Discussing the monarchy

 So, as we now know, Queen Elizabeth II is dead. I don't have much to say on it either way. She was a queen. She was 96. She died. I'm not here to discuss her so much. I'm more interested in discussing the political aspects of things. 

The fact is, the royal family these days is a lot more of just this ceremonial thing with no real power. The family is one of glorified celebrities. While still the ceremonial head of the UK due to tradition, they generally gave up their power long ago, and the UK is now a democratic country. They hold elections, there is a legislature, the prime minister is more or less the executive, and there are courts. 

As it should be. I'm not one for monarchies. I see them as a form of authoritarianism. More or less a dictatorship. We fought wars against this kind of crap in our revolutionary days here in America (more specifically, against the specific monarchy we're discussing), and many of us on this side of the "pond", don't really care all that much for monarchies. We like democracy, and while I admit the general populace are idiots who don't always know how to use it, I still see it as the least bad of all possible system. Especially when combined with a constitution with separation of powers and a healthy system of rights. 

So...what is the royal family? A family of glorified celebrities who people still fawn over simply for cultural reasons. I don't really care much about our American celebrities either. I dont get why we make such a big deal out of peoples' lives. Like, I honestly, genuinely dont care 99% of the time. And the royal family falls into that. Taxpayer subsidied celebrities. But hey, they wanna do it, they like it, let them. I think it's dumb, but whatever.

If I had my way, I'd just abolish the monarchy. It's a dumb idea in the first place IMO. It is an idea that long outlived its usefulness, and a form of government that is effectively obsolete. It's like a vestigal organ under evolution. Something that once had a purpose, but is no longer needed. What it stands for is in opposition of much of what modern society, including the UK's society, stands for these days. Again, wars were fought over this. We had our revolution here in the US, and the French had a similar revolution. And now most of Europe is democratic. UK went the more reformist route if not abolishing it, but taking away its power over time, but yeah. Largely irrelevant to modern politics. 

Still, not my country, UK can do what UK does. 

Raaaaacism

And now to discuss the other issue I wanna discuss relevant to this topic. The most vocal critics of the royal family in the event of her death arent democracy lovers, it's the postmodernists, screaming she's a racist and doesn't fit their standards of social justice.

I mean, she kind of is, on a personal level. I think much of the controversy surrounding her comes from the treatment of Meghan Markle, who is part black. She married into the royal family, and the family didn't approve. Although honestly, this is not uncommon in families like this. There is a strong emphasis on bloodlines, and you generally need to be "somebody" to marry into the family legitimately. Throughout history, arranged marriages were common in monarchies, and focus on blood purity was so high that there often have been a lot of incentuous marriages to cousins and the like to avoid allowing "commoners" into the family. Yeah, allowing someone from another race into the family is a bridge too far for them. 

I'm not approving of this by the way. The fact that I brought up the incest thing should be a sign of how stupid I find this whole thing to be. Like, the whole concept of monarchies is just a weird, bizarre, anachronism in the modern western world. The whole concept of having a royal family and being so obsessed with bloodlines is weird and stupid. I'm just explaining why them being racist in terms of marrying into the family isn't that weird for them. It happens. It's common. It's dumb. But hey, again, all the more reason to abolish the concept. 

I just wanted to take a swipe at how the postmodernists are going NUTS over her death and using it as an opportunity to soapbox about racism, applying their cutting edge 21st century standards to a family known for being conservative and obsessed with bloodlines. It's kind of like complaining about the pope being against gay marriage. Like, duh. Of course it's gonna happen. Old people running conservative institutions that have a long sordid history of being against progress. We shouldn't be surprised it happens. But I tend to reserve my criticism for the systems in place than the individuals in them. Individuals like this are mere products of the systems that they are a part of. Individuals' views are largely influenced by their environment. And here you got this old lady who was literally almost 100 years old and who LITERALLY ascended to the throne when Winston Churchhill was still relevant, and the first thing people scream when she dies is that she's a racist? I mean, when she became queen, here in America, we still had freaking Jim Crow in place, and it wouldnt be abolished for over a decade. That's how old she is. Like...idk, cut her some slack I guess? 

