We Like Andrew Yang Because He's Truly Open-Minded | TaraElla Report S4 E2 (Redo)

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.

 

TaraElla: Welcome to the TaraElla Report, where I chat with my friends about cultural and political issues. All of us are individuals who are simply looking for more freedom. I believe that it is only through amplifying the conversations of everyday individuals that we can cut through the nonsense and bring back freedom.

Today's conversation is with Katie, an old friend of mine with whom I have had political conversations going back to our college days. Katie identifies as a progressive, whereas I identify as a classical liberal. I think we do share quite a lot of common ground, for example in our preference that our political leaders be truly open-minded. It's a quality that's becoming increasingly rare on both sides of politics, but fortunately we still find it in a few of the 2020 candidates, including Andrew Yang.

Katie: In fact, the reason why I identify as 'progressive' is because it signals an openness to new and creative solutions to solve our problems, and the adaptability this creates. Now, this is very different from how some people think of 'progressive' these days, whether this be a set of dogmatic policy positions that were bundled together for various historical reasons, or a set of beliefs that arise from social theory created in certain sections of academia. The main difference is that, my 'progressive' is open-minded, open-ended and practical, while theirs is dogmatic, rigid and narrow-minded. What I like most about Andrew Yang is that he is a 'progressive' in the open-minded mould. He is open to bold new ways to solve problems, such as the Universal Basic Income, which he calls the Freedom Dividend. This is necessary because the problems we experience at each stage in history is new. For example, the coming wave of automation will create a challenge that we have never seen before. No social theory from an intellectual establishment that is still tied down to a 1960s-based worldview will adequately address this challenge. And, let's face it, this 1960s-era worldview is also something that Hillary Clinton shared to a great extent, and ultimately what led to her being out of touch and running a campaign that didn't connect with today's problems.

TaraElla: It's interesting that you mentioned the 1960s worldview. I see it in supposedly progressive people everywhere. I think British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is a good example of this. The Corbyn cult thinks that he is the future, but actually he is the past. Similarly, the identity politics left, which Hillary Clinton is part of, is, from what I see, desperate to revisit the 1960s and 70s civil rights and second wave feminist battles, when the rest of the world has clearly moved on. I suspect Hillary Clinton imagined Trump supporters to be sexist men straight out of 1950s society and hence called them 'deplorables', when actual Trump supporters are people living in the here and now with real social and economic concerns that are nothing like the conservatives of the 1950s. While Hillary didn't get it, and probably still doesn't get it, Andrew Yang clearly gets it, and this is why he is winning over quite a large number of 2016 Trump supporters.

Katie: I think this is an important point. Unlike Hillary, Andrew Yang actually studies and addresses the problems people have in the present and the future, and he is not biased by the social theory that was developed in response to events in the 1960s and 70s. Hence, he has no problems seeing how rust belt workers are suffering from the loss of jobs, and he fully understands how increasing automation will make it even worse. He understands that Hillary's divisive identity politics is so yesterday, and going forward we are going to face unprecendented challenges, and we are all in the same boat here. This is why he proposes pragmatic, universal solutions that will serve the needs of everyone. Another great thing about Yang is his ability to go beyond the superficial, and come up with novel solutions for problems that nobody knows how to solve right now. For example, he is concerned about issues like rising suicide rates and dropping birth rates. But he doesn't just think it's a cultural problem like many others do. He links this to the economic situation, and proposes economic remedies. Will it work? We can't know for sure yet, but it's at least worth a try, given the dire situation we find ourselves in at the moment.

TaraElla: I think we should talk a bit about the rise of identity politics, on both the left and the right, as an example of a problem where pragmatic solutions that go beyond the superficial are needed. Identitarianism has been a matter of major concern for many people, and rightly so because it tears apart the classical liberal social contract. However, a lot of the analysis on this matter ignore the bigger picture. The post-war period was great for classical liberal values in general, but it did not exist in a vacuum. I think that a society where there is a weak social fabric and weak and unstable family structures is one prone to identity politics. This is because when people don't have the strong bonds of family and tradition to identify with, they turn to identification based on other things, like demographic characteristics or shared worldviews. The bonds of identity around race, gender, sexual orientation or political affiliation have become a substitute for the bonds of families and institutions. Therefore, to cure the identity politics problem, we need a strong social fabric made up of strong and stable families and institutions. Now, we all know that economic stress is a big contributor to family breakdown, and the past three decades of economic policy have increased the economic stress experienced by many families. I think this is the real cause of the rise of identity politics, and the breakdown of values like free speech and the free market of ideas that naturally follow. I believe we can't effectively restore classical liberal values across society without changing some of the economic parameters, to at least make families healthy again. That's why I think the Freedom Dividend is a great idea.

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

Is the Intellectual Dark Web (IDW) Seeing SJW Everywhere? | Re Quilette | Moral Libertarian View

Welcome to Moral Libertarian View, a podcast style program where we discuss big ideas to see if they can contribute to more individual liberty and equal opportunity, values that are at the heart of the Moral Libertarian idea. My aim is to untangle the confusions and seek the truth, in the areas of civilizational values, economic policy, and culture. I hope you subscribe if you are interested.

The Intellectual Dark Web is at the heart of the recent revival of interest in classical liberal values. Its intellectual arguments in support of free speech, and against identity politics and systems of oppression theories, are indespensible in the culture war against the increasingly aggressive postmodern left. For this reason, it has attracted interest and support from both old-school liberals and conservatives alike.

But as we gradually get used to talking of the IDW as a 'thing', with a particular worldview, there has also been building criticism of the IDW as having a particular dominant perspective, and perhaps a biased one. Even though I am a big fan of the IDW in general, I have also long warned of bias developing over time. And unfortunately, I have been seeing a particular kind of bias developing within the IDW in recent months. A good example of this is Quilette's article on the Australian election last week. The article claims that elitist cultural progressives and their SJW style agenda caused the Labor party, which is roughly speaking the counterparts of the US Democrats, to lose the election. However, the fact is that there was simply little to no attention on cultural issues in that particular election, and it was almost entirely fought over economic policy. In fact, people who actually live in Australia have been keen to point this out, both in the comments section of that article and on Twitter. Meanwhile, Americans who probably know nothing of Australian politics keep comparing the situation to Hillary vs Trump in 2016, when in reality the Australian election was probably more like Bush vs Gore back in 2000. As the saying goes, when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When all you think about is how SJWs are destroying culture, everything looks like the fault of SJWs.

I fear if this trend is allowed to continue, the IDW would just end up losing all credibility. I mean, imagine if the 2020 US Presidential elections played out just like the 2019 Australian elections. Imagine if the Democrats went in talking about nothing but economic policies, and they still lost. Imagine prominent figures within the IDW then blaming SJWs for that lost. The IDW would probably lose credibility with at least half of America in a matter of weeks. With that, the momentum for the revival of interest in classical liberal values would also be halted, or even reversed. I think we should be very careful to prevent this happening.

