing. This attitude in turn triggered a reactionary hostility from many supporters of feminism and social justice, who increasingly turned away from debate in the free market of ideas, and developed a somewhat paranoid attitude towards their critics.
To sum up, the biggest effect of this anti-SJW or anti-feminist cringe phenomenon was to polarize the debate around these issues so much that there is no appetite on either side for a healthy and nuanced discussion. To this day, three years later, both sides are still pretty much locked into their positions, with no appetite for conversation from either side, and with both sides continually policing the boundaries of acceptable opinion within their camp so that no one even dares to ask for a conversation with those on the opposite. I think the experience during 2015-17 serves to demonstrate how cringe culture can really poison the debate for everyone, dumb down complex issues, and force people into two neat camps that serve only the interests of establishment politicians one way or another. I really don't think it was a mere coincidence that political cringe culture peaked just around the 2016 US elections, and faded away quickly afterwards when it was no longer politically valuable. I was hoping Natalie would discuss this point more, actually.
The main problem with cringe culture is that it dumbs down everything, and turns every issue into essentially identity politics of some kind. For example, anti-feminist cringe doesn't actually deal with the merits or otherwise of feminist activists; it merely asserts that it would be cringe to be one of them.
There's no room for a nuanced take like, I support the value of gender-based equality on principle, but I also disagree with the critical theory view on patriarchal oppression, because it treats the genders like classes and thus minimizes the wide variety of individual experiences, and further because it essentially pits the genders against each other, which would lead to much unnecessary social conflict. In a debate where the terms are set up as whether feminism is cringe or not, there is no room for such a nuanced take. Instead, people are pressured into taking sides on whether feminism, without any qualifications, is cringe or not. Those of us who don't think that feminism is cringe would also end up getting lumped in with people who we otherwise vehemently disagree with, our important differences lost in this game we're forced to play. It's why someone like myself, who identifies as a moderate feminist but nevertheless disagrees with critical gender theory and its particular view of patriarchy, had such a hard time in those years. Meanwhile, the voices of those with views on either extreme became the most prominent ones, leading to a self-perpetuating cycle of cultural polarization.
If cringe culture is so bad, then how can we put an end to it, or at least make sure it doesn't return to its prominence during its recent peak? If I understood correctly, Natalie seems to suggest self-indifference as a way to combat cringe, since cringe thrives on insecurity and fear of embarrassment. However, some people have responded that this sounds too black pilled, too much like 'nothing matters anyway'. My alternative suggestion is that we should all think of life as a journey, an adventure. Don't think of life as a status competition, because at the end of the day, that is meaningless in the bigger scheme of things. Instead, think of life as what you can learn from it, what you gain as you go through the challenges while standing firm for your own values. I guess if everyone took this attitude, there would indeed be much less of a market for cringe culture, because there would be neither fear of embarrassment of the self, nor a motivation to harbor contempt for others.
Left Making The Same Mistake Conservatives Made? | Re Michael Shermer, Rubin Report | TaraElla Report S6 E6
Today, I'm going to talk about the part of the recent Micahel Shermer interview on the Rubin Report, where Shermer and Rubin discussed things around free speech. Shermer presented a history of the Left's support for free speech, from the early 20th century, through to the Free Speech movement by 1960s student activists. He illustrated that it was only more recently that the Left began to turn against free speech. I would even argue that it is an extremely recent phenomenon. Back when I was in college, the Left certainly tolerated a lot more of free speech, on issues from Bush-43's Iraq War, to gay marriage, and even rap music and video games. So, yes, I may be a lot younger than Shermer, but even I grew up in a world where the Left were relatively more tolerant of free speech and dissent than the Right. To this day, I still feel weird about some people on the Right championing free speech, while some people on the Left champion so-called 'safe speech'.
But is it true that, the Left doesn't support free speech anymore, that it has become what the Right used to be, shutting down dissent and so on? I don't necessarily think so. Just in the last year, we saw Tulsi Gabbard, who is clearly on the Left, make free speech one of the big issues of her campaign for the Democratic nomination. Furthermore, if you dive deeper into their politics, you will see that many online free speech activists actually have left-leaning economic views. And then, there's the anti-PC left, represented by new media like the Red Scare podcast, which has been gaining a lot of strength in the past 2 years. In other words, the culture of free speech and dissent is alive and well on the Left. What I think is happening, is that a small minority of loud individuals and well organized groups in the Marcusean and postmodernist part of the Left, are pushing the narrative that Shermer described, like how certain speech is harmful, and how harmful speech is a form of violence and so on. This is all based in Marcusean critical theory and postmodernist thinking, but these ideas are certainly not accepted by the whole of the Left.
I get the feeling that the majority of the Left probably don't agree with this 'controversial speech equals violence' view. However, they don't feel like pushing back either, perhaps because they think that it distracts from the economic issues, or perhaps because they fear that certain activists may come after them. This gives the false impression that the whole Left is now in agreement with this essentially fringe view.
