ISIS Is Islam

Old Gadfly:  Gentlemen, explain to me why the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, is considered an extremist or radical version of Islam.

IM:  Do you doubt this assertion?

Old Gadfly:  I consistently hear this characterization in the news and in casual conversations.  When I ask what makes this group extreme or radical, I typically get an outraged response such as “Islam is a religion of peace.”  When I further pulse an individual with a question such as, “can you give me authoritative examples to support the claim?” I am usually met with silence and a disgruntled facial expression.

IM:  I did a key word search of a digital version of the Qur’an (also called the Koran, as revealed by the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad, the greatest of all prophets according to Muhammad and his followers) and found the word “peace” used 49 times.

Old Gadfly:  And what did you learn from the context within which “peace” was used?

IM:  Early, in the second chapter, “The Cow” (2:11) believers of Islam are instructed:  “And when it is said to them, Do not make mischief in the land, they say: We are but peace-makers.”  The mischief-makers are non-believers.  Frankly, the word “peace” was used throughout the Qur’an more as a “greeting” like “good morning.”  There is no explanation as to what the word peace actually means or even how to strive for it.  For example, in “The Distinction” (25.63), “believers” are told:   "And the servants of the Beneficent God are they who walk on the earth in humbleness, and when the ignorant address them, they say: Peace.”  In other words, this is a greeting from those who are believers to those who are not.

Old Gadfly:  Then, are we to infer that Islamic peace is possible only among believers of the Islamic Allah?  Yet, look at the turmoil and bloodshed in a region of the world with the greatest concentration of Islamic believers. 

AM:  Gadfly, getting back to your question about ISIS, in relation to the Qur’an and other authoritative texts such as the Hadith, I can find no contradictions or even contrary notions of what ISIS has established as an Islamic state.      

Old Gadfly:  Explain.

AM:  I can present many arguments, but let me offer just a couple.  Like IM, I did a key word search for “punishment” and, unlike the greeting nature of peace used only 49 times, punishment is used 171 times.  For example, in the fifth chapter, “The Dinner” (5:33), believers are instructed in this manner:  “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement.”  This clearly explains the murders and crucifixions carried out by ISIS—acts that are congruent with Islamic doctrine.

Old Gadfly:  How about the women taken captive by ISIS?

AM:  This is my second argument.  I did another search, this time with the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement at the University of Southern California.  I looked up “marriage,” then “to slave.”  I learned that it is permissible to enslave and marry captured women, even if the women were already married before capture.  Specifically, in the Qur'an's fourth chapter, “The Women” (4:24), Islamic believers are instructed:  “And all married women except those whom your right hands possess (this is) Allah's ordinance to you, and lawful for you are (all women) besides those, provided that you seek (them) with your property, taking (them) in marriage not committing fornication. Then as to those whom you profit by, give them their dowries as appointed; and there is no blame on you about what you mutually agree after what is appointed; surely Allah is Knowing, Wise.” 

Old Gadfly:  The Hadith may have clarified what this meant in real life.

AM:  It reinforced it.  In “The Book of Marriage (Kitab Al-Nikab),” this particular behavior is further justified:

Chapter 29: IT IS PERMISSIBLE TO HAVE SEXUAL INTERCOURSE WITH A CAPTIVE WOMAN AFTER SHE IS PURIFIED (OF MENSES OR DELIVERY) IN CASE SHE HAS A HUSBAND, HER MARRIAGE IS ABROGATED AFTER SHE BECOMES CAPTIVE

Abu Sa'id al-Khudri (Allah her pleased with him) reported that at the Battle of Hanain Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) sent an army to Autas and encountered the enemy and fought with them. Having overcome them and taken them captives, the Companions of Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) seemed to refrain from having intercourse with captive women because of their husbands being polytheists. Then Allah, Most High, sent down regarding that:" And women already married, except those whom your right hands possess (iv. 24)" (i. e. they were lawful for them when their 'Idda period came to an end).

Old Gadfly:  What is meant by “right hands possess”?