I believe the best way to prevent a biased perspective is for the IDW to remain open minded about considering voices and ideas on all sides of each debate. I get that many people think that SJW behavior is a big threat to free speech, and they are unfortunately largely correct in their worries. But there are many other important issues and perspectives out there too, for example regarding economic policy, which has nothing to do with SJWs either way. A true intellectual would engage with concerns and ideas from all sides in a balanced and fair manner, and objectively investigate the truth of every situation before making a judgement on anything.

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

A New Cultural Hegemony of Atheist Fundamentalism, Postmodernism and Identity Politics? | TaraElla Report S4 E7

Welcome to the TaraElla Report, where I talk about cultural and political issues. All of us are individuals who are simply looking for more freedom, but we often get confused along the way. My aim is to untangle the confusions and seek the truth, in the areas of civilizational values, economic policy, and culture.Today, I want to talk about two interrelated recent developments in the internet political left, that leave me quite worried about the future of social and political discourse.

Part 1: Postmodernism as Deradicalization? No thanks!

The first thing I want to talk about today is that there seems to be a new trend in the internet left to promote stories of people who were supposedly sucked into the far-right by watching some YouTube videos, who later left the far-right because they were convinced by some left-wing YouTubers, in particular ContraPoints and/or Destiny. I have come across this type of story so many times in the past few weeks that I have lost count of it by now. I have also become increasingly concerned about the narrative that is being promoted here. My first concern is that, in quite a few of these stories, Intellectual Dark Web type thinkers like Jordan Peterson are described to be part of the pipeline towards far-right thinking. While I can't rule out that some individuals may have been fans of such figures during their political conversion, the fact is many of these figures are rational and moderate people, and this sounds like a case of guilt by association. Jordan Peterson is popular across the political spectrum, for example. What I'm concerned about is that these narratives paint an unfair picture of many classical liberal thinkers, which also mean they are strongly unsympathetic to the cultural worldview of classical liberalism. Notice I said 'cultural worldview', because while leftists and classical liberals have long disagreed economically, they weren't necessarily in conflict in the cultural side of things historically. I mean, I don't see why Marx or Engels would have problems with free speech or an anti-identity politics stance, for example. To be fair, even today, some far-left thinkers like Slavoj Zizek continue to reject the postmodern and identity New Left, and I have great respect for them as a result, but they seem to be in the distinct minority nowadays. If Marx and Engels were alive today, I seriously don't think they would be liked by the New Left, with all their politically incorrect ideas. Gone are the days where the left and classical liberals disagreed on the economic system but at least agree on many cultural issues. Nowadays, to be truly left, it seems that one has to also reject the cultural values of classical liberalism, in favour of agreeing with deconstructionism, systems of oppression analyses, and postmodern political philosophy in general. My other concern is that, in many of these narratives, de-radicalization of the former far-right occurs by the way of watching some YouTubers with New Left type views, and agreeing with what they say. You start with moderate ones like ContraPoints, and work your way through the other, much more radical, channels recommended by the algorithm, including, eventually, some that openly state that free speech is not important! I mean, I actually like to watch many of these channels myself, but it is a fact that many of them are heavy on postmodernist and identitarian ideas. It paints a picture that one needs to go hard left culturally to be no longer far-right. This ignores the fact that disagreeing with one extreme on cultural issues doesn't mean you have to agree with the other extreme. I'm sorry, but I fundamentally disagree with the worldview of the Lobster Queen and her followers, even though I actually like the aesthetics of many of those videos. And disagreeing with the Lobster Queen doesn't make me, a supporter of Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard, right wing!

Part 2: Why Postmodernism and Existentialism are Atheist Fundamentalism

The main reason why I'm so concerned is that postmodernism, along with its associated ideas of existentialism, and various types of critical theory, are in my opinion, akin to a type of religious fundamentalism, where fundamental metaphysical beliefs drive the agenda, to the exclusion of both liberty and pragmatic reason. My view has always been that while people are welcome to be religious, it would be totally inappropriate for fundamentalist religious ideas to have a strong impact on politics, and this view is shared by most people in the West. While what has been long feared is the influence of say, fundametalist Christianity or fundamentalist Islam, I would say that a bigger threat nowadays is fundamentalist atheism, as expressed through postmodernism, existentialism and some forms of critical theory. These ideas are fundamentalist because their logic is totally based on a prior firm acceptance of atheism, because they simply cannot be true if atheism is rejected. Once again, I am a firm believer in religious freedom, and people are of course welcome to be atheists. The problem is that I don't want any fundamentalism in politics. Just as I wouldn't want the religious fundamentalist idea that being gay is immoral to influence our politics, I really don't want any influence from postmodernism, existentalism, or neo-Gramscian cultural hegemony theory in our politics either.

Part 3: Drug-induced 'Ideas' as False Englightenment?

Another reason why I'm concerned with BreadTube, and also the wider internet New Left, is that they often push people to just accept postmodernist ideas without properly critiquing them. For example, another big problem with a lot of post-1960s far-left philosophy is that some of those ideas may have been influenced by drug use, because some important thinkers, like Foucault for example, are well known to have experimented with drugs. Some of their ideas, for example about how everything is interconnected, sounds to me like the psychotic effects of drugs like ecstacy, at least from what I understand from what people have said in books. I think the content creators of BreadTube, who often talk about ideas that stem from Foucauldian thinking, should at least discuss this concern for once. I really want to hear their perspective on it.

Part 4: Be Woke, or You Enable the Far-Right?

A second, and clearly related thing I want to talk about is the decreasing acceptance of SJW-skeptic type ideas in left-leaning circles. Just a few years ago, SJW skepticism had a huge presence on the internet left, and it was very common for Bernie Sanders supporters to openly oppose identity politics. In fact, back then, the appeal of Bernie Sanders for many people was that he didn't play identity politics like Hillary Clinton. But those days are gone. These days, if you want to be welcome on the internet left, you have to at least refrain from attacking identity politics. What they like to say now is that SJW issues aren't important compared to economic issues like Medicare For All, and somehow indulging in criticizing SJWs will lead to victory for the far-right. Notice that this is the party line applied to SJW skeptic lefties, but pro-identity politics lefties still get a free pass to promote their views within the internet left. Therefore, the real internet left party line in 2019 seems to be that the internet left is now thoroughly supportive of SJW thinking, and anyone who doesn't agree needs to shut up. Toe the new party line, or we'll toss you into the social construct we call 'right-wing'. A very scary development indeed.

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

Why Pete Buttigieg isn't the 'Liberal Elite' Enemy | TaraElla Report Radio

Welcome to TaraElla Report Radio, the podcast style compliment program to the TaraElla Report, where we revisit and Rethink the fundamental Classical Liberal ideals and values for the 21st century. Our aim is to reboot classical liberalism by looking for new and interesting ideas, and evaluating these ideas through the lens of free speech, individual liberty and equal opportunity. On different days, we will be looking at issues around civilizational values, economic policy, culture, and more.