As a Trad Lib, i.e. a 'traditionalist liberal', I think that we can advocate for New Deal style economics and free speech at the same time. We don't have to apologize for being a free speech absolutist, even as we advocate for things like a UBI and universal health care. There's no reason why these things don't go together. As I said in the last episode, in this brave new world of politics, where the traditional left and right factions are breaking into pieces, and where many of us increasingly identify as neither Left nor Right, it is much easier to stand up for what your own conscience believes. And my own conscience certainly believes there is not enough free speech right now. Just ask yourself, have there been times in the past year where you wanted to say something but didn't dare to say it, for fear of possible backlash or worse? There definitely have been times like these for me, and it's only increasing in frequency. While I care about the economic issues, I'm equally concerned about the state of free speech and the free market of ideas, and I can't pretend to not care. As Trad Libs, we can stay true to our values, both by supporting New Deal style economics, and by opposing the influence of critical theory and postmodernism. For me, personally, it is two parts of the same goal, the goal of restoring the liberal ideal as it existed before 1968 or so, before the post-68 cultural radicals and economic neoliberals alike ruined it.
Finally, I would like to remind people like Rubin and Shermer that, while the Right has come a long way in terms of free speech, they are still far from perfect there. Just last year, conservative intellectual Sohrab Ahmari kept making a big deal about the need for government intervention into culture. My argument was that, while you can certainly disagree with 'Drag Queen Story Hour', government intervention would still constitute a violation of free speech, and the widespread sympathy for Ahmari's position is of concern for libertarians of all stripes. While I certainly think the libertarian-Right is an important and worthy partner for us Trad Libs going forward on the issue of free speech, I still have my concerns about the authoritarian-Right.
A Trad Lib View on Political Realignment | Re Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro | TaraElla Report S6 E5
Today, I'm going to respond to an interesting idea that was recently discussed by Ben Shapiro and Dave Rubin on the Ben Shapiro Show. Basically, they seem to be seeing a potential political realignment, that could even be accelerated by the current pandemic. Discussing the issue from the Right, Shapiro sees that it could be splitting into a more libertarian faction, and a more common good faction that could perhaps support the government stepping in to save the economy post-lockdown. Rubin then talked about how he differed from more pro-government conservatives on issues like banning pornography.
I think the truth is, neither the left nor the right is a monolith, and the internet age means they can't pretend to be so anymore. Unlike Rubin, I don't think there will be a post-realignment left or right that shares a solid idea. The new reality is, each side is now a coalition, that needs to also win the votes of other unaligned people and groups, people like myself who don't consider themselves left or right. The quicker a campaign comes to this understanding, the better they will do. In 2016, the Trump and Bernie campaigns both understood this but Hillary didn't. This time, it seems like the Biden campaign is finally catching up, so it will be interesting to see which side is more effective now.
In this brave new world of politics, I think a Trad Lib, or traditional liberal, faction will definitely emerge. I feel like many people are actually Trad Libs, they're saying trad lib ideas aloud already without realizing that it is a political orientation that many of us share. So who are the Trad Libs? We are true to the original cannon of liberalism, particularly pre-1968. FDR was a trad lib, so were JFK and LBJ. We agree with FDR's New Deal approach to economics, but we also have concerns around free speech, family values, and the way some parts of the left have become illiberal culturally, like Rubin keeps reminding us. Furthermore, we don't want to give up one for the other. To go into the Right, like Rubin is now openly identifying as, would be to give up the New Deal approach. To go into the Left would be to embrace this renewed New Deal energy, but they keep saying that cultural issues are a distraction, telling us to shut up and focus on the economics while letting the Critical Theory driven illiberal New Left do whatever they want. The truth is, it's OK to want UBI and absolute free speech without compromising one or the other. It's OK to want universal health care and strong family values without compromising one or the other. In fact, people like Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard have shown us that these things actually go together very well. For myself, if that means cooperating with the Left economically and the libertarian-Right culturally at different times, then so be it, and in this fractured brave new world of politics, I think it will actually work out fine for us.
The other thing about this new model of politics is that one can identify with different ideas, and be informed by different traditions, at the same time. Conventional political factions have fragmented into many pieces, and we can just pick up the pieces and build our own philosophy that is true to our own conscience. For example, besides being a Trad Lib, I'm still also a libertarian, a Moral Libertarian, an old-school progressive when it comes to civil rights, a moderate conservative when it comes to traditional institutions and family values, and so on. It's the best time in history to be able to follow your conscience and use it to make the difference you want to see in this world. And those of us who won't follow labels like Left or Right blindly anymore will stand to be the most productive in this.
There are No Libertarians in a Pandemic? | TaraElla Report S6 E4
Today, I'm going to take a look at the increasingly popular saying that 'there are no libertarians in a pandemic'. What this phrase refers to is, of course, government spending. Right now, governments around the world, left, right and center, are spending huge sums of money to bail out the economy. This, of course, is strongly at odds with the conventional libertarian philosophy of minimal government. Furthermore, the pandemic has highlighted the utility of having universal health coverage in times like these. It appears that minarchy, and the whole 'taxation is theft' idea, is really unfit for a pandemic, or indeed, any national or international crisis.
