We Need Militant Nationalism

[Bob Butler 54]

(05-26-2017, 09:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(05-26-2017, 10:14 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: We could have a Citizens' Army that includes everyone from Communists to Constitutional Conservatives. The only exclusions would be for Totalitarians

So your manifesto relies on internal contradiction?  Communists are totalitarians, after all.

Nor does the Constitution have anything in it about the scientific method, the arrow of progress, or positive rights.

The Arrow of Progress features human rights, equality and democracy.  I'd say the Constitution (including amendments) says a lot about these things.

Granted, the scientific method doesn't directly touch on government.  Scientific methodology is not the sort of thing that one enforces by law.  This doesn't mean you don't go astray if you put concerns of wealth and political doctrine ahead of the truth science yields.

A "Citizen' Army" could be the militia, all fit males of military age. Hey, I'd let the ladies play too.  The skeleton of it is still on the books.  Thing is, making it a real force, using it as anything but an abstract idea, would require a threat to the nation that only such a large massive available everywhere group could meet.  I don't see such a threat developing at the moment.  I don't anticipate people will be eager to give up weekends to train up for a threat that doesn't exist.

Me, I have no desire for traditional 20th Century Communists in the mold of Lenin, Stalin or Mao.  They destroyed human rights and equality while building a new elite ruling class and applying bad idealistic book theory on the economy.  That resulted in disaster.  The arrow of progress is intended to identify and reject such pretenders.  Now, Marx did ID well some of the great problems with the West regarding concentration of wealth in a capitalist class that dominates political decision making.   That part of Marx I can applaud.  Alas, violent revolution is just apt to put the most brutal authoritarian strong man in charge.  We are very fortunate that our founding fathers were very skeptical regarding tyranny, in creating all sorts of protections against it.

Of course, one possible threat that could restore the militia as a citizens army is a government that has embraced the capitalist elite ruling class interests to the extent that they depreciate the needs of the People.  The way things are trending, it could happen.  Still, one would have to make sure somehow that whomever leads the militia is more like the founding fathers than the 20th Century communists leaders.  The key is checking the influence of whomever is leading, in inducing the violent to care for everybody.  I'd rather do it with principles that bullets, but you don't always get what you want.

Anyway, we've eventually got to try direct vote networked democracy.  Representative democracy has gotten us far, but the representatives almost inevitably come to see themselves as part of the elite.  They rule for the elite, not for the People.

I just watched Charlie Chaplin's final 'Great Dictator' speech, over on the other thread.  Nice speech.  Nice principles.  The trouble is finding leadership that believes in the principles rather than just using them cynically to acquire power.