Today, I'm going to talk about 2020 Democratic Presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. And yes, this is one of those special episodes of the podcast where you can actually see me talking. From what I see, Mayor Pete has become deeply unpopular in some circles, where he is called names like 'Sneaky Pete', or the gay version of Hillary 2016. I am even getting new dislikes on my old Buttigieg videos. From what I understand, there are several reasons for his new-found unpopularity. Firstly, he has received a lot of mainstream media attention, which many fans of Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang find unfair, because these candidates with clearer policy platforms have received almost no attention. Being a fan of both Gabbard and Yang myself, I totally get this sentiment. Secondly, there's a suspicion that he is only getting this attention because he is gay, which feeds into the general rising resentment against identity politics everywhere. A related issue is the amount of funding he has received from pro-gay elites. Thirdly, his very elite background has become very well-known, and this is, understandably, a point of worry for many people who fear that he would become an out-of-touch President should he get elected.

I will now address these issues one-by-one, and I will show you why I don't think we should see Pete Buttigieg as an elitist enemy of the common people. Firstly, if the media is giving attention to Pete Buttigieg but not Andrew Yang or Tulsi Gabbard, it is the media's own choice, and there is no evidence that Buttigieg himself condones this unfair treatment. I mean, if you were in his shoes, you can't afford to boycott mainstream media just because they are unfair to other candidates, right? Some of you may say that this media attention demonstrates that Buttigieg is now the establishment pick, and should hence be opposed by all anti-establishment candidate supporters. But my experience tells me that the establishment, who always like to play it safe, is highly unlikely to pick somebody who is both gay and 37 years old. The other thing is that Buttigieg didn't get much attention until a sudden surge in March, unlike for example Kamala Harris, who received a lot of attention from the day of her announcement. This also supports the idea that he is not the establishment choice. In other words, it is possible that the establishment is using Buttigieg to their own ends, perhaps to influence the relative popularity of other candidates. If this is true, the media attention could be seen as a windfall for Buttigieg, but then this would only be a side-effect of being used to fulfill other plans that don't involve him actually getting the nomination. I think we all need to be smarter with how mainstream media actually tries to manipulate opinion.

Secondly, to his credit, Buttigieg has not played the identity politics card, unlike some of the other 2020 candidates. He has not made a big deal about being gay, and he is also opposed to the whole boycott Chick-Fil-A thing. He even spoke negatively of identity politics in front of an LGBT audience! The fact that others make a big deal about him being gay isn't his fault. The fact that pro-gay elite donors have donated to his campaign also isn't his fault. While I think it is a very bad idea to support Buttigieg simply because he is gay, if some people choose to do that, it is not his fault either. I mean, some people supported Obama simply because he was black, but nobody blames him for that, and nobody should. It is clear to me that Mayor Pete is not actively courting the gay-identity vote, and this is all that matters for me. Another thing is, Buttigieg actually has a much needed moderating influence on the social justice activist crowd, with his comments from the Chick-Fil-A situation to the need to bring people together. This is perhaps the main reason why I sometimes promote Buttigieg, even though I actually like Yang and Gabbard more.

Finally, the elite background thing, you know, going to Harvard, working in a very well-paid job as a young man, and so on, this is a real concern. But then, it's not like most other candidates don't have a similarly posh background. Tulsi Gabbard comes from a political family, which is arguably the biggest head start you can get in politics. Andrew Yang's parents are very well educated. The sad truth is, no average person can become President in this day and age, and it's something we have to just accept, at least for the time being.

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

The Conservative Case for Andrew Yang and the Freedom Dividend (UBI) | #YangGang | TaraElla Report S4 E7

TaraElla: Welcome to the TaraElla Report, where I chat with my friends about cultural and political issues. All of us are individuals who are simply looking for more freedom. I believe that it is only through amplifying the conversations of everyday individuals that we can cut through the nonsense and bring back freedom.

Today I continue my conversation with Allison, my independent conservative friend for whom strong families is the top social and political priority. In the last episode, we established that the priorities of Tea Party style political conservatives and family-minded social conservatives are now divergent, now that the main threat to strong families is in fact everyday economic stress, and Tea Party style conservatives had no credible answer to this challenge. In the previous episode we looked at the positive reception of Bernie Sanders among some conservatives, now we will talk about Andrew Yang and his policies. Much has been said about Andrew Yang's strong support among some conservatives, and there have indeed been articles and videos talking about the so-called Conservative Case for Andrew Yang. However, such articles have been more about economic conservatism, and what's still missing is a look at Yang's policies from the family values perspective.

Allison: As I said before, I think right now the top political priority should be to help struggling families get by. Economic stress caused by an ever increasing cost of living is hurting families, and this is contributing to more family breakdowns and a weaker social fabric. In modern times, family breakdowns disproportionally happen in poorer areas, which tells us the importance of economic factors in maintaining strong families. If every mom and dad had an extra $1000 to spend each month, it would go a long way towards easing the stress. Also, just knowing that there will be an unconditional $2000 for each family every month will give many struggling families a sense of security. That's why I think Andrew Yang's Freedom Dividend could be the most pro-family policy we have seen in a generation.

TaraElla: I totally agree. As human beings, we are evolved to care deeply about our families. From the perspective of the average person, if there isn't even the ability to provide adequately for your family, there is basically no effective freedom to do anything else at all. No fancy ideological spinning can obscure this truth. I believe this is part of the reason why the Freedom Dividend is called that: it takes care of the basic needs of working families so individuals can have the freedom to do what they want to do, whether this be to start their own business or to decide that mom should stay home and look after the kids for several years, something that most families used to be able to do back in the 1950s.

Allison: It's good that you mentioned the point about stay-at-home moms. If most mothers could choose to stay at home back in the 1950s, why shouldn't they be able to choose that now? I am disappointed that political conservatives never seem to ask this question. I mean, many women want to opt for a more traditional lifestyle, it's becoming a thing now, but it seems only the relatively rich can do that in practice. On this point, we have actually regressed a lot in the past 60 years! It just isn't right that families with two working parents nowadays are effectively doing worse than families with only one working parent back in the 1950s. This is what I hope the Freedom Dividend can fix. I mean, as conservatives, we don't agree with endless handouts or stifling private enterprise, but a modest $2000 per family per month isn't going anywhere near that.

Besides the Freedom Dividend, I am also encouraged by the fact that Yang seems to have a particular commitment towards strengthening families, something I haven't seen from anyone else in the past ten years. For example, one of his policies is to provide for marriage counselling. It's something that won't cost a lot, but would likely save many families from breakdown every year. He is also concerned about falling birth rates and rising suicide rates, issues that pro-family people deeply care about but currently don't have much of a platform to raise.