Does this mean the future for libertarianism is now bleak? I don't think so. The problem is, too many people imagine libertarianism to be about minimizing the size of government at all costs. However, I don't think that is how the NAP should necessarily be interpreted. The fact is, drastically lowering spending has not much to do with the NAP. While some may argue this from the 'taxation is theft' angle, this would equally apply to a tax rate of, say, 10% vs 30%, because in both cases, if you don't pay your taxes, you still go to prison. On the other hand, making all taxation voluntary would mean nobody pays tax at all, which would lead to the government ceasing to exist. Therefore, the 'taxation is theft' argument is ultimately not meaningful, unless you are also OK with anarchism and all its consequences. At least since industrialization, we have never actually lived by the 'taxation is theft' idea, and for good reason. I think it's time libertarianism broke from that particular obsession.
Instead, the NAP could be interpreted at a more abstract level, to support things like free speech, freedom of conscience and religion, and ending the endless wars, while still leaving room for an adequate government response to pandemics and other crises, as well as things like universal health care. This is where Moral Libertarianism comes in. In the Moral Libertarian view, the important thing is each individual has equal and maximum moral agency, to pursue what they believe to be the necessary course of action under their moral compass. Where the NAP comes in is that, no other individual can have an overriding power to coerce them to do otherwise. After all, a coercive relationship is, by definition, an aggressive relationship; and non-coercion is essentially non-aggression in a broader sense. Applying the NAP this way allows much more flexibility in terms of government spending, and the provision of programs like Medicare For All. It would also allow a more robust response to things like climate change, in the longer term. In my opinion, it would make libertarianism a much more practical and popular ideology.
The Problematic Priorities of the Elite 'Woke' | TaraElla Report S6 E3
Today, I'm going to talk about a new poll from Pew Research, which asked Democratic voters about whether they were bothered that this year's Democratic nominee is an older white man. Now, this isn't even about Joe Biden or his policies; it's simply about whether someone is bothered by an older white man becoming the Democratic nominee, so even if you don't particularly like Biden, please put that aside and consider the actual question being asked. Now, I understand that some people want a candidate who isn't an old white man, and that preference is definitely OK. However, being 'bothered' by it is quite a strong word, and I know some people won't agree, but I think it's actually wrong to have such strong feelings against an old white man being the nominee, whether it be Biden, Bernie, or someone else. Imagine this: if I rephrased the question as, for example, 'if you are bothered by a young Asian woman receiving the nomination', you'll see that it's clearly racist, sexist and ageist. Those of us who are actually minorities know that double standards only serve to entrench discrimination in the longer run, so we oppose discrimination in any direction. If you allow differential treatment in any form, minorities always end up suffering the most.
Given my view on this matter, it is no surprise that I'm very disappointed that the poll found that almost half of the sample actually agreed with the proposition. I mean, not only is this racist, sexist and ageist, the fact that you're bothered by these things rather than the actual policies show that you don't even care about the important issues at all. It's as if Biden, a friend of workers who has committed to working with Bernie going forward, isn't at least much better than symbolic glass-ceiling Hillary. Now, before anyone goes on to blame minorities for this, no, they are not primarily responsible. The poll found that less than a third of black and hispanic people agreed with the proposition, compared to about half of whites. On the other hand, a majority of some groups actually agreed with the proposition: those under 30 by 54%, those with postgraduate education by 58%, and most stunningly, Elizabeth Warren supporters by a whopping 73%, although that could just be their way of protesting the loss of their candidate so I'm not sure it's accurate. Anyway, the point is, it has become more common than not in some circles to agree with this problematic view, and unfortunately, the young and the educated is where the problem is.
I guess it could be another example of people dripping in privilege trying to revolutionarize the world, taking the moral high ground against other privileged people in the virtue signalling game, while the rest of us are just trying to survive. I think it is incredibly privileged to care about anything other than the policies on offer, because, at the end of the day, the personal characterstics of the US President doesn't affect anyone. It's like the current culture war over pronouns, which certainly didn't come from the trans community, because most trans people are just trying to survive. This was especially true before around 2015, when trans issues started going mainstream. I think it's because the woke crowd, despite being economically privileged, just can't find enough meaning and happiness in their own lives for some reason. This is why they delight in other people's symbolic progress, because it brings a sense of meaning to their own lives. Meanwhile, actual minorities don't even care for any of this, as seen by the majority of black people voting for Biden, the majority of Lations voting for Bernie, and the majority of trans people still refusing to put their pronouns on their social media profiles (not that there is anything wrong with pronouns in bios, but culturally it is not being done well right now). What minorities understand is that it is all a fight among the privileged, nothing more.
Why I Left the Right AND the Left | TaraElla Report S6 E2
Today, I'm going respond to the recent Hunter Avallone video, titled 'Why I Left The Right', in which Hunter explained his recent political evolution. As he explains, he no longer considers himself a right-winger, although he still holds some beliefs in common with conservatives, like over guns and abortion. As I understand it, one of the reasons why he is leaving the Right is that he cares about the truth, the scientific truth of things, and the Right simply isn't as committed to the truth as he is. Another reason is that the Right is not as committed to individual freedom and free debate as he used to think they were. For example, the 'dogmatic screeching' that he used to associate with the Left appears to also be common on the Right.
