Article

2020-08-09 -Short Attention Span Theater-

From Twitter: 2020 Libertarian Party Presidential Nominee Has Been Bitten By A Possibly Rabid Bat.

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Posted by charger 2020-08-09 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 *checks self carefully*

Funny, I don't feel particularly rabid. Is there a fever or something?

Posted by Secret Master 2020-08-09 01:36|| 2020-08-09 01:36|| Front Page Top

#2 Sure beats "the dog ate it".

Meanwhile, our two-party welfare-warfare system marches right along.

Posted by Clem 2020-08-09 08:27|| 2020-08-09 08:27|| Front Page Top

#3 I consider myself a small "l" libertarian, but yea.... a lot of the members are stone cold fucking nuts.

And Jo was a non starter to get my vote.

Posted by DarthVader 2020-08-09 09:27|| 2020-08-09 09:27|| Front Page Top

#4 /\ They haven't done too well in the presidential candidate department the last couple of go-arounds, have they?

Which one was it who gave the blank stare when an interviewer asked about Aleppo?

Posted by Clem 2020-08-09 10:17|| 2020-08-09 10:17|| Front Page Top

#5 Poor, poor bat.

Posted by Barbara 2020-08-09 11:36|| 2020-08-09 11:36|| Front Page Top

#6 "Bitten By A Possibly Rabid Bat."

Didn't know Pelosi was in town....

Posted by Mercutio 2020-08-09 12:16|| 2020-08-09 12:16|| Front Page Top

#7 Were this a Dem instead, I'd say most of them are rabid bats...or at least bat-shit crazy.

Posted by JohnQC 2020-08-09 14:18|| 2020-08-09 14:18|| Front Page Top

#8 Well, it's the bat's right to bite (sh)im...

Posted by M. Murcek 2020-08-09 14:29|| 2020-08-09 14:29|| Front Page Top

#9 So, don't leave us hanging. Did the bat get rabies or not?

Posted by gorb 2020-08-09 15:53|| 2020-08-09 15:53|| Front Page Top

#10 Normally I wouldn’t offer a thoughtful response to a bunch of grown men talking like fourteen-year-old schoolgirls gossiping at recess. (Really, M. Murcek? Jo Jorgensen looks like a man? Please.) But as the moderators can confirm, I’ve been reading and contributing to Rantburg since nearly the beginning; longer than most of you, in fact. Admittedly I mostly read each day and very occasionally comment rather than posting articles. But I’ve been here, reading and following your arguments. So now I’ll rant for the first time in years.

Many of you need to take the clear pill, step back for a few moments, take a view so long that it’s nearly orbital, and really think about the state of American politics right now. Have a cold, hard look at our two party system, and realize that it’s entered its final death spiral. The Democratic and Republican parties have the American people – all of us, regardless of our differences – locked into a false Manichean binary paradigm that’s little better than a single party totalitarian state. We are constantly forces to conceptualize issues as if there can only be two opinions – only two rational opinions in all of politics - and then polarize and take sides against one another based on that false paradigm. It’s garbage. It’s cheap authoritarian memetics designed to keep the population locked into a useful cycle of fear. Because there are, in fact, more than two ways of looking at problems. And you all know it.

People are Republicans because they’re terrified of the Democrats, and vice-versa. Nobody has any real affection for either party. It’s just the “way it is” - and wanting to break out of Late Stage Two Party System is seen as madness or treason. Which is in and of itself madness because every other free nation on earth has more than two functional political parties. (Really. I’ve been out of The Shire before, and I can attest that we’re not like the rest of Middle Earth.) But that attitude helps to perpetuate a system which simulates the effects of a single party system, while keeping up the mirage of being democratic to the public. And that system is fixed in such a way that it’s nearly impossible for an alternate political party to win a race, even at a local level. That’s not freedom. It’s nearly Soviet. It’s a sick joke – and the American people are its straight man, year after year.

I’m half a century old, and for thirty years of that I’ve been a small “l” libertarian who felt it morally necessary to be either a registered Democrat or, as I got older, a Republican. Because that’s the way the system works, primary voting matters, one has to be pragmatic, “this is the most consequential election in history,” etc etc ad nausium. But I’m done with that. I’m done with constantly favoring cynicism over idealism. So now I’m a large “L” Libertarian; because I am one, and because that’s the best option I’ve got to oppose in some small way a political system that’s so glaringly obviously reached it’s terminal end game. And when the kooks in the Libertarian party take the stage to say their part, I don’t cringe as hard as I used to as a Republican or Democrat. (Which was very hard indeed.)

I freely admit that I would rather Trump be president than Biden. But it’s a devil’s bargain; it’s glaringly obvious that neither of them should hold the presidency. And the fact that those are our choices, rationally looked at from a neutral perspective, means that the United States needs more than two functional political parties. The Libertarian, Green, and Constitution parties might not be ideal vessels of that badly needed change; but they’re what there is to work with right now. Because we’re being pushed by the inevitable logic of the two party system into another civil war we don’t need to have, and that will have as many unforeseen long-term consequences to our society as the last one.

And a final point. If Hegel and Marx were right and history is an endless cycle of revolution, reaction, and synthesis, what grows out of that cycle in 2020 when the synthesizing components are nationalism (the Republicans) and socialism (the Democrats)? Is it “cold fucking nuts” to not want to vote to further perpetuate that particular cycle?

Posted by Secret Master 2020-08-09 18:46|| 2020-08-09 18:46|| Front Page Top

#11 SM, Trump is a Capitalist. Never a politician. After the professional politicians of all stripes and colors became unified in DC against capitalism, Americans defied them by electing the most famous Capitalist, non professional swamp politician of our time, Donald J Trump.

Posted by Vespasian Ebbereng3110 2020-08-09 20:54|| 2020-08-09 20:54|| Front Page Top

#12 The equivalent of the Democrat party will always exist. If anything else exists, it's probably just an effort to contain it.

Posted by gorb 2020-08-09 22:31|| 2020-08-09 22:31|| Front Page Top

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