TaraElla: Andrew Yang is perhaps one of the very few politicians who even have a particular policy to support families, and this is very inspiring to see. My long standing view is that freedom doesn't exist in a vacuum, and strong families are the best defense against the creep of authoritarianism. We first learn our individuality and our independence in the context of growing up in individual families, which separates us from the collective mass that is society. I mean, if we were raised in large communes instead, we would probably all end up without individuality, because we would have learned to be cogs in a much bigger system from a young age. This is why, we who believe in individual liberty, must do everything to support strong families.

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

What Bernie Sanders Taught Us at his FOX Town Hall | Moral Libertarian View

Welcome to Moral Libertarian View, a podcast style program where we discuss big ideas to see if they can contribute to more individual liberty and equal opportunity, values that are at the heart of the Moral Libertarian idea.

Today, we're looking at the recent Bernie Sanders Town Hall hosted by Fox, where he was in fact very positively received, to the surprise of progressives and conservatives everywhere. Democrats and progressives have hated Fox News for decades, but now one of their biggest heroes have not only gone to the enemy camp, but were actually well received there! This has predictably caused some cognitive dissonance among many self-identified progressives.

But should anyone have been surprised? I don't think so. I think we should start by looking at what conservatives actually want. They want, above all, to maintain their cherished values, free from infringement from elitist meddling. They want strong families and strong communities. They also want what most of us want, like job security, and opportunity for the average man to succeed. What Bernie Sanders did was to address this wishlist, and whether you agree with his policies or not, I think you have to agree that he made a good pitch for his platform based on what the average moderate conservative wants. Pushback against corporate power means more opportunity for the average man. Guaranteed health care and more economic security is good for families and communities. Strong families and communities mean a better chance to preserve traditional values.

There's also the misconception that conservatives and Fox viewers necessarily hate all Democrats, as if there was something about Democrats or progressives that inherently make them worthy of hate for these people. No, the reality is that they hate certain ideas that are often associated with progressives. Ideas like identity politics, where people can be treated differently because of their certain immutable characteristics. Ideas like political correctness, which limits free speech based on the mistaken postmodernist belief that speech is power. A clear feature of Bernie's campaigns is that he doesn't promote these ideas. It is clear that his focus is on economic issues. Even when he talks about 'a revolution', everyone knows that he means economic change, and not elite-driven cultural upheaval. This is why many socially conservative individuals are willing to listen to Bernie, while they are totally turned off by your average progressive pundit on CNN or NBC.

It was repeatedly said during the last decade when Bush was president and the Democrats were in crisis, that they would probably win much more support across America if they focused on their economic issues, and dropped their social issues, their culture war issues. No matter if you agree with his policies or not, I think you have to agree that Bernie is perhaps the best proof of the validity of this formula, as he wins over audiences of diverse backgrounds with his focus on economic policies. In fact, I think that everyday people don't want their politicians, no matter left-wing or right-wing, to be engaged in culture war issues at all. America is in fact an outlier for having so much culture war politics in election campaigns. Right now, as we are speaking, Australia is in the middle of an election campaign, and there have been basically no culture war elements in that campaign. Instead, issues around the economy, health care, education and the like take center stage. Perhaps American politicians of both parties should learn from that example. Cultural debates belong in the cultural arena, and political debates should focus solely on what the government should or should not do.

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

'Progressive' | Moral Libertarian View

Welcome to Moral Libertarian View, a podcast style program where we discuss big ideas to see if they can contribute to more individual liberty and equal opportunity, values that are at the heart of the Moral Libertarian idea.

Today, we are going to talk about what is meant by the word 'progressive'. For example, both Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden consider themselves progressive, but most Bernie fans don't consider Biden progressive. Furthermore, while most Democrats probably consider progressive to be a good thing, most Donald Trump fans and Republicans consider progressive to be bad, even though some of them like Tulsi Gabbard. It's a word that has created unnecessary confusion, and probably unnecessarily limited the support base for candidates like Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang, just to name a few.

So how does your average Donald Trump supporter define the word 'progressive'? Many of them think that progressive means super SJW, with all the identity politics, political correctness and anti-free speech that comes with it. You know, take how Hillary Clinton behaved in 2016, and exaggerate everything by ten times. Some on the right probably also define 'progressive' to include what Jordan Peterson famously calls 'postmodern neo-Marxism', which mostly comes from French postmodernists like Foucault and are definitely not progressive ideas. To your average Trump supporter, progressive doesn't have too much to do with stopping the wars. Rather, to them, 'progressives' are those people who will take away your free speech and tell you to check your privilege. No wonder they dislike progressives so much. Which is very ironic because, from what I understand, many people who consider themselves to be 'progressive' think that true progressives would focus on the important issues like ending the wars and leave the SJW issues alone because racial and gender equality has been largely achieved anyway (not my own views, I'm just describing what many 'progressives' think). But if you are going to self-identify as a progressive, the average Trump supporter will think the exact opposite.

This just shows how language needlessly divides us. The truth is, most people are against the endless, needless wars. Most people are against the power imbalance between globalist corporates and everyday working people. Most people are also against the divisive identity politics, and the many postmodernist excuses to undercut free speech. We are more united by these things, than divided by the label 'progressive', or its opposite, that is 'conservative'. Vaguely defined labels often prevent us from seeing common ground. That is why those who truly want to serve their people should have little use for vague labels like 'progressive'.

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

How Pete Buttigieg Can MAKE SOCIAL JUSTICE GREAT AGAIN | TaraElla Report S4 E4

TaraElla: Welcome to a new season of the TaraElla Report. From now on, we have a new format, where I chat with my friends about cultural and political issues. All of us are individuals who are simply looking for more freedom. I believe that it is only through amplifying the conversations of everyday individuals that we can cut through the nonsense and bring back freedom.

Today I continue my conversation with Ashley, an old friend of mine who had been an SJW, and then an anti-SJW, and finally neither, because she now see through the limitations of both sides. In this episode, we talk about how SJW politics got out of hand, how that led to the anti-SJW counter-response, and how social justice could be done in a better way.

Ashley: As I said before, I used to be an SJW. Many of us who supported Obama continued to go left after 2009, and some of us eventually became SJWs. It started out simply as a desire to see less racism and sexism in this world, and to see LGBT people get better treatment in society. What we have to remember is, it really wasn't so bad in the early days. But around 2014, things started getting extreme. SJWs were getting increasingly militant and started to threaten free speech. A big problem was how divisive everything was becoming. This whole notion that minority groups were always being oppressed and that they should get angry was gaining ground. Rational debate became 'exhausting' and compromise became 'selling out'. The militant people wanted to quash the middle ground. That was when a lot of us became anti-SJWs. We lost our faith in social justice, because if social justice meant what the SJWs were doing, we wanted no part of it.