I think what he said was one of the most important narratives about politics out there to listen to right now. I highly recommend watching that video. In fact, his disillusionment with the Right is simply true, and it also mirrors other people's disillusionment with the Left. In truth, neither the Left nor the Right as they exist today are committed to the truth, and I don't think that will change anytime soon. The only way to be committed to the truth is to think beyond Left or Right binaries, even though that can be lonely, and in terms of platforms like YouTube, you can lose fans and subscribers for that. But as Hunter says, for many of us, being committed to the truth is more important, and if we can't say what we truly believe, what we do would be meaningless and useless anyway.
I think the reason why neither the Left nor the Right are committed to the truth is because they are more committed to keeping people in their coalition happy. For many power hungry people, politics is about coalition building, and they will feed certain elements of their coalition even if they uphold scientifically invalid beliefs, or if they are against the basic freedoms of certain people. This is why politics is so dirty.
For example, one example Hunter came back to again and again was LGBT issues. Hunter points out that parts of the Right continues to uphold scientifically invalid views about gay and trans people, and they are resistant to people who want to voice their disagreement to the party line. In fact, this is nothing new. The Right has already died on the LGBT hill once. Hunter is only 23, so he may be too young to remember it, but back when I was in college, one of the biggest planks of the Right was vehement opposition to gay marriage. In fact, many Republicans argued for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage back then. They argued that gay marriage would ruin families and society. Opposing gay marriage was a central commitment of many so-called 'values voters' during the 2004 US election, and some people believe their turnout helped re-elect President Bush. Back then, many of us who were just getting politicized saw right through this rubbish, and also considered it to be highly offensive. It is one of the reasons why most people in their 30s today continue to be very skeptical towards conservative politics, contributing to their big deficit among young people. In other words, conservatives have already paid a hefty price for their Bush-era gay marriage nonsense.
Given the experience with gay marriage, you would think the conservatives wouldn't go anti-LGBT again. In fact, it was almost going to be that way. Former British conservative Prime Minister David Cameron led the charge to legalize gay marriage in the UK, arguing that gay marriage would strengthen marriage and family values. Back then, there was definitely a move by some American conservatives to embrace the Cameron approach, as part of the Republican soul searching after their second defeat to Obama in 2012. I mean, the Republicans were much more open-minded during that period of political wilderness; they were even wanting to embrace more ethnic and cultural diversity. I guess that open-mindedness was what led to things like Trump holding up a rainbow flag and all that. However, once the Republicans were in power again, the fundamentalist Christian bloc, for lack of a better word, demanded to be fed again. I believe this is what led to the Trump administration's trans military ban, a policy that almost nobody believes to be rationally valid. But even after that, many evangelicals continued to make noises that Trump should cater more to their wishes. Given that there will be a US Presidential election at the end of this year, I suspect they will also try to remind him of how important so-called 'values voters' were for Bush in 2004. In fact, the atmosphere of the Right is becoming increasingly like it was back in 2004, and that's not a good thing.
Which, I think, is why large parts of the Right simply cannot just accept the science over LGBT issues, or even the honest libertarian view on that matter. I suspect that many Republicans continue to feel the need to keep the evangelical bloc on board, even if that means feigning homophobia and transphobia that cannot be justified with facts and logic. Their calculation is that evangelical voters are more important than the 'gays for Trump' bloc at the end of the day. Of course, just as in 2004, many people will see through them, and I'm almost certain that what they're saying in support of the trans military ban will not age well, just like their comments on gay marriage or the Iraq War back then. The truth is, conservatives are willing to die on the LGBT hill a second time, simply because they think it's more important that they turn out older evangelical voters this year. I think it's a dangerously wrong calculation, but I guess time will tell.
Anyway, I think all this teaches us a larger lesson: that as long as the power hungry may drop their morals and their commitment to the truth in an attempt to maintain political coalitions, those of us who are committed to the truth should remain skeptical of their intentions. It is therefore that we should remain at an arm's length distance to any political movement or faction. Which is why I'm happy to borrow this motto from Andrew Yang: 'not Left, not Right, but forward'. Let's move forward together, committed to no political coalition, but only the truth, and what's good for humanity.
So Keir Starmer isn't Left-wing? Inside the Online Left's Psychology | TaraElla News
Today, I'm going to talk about the fact that much of the online left seems to find newly elected British Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer not left-wing. As I understand it, Starmer identifies as a socialist, and supports the re-nationalization of several industries. That, I believe, makes him to the left of even Bernie Sanders! Not my cup of tea, but definitely very leftist. Yet, they think he's not a leftist, probably because he defeated someone to his left.
Which, of course, reminds me of the situation where the online left appears to think that Joe Biden is actually a Republican, and a worse choice than Donald Trump! Never mind the fact that Biden now has the most progressive platform of anyone who ever run for US President on a major party ticket, with things like a $15 minimum wage. I suspect that even if Biden were to support Medicare For All, they would still call him a conservative.