AM:  It refers to female slavery.  In the Qur’an and the Hadith, women slaves and free men are the natural order of things, ordained by Allah.  For example, under Muhammad’s direction, Muslims executed between 600 and 900 male members of a Jewish tribe known as Banu Qurayza[1] and took all the women and children as slaves.[2]  In another historical account, Muhammad took Rayhana as his slave.[3]  Rayhana was from the Jewish Banu Nadir tribe, who had married a man from the Jewish Banu Qurayza tribe before it was vanquished by Muhammad.  Several accounts report that Muhammad had as many as 13 wives.   

IM:  Islamic apologists would argue that Leviticus was similarly harsh with its prescriptions for ritual, legal and moral practices.  Yet, Leviticus was written sometime in the period 538–332 BCE, nearly a millennium before Muhammad apparently served as the medium for his self-proclaimed divinely inspired teachings that became the Qur’an.  And, in between Leviticus and the verses known as the Qur’an, the New Testament appeared with a far more coherent and congruent set of teachings about love and forgiveness, such as the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew.

Old Gadfly:  What does the Qur’an say about terror?

AM:  A word search produced five passages about the relevance of terror.  For example, in the eighth chapter “The Accessions” (8:21), Muhammad said, “When your Lord revealed to the angels: I am with you, therefore make firm those who believe. I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them.”

Old Gadfly:  How about war?

AM:  The term “war” is used 20 times, but it is obscured by 137 “warning” entries.  For example, in the eighth chapter, “The Accessions” (8:65), The Qur’an states, “O Prophet! urge the believers to war; if there are twenty patient ones of you they shall overcome two hundred, and if there are a hundred of you they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they are a people who do not understand.”  This aggressive, coercive perspective is consistent with the actual meaning of the word Islam, which means submission.

Old Gadfly:  How about jihad?

AM:   The Qur’an does not use the word jihad, per se.  Jihad is a term that includes “fighting,” “striving,” “struggling,” and “endeavoring.”  The index for the Qur’an at the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement provides 24 instances of the use of these terms.  So, technically, those engaged in jihad, that is, terrorist acts against the enemies of Islam—especially Israel and the Western world--are very consistent with the teachings of Islam.  This may explain why for years now, especially since the loss of over 3,000 innocents on September 11, 2001 on American soil and many other terrorist activities since then, there has been no public outrage from Muslim communities, both in the Middle East and within the various Muslim conclaves embedded within Western cultures.

Old Gadfly:  How about love?

AM:  The word “love” is used 83 times.  For example, in Chapter 61, “The Ranks” (61:4), The Qur’an states, “Surely Allah loves those who fight in His way in ranks as if they were a firm and compact wall.”  The prevailing notion, however, does not include believers loving others; it is used in reference to Allah—whether Allah loves or not.  This is very consistent with the notion of submission:  do as Allah commands and be loved by Allah, or disobey Allah and, not only lose his love, but expect to be punished.   Compare this with the liberating notions of the Christian New Testament, exemplified by the Son of God suffering crucifixion and death to free us from the bondage of sin.

Old Gadfly:  Now, let’s tie these concepts from the Qur’an into the justification of ISIS as an Islamic State.  Is there foundational support for such an entity, or is it a perversion of the Islamic doctrine?

IM:  As we know, Iran is an Islamic state—a theocracy based on Islam and governed by Sharia law.  Iran’s arrangement and the justification for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria are based on doctrine published in the Hadith, complementary authoritative texts (or reports).  For example, "The Book on Government (Kitab Al-Imara)," a translation of Sahih Muslim, Book 20, unambiguously states, “. . . the Islamic State is not an end in itself, but a means to an end, the end being development of a community of people who stand up for equity and justice, for rights against wrong or, to phrase it differently, for the creation of such conditions as would enable the greatest possible number of human beings to live spiritually, morally and physically in accordance with the teachings of Islam.”  Islam is intended to be universal.  There is no tolerance for other religions.  The late Samuel P. Huntington warned us about these inevitable dynamics in The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order in the 1990s.  His thesis and arguments were roundly rejected by the progressive, intellectual left.

Old Gadfly:  When ISIS first emerged the leaders of this entity called themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.  The Obama Administration insists on calling the entity the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIL.  What can we infer from this?

AM:  The Levant primarily referred to Syria-Palestine but has more recently been used to accommodate a broader area that includes Israel.  The notion that the Obama Administration, not the head of ISIS, modified the original ISIS terminology to ISIL, combined with the recent deal with Iran, releasing somewhere between $100 and $150 billion (that can be used to further fund Hamas and Hezbollah), implies to me a concerted effort to squeeze Jews out of “the Levant.”  When the President snubbed the head of state from Israel on more than one occasion and bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, what other message could possibly be intended?