TaraElla: I think I made a similar point in an episode in Season 1, where I said that sections of the New Left are literally making people allergic to social justice. I think this is how the whole 'social justice is cancer' thing got off the ground. Of course, real social justice doesn't have to look like that. I think we need someone that can bring some sense back into social justice. Perhaps like 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. I really like the comments he made about Chick-Fil-A recently. While he made it clear that he didn't like the company's long-standing support for anti-gay politics, he also suggested that all the calls to boycott the company was basically sanctimonious virtue signalling. And he's right! It's time somebody pointed out the ridiculous levels of virtue signalling that goes on in some circles, which by the way has nothing to do with actual social justice. I also like how he said that political issues should be resolved in the political arena. In recent years, there has been a blurring of the political arena and the other arenas of life, making everything political. Many people are very upset at the social division this has caused. This really needs to end.

Ashley: I think that the New Left idea that 'the personal is political' has been taken way, way too far. Political issues have come to color every sort of interaction in life, from commercial transactions, to friendships, and even family gatherings. People have even ended friendships over elections, most famously over the election of Donald Trump in 2016, but it also happens in other countries. Meanwhile, radical identity politics means that people are seen as their immutable characteristics, a society is divided into factions based on immutable charactersitics like race, gender and sexual orientation. The whole fabric of society is being torn apart. This is why people are sick of SJWs.

TaraElla: I totally agree. What we need to do is to repair the social fabric. Again, here is something I like about Pete Buttigieg. He wants people to find the common ground in their lived experience, and he is opposed to the way identity politics is being practiced at the moment, which instead emphasizes the differences in our experiences. Again, I don't know how far the Buttigieg 2020 campaign will go, but no matter what becomes of the campaign, I hope that he will continue to be an influence in our culture and politics, to help moderate the social justice movement.

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

Cult of ContraPoints vs Cult of Jordan Peterson | TaraElla Report S4 E3

TaraElla: Welcome to a new season of the TaraElla Report, where I chat with my friends about cultural and political issues. All of us are individuals who are simply looking for more freedom. I believe that it is only through amplifying the conversations of everyday individuals that we can cut through the nonsense and bring back freedom.

Today's conversation is with Ashley, another old friend of mine with whom I have had political conversations going back to our college days. Like myself, Ashley has been all over the political spectrum. Earlier this decade she used to be an SJW, and around the middle of the decade she was an anti-SJW. Today, she identifies as neither, having seen through all of them. She also has a lot to say about how cults of personality can help drive political shifts in a large number of people, and how that can be both good and bad.

Ashley: The topic of political evolutions is interesting. I think you are I are not unique in our political evolutions, many people have switched back and forth and in recent years, simply because we couldn't find a good solution for freedom anywhere. During the Bush years many of us hated the religious right and thought the opposite would give us freedom, so we joined the so-called left by default. Many of us continued to go left during the early Obama years, and some of us, myself included, became SJWs. It started out simply as a desire to see less racism and sexism in this world, and to see LGBT people get better treatment in society. I even got involved in Tumblr SJW-ism for a while; trust me, it wasn't so bad in the early days.

But around 2014, many of us saw that something was wrong with the SJW way. They were getting increasingly militant and started to threaten free speech. And then there were all these new taboos, like cultural appropriation, rules around pronouns (edit note: which even some trans people weren't comfortable with), even the idea that straight white people should speak less, as if this would be justice. Many of us felt like the SJW left was the new threat to freedom, so we became anti-SJW. During those days, anti-SJW leaders like Sargon of Akkad seemed to speak sense. We still had limits though; nobody I knew liked Milo Yiannopoulos and his trolling, for example. And then Jordan Peterson came along and explained so clearly what the problems with the left are, and where they stem from. It was fascinating to understand the history of the so-called New Left and postmodernism. Studying the ideas of Foucault, who thought that mental illness was a social construct, gave me a scare, because if people in the left really believed these things, then they had no sense of reality at all.

TaraElla: Yes, some of the ideas of Foucault and the postmodernists are really scary indeed. If you aren't committed to truth, there's no way to be committed to free speech. The justification for free speech rests on the importance of discovering truth. On the other hand, if one is committed to fantasies, one necessarily needs to limit free speech in order for those fantasies to survive. I even suspect that when postmodernists say that speech is power, what they subconsciously fear is the power of truth-speaking to smash false fantasies. Postmodernism is problematic because a society that privileges the survival of fantasies above free speech would be necessarily totalitarian. I think one of the reasons why Jordan Peterson is so popular is because he has made so many people aware of the postmodern problem. This doesn't mean he is right on everything, it merely means he has got us talking about something important.

Ashley: I think you're right. I guess in hindsight, a lot of anti-SJW-ism was basically freedom-loving people beginning to see the postmodern worldview and not liking what we saw. When we have the right language to describe the problem, we don't have to resort to saying 'crazy SJW' every time. Besides, social justice is still inherently a good thing, it's the infiltration of thinking of people like Foucault, bell hooks, and several others that's the problem.

Another postmodernism-related problem I see is the development of cults, people being committed to personalities rather than truths. Even Jordan Peterson, yes he says a lot of useful things, but there's legitimate concern about the cult-like worship some Peterson fans engage in. Not everything Peterson ever says is always right. One thing I've learned in the last ten years is, even if the SJW is objectively extreme, the anti-SJW is not always right either, and one always needs to hear all sides of each argument. And the development of cults of personality on one side encourages the development of mirroring cults of personality on the other side. For example, there seems to be a cult of personality around a YouTuber called ContraPoints just in the past year or so. Interestingly, this seems to have started with her posting a video about Jordan Peterson, in which she appeared to refute Peterson's arguments, unconvincingly in my opinion. Some ContraPoints fans seem to uphold her as the anti-Peterson, even calling her the 'lobster queen', lobsters being symbolic of Jordan Peterson in some circles. Again, meme culture on both sides contributes strongly to this cult of personality thing.

TaraElla: I think we've seen so much of this cult of personality thing, with factions coalescing around particular figures pit against other factions coalescing around other particular figures. We've had SJWs rally around Lena Dunham and Anita Sarkeesian, anti-SJWs rally around Sargon and Milo, IDW intellectuals rally around Jordan Peterson and Sam Harris, and now anti-IDWs, if you can all them that, rally around ContraPoints. No wonder our politics is also going that way, with Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Jeremy Corbyn, Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg all having cult-like followings, just using American and British examples, I'm sure there are more in other countries. Our politics is all the poorer for this, because people stop debating ideas and start turning the whole show into a popularity contest, like Political Idol. I mean, the 2006 film American Dreamz was supposed to satirize this development, but we've gone up to a whole new level since then.