For the extremely online left, the point isn't whether Biden or Starmer is progressive or not; the point is simply to have a fight. If you suspect that nothing will ever satisfy these people, then you're absolutely correct. This psychology comes from a long line of Western Marxist thinking, where it is the struggle itself that is romanticized, and for that, practical chances for progress are often sacrificed, so the 'struggle' can continue. The true believer is all about the stuggle, never mind how working people are sacrificed. Of course, this is an attitude that only the economically and socially privileged can maintain. No wonder actual working class people don't want to have anything to do with this faction of the left.
'Cultural Appropriation' is back? Let's Talk About Social Justice Again | TaraElla Report S5 E14
NOTE: Marxian doesn't mean Marxist. It is an academic term, and here it means something like pseudo-Marxist or Marxist-like. For my latest thoughts on why criticalism isn't Marxism, see this 2021 post.
Hi everyone, welcome again to the fifth season of the TaraElla Report, where we dive deeper to take a real look at the issues underlying the toxic political environment we have throughout the West right now. This show is brought to you by my new book, The Moral Libertarian Idea, which is all about reimagining a positive and pro-community, pro-humanity classical liberalism for the 21st century.
Today, I'm going to talk about cultural appropriation, and social justice more generally. Do you remember the outrage around so-called 'cultural appropriation'? I certainly do. And while that has died down for some time now, I see signs of a revival on the horizon. For example, the other day, I saw a video talking about whether singer Billie Eilish was guilty of 'cultural appropriation'. So it's unfortunately important to talk about that again. I also think this is a good time to reflect again on the state of the social justice discussion as a whole.
Social Justice Got Hijacked By Theoretical Concerns
Cultural appropriation is one of those topics most people don't think of as important at all, for a good reason: there is almost never any injustice to any individual from the act of 'cultural appropriation'. Now, I'm not talking about blackface, which is actually offensive, but is not really relevant to most discussion about 'cultural appropriation'. I'm talking about things like a white person wearing an Asian dress; or a non-black person doing rap music. According to most people's common sense, there's simply nothing wrong with that, and they would be correct. In fact, 'cultural appropriation' is what I call a 'theoretical injustice', that is, a form of injustice that only exists in academic theories, and has no real bad consequence in the real world. Most of these 'theoretical injustices' seem to arise from the application of a pseudo-Marxian worldview, as I will discuss later in this video.
Anyway, the point is, in the past few years, the discussion of theoretical injustices have made the whole social justice idea look stupid, to the point where many young people simply stay away from social justice nowadays. Back when the conversation was starting to get ridiculous, I warned people that this was what was going to happen next, but they didn't listen. Oh, well, the social justice thing is now dead in the water, as I told you so! Back in Season 1 of the TaraElla Report, and even earlier than that, I was arguing for pulling back from the excesses of the social justice movement, but all I got was nasty comments from the most extreme activists. They accused me of not supporting social justice; but in fact, I was trying to save it. In truth, I care deeply about social justice. I care that people aren't treated unfairly because of their race, or that they aren't fired because they are LGBT. But by 2017 or so, the social justice movement had lost sight of what's important. Besides, they started promoting things like the 'progressive stack', where straight white men got less of an opportunity to speak, which was clearly unjust to many individuals! Ideas like these make a mockery of what social justice should be about.
The Pseudo-Marxian 'Cultural appropriation'
'Cultural appropriation' is one of the best examples I can use to explain the nonsense that is the pseudo-Marxian version of social justice. Under cultural appropriation theory, ethnicities or cultures are seen as analogous to the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, like everything in the pseudo-Marxian worldview. As usual, Western culture is seen as the oppressor and other cultures are seen as the oppressed. Therefore, a white person doing rap music would be seen as someone from the oppressor class taking something away from the oppressed class, like how capitalists bosses take what's produced by workers and sell it for a profit. That's what they mean by 'appropriation', it is literally used in a pseudo-Marxist sense. That's also why black people playing Baroque music doesn't count as 'cultural appropriation'. It's a 'logic' that only makes sense if you both understand and accept pseudo-Marxism in the first place, which most of us don't. Of course, the other problem is that, when you reduce everything to a pseudo-Marxian oppressor vs oppressed dynamic, there's really no room for freedom, creativity, individuality, or anything else. That's why most people can't accept this worldview.
As mentioned earlier, I think the reason why the social justice train got de-railed was that a pseudo-Marxian, worldview had taken hold in that movement, some time around the middle of the decade. Interestingly, it was also the reason the 1960s anti-war progressives got de-railed. In the most basic form, a pseudo-Marxian worldview is where people are seen as groups that are pitted against each other, oppressors vs the oppressed, plus the idea that we are all living in a structure that holds this oppression together, so traditions are bad and radical cultural change is needed. The problem with all this is that it doesn't afford any freedom or dignity to individuals. It's scary to see this kind of thinking getting mainstream in the West. That's why I welcomed the influence of Jordan Peterson back in 2017 or 18. I don't agree with everything he says, and I openly stated my disagreements with him, but I thought he could save social justice by removing the us-vs-them theories influence, and restoring the central role of individual dignity. I guess that didn't work.