At least, being merely a ceremonial leader, she wasn't enforcing racism in the UK all that much. Heck she actually came to power after the British empire collapsed at the end of WWII. And while the UK has some issues with racism, let's face it, they're still a lot more progressive than the US is on racism issues. Heck, she literally approved of an anti racism law that they passed in 1965. So idk. She was actually quite progressive for her time. She just ain't gonna meet the crazy purity standards of the SJWs. 

Idk. Just had to take a swipe at them because holy crap, most negative stuff coming out of the discourse of her legacy comes from these people and I feel like, much like with other relatively historical figures whose views were formed in a different era with different standards surrounding these issues, she was relatively good for the times. Again. She was 96 when she died. She literally came to power in her 20s. It was literally in the postwar era of WWII. The world has changed A TON over her long 70 year reign. You just can't reasonably expect an old lady from a conservative family obsessed with bloodlines to the point of committing widespread incest to be "woke." At least she didn't use her role for evil on the issue. I really feel like leftists miss the point sometimes. Sometimes you gotta judge people not by modern standards but by the standards of their time, and she wasn't really that bad in that context. And yeah, that's my views on this. 

I'm so over Forward right now

 Honestly, I'm gonna be honest, watching what Forward is morphing into, it's a joke, it's a total joke. They took literally the worst aspect of the entire party (the moderate framing) and they then made it the whole party.

Watching what these guys are talking about now, they're upset over Biden daring call out the MAGA people for being domestic terrorists, and they're going on about how Forward isn't for OPEN primaries, they're for "nonpartisan" ones.

And again, everything is "we need to appease the moderates, ermahgerd, moderation, moderation, moderation." It makes me sick. 

Andrew, I don't know what you were thinking when you made this deal with the devil, but I've literally lost all faith and confidence in you over the past month. You have based ideas a lot of the time, but this current framing of needing to moderate and appease the Trumpers is just...ugh.

I think you forget why most on the left at least wanted third parties. It has to do with the democrats' dysfunction. We can't have nice things because the democrats...are obsessed with moderation. Oh, you want UBI? Gee, that's too bad, you can't have that, you need to compromise. How about we give you 1/10th of what you want, and then add tons of arbitrary means tests and bureaucracy to it instead?

Like...wtf?! Who LIKES this crap?

Some of us just want solutions.

But Forward is no longer for actual solutions. Everything is this weird circlejerk of centrism to the point that Joe Biden is actually looking relatively good. As Biden starts embracing the "dark Brandon" persona and is getting at least some things done and finally getting to the point of calling out the right (something I've been calling for since 2014 when Obama lost the senate due to HIS moderation), suddenly forward is crying.

Like, dude. I don't like Biden much either. He's still too moderate for me. But wanting something even MORE moderate just isn't doing it for me. I want politicians who actually stand for things and have balls. And Yang could have been that person. He supports UBI. He supports Medicare for all (in theory at least). He supports human centered capitalism. Like, wtf, how do you go from being the guy who seems to get it even more than BERNIE FREAKING SANDERS for me, to screwing up this badly?

I just can't any more. I didn't join forward for the centrism. Heck, I originally interpreted forward as being basically like, a left wing organization with centrist framing. I mean, the centrism thing works on culture war issues at least because the two sides ARE too polarized there. One side is going all in with fascism and conservative christianity's worst impulses, and the other side is basically doing this obnoxious postmodernist crap with being obsessed with identity politics. And that isn't helpful. 