Ashley: You know, I blame meme culture for a large part of this. Memes are good for creating cults of personality, but they are not useful for actually thinking about and discussing serious ideas. Meme-based politics is ultimately empty and even distorted, like squashing a 3D object down into two dimensions, if you know what I mean. I think the emergence of ContraPoints is perhaps the ultimate result of meme culture: a lot of her popular videos have titles based on memes, she references a lot of memes in her videos, and she has been turned into a meme by her fans who call her the 'lobster queen'. Another thing is, the meme-like quality of ContraPoints is further enhanced by fans putting her in some sort of competition with other characters, as seen in her fanbase's recent delight when her subscriptions passed that of another YouTuber she had discussed in the past, Blaire White. There wasn't any actual competition between these two, but many ContraPoints fans imagined there to be a competition, maybe for some sort of YouTube Idol. You know, this is getting unhealthy.

TaraElla: Yes, I agree that we need to get away from the popularity contest mentality, and back to the truth seeking mentality that The Englightment and classical liberalism represents. This is why I discuss ideas from every side of politics and culture here on my show. This is why I don't tend to pick sides in popularity contests.

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

Why the Media Still Ignores Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang #Tulsi2020 #YangGang | WikiEqual 2.0

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

Welcome to the WikiEqual 2.0 podcast, where we discuss mainstream media bias and its undesirable flow-on effects to our culture and politics, as part of our longer-term effort to challenge the Wikipedia Notability Policy. In this episode, we will discuss the uneven coverage of the candidates running for the Presidency of the United States in 2020. Even at this early stage, more than a dozen candidates are already seriously campaigning, and many of them already have a huge following, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang. Wait a minute, who are Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang, you may ask. Regular audiences of my show would already know who they are, and those actively involved in the political scene would know too, but if you relied on mainstream media, you might not have even heard of them yet!

To say the mainstream media ignores Gabbard and Yang would be a bit of an exaggeration. They have appeared on shows here and there. But compared to the kind of coverage Sanders, Warren, Harris and O'Rourke have gotten, you would have thought that Gabbard and Yang are perhaps not serious contenders. But this couldn't be further from the truth! The truth is, Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang are immensely popular at the grassroots level, and their fanbase is growing every day. People are talking about these two on social media, perhaps more than any other candidate. And they are popular for a good reason: Tulsi Gabbard stands for ending unnecessary wars first and foremost, and her message resonates particularly well with Millennials, who came of age around or soon after the disaster that was the 2003 Iraq War. Andrew Yang has the biggest list of interesting policies anyone has seen in a long time, and they are all built around the idea of Human Capitalism, to reform capitalism so it serves humanity. There's a lot that Yang has put out for discussion, and it is unsurprising that many people have found interest in his ideas.

So why do the mainstream media still ignore Gabbard and Yang? Firstly, because they can. Big media is used to being able to control the narrative, to create reality from their perspective. Gabbard and Yang simply don't fit their story. You know, the story in which America and the West are polarized, identity politics are central to everything, and the Democrats have a huge battle between so-called progressives and centrists. Two candidates who have interesting new perspectives, who take us away from the culture wars and into other discussions, and therefore draw support from former Bernie, Hillary and Trump supporters alike? No, they don't fit the story, and they need to be ignored as much as possible. And it isn't even new. Back in 2015, they tried to ignore Bernie Sanders the same way, until it failed.

That's all for this edition of WikiEqual 2.0. I'll be back next time with another story of mainstream media bias. With every story we build our case that the mainstream media unfairly excludes people, opinions and ideas, and ultimately build our case against Wikipedia's Notability Policy. Until next time, remember to think critically about what you hear from big media.

On Tulsi Gabbard & Pete Buttigieg vs Elitist Smear Campaigns #Tulsi2020 | TaraElla Report S4 E1

TaraElla: Welcome to a new season of the TaraElla Report. From now on, we have a new format, where I chat with my friends about cultural and political issues. All of us are individuals who are simply looking for more freedom, and many of us have been confused by so-called leaders from all sides, offering non-solutions with hidden agendas attached. I believe that it is only through amplifying the conversations of everyday individuals that we can cut through the nonsense and bring back freedom.

Today's conversation is with Katie, an old friend of mine with whom I have had political conversations going back to our college days. We have had both convergent and divergent periods in our political evolutions over the years. A lot has happened since, say, Bush left the White House, and the past decade was perhaps the most chaotic one since the 1970s. Today, I'm more of an independent while she identifies as a progressive, even though she is also questioning where the progressives are heading. However, we still share similar hopes and concerns over many issues, for example being anti-war, because we are both individuals committed to freedom, even if we don't know exactly how to get there. So without further delay, I'll let Katie introduce herself.


Katie: I got interested in politics during college, around the time of the 2003 Iraq War. I remain staunchly anti-war today, and I am happy to see that a new generation of leaders like Tulsi Gabbard are running on an anti-war platform. I guess for many of us, being against the war meant being against Bush and his political allies, so we were progressive by default. I have continually identified as progressive over the years, even though I have had periods of questioning. For example, my faith with progressivism was quite tested during the SJW era around the middle of the decade, where things got a little too crazy. But I still stood by my values, even if I don't agree with their behaviour. More recently, I started to question where my fellow progressives are heading. They seem to have become unconsciously prejudiced against people with religious values, for example. I even think this is why some progressives have been reluctant to support Tulsi Gabbard, who is a Hindu, and Pete Buttigieg, who is a practising Catholic. In particular, Tulsi Gabbard's Hindu faith has been the focus of a low-key smear campaign.


TaraElla: I think I have seen quite a bit of the anti-religious thing going on in the left too. For some people on the left, they seem to have an attitude that religious people are not welcome, including even those who don't force their values onto others. I even suspect that some Democrats may have gotten the same message, hence their reluctance to publicly discuss their religious faith, compared with, say, Barack Obama back in 2008. By doing this, they earn the support of a certain kind of leftist, who almost openly disdain the way that people like Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg talk about their faith. And I think this is quite a worry, both as a religious person from a Buddhist family myself and as somebody who is concerned with the future of freedom, since freedom of religion has always been the most essential freedom, the cornerstone freedom of classical liberal history. You can't have true freedom of religion if there is a social penalty for being religious.


Katie: I agree. The religious have always been an important part of progressive movements historically. Religious groups were central to civil rights back in the 1960s, and they were also central to numerous anti-war movements. The exclusion of the religious is a new development for the left. And I think it stems from a wider problem of the left becoming a club for so-called intellectuals who all think a certain way. Let's face it: your typical left-wing activist is extremely unlikely to have a background like Tulsi Gabbard's. Instead, much of the current left-wing activist establishment is heavily staffed by people who studied certain humanity subjects in college, and are hence heavily influenced by the way of thinking that is dominant in those parts of academia. Religion is often seen as bad in that way of thinking, but it's not just religion. Ideas like postmodern philosophy, particularly the ideas of Michel Foucault, and ideas around identity politics, from thinkers like bell hooks, have become part and partial of the worldview. To be part of the elite club, you have to share the worldview. I guess that, besides being religious, Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg are also more generally seen by these elites as people who have a backwards worldview, which is ironic, because Tulsi is staunchly anti-war which is the most progressive thing. I even suspect that the repeated bad faith attacks on Tulsi's past gay marriage views are basically a dog whistle to remind the elitist left that she is not one of them.