IM:  Compare the effects of these two religious perspectives:  Judeo-Christian principles brought to the modern world hospitals, universities, western-style law, and a sense of sacredness for all human life.[4]  Islam brought tribal submissiveness to a people who are mere instruments, imitating what they have been taught through Muhammad and his acolytes, in order to facilitate the establishment of a world caliphate.   Compare the relative prosperity and peace of the Western world with the chaos in the Islamic Middle East.  The current Muslim diaspora flows out of this brutal abyss.  Sadly, they escape what Islam has wrought only to spread it elsewhere as loyal servants.  Muslims do not assimilate.

AM:  The teachings of Islam appear to start with a worldview similar to that when Leviticus appeared and never modernized.  Do you find it ironic that America’s progressive, secular humanists are more wary of our Judeo-Christian teachings than they are of modern manifestations of the actual teachings of the Islamic religion? 

          IM:  There is an old Arab proverb that originated about the same time as Leviticus, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  Do American progressives and universal Muslims have this much in common?  In other words, if progressives distance themselves from our Judeo-Christian teachings while tolerating and accepting Islam, they also tolerate and accept ISIS, even though ISIS and other believers are totally committed to eliminating nonbelievers.
         
         Old Gadfly:  Yet, there are many who do want peace.  The dilemma is to what degree they are prepared to evangelize a set of teachings that may be contrary to peace.  In his book, Fatal Conceit:  The Errors of Socialism, Hayek observed “mind is not a guide but a product of cultural evolution, and is based more on imitation than on insight or reason.”  Thus, the fundamental contest here is between imitation and reason.  This is our only hope to minimize Huntington’s clash between civilizations.

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[1] Alfred Guillaume, The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq's Sirat Rasul Allah, (Cambridge, UK:  Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 461–464.

[2] William Muir, The Life of Mahomet, Volume 3, Chapter 17, (London, UK:  Smith, Elder, & Co., 1861); p.276

[3] Maxine Rodinson, Muhammad: Prophet of Islam, (Norwalk, CT:  Easton Press, 1980), p. 213.

[4] See for example, Thomas E. Woods, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, (Washington, D.C.:  Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2005).

Walking on Hind Legs

IM:  Two issues dominated today’s Meet the Press:  Citizens United and LGBT discrimination, with George Clooney as the protagonist (enhanced by his Batman fame).

Old Gadfly:  Summarize for us Clooney’s arguments.

IM:  First, he defended his role in hosting a fund-raising event that drew wealthy donors—the same group that is commonly demonized by the left for its immoral wealth, you know, the evil 1%.  To sit at the same table with the Clintons and Clooneys cost a mere $353,000.  He agreed with Bernie Sanders that this kind of campaign financing is obscene, but is doing what he can to raise obscene amounts of money to keep a democrat in the White House, and to put democrats back in charge of Congress, ultimately resulting in a Democrat-nominated justice on the US Supreme Court to overrule Citizens United.   

AM:  Ironically, Citizens United benefits both Parties.  Folks, with their short memories, may not recall how Obama reneged on his pledge to use only public funding, something McCain honored through the election in 2008.  Obama had nearly twice the funding, a lot of it from big business, such as the healthcare industry that collaborated successfully in getting the Affordable Healthcare passed—probably the most grotesque manifestation of crony capitalism in our history.  Citizens United doesn’t come close to negating the advantage Democrats receive from union support.  I just checked Open Secrets.org to see how the Federal Election Commission has reported funding to the Clinton campaign.  You can see that aside from Soros leading the pack, many of the large donors are unions.

IM: I noticed for the State of Colorado, Senator Bennet has over $10 million in campaign assets, whereas his Republican challengers combined have less than $500 thousand.  OpenSecrets.org indicates Bennet’s funding is coming from financial sectors, corporations, and lobbyists.

AM:  Yet, Democrats want the public to think Wall Street donors primarily support Republican campaigns.  That is why Citizens United is such a good straw man caricature for political purposes.