What Needs To Happen From Now On
The experience of how social justice got de-railed in the 2010s has inspired the position I will take going forward: that I won't be ready, or interested, in another social justice movement, unless a framework that is rooted in individual dignity, like the Moral Libertarian principle of Equal and Maximum Moral Agency for every individual, is accepted a-priori. The fact is, there is no point to restart the social justice conversation, only to let the us-vs-them theories worldview hijack it again, to lead the movement to yet another trainwreck, which would probably discredit social justice for at least a generation. Given that I think there are still social injustices that need to be fixed, I really don't want that to happen. Therefore, from my point of view, it is better than the next social justice train only departs the station when there are enough safeguards to prevent it from de-railing again.
What if Joe Biden Picked a Feminist VP? | TaraElla Report S5 E13
Today, I'm going to talk about, well, Joe Biden's potential VP picks, and also feminism. In recent days, people have been talking about potential VP picks for Joe Biden, the Democratic front-runner. Biden has already said he would pick a women, and many of the women that are being talked about are also feminists, or at least appear to be feminists. This has made some people worry, because feminists generally haven't performed well at the ballot box in America and other Western countries. As the people say, there doesn't seem to be a problem with women as leaders, the late Margaret Thatcher was elected British Prime Minister as long ago as 1979, and she remains admired by conservatives even today. However, ever since Hillary 2016, it seems that feminists just can't make it far. And it's not just Hillary: the feminist Julia Gillard also fared badly in Australia a few years earlier, and Britain's Theresa May may also have been hampered by her feminist-type statements.
Some of you may not know this, but back when feminism was in the mainstream spotlight, back in the middle of the decade, I had actually been commenting on various cultural issues from the angle of a 'feminist who doesn't agree with contemporary feminism'. I even tried to save intersectionality by talking sense to the movement, until I concluded that it was fruitless, upon which I quit. You can see some of that stuff in Season 1 of the TaraElla Report, those were recorded when the feminist wave was just winding down. Anyway, my general point was, I still strongly agree with a traditional feminist ideal of gender equality, as it was supported by classical liberals like John Stuart Mill even back in the 19th century, but this wave of feminism seems to have lost sight of the goal. I also commented on how figures like Cassie Jaye, of 'The Red Pill' fame, quit feminism because of how the movement had become, on which I said I wouldn't quit feminism myself, but the movement really need to change. People are really sick and tired of blaming men for everything, all the negativity, and the extremist moves to 'de-platform' people, like the aforementioned Ms Jaye.
I guess it wouldn't be a problem if Biden chose a feminist VP, as long as she isn't the postmodernist and divisive type of feminist, like those who tried to de-platform Ms Jaye. As I commented repeatedly back in Season 1, the problem with contemporary feminism is that, since the 1970s or so, it has been affected by the pseudo-Marxian left, who had a worldview that pit groups against each other. There is feminist literature out there that literally describes women as a sex-class that is oppressed by men as a sex-class, using full Bolshevik-like language to describe the relationship. Now, that's really divisive and scary, I think. Not to mention unfair, because it would call a working class man the 'oppressor' but a rich woman 'oppressed', something that I think even Marx himself would not have allowed. It's also clearly not the kind of feminism that most of the suffragettes and their classical liberal allies from the earlier wave were about. So, we really have two kinds of feminism here: the truly equal rights type I call the modern-day suffragettes, and the pseudo-Marxian type who sees society as a continuous struggle between groups pit against each other. I guess a feminist VP would be widely acceptable if she was of the former type, but not of the latter type.
However, another thing is that, unfortunately, there probably is a general taboo around feminism in some circles by now, because of the confusion between the two types of feminism. That's why it's important to clarify the difference here. It's why I welcomed the intervention of Jordan Peterson back in 2017 or 18, when he wanted to start a conversation around what he called 'postmodern neo-Marxism'. While that term itself was controversial, what he was referring to was a real thing, and my hope was that the removal of the pseudo-Marxist element may help in rehabilitating feminism itself. After all, feminism has been around for more than a century, and has contributed to real improvements for humanity. It would be a shame if all that was overshadowed by a misguided fringe movement that originated as recently as the crazy 1970s. Don't get me wrong, I don't always agree with Jordan Peterson, and I have openly voiced my disagreements with him, but the thing is, I thought we needed an intervention ASAP, and I thought he could be the one to do it. Obviously, that didn't quite work out at the time.
Finally, the bottom line is that, a feminist VP pick would either be able to rehabilitate feminism, or it could lead to the whole ticket being sunk by the popular peception of feminism a la Hillary 2016, depending on what happens between now and November. As someone who wants to help save feminism rather than see it sink, you know what my hope is. I'm just not entirely confident that things would go the way I want them to, however.
Andrew Yang & UBI Supporters Can't Be Real Libertarians? | TaraElla Report S5 E12
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.
Libertarian is a really controversial word right now. Both when used as a label of pride and a smear, it carries a range of sometimes contradictory meanings. For example, the far-left has often accused Andrew Yang's UBI as a 'libertarian trojan horse'. I don't know what that is supposed to mean, but it's clearly something bad. Meanwhile, some self-identified libertarians have indeed been enthusiastic supporters of Yang during the past year. On the other hand, other self-identified libertarians have criticized those Yang supporters as 'not true libertarians', because they clearly aren't for drastically cutting government if they support a Democrat. Finally, some elements of the anarchist far-left have come out and said that, no, you are all fake libertarians, because the word 'libertarian' actually means anarchist in its original meaning.