TaraElla: Absurd as it sounds, you are probably right. In the Foucauldian postmodern worldview, politics is about identity-based power and oppression, and there's no room for the basic notion of service above self, and standing for what's morally right. It is clear that old-school progressives like Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg don't fit their criteria. I mean, they probably think that Tulsi Gabbard should focus on complaining about oppression against women of color and Pete Buttigieg should focus on complaining about oppression against gay people, and since they don't do that enough, they must be right-wing. In my experience, in the eyes of the elitist postmodern left, you are not a 'progressive' unless you don't care about religious freedom, you play identity politics and claim oppression wherever you can, and you speak in the language of Foucault and bell hooks every now and then. In fact, in postmodern philosophy, there's no such thing as right and wrong, and everything is relative. But one of the things I love about Tulsi Gabbard and Pete Buttigieg is that they clearly know that there is a right and there is a wrong. It is because Tulsi Gabbard knows that fighting unnecessary wars is wrong that she has set out to end this practice, for example. Their progressivism is a moral progressivism, just like that of Lincoln. I, for one, would strongly prefer our leaders have a sense of what's morally right and wrong.

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

Mayor Pete Buttigieg is Needed, because Real Millennials are Misunderstood | Moral Libertarian View

Welcome to the new Moral Libertarian View, a podcast style daily program where we discuss big ideas to see if they can contribute to more individual freedom. Just like how Rome wasn't built in one day, the road to freedom is a long one, and continuous innovation coupled with skeptical critique is the way we will get there.

Today, we will look at yet another 2020 candidate that I haven't been paying attention to until now. Pete Buttigieg, or Mayor Pete as he is often called, recently came third in a poll, behind only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, and beating both Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, which is good to hear because they are my two least liked candidates in the race. By beating Harris and Warren, Mayor Pete has won himself the right to some of my attention today. Anyway, this is what we need to know about him. He is the youngest candidate in the race. He was born in 1982, which makes him only several years older than myself, and this also means that he is a millennial. The other thing is that he is perhaps the first openly gay candidate ever. I know this isn't supposed to be relevant, but I included it because this is what people are saying about him. Nevertheless, he doesn't appear to play identity politics, and that's good to see. He's more like Tulsi Gabbard, who has identity credentials but won't play the game, rather than like Kamala Harris, who plays her identity cards at every chance. Between Tulsi, Pete, and most of us out here, it appears that us Millennials simply don't buy the identity politics stuff.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware that Mayor Pete has put out many policies. One thing that he has focused on is his experience of life as a Millennial. I mean, older people may look at him and say, what do you know about life? You aren't even 40 yet! But then, the Millennial life experience has its own unique problems, and older adults often don't quite understand. Firstly, there's this myth that Millennials are snowflakes. From my experience, this is just not true. I mean, we are the generation who spent our teenage years in the aftermath of 9/11, why would we be politically correct snowflakes? Most of us don't support the so-called 'safe speech' stuff, that's an activist thing. On the other hand, the economic struggles of Millennials are very real. There's the difficulty in setting up a career because many fields have become saturated. That's why people do free internships to get into their desired field, and earn money as waiters in the evening. There's the housing affordability crisis. It has become too expensive for your average young adult to even rent a place in many cities. And then there's the loss of traditional expectations of settling down in marriage, which is the result of many years of postmodern damage to our social fabric, change that we are not responsible for but we have to live with. All this doesn't make for a very good life, right?

I'm sorry if it sounded like a rant, but many people imagine Millennials to be snowflakes who are into Foucaldian philosophy, when the precise opposite is true. What we need are leaders who understand that Millennials are being shut out of opportunities everywhere. This is especially true compared to our parents' generation, the baby boomers, when you think about it. Many of them married young, bought houses young, and got into their chosen career with fewer qualifications than your average bartender today. I'm actually grateful for everything the boomer generation did for us, but we do have a problem with opportunity right now. As a Moral Libertarian, equal opportunity is close to my heart. We need leaders who will address this generational inequality of opportunity. I don't know how far Mayor Pete's campaign will go, but if he at least gets to the debates and raises these issues, we will have an opportunity to have a serious conversation about them.

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

Jordan Peterson vs Slavoj Zizek: An Open-Minded View

The upcoming debate between Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson and Slovenian intellectual Slavoj Zizek is perhaps the most highly anticipated debate this year so far. In a sense, this looks to be quite a polarized debate. People are already picking their sides. It's almost like a football match. It certainly has that feeling to it. Perhaps we should expect Peterson fans to gather together to watch the show, wearing matching Peterson shirts, and Zizek fans would do the same, wearing Zizek shirts. 

But I do consider myself a true intellectual, and as intellectuals we probably shouldn't see it as a football match with screaming fans on both sides. That is not what rational debate should be. Instead, we should see it as a meeting of ideas. And perhaps, some great new insights could come up, especially where the two of them share some common ground.

And what common ground do they share? Probably more than you think. Firstly, both Peterson and Zizek are ultimately for some kind of freedom. As a Moral Libertarian, the idea of individual freedom is the primary principle of my politics, and I would naturally be interested in any debate on freedom.

Because both Peterson and Zizek are ultimately for freedom, they do agree on certain important issues. From what I understand, both men are opposed to political correctness, and see it as a form of totalitarian control over individuals, as well as an impediment to resolving important social issues. I hope that they will dedicate some time to this issue during their debate. I firmly believe that the erosion of free speech and the acceleration of political correctness is one of the biggest crises of the Western world right now. The more focus there is on this issue, the better. Another thing I understand that Peterson and Zizek share is that they are both opposed to postmodernism. Political postmodernism is poisoning the minds of young people, and again, the more voices against postmodernist nonsense, the better.

I believe that, if we want to thorougly understand an issue, whether it be individual liberty, free speech, political correctness or identity politics, it is important to look at it from different angles. This allows us to form a detailed and nuanced understanding of the issues, and leads us to develop the most effective and evidence-based solutions to tackle the problems. Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Zizek will bring very different understandings of these issues to the table, and we will have an opportunity to look at them from different perspectives. This, in my opinion, is what is most valuable about the debate. I guess that Peterson will focus on logic and facts like he always does, and Zizek will focus on a more systematic perspective, like he often does. And both perspectives are valid to some extent, even if some of us hate to admit it. If Peterson fans and Zizek fans simply root for their man and refuse to listen to the other guy, a valuable opportunity to understand the issues will be lost. If, at the end of the debate, we conclude either that Peterson destroyed Zizek or that Zizek destroyed Peterson, it would be a sad conclusion. And it would also be inaccurate indeed, because we would be falsely concluding that one perspective is always correct over another.

I really look forward to the Peterson vs Zizek debate. I see it as a meeting of two of the world's most brilliant minds, and a great opportunity for two very different perspectives to mesh together. I really hope everyone out there approaches the debate with a similarly positive and curious attitude.