But....it comes off to me, what centrism means in this context, is actually center left. A lot of Yang's weird centrist framings on issues seemed to just be reinventing the same "third way" positions the dems have held since the 1990s. We need a middle ground between no abortion at all, and abortion until birth. And while I support abortion until birth, primarily as a defense mechanism against the nuts, a lot of what this middle ground Yang was talking about seemed to be seemed to be toward reinventing Roe v. Wade. Same with guns. We need a middle ground between gun confiscation and not having any gun laws ever. May I interest you in some mild gun regulations that preserve the right to bear arms but instead focus on keeping guns out of the wrong hands? Stuff like that.

Like....when you come to the middle...you get....the centrist wing of the democratic party. And I more or less am a bit of a centrist these days on social issues. But centrist generally means "center left" in practice. Like, you lean left, you just have more moderate opinions on the issues. We're just rejecting the extreme absolutism the culture warriors on both sides wanna impose on us. And if Yang could reinvent standard center left social policies under the framing of centrism, we could basically "win" the culture war, without having to fight it. We disavow the crazies, we embrace sane moderation, and we deescalate this mess.

All while then pushing further left on economics with UBI and stuff, which also is looking kind of moderate given some factions of the left seem to be running full steam toward outright support of socialism. Ya know, the original form of centrism in that sense was actually social democracy? And Yang really just offered an updated 21st century version of that that addresses the problems in a 21st century way. Instead of relying on jobs and full employment and GDP, Yang kind of realized that jobs aren't working, and we need a UBI. 

But then he blew it and now his movement is embracing full on "enlightened centrism", where we need to be moderate for moderation's sake and avoid doing anything that pisses off anyone ever (unless they have convictions). It sickens me. How could this guy fall so far is baffling to me. I don't think he's a grifter like some on the left do, but he's certainly fallen in with the wrong crowd. 

Really, I don't think I'm gonna be supporting this movement from here on forward. I might support some candidates, like if Yang runs and busts out UBI again, but other than that...I'm just done with these guys. I can't stand to even look at what this movement is becoming any more. It literally makes me sick.

The "sniff test" (2024 metric)

 So, another metric I've had for a while, which isn't particularly good, but it's really short, and it really does give you an idea about how I feel about candidates, is the "sniff test". On this test, I'll measure the candidates on a scale of 0-100 based on how I FEEL about them. It will be a highly subjective test that can change over time, but is a potentially accurate summation of how I feel about them, and likely correlates with other tests assuming I did my research on various candidates.

Generally speaking, this is how the scale will work.

50-Neutral/Meh/Mixed

Default score is 50. This means I don't have strong feelings either way, or the overall opinion on them is mixed in a 50% good and 50% bad way.

40/60- Slightly negative/positive. 

This means that I have slightly positive or negative feelings one way or another. No strong opinions either way. 

30/70- Moderately negative/positive.

This indicates opinions are moderately negative or positive. I definitely have an opinion one way or another, but it's still not particularly strong.

20/80- Strongly negative/positive

Opinions are strongly positive or negative and I either really like the guy or don't like them. Most politicians will score between the 20-80 range somewhere given how nuanced my opinions are.

10/90- Extremely negative/positive

Even more positive/negative with little to no nuance. 

0/100- Epitome of evil/good

Basically I have very strong opinions and the idea that this guy is the metric of good/evil. It should be very rare for me to rate anyone this high/low. 

I will be applying this standard in two ways. The first being my initial impression when I hear the name, and the second my view after I think about the person/thing and my opinions toward it in a slightly more nuanced way. Below I will primarily be using it in the first way. Without further ado, let's get going.