So, who is a libertarian? It appears that we don't have a clear and agreed definition of the word. Some may point to the Non-Aggression Principle as the foundation of the whole idea, and most would agree. But then, how would you define what is an acceptable application of the NAP? I mean, there's the example where if you don't pay your taxes, somebody would take you to jail at gunpoint, so that's a violation of the NAP. However, even if the government were as small as only having a police force, law courts and a military, they would still need tax revenue, so the aforementioned situation would probably still happen to people who refuse to pay their taxes. And given that lower taxes are not really associated with lower tax evasion, it appears that the very existence of taxation would already violate the NAP, and a tax rate of 5% would likely violate the NAP as often as a tax rate of 50%. If we are to accept this logic, it would indeed lead to anarchism being the only acceptable libertarian position. However, as we all know, the majority of libertarians don't actually want anarchism!
Therefore, let me propose this: a libertarian is somebody who supports individual liberty as a core value, and supports the application of the NAP in some form. Now, this definition can encompass a wide range of people, and I don't think that's a bad thing either. For example, my support of practical individual liberty is the reason I support a UBI program, and for me, as a Moral Libertarian, I believe the best way to apply the NAP to its fullest spirit is to follow the principle of Equal Moral Agency for all on every policy issue. Now, another libertarian may not see things the same way, and that's fine. Freedom of conscience and diversity of thought are core values for every libertarian, and we should be able to respect our differences, as the NAP requires of us. Furthermore, I think if we define libertarian this way, it's much more useful and logical. For example, some definitions of libertarianism focused solely on low taxation or property rights would include people who clearly don't believe enough in individual liberty, while excluding those who have a more consequential model of liberty. It's how fans of Milo Yiannopoulos and Lauren Southern can define themselves as libertarians, while trying to exclude supporters of Andrew Yang. I think this is ridiculous, because there's clearly no way being neo-reactionary adjacent is actually more supportive of liberty than being a UBI fan.
At this point, I think we should also return to the roots of classical liberalism. Classical liberalism arose as a response to the religious conflicts of the late middle ages, and its purpose was to allow people with different faiths to coexist in peace and cooperate. This arrangement only works where there is a robust social fabric supported by strong social institutions, especially strong families. One reason I particularly liked Andrew Yang's campaign was his emphasis on families. Having a UBI as well as free marriage counselling may somewhat detract from the goal of smaller government, but it's good for families, especially those with stay at home moms. Given that families are the most essential part of the social architecture supporting liberty, there is indeed nothing more libertarian than supporting strong families. Liberty is the best guarantor of the natural social fabric, and the natural social fabric is the best guarantor of liberty.
Three Theories Of Political Change: 2020 Primaries in Hindsight | TaraElla Report S5 E10-11
NOTE: Marxian doesn't mean Marxist. It is an academic term, and here it means something like pseudo-Marxist or Marxist-like. For my latest thoughts on why criticalism isn't Marxism, see this 2021 post.
Hi everyone, welcome again to the fifth season of the TaraElla Report, where we dive deeper to take a real look at the issues underlying the toxic political environment we have throughout the West right now. This show is brought to you by my new book, The Moral Libertarian Idea, which is all about reimagining a positive and pro-community, pro-humanity classical liberalism for the 21st century.
Today, I'm going to talk about what it would take for a truly humanity centered, pro-liberty political movement to succeed. As you would know, during the past year on this show, I have often discussed the now withdrawn campaigns of Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard. Now that it's all over, let me say this: I always knew they were long-shot campaigns. The reason why they got me excited was because of their approach to change. During this past primary, we saw three different approaches to change, among the so-called 'progressive' candidates: the top-down, technocratic plan represented by Elizabeth Warren; the class warfare inspired, conflict driven approach represented by Bernie Sanders and his movement; and the broad-tent approach represented by Yang and Gabbard. Ultimately, all three failed this time around, but I still have the most faith in the broad-tent, consensus building approach. In the rest of this episode, I will explain why I support this approach, and what needs to happen for this approach to win the future.
What many of us agree is that structural economic and political change is needed. But where we are often divided is in our theory of how this change should come about, which I think reflects a deeper difference in worldview. For example, as Yang himself said, Bernie is the candidate of anger and revolution. The most extreme Bernie-aligned activists often have a Marxian worldivew, which is a worldview based on seeing people as fundamentally divided into groups of oppressors and the oppressed. They have a model of change via group-based struggle against a common enemy. The problem is that, where such a conflict based model is used, there needs to be an enemy, because the whole movement is powered by the idea of fighting an oppressive enemy. I think this is why some far-left people have been aggressive to supporters of several 2020 candidates, including Warren, Yang and Gabbard. As we've just seen, this kind of division leads to a lose-lose result. Furthermore, many extreme Marxians also have the pessmistic view that it might be best to burn it all down because it's all so oppressive and hopeless anyway, which is where the idea of accelerationism comes from. The desire to burn it all down comes from a long line of Marxist-type thinking, of course. Such thinking is clearly misguided, because it's always harmful for the social fabric, and harmful for families. It has always been only those who are out of touch with the common decency of everyday working people who would even entertain burning it all down. I think one reason why Bernie failed this year was because his movement had too many of this kind of people in it, which naturally alienates working people who are grounded in their family lives.