Is Beto O'Rourke 'Progressive'? IT DOESN'T MATTER!

Beto O'Rourke announced his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic primaries last week, and he is already facing attacks from both the left and the right. I mean, I personally haven't seen enough of Beto to say whether I like him or not, but I want to focus in particular on the attacks on him coming from the 'left'. Many leftist outlets have rushed to show how Beto isn't 'progressive', whatever that means. They present us with evidence that Beto voted more conservatively than 70% of Democrats in the House, and that he voted in line with Trump more often than other House Democrats, even if that was only 30% or so.

But if you think critically about it, what does 'progressive' and 'conservative' mean anyway? Aren't they subjective terms? I mean, is Donald Trump 'progressive' or 'conservative'? I seriously don't know. I'd say he is unclassifiable. In fact, you cannot neatly place people on a conservative-to-progressive spectrum. People have their right to form beliefs individually on each issue, based on their conscience and values. I guess it's valid to complain that Beto hasn't talked a lot about his policies yet, but it's simply pointless to say someone is 'progressive' or not. From my perspective, the only thing I care about is increasing individual freedom, returning the power from the elites to the everyday individuals, and unfortunately I don't know if Beto would be good on that front yet. But I certainly don't have any reason to care if leftist media outlets consider him a 'progressive' or not.

Another thing is, some of those who are out to say how Beto is 'not progressive' include an identity politics angle in their analysis. As if, by virtue of being women or minority, candidates like Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris would be better. Besides the fact that identity-first candidates will almost certainly lose in a landslide to Trump, I actually don't have any time for their identity politics, and I have explained the reasons elsewhere. Going forward, I vow to defend every candidate who is being smeared or slighted on identity grounds. I know this means I will be defending a lot of straight white men, but so be it, because I don't care how the identity politics diversity police thinks. I only care about advancing individual freedom, remember.

The Classical Liberal Case for Tulsi Gabbard #Tulsi2020

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.

Out of all the candidates running for the Democratic primary, Tulsi Gabbard is perhaps the most interesting. For some reason, she seems to have strong support on both the left and the right, like from Bernie supporters and Trump supporters alike. She is therefore hugely popular on social media, but mainstream media has continued to ignore her, perhaps deliberately. From what I see, Tulsi is the candidate most consistent with my classical liberal values. Indeed, I would argue that Tulsi Gabbard is probably one of the most promising candidates we have ever seen from either party, for those of us who support individual freedom.

The first and foremost reason why Tulsi Gabbard is good for liberty is that she is anti-war. Like, this is the centerpiece of her candidacy. A few other people may be anti-war as part of their platform, but for Tulsi, this is her signature issue. And I think this is very important. While bigger names like Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders have been consistently anti-war, a lot more of their energy have been spent on other issues. People with limited attention spans may have focused more on Ron Paul's libertarian politics or Bernie's Medicare For All and free college, for example, those being their signature issues. But if Tulsi makes it as far as the big debates, we will have somebody who represents ending the pro-war consensus first and foremost. In other words, there will be plenty of air time for this issue. The pro-war consensus has gone on for too long and has been largely resistant to change. Even the new anti-war consciousness that developed in the wake of the second Iraq War couldn't make the establishment budge. I mean, I was a college freshman at the time, and many of us did whatever we can to oppose the war. Many students even skipped classes to protest. We thought that we could change things. But now, in our thirties, we realise that we changed nothing at all. Change is hard to come by, when it comes to America's pro-war consensus. If putting a dent in the pro-war consensus is the only classical liberal gain in this election cycle, I think for many of us just that would be enough to happy about.

While Tulsi Gabbard is anti-war, she is tough on the issue of terrorism. Some have sought to paint her as inconsistent, or even Islamophobic. But I don't see any inconsistency here. Endless, costly wars are bad for everyday Americans. They needlessly cost the lives of soldiers, and throw away taxpayers' money for nothing. Putting an end to this is good for everyday Americans, and good for individual liberty. On the other hand, people around the world are living in fear of terrorism. To be tough on terrorism is to understand the serious impact this issue is having on everyday Americans, and indeed citizens around the world, especially in the West. To be tough on terrorism is to uphold individual liberty, by definition. Terrorism is pure evil, and it knows no bounds of decency. The 2017 Manchester attacks were the clearest demonstration of this. It targeted a concert attended mostly by young girls, it was an attack deliberately targeted on the most vulnerable in society, in other words. If the 2017 Manchester attacks don't make you hate terrorism with all your guts, I have to question your humanity indeed. Terrorism deserves the most severe response from our leaders, nothing less. This is also not Islamophobic, as many victims of terrorism have been Muslim, including in the 2017 Manchester attacks.

There has been a lot of controversy over Tulsi Gabbard's past homophobic comments. It is true that she used to be strongly against gay marriage, but then, so were most of us, at least before 2004 or so. Personally, I fully accept that I used to oppose gay rights at some point in the past, and just like Tulsi, I fully apologize for that. On the other hand, many people out there are not that honest, preferring to obscure their past position and pretend that they have always been allies. I think we should reward honesty over hypocrisy. Furthermore, it is important to look at why Tulsi changed her mind. Plenty of people out there began to support gay marriage when they sensed that the majority was now OK with it. That is, they just followed the majority wherever it went, in an unprincipled way. If people turned against gay marriage tomorrow, they would also probably revert to their previous position. People outside politics have more readily owned up to this, but I suspect many politicians were just the same. On the other hand, Tulsi changed her mind after serving in Iraq, after seeing why it is a bad idea to enforce views of personal morality on citizens, as they do in theocracies. For Tulsi, it is a matter of America being a nation founded in liberty, in contrast to those authoritarian theocracies we find elsewhere in the world. It is on this important matter of principle that Tulsi changed her mind on gay marriage. This demonstrates her commitment to the values of individual liberty that is the foundation of classical liberalism, and in turn also the foundation of America itself.

Furthermore, Tulsi Gabbard has also shown that she respects religious freedom, in a way that many contemporary politicians do not. She has insisted that it is unacceptable to question the religious background of people for public office. I think her background as a religious minority has perhaps highlighted the importance of religious freedom for her. In a time where religious freedom has come under threat from both the left and the right, it is more important than ever to have leaders who will be steadfast on this issue.

Finally, I understand that Tulsi Gabbard also supports many other policies aligned with traditional classical liberal objectives, including ending the War On Drugs and criminal justice reform, things which have the support of the majority of Americans, but the political class is still by and large resisting. Concluding my case for supporting Tulsi Gabbard as a classical liberal, I think that any liberty loving individual will find a lot to agree with when looking at her policies. It is indeed uncommon to have a candidate who ticks so many boxes on our wishlist. I wish Tulsi the best of luck going forward, and she will probably need it, because the media continues to be biased against her.