Old Gadfly:  This is part of the power of creating caricatures of the real thing.  Nobel laureate, Joseph Schumpeter, captured this tactic well when he said, “We fight for and against not men and things as they are, but for and against the caricatures we make of them.”[1]  IM, expand on the second issue addressed by Clooney on Meet the Press.

IM:  The other issue dealt with the transgender bathroom controversy in North Carolina.  The Governor argued in favor of those who accept their natural born gender and want to protect their privacy in public restrooms.  The LGTB lobby argued against this majority and for the very small percentage of transgenders.  This faction argues that a man in woman’s clothing has the civil right to use a woman’s bathroom or shower facility.  The LGTB lobby convinced business enterprises to boycott North Carolina until the Governor reverses his decision.  Clooney supports this kind of financial pressure.  Thus, in the same segment, Clooney demonizes and then celebrates financial influence in politics.  

Old Gadfly:  The progressive messaging today is very sophisticated in shaping public sentiment.  The caricature of a caricature, that is Clooney playing Batman, is the good hero combatting evil.  Clooney was explicit in the immorality of Citizens United and the North Carolina Governor’s refusal to accommodate LGTB demands.

AM:  It is obvious the political elite argue that all genders are created equal; some are more equal than others.  Sound familiar?  That was the single remaining commandment in Animal Farm:  all animals are created equal; some are more equal than others.

IM:  This commandment also emerged as Napoleon and his fellow socialist farm animals began to walk on their hind legs—in other words, they began to mimic the behaviors of those they despised.  In this case, however, the supposed despised behaviors are manufactured caricatures of those they oppose.  Orwell’s caricature of real life seems far more sobering, and reflective of current affairs in America, than the Clooney’s Batman character.

AM:  Let’s see how far the hypocrites get on their hind legs in the upcoming elections.

Old Gadfly:   What we are witnessing is a tug of war between liberty and license.  I would submit that liberty is dependent upon a just system of laws and one of the political Parties, which mostly subscribes to this notion, is unjustly caricaturized as anti- this or that and as fear mongers.  The other Party does not feel beholden to the current system of laws and through their notion of social justice will ignore laws in the interest of achieving political power.  One approach respects and seeks to protect liberty while the other accepts license as a necessary means to achieve their political ends.  In the process, a secular humanist faction (one that believes science is dichotomous and superior to faith) believes civil rights trump natural rights.  History documents similar trends in other socialistic societies—the government becomes the ultimate moral authority.

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[1] Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis (New York:  Oxford University Press, 1954), p. 90.

The Puppet Master

Old Gadfly:  Is there a puppet master at play in the current presidential campaign?

IM:  By your question, are you implying there is a puppet master?

Old Gadfly:  What do you think?  Look at the dynamics.  The media gives Trump more than three times the coverage than all other Republican candidates combined.  At recent events, organized instigators, in particular, Moveon.org and Black Lives Matter, agitated crowds to promote photo and video optics to generate news cycles, with the implication that Trump is the source of the agitation.

AM:  Trump certainly tapped into anger and frustration that were present well before he began his campaign.  So, in essence, while his language may come across as bombastic and uncivil, he indicates that he clearly “feels your pain” (something Bill Clinton seemed to get during his time).  Yet, where are our brilliant journalists in trying to figure out where that pain came from?  Quite frankly, people are tired of being marginalized and disenfranchised by an administration that blatantly picks winners and losers, and coerces behaviors (e.g., IRS healthcare insurance penalties), contrary to our constitution and legal regime.

Old Gadfly: All great points, AM.  However, in regards to the current presidential campaign drama, do you see a puppet master at play?

IM:  Moveon.org was funded by George Soros.  He also resourced Black Lives Matter (to the tune of about $33 million) and supported the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Old Gadfly:  Now you see how the Trump Chicago rally was deliberately manipulated for news cycle purposes.  How about direct campaign funding?

AM:  Now I get it.  So far the top donor to the Democrat Hillary Clinton campaign is over $7 million from the Soros Fund Management.  And the Republican John Kasich campaign has received $200,000 from the same source.  This was enough to win his state of Ohio and now Kasich will play his part in forcing a likely brokered convention in July, potentially destroying the Republican Party.  Progressives have long sought a single political party, like their progressive icons--communists and fascists.  This is a step in that direction.