Political parties

Republicans- 15

Democrats- 40

Libertarians- 25

Greens-60

Forward (pre merger)- 80

Forward (post merger)- 35

Republicans

Donald Trump - 15

Ted Cruz- 20

Ron Desantis- 15

Marco Rubio- 20

Mitt Romney- 25

George W. Bush- 20

Ronald Reagan- 18

Ron Paul- 18

Rand Paul- 20

Democrats

Joe Biden- 50

Barack Obama- 45

Hillary Clinton- 40

Kamala Harris- 60

Pete Buttigieg- 35

Elizabeth Warren- 65

Bernie Sanders- 78

Andrew Yang(2020)- 78

Bill Clinton- 30

Jimmy Carter- 55

Marianne Willamson- 65

Tulsi Gabbard- 35

Third party candidates

Jo Jorgenson- 25

Jill Stein- 60

Howie Hawkins- 75

Andrew Yang (pre forward merger)- 85

Andrew Yang (post forward merger)- 60

Political ideologies

Conservatism- 20

MAGA- 5

Right libertarianism- 25

Anarcho capitalism- 10

Monarchism- 5

Fascism- 0

Conservative Christianity- 10

Liberalism- 55

New Deal Liberalism- 75

New democrats/third way- 40

Centrism- 35

Democratic socialism- 73

Social democracy- 78

Human Centered Capitalism- 85

Market socialism- 65

Postmodernism- 35

Marxism-Leninism- 15

Secular Humanism- 70

Socialism- 40

Indepentarianism- 90

Real Libertarianism- 90

Social libertarianism- 85

Georgism- 30

Anarchism- 15

Communism- 18

Libertarian socialism- 68

Nazbol- 15

Left libertarianism- 75

Neoliberalism (dem party version)- 38

Neoliberalism (right wing version)- 10

Evaluation

 Eh, it did okay, but it is a bit subjective. To correct some of the scores, Donald Trump should be lower, like 5-10. Other conservatives are about dead on.

Liberals are accurate. Note how Bernie and Yang were about the same score. It's because they really did go back and forth. I like Yang better in theory, but he ended up flopping due to being inconsistent on policy while Bernie's consistency got him more points.

But yeah liberals generally occupy the middle, from around 30 on the low end (centrists) to 80 on the high end (progressives with policies I like). They tend to average around 50, maybe a bit lower given how most dems trend toward centrism.

Third party is pretty accurate. Stein maybe a little high, 50 might be more accurate with her. Hawkins being about 70 sounds right. Yang ranges from based to meh depending on what he's doing. 

Right wing ideologies are about accurate. Note MAGA being 5. Trump should've really been a 5 but I went with the first number that popped in my head.

Liberals are all over the place like always. Democratic socialism is high based on what it is, but given I was thinking of Sanders and more social democratic policies when I came up with the number it makes sense. I see Bernie and his ideology as more socdem though.

Secular Humanism probably deserves more than a 70. But again, first number in my head.

I probably lowballed ideologies I literally identify with like social libertartianism, real libertarianism, and indepentarianism, but again, nuanced views and unwilling to go to the extremes like 0 or 100 generally. 

Neoliberalism probably deserves like a 15-20, 10 puts it lower than marxism leninism and in league with ideologies I despise. And while I despise neoliberalism too, it's a softer form of hate than I have for actual reactionary ideologies.

Anyway, this metric is good for what it does. It's a sniff test. It's not necessarily the most accurate test, and it's based mostly on feelings, particularly first impressions. Still might be good to use, as it does generally correlate with how I feel toward people/groups to some extent. I might find contradictions when I start comparing scores but otherwise it's at least semi accurate.

Am I open to voting for Biden if he runs again in 2024?

 In short, yes. I am OPEN to it. This does not mean that I will definitely do it. But I am OPEN to the idea of it. 

The fact is, Biden has done a few decent things in his presidency, and if not obstructed by Congress, he would do more. His climate bill is one of the best I've seen and an actual workable version of Bernie's. He at least gave us SOME student loan forgiveness. He supported the child tax credit which was like watered down UBI. These are all things worth protecting, and while they are nowhere near enough, they represent some positive changes. 

I am also open to potentially supporting Kamala Harris in 2024. Pete Buttigieg...eh...maybe? As we know he did the worst on my purity metrics of all the left leaning candidates we looked at, being more bland and moderate than even Biden (although Biden was likely that bad before Bernie pulled him left somewhat). 

