THE COLLISION OF THE TRUMP CARD WITH PROGRESSIVISM

THE COLLISION OF THE TRUMP CARD WITH PROGRESSIVISM

Few supporters of today's left will concur that not all is evil about Donald Trump. Few on the right find no currency in anything that the left utters. Both sides are myopic and sully the broad spectrum of their minds because, to them, politics comes before pragmatism.

From the right, we have the "ready and armed" detractors of Obama Care. But even more 'leftist' remedies to health care provision already exist in Israel, UK, France, Italy and Canada, to name but only a few of the sane, developed countries where the single payer paradigm is in place. ObamaCare is nothing other but what the Republicans, themselves, had opted for during the health insurance debate during the Clinton Administration, where they fought for an individual mandate with provision for a marketplace of insurers. This, they felt, would certainly combat Clinton's single payer priority by preserving capitalist market competition. They also realized that requiring people to join would statistically negate the threat of having only medically desperate people sign up. But when the same Republican-derived initiative was implemented under Barack Obama, it was deemed to be bad, socialist, and dangerous. (How quickly the Republicans show their duplicitous face!) There, there are no protests in those countries in order to disengage this very valuable and pragmatic single payer method of medical care.

The duplicity continues on the left. Here, in the USA, we have ardent abortion rights advocates who scream for liberty to be both honored and upheld for a woman's right to decide just who shall, or shall not, be brought into this world. Yes, leaving the overriding moral concerns of such terminations by the temporary wayside, we NEVER wish to let the male partner be an EQUAL party in that decision. Thus, a "woman's right" becomes a "man's fight and blight". He seems to have no legal or inherent rights whatsoever in this important decision, even though the potential birth would be just as attributable to him as to her. Things like this dichotomy leave me very cold towards the concept of feminism. Indeed, progressivism is good for some but regressive for others.

Urban cyclists love the "no rules, no enforcement" status of their entitled mode of transport. We like to state that pedestrian rights are legally intact, but, in fact, no pedestrian dares to uphold his/her rights when faced with a fast bike on a sidewalk, or one speeding through a pedestrian crosswalk (even though the cyclist has the red light). Certainly, there are "laws on the books" supporting those pedestrian rights; however, enforcement is not merely weak, but nonexistent, solely because of progressive political priorities. (A cop would laugh you out of Philadelphia if you dared to mention this flagrant omission.) You will not find a single person within the traffic department of Philadelphia who is not an ardent supporter of cycling's "no rules" model. The cyclist knows that no one will dare challenge his/her behavior, either politically or physically, so we have, once again, a situation whereby progressive rights become regressive to many. There really are valid reasons which certain people have for wanting to oppose prerequisites of such a 'progressive' way of life. Why? The entitled left is forcing many people to be left out of the party, that's why.

I found out early on during the 2016 election that, with this new left, it is is not merely adequate for one to wish to choose a better candidate than the Trump Card. No, merely doing that would be wholly inadequate. Instead, one must prove his/her HATRED towards Donald Trump in order to attain any legitimacy through an initiation with that self-serving crowd. A person who can see even some substantive, legitimate reasons for the Trump victory is, to this new left, tantamount to declaring that one is supportive of white supremacy, or even worse. This is my main issue with today's left: There is no free speech allowed and anything which sounds uncomfortable to them (and ONLY to them) is to be permanently banned from public view. Their offences toward others, including the willful destruction of thousands of totally innocent businesses through looting, nationwide, matters not one tiny bit to this left. University "safe spaces" allow "idea banishment" to readily manifest and the administrators of these universities are stupid enough to worship those new priorities because, today, the student is the "customer", not the one to be initiated into a learning paradigm.

The right takes delight in castigating any potential wisdom which might emanate from the left, even if that wisdom is derived from the integrity of both science and medicine. Whether it is the novel coronavirus or the corruption of nature by the climate change naysayers, the Trump Card has done little, shown less of a way, and downplayed or outright denied the effects of these present and future scourges. To me, at least, it seems as if the only way that the right finds might is to make money now and worry later. Folks, the semantics of the words "conservative" and "conservation" should be closely related. Certainly, their etymologies are. Politically, they are now considered to be opposing forces. During the Obama Administration's last ten months, it was deemed immorally hasty to select a new justice to take the place of the deceased Antonin Scalia; thus, Judge Merrick Garland was nullified as a legitimate contender. Now, with far less time for THIS administration's remaining tenure, it is deemed just and appropriate to redact and sully the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by putting an arch conservative in her place. Those who fail to admit the hypocritical duplicity here are either lying or just plain ignorant.

An excellent and productive way to begin training people to combat this increasingly disparate polarization would be to make a start shortly after the age of puberty, when minds are still supple. I know of no other way to be as effective other than to train young minds to think and explore beyond their collective comfort level. Debating has long been deemed a culturally useful complement to the study of both rhetoric and public speaking. Because of the universality of the art of persuasion, the need for thinking beyond one's environmentally acclimated level becomes vital. In order to reach others who have differing views, our present, (albeit, not prescient), methodology is largely and pitifully implemented through ad hominem attacks (which do little more than attack introspection). Such banter achieves nothing of substance. Instead, have young students compelled to debate a case for the opposite of that which they have become acclimated towards. This might involve even bringing students from other jurisdictions in order to compete with those from one's own. Each student must attempt to make an entirely valid case for his/her devil's advocacy by searching for kernels of meaning and wisdom emanating, perhaps latently, but substantively, from one's opposite viewpoint. The case must be made with argumentative integrity as if the debater is trying to convince others of his/her assessments.

From this, there is no possibility of not acquiring perspectives, anew, which heretofore had evaded our inculcated, stifled sensibilities. From this, we grow and find that we have more in common than otherwise; we develop both mental maturity and far more open minds, commiserate with learning from others. This synergy from interaction makes us noble. - David Lyga