Old Gadfly:  So now you see who the puppets are:  Clinton, Kasich, and the media.  The drama seems to be playing out exactly the way the puppet master envisioned.  These are consistent performances from the mastermind who earned his capitalistic multi-billion fortune manipulating national currencies and then spending it on manipulating societies in ways that suits his personal “anti-capitalist” ideology of a utopian-open society.

IM:  How about the general public?  Are they not puppets as well?

Old Gadfly:  Not really.  Like an audience of a puppet show, they only get to evaluate the script.  That script has been written, and the puppets have been selected, by Soros.  The media merely transmits the play.

A Ruling Class?

Old Gadfly:  Gentlemen, is there anything in particular about the presidential campaigning that concerns you?

AM:  Two quick observations:  First, one party seems unified in its political ideology while the other shows a diversified set of candidates.  Second, it amazes me that there is so much support for a self-proclaimed socialist and for an individual who appears to be above the law.

Old Gadfly:  What is wrong with socialism?

AM:   Gadfly, you and I each served over 30 years to defend our Nation against the inevitable tyranny that stems from socialism.  Socialism, which is advanced by intellectuals as a form of utopia this side of death, is not sustainable.  It is a transition phase that transforms into either communism or fascism.  Just look at all the promises being made by some of the candidates?  How can an economy generate enough wealth to sustain this volume of welfare?  We already have nearly $20 trillion in public debt, not to mention the unfunded liabilities that are five to six times the public debt.

Old Gadfly:  Go to my bookshelf and pull down Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville.  Good, now locate the chapter entitled, “What Sort of Despotism Democratic Nations Have to Fear.”  Read the first sentence out loud.

AM:    “I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a democratic state of society, similar to that of Americans, might offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism; and I perceived, upon my return to Europe, how much use had already been made by most of our rulers, of the notions, the sentiments, and the wants engendered by this same social condition, for the purpose of extending the circle of their power.”[1]

IM:  Amazing.  Tocqville wrote this book between 1835 and 1840.

Old Gadfly:  Notice Tocqueville’s observation of how rulers exploit “notions, sentiments, and the wants” of other members of society “for the purpose of extending the circle of their power.”  Incidentally, another great mind who is less recognized and appreciated is another Frenchman, Frédéric Bastiat, who in 1850 published an important rebuttal to the socialistic thinking that dominated Western Europe.  His book, The Law, argued for the importance of laws in protecting and enabling individual liberty.

IM:  Combining the observations and arguments of Tocqueville and Bastiat, it appears that a ruling class in a socialistic society is above the law.  They must be in order to have power over the masses.  Despite the concerted and complicit suppression of important news within the mainstream media, there is one candidate right now who denies any criminal behavior despite the growing body of evidence to the contrary.

AM:  Yet, many of her followers dismiss this as a fabrication of a “right wing conspiracy.”

Old Gadfly:  The notorious tyrants of the recent past (Stalin, Hitler, Mao, etc.) knew that narratives did not need to be true, but merely plausible.  People are inclined to believe what they want to believe.  AM, now locate the fifth paragraph in the chapter about despotism.

AM:    Here it is. I’ll insert some editorial comments within brackets:

After having thus successfully taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community.  It covers the surface of society with a net-work of small complicated rules [i.e., promulgated by an unelected bureaucracy via administrative law], minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.  The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided:  men are seldom forced by it to act [the Affordable Care Act is such a case], but they are constantly restrained from acting [e.g., IRS censorship of certain voices]:  such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence [e.g., Dinesh D’Souza prosecution and conviction]; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.  I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described, might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom; and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people.  Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free:  as they cannot destroy either one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once.  They devise a sole, tutelary, and all-powerful form of government, but elected by the people.[2]      

Old Gadfly:  Thank you, AM.  I would encourage you to eventually read the entire chapter, but you’ve read enough for us to get the point for now.  While it is obvious that Tocqueville had a deep appreciation for how democracy might play out in America, the transformation to a central government controlled by a ruling class is certainly the case for today’s America.

IM:  What is the ruling class?

Old Gadfly:  The ruling class comprises elected and unelected members of government and the lobbyists that keep them there.  It has grown significantly, especially since the individual income tax was reestablished in 1913 with the Sixteenth Amendment.  Based on government data, here is a graph that reflects my calculations for the cost of the federal government in constant dollars (i.e., accounting for inflation) per capita (accounts for population growth):

 

            This graph does not reflect the most recent budget, which would make the picture look even worse. 