At the same time am I pledging my vote for Biden (or a dem) come 2024? no. I still have the same spirit of supporting third parties I always do. Howie Hawkins supports a much better platform, and while I have issues with it, I could support him again. And Yang/Forward...it depends. If Yang himself runs in 2024, I'm probably doing that. But if some "moderate" with no platform runs, like Mark Cuban or one of forward's new faces from the Serve/Renew America movements do...well....nothing will kill my support of forward faster than that. 

Honestly, that's the point of my purity tests. To get metrics by which I can judge candidates objectively in line with my priorities. And I plan to do more purity tests between now and the 2024 election cycle.

I'm so over labor day this year

 I mean, let's be honest. Most Americans completely miss the point. A lot of people had to work today to serve overly entitled middle class Americans goods and services that they didn't really need. It's actually really sickening when you think about it. Of course some on the left bring up the irony of this, but it's completely lost with mainstream Americans. 

As for the left, I've seen some leftists pushing some weird work fetishism with the idea. Like how we should celebrate all of the people building the Panama Canal who lost their limbs and stuff (I CRAP YOU NOT). Like...UGH. Like, for most of our history, including today to some extent, work is necessary, but instead of celebrating the concept and the suffering people go through to make society possible, we should stop trying to work so hard and automate as much work as possible. I really am falling out with a lot of the left because a lot of them tend to fetishize the IDEA of work. They'll selectively make arguments I am sympathetic to like "wtf that's horrible, why are we living like this" to push their leftist ideals...but at the end of the day, all they want are better paid, and better treated wage slaves. And yes, I'm talking about the far left too. A lot of leftists fetishize work because of the labor theory of value in Marx's philosophy, and a lot of them still think the solution to all societal ills is more jobs. Even on antiwork spaces, "leftists" will crap on, say, UBI, while acting like the end all solution to everything is...a job guarantee.

Ugh.

Don't get me wrong. I support the labor movement. I support the right of all workers to be treated and paid better, and to work less. In capitalism (markets), workers should ideally try to do the least while being paid the most, to offset the natural tendency of business owners to work people more for less. But, a lot of workers completely miss the point of this and go all in with the hard work = success ideology, and demonizing the lazy and the holdouts for better conditions. Honestly, I support the labor movement for improving worker pay, for improving working conditions, for reducing working hours. I totally support that crap. As should any sane human being. But, I just can't get past this fetishization of work itself. Work isn't a good thing. Work sucks. We should do less of it. We should celebrate laziness, because laziness can breed efficiency. The good worker bee will expand work to as many hours as they can so they can beat their chest about what a hard worker they am. A lazy worker will try to figure out how to do a task with the least amount of effort. While we should support the labor movement and their contributions to society, we shouldnt get caught up in work fetishism. And yeah, that's all.

Reacting to Trump's "enemy of the state" comments

 So....Trumpster Fire had a rally at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes Barre, PA. And a big thing people are making a big deal about is that he basically called Biden an "enemy of the state". That actually seems pretty inflammatory without context, but remember that speech last week that Biden did calling Trump a threat to democracy? Yeah, that's basically what that was about. He basically was like "he called me an enemy of the state, no HE is an enemy of the state." So it's just standard Trump mudslinging. Dude gets insulted so he insults them back. Standard Trump. Nothing particularly like...authoritarian about it. Just wanted to clarify. 

Some (particularly the forward faction) might be tempted to say "SEE THIS IS WHY WE SHOULDNT INSULT TRUMP, WE'RE JUST EGGING HIM ON", but you know what? Screw it. And screw Trump. He already incited his follower to attack the capitol. Now he's talking about paying their legal fees and crap. I say we call a spade a spade. He might retaliate, but he's gonna hit us anyway so we much as well. I really don't care any more.

Reacting to Biden's speech

 So, I'm going to be honest, as I'm going into September, I'm going into a relative vacation mode. So expect less content for a while. I have other things going on, and will be taking a much needed break. 