On the other hand, Yang and Gabbard represent another theory of change. If the most extreme Bernie Bros are the modern-day Bolsheviks, then Yang and Gabbard are the modern-day FDRs. FDR was able to build long-lasting structural change by having a broad coalition of support, as evidenced by winning the US presidency four times! FDR didn't need an enemy to struggle against, because he was able to build a broad consensus for change that was based on a commonly accepted vision of freedom. That was exactly what Yang and Gabbard set out to achieve, why they went on shows like Tucker Carlson, Dave Rubin, and more, to have a conversation. Only conversations where free speech is respected, where there is a sincere exchange of ideas, will build a new consensus and make the broad-tent model of change possible. Yet the Bolshevik-like activists accused them of talking to the enemy. It's similar to how they accused even Bernie of accepting Joe Rogan's endorsement. These people would prefer to have clear enemies to struggle against, because it's where their energy comes from. However, history has shown us that the FDR way was much more successful and much less harmful than the Bolshevik way. Furthermore, you can only have one or the other; you cannot logically pursue both, because having defined enemies to struggle against also means you can't have open conversations with them. If I believe in the FDR approach, I literally cannot entertain the Bolshevik approach at all.
The key to success for the broad-tent consensus approach to change is to be able to have those difficult conversations with people holding diverse views. Society-wide consensus doesn't come from just talking with people inside the your own bubble, so we all need to be brave enough to meet other people where they are, and be open to a sincere exchange of ideas with people who think differently from ourselves. The trouble is, the current toxic political atmosphere makes having these conversations difficult, as the Yang and Gabbard campaigns have demonstrated. Tulsi, in particular, was very mindful of the need to heal the divides of society, and her decisions stemming from that brought massive backlash from the modern-day Bolsheviks, who probably played an important role in burying her campaign. In short, Yang 2020 and Tulsi 2020 failed because there wasn't the right cultural environment for them to thrive, because the political landscape had already been thoroughly poisoned four or five years ago. What needs to happen before a similar campaign can thrive again, is that this toxicity needs to end, and society itself needs to heal. Which is why we certainly can't give into the 'burn it all down' fantasies of the modern-day Bolsheviks. If anything, we need to head in the opposite direction. I guess the lesson we should learn from the failure of Yang 2020 and Tulsi 2020 is that, without healing society itself first, there really is no good path to political and economic change at all.
Best For Humanity: Libertarianism Plus Communitarianism | Moral Libertarian Talk
Welcome to Moral Libertarian Talk, where we explore political ideas, issues and misunderstandings in depth, from the Moral Libertarian viewpoint. Subscribe if you are interested. This show is brought to you by my new book, The Moral Libertarian Idea, which is all about reimagining a positive and pro-community, pro-humanity classical liberalism for the 21st century. Link is in the description.
Libertarianism is all about individual liberty. Communitarianism is all about building strong communities. Libertarianism sees the key to human thriving in individual freedom. Communitarianism sees the key to human thriving in strong families, healthy communities, and shared bonds. With all these differences, libertarianism and communitarianism have sometimes been seen as opposites. However, they are actually not incompatible at all. In fact, they are complementary, with one enhancing the other.
While libertarianism prizes individual liberty above all, the fact is that individual liberty does not exist in a vacuum. Using a simple example to illustrate the point, in societies and times where there is a complete break down of social order, there is no room for individual liberty. In such situations, the basic need of security is required to be satisfied first, and in prioritizing safety and security above all, individual liberty is inevitably sacrificed. Likewise, where the social fabric is diseased and social trust is very low, people will also prioritize security and sacrifice liberty. Furthermore, the 'free market of ideas', as well as the whole process of free debate and democratic decision making, would become distrusted by many people, which would lead to the devaluation of associated values like free speech. The fact is, individual liberty is simply unsustainable without the right social environment. The project of communitarianism, in putting an emphasis on strong families, healthy communities and a strong and healthy social fabric, creates and maintains the social conditions under which individual liberty can thrive. This is why libertarianism ultimately needs communitarianism.
On the other hand, a community can only be strong if there is mutual respect and a healthy level of mutual trust between its members. This requires that there be as little 'power play' as possible, a condition that is effectively achieved if (and only if) there is maximum liberty for every individual, so that nobody can wield massive power over anyone else in any case. Furthermore, for a community to serve the needs of its members effectively over time, its culture must be adaptive. This would be achieved only where there is free debate for every issue. Finally, to ensure long term harmony among people with diverse values and ideas, everyone should be allowed to 'do their thing' as much as possible, as long as it doesn't harm another's right to do similarly. As we can see, for a communitarian project to be successful, especially in the longer term, a strong and fundamental respect for individual liberty is required.
The fact is, individual liberty and community building need each other. A libertarianism without communitarianism is unsustainable, and so is a communitarianism without libertarianism. This is why we must stop entertaining the notion that libertarianism and communitarianism are somehow opposites. The two ideals are stronger when they are linked together.
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