If one is a socialist or progressive, there is an assumption that governments solve problems.  The above graph shows that citizens have been coerced by federal law to provide more and more of their wealth through taxes or public debt.  These resources are then supposed to “solve problems” for society.  Recently, the noted political scientist, Francis Fukuyama, provided extensive analysis to support his thesis that America is in decay.  This decay stems from political dysfunction.  I contend this dysfunction reflects the progressive disdain for the Constitution and the concept of federalism, and a passion for an unelected administrative state.  Charles Cooper, a constitutional lawyer, presented a compelling article on this threat to our way of life.

AM:  I have a lot of friends who are very concerned about this development.

IM:  Notice that for both political parties, most of the candidates have been elected to office—career politicians so to speak.  But there are three who are not career politicians:  Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson, and Carly Fiorina.

Old Gadfly:  What might we infer from their presence and the apparent interest in these candidates?

AM:  They do not represent the ruling class that many in the public narrative call “the establishment.”  This might especially explain why Donald Trump has such a large following so far.

IM:  Yet, those who denigrate Trump for whatever reason are concerned that he may lack the experience and skills to be effective as the President of the United States.

AM:  This kind of argument assumes a philosopher king and not the executive of a government originally designed to be limited with enumerated powers delegated by the people [who are not timid and industrious sheep], and balanced through checks and balances and federalism.

IM:  I think those who have confidence in Trump see a man who has lived the American dream, a man who created jobs and built things within a system of laws and free enterprise.

Old Gadfly:  Some say he’s crass.

AM:  I see a breath of fresh air in what I consider to be authentic and sincere expression.  Trump talks about ideas and issues that concern others who want to be freer and less regulated by a ruling class.  I see a man who is not timid, and who refuses to be an industrious sheep.  I see a man who risks criticism and invests his own earned wealth to be an example for others to have the courage to exercise liberty within a system of laws that apply to everyone.  Remember, Tocqueville warned us:  “After having thus successfully taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned them at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community.”  Trump represents a contrary force in our society.

Old Gadfly:  Good point, AM.  Some in America are drawn more to rhetoric (hope and change) as opposed to real achievement (creating businesses and jobs and building things).  IM, what do you say about the candidates from the other party?

IM:   Until he dropped out, James Webb offered a potential candidacy that was more constitutional, and less ruling class in nature.  Unfortunately, the remaining candidates are socialistic, even the one who denies being socialistic, yet claiming instead to be progressive.  If we agree with Tocqueville’s observations and arguments, then I think his prophecy was fairly accurate for those who affiliate with or submit to a socialistic or progressive candidate.  They can be counted upon to be “timid and industrious animals” in the progressive march toward socialism.

AM:  Aren’t some Republicans progressive?

IM:    If a more centralized government is a feature of progressivism, then yes.  However, if these individuals are truly progressive and socialistic, then they are really Democrats in Republican clothing.  On the contrary, most Republicans who appear to support a larger and more centralized government are more likely to have succumbed to being a member of “the establishment” or ruling class.  This may explain crony capitalism and corporate welfare that corrupts and perpetuates the establishment, or ruling class in both parties.

Old Gadfly:  Do we have a candidate that might have a vision and capacity for getting America out of this quagmire?

AM:  Ironically, one candidate talks about making America great again.

Old Gadfly:  This is a good start.  Hopefully this candidate understands that moral and virtuous character provided the inspiration and that the Constitution provided the structure and blue print for a once prosperous and peaceful nation.  But most importantly, the outcome of the election will be determined by a collective “we the people” that prefers individual freedom and the responsibility and accountability of self-governance through a system of laws that ensures justice for all.  Americans have outsourced political power over the years and deserve the government that we have.  “We the people” still have a choice:  (a) to remain timid and industrious animals guided by the recent attempt to transform America; or (b) to shape a government that protects the real American ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not an imagined utopia that ruling class progressives or socialists promise.    

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[1] Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Complete (translated by Henry Reeve), Volume I, 1835; Volume II, 1840.  ISBN-13:978-1508419129, p. 396.

[2] Ibid, p. 398.