But I did was to comment briefly on Biden's speech, since everyone has been making such a big deal about it.

Quite frankly, Biden is doing what I've been wanting the democrats to do for years, and what Forward has lost me on as of late. He's calling out the crazies. He's not trying to make nice with them. He's not trying to compromise with them. He's calling them out for being the dangerous nutcases that they are, and labelling them threats to democracy. And we should.

The GOP has been a growing threat for a while. I'm not saying this to be partisan for its own sake, I'm saying this because they've been growing increasingly unhinged in recent decades, and especially in the past 10-15 years. And yeah, Trump LITERALLY tried to overthrow an election. That's not something to take lightly. The GOP has been doing all kinds of relatively anti democratic things in the past decade or so. When the tea party took over congress. They started shutting down the government and holding the government hostage to get their way. They obstructed obama at every turn looking to undermine his legacy. They stole a SCOTUS appointment from him, and the dems did nothing.

The democrats have been in this weird mode of "we need to compromise and be incremental and meet these people half way", and I'm glad the dems are FINALLY learning that you can't play paddycake with these crazies. Donald Trump IS a threat to democracy. His followers are a threat to democracy. I don't say this simply because I don't like Trump, I say this because the dude is a wanna be authoritarian who literally incited a mob to attack the capitol. I say this because his rhetoric has been inflaming the right wing extremist crazies to action. I say this because intimidation and violence are common tactics among his fan base. let's not mince words, these guys are FASCISTS. I'm not saying all conservatives are fascists. I actually think the left misuses the term fascism a lot in the same way the right screams everything they don't like is communism, but at this point, Trump and his supporters have crossed the line into using violence to get their way, and have directly attacked our institutions, both literally and figuratively. 

I believe that any party that claims to support democracy needs to do more that they're doing. The democrats need to go beyond just "Trump bad" and take actions to win people over in heart and mind. They need solutions to our problems, and they need to restore peoples' confidence in our quite frankly failing economic system, for example. And forward, well, here's the thing, Yang should know better, because he ran in 2020 on more or less ran on a variation of my ideal platform in an attempt to counter trump and provide an alternative to the mediocre mainstream democrat, and now he's spouting enlightened centrism, getting some aspects of the problem right, but both sidesing things without standing for anything themselves. 

I don't really think Biden is a great president. Quite frankly, i think he's mediocre. I don't buy into everything Biden is saying in this speech. Too much homage to the "American Civil Religion" for my tastes. Comes off as a virtue signal to me. But he has a point. We need to protect democracy from all threats, foreign and domestic. And right now the biggest threat to it is domestic, in the form of these crazies on the GOP side. I'm not saying the dems are perfect. Remember them removing the greens from the ballot in PA and wisconsin? But they don't do anything near as brazen as what Trump and the republicans did. At least they support a two party system, the GOP wants a one party system akin to Putin's Russia or something. 

Honestly? I hope they hold Trump accountable to the fullest extent of the law for his crimes, and bar him from running for office in 2024. If this means we get Ron Disastrous (DeSantis), so be it. As long as the GOP nominee isn't Trump. 

And let's face it, this serves our goals too. Unhappy lefties like me can better stage protests when the alternative to the democrats losing isn't a literal existential threat to democracy. Take Trump off the table and the democrats will lose the biggest leverage they have regarding blue no matter who. Then we can pressure the democrats to actually deliver on policy. And that's how democracy works. Remember, we're undergoing a realignment. it's just a matter of whether we wanna spend the next 40 years dealing with weak democrats constantly playing up the fear of a fascist takeover to keep power, or if we want to make the left take control of the country with good policy, forcing the GOP to come back to reality. The choice is ours. But ultimately, it really depends on whether the democrats seize the moment to build a coalition that wins over the country for the next several decades,or if they fail and let the GOP dominate the overton window...again.