Truth or Consequences

Random Thoughts and Concerns about The End of The World as We Know It

Part 6

Don’t base your decisions on the advice of those who don’t have to deal with the results.

America’s Core Values
Who are we as a country? Time to decide, By Sally Yates, www.usatoday.com

It’s time for everyone to stand up and speak out on America's core founding values. We are not living in ordinary times, and it's not enough to admire them from afar.

Over the course of our nation’s history, we have faced times when we had to decide who we are as a country and what we stand for. Now is such a time. Beyond policy disagreements and partisan gamesmanship, there is something much more fundamental hanging in the balance. Will we remain faithful to our country’s core values?

Our founding documents set forth the values that make us who we are, or at least who we aspire to be. I say aspire to be because we haven’t always lived up to those ideals, even at the time of our founding. When the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are created equal, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were being enslaved by their fellow Americans.

Not so long ago, all across the Jim Crow South, our country’s definition was defiled by lynching’s, the systematic disenfranchisement of African-American voters, and the burning of freedom riders’ buses. And still today, we have yet to realize fully our nation’s promise of equal justice.

But while we have too often fallen short, we have remained dedicated to our defining principles in our resolve to form a more perfect union. These principles have remained if not fully who we are, at least who we seek to be.

Despite our differences, we as Americans have long held a shared vision of what our country means and what values we expect our leaders to embrace. Today, our continued commitment to these unifying principles is needed more than ever.

You don’t have to look much further than the Preamble to our Constitution, just 52 words, to understand the values that unite us.

 “We the people of the United States” (we are a democratic republic, not a dictatorship) “in order to form a more perfect union” (we are a work in progress dedicated to a noble pursuit) “establish justice” (we revere justice as the cornerstone of our democracy) “insure domestic tranquility” (we prize unity and peace, not divisiveness and discord), “provide for the common defense” (we should never give any foreign adversary reason to question our solidarity) “promote the general welfare” (we care about one another; compassion and decency matter) “and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” (we have a responsibility to protect not just our own generation, but future ones as well).

Our forefathers packed a lot into that single sentence. Our Bill of Rights is similarly succinct in guaranteeing individual liberties, rights that we have come to take for granted but, without vigilance, can erode and slip away: The freedom of speech (our right to protest and be heard); The freedom of religion (the essential separation between how one worships and the power of the state); The freedom of the press (a democratic institution essential to informing the public and holding our leaders accountable) and; The freedom to keep and bear arms (the right of all citizens to possess weapons for their own defense).

Our shared values include another essential principle, and that’s the rule of law, the promise that the law applies equally to everyone, that no person is above it, and that all are entitled to its protection. This concept of equal protection recognizes that our country’s strength comes from honoring, not weaponizing, the diversity that springs from being a nation of Native Americans and immigrants of different races, religions, and nationalities.

The rule of law depends not only on things that are written down, but also on important traditions and norms, such as apolitical law enforcement. That’s why Democratic and Republican administrations alike have honored that the rule of law requires a strict separation between the Justice Department and the White House on criminal cases and investigations. This wall of separation is what ensures the public can have confidence that the criminal process is not being used as a sword to go after one’s political enemies or as a shield to protect those in power. It’s what separates us from an autocracy.

There is something else that separates us from an autocracy, and that’s truth. There is such a thing as objective truth. We can debate policies and issues, and we should, but those debates must be based on common facts rather than raw appeals to emotion and fear through polarizing rhetoric and fabrications.

Not only is there such a thing as objective truth, failing to tell the truth matters. We can’t control whether our public servants lie to us. But we can control whether we hold them accountable for those lies or whether, in either a state of exhaustion or to protect our own political objectives, we look the other way and normalize an indifference to truth.

We are not living in ordinary times, and it is not enough for us to admire our nation’s core values from afar. Our country’s history is littered with individuals and factions who have tried to exploit our imperfections, but it is more powerfully marked by those whose vigilance toward a more perfect union has prevailed.

So, stand up. Speak out. Our country needs all of us to raise our collective voices in support of our democratic ideals and institutions. That is what we stand for. That is who we are. And with a shared commitment to our founding principles, that is who we will remain.

Liberty
Catholic Social Teaching and Authentic Human Freedom, By Andrew Greenwell, Esc., http://www.catholic.org

America was not founded on the belief that people should be willing to pretend whatever wickedness, injustice, and mutual self-abuse human beings are willing to tolerate must be accepted as law. Nevertheless, America has followed this path determined to prove that nothing is more necessary to the order and happiness of a human community, than the acknowledgment of a sacred standard of justice.

Unfortunately, that standard now arises from beyond the reach of human consensus and compromise. Every day brings new proofs that government wants to erase God’s standard from our history, so that those who ride the crest of power in America can fasten a permanent yoke about the necks of its citizens, making it easier to keep us in bondage.

We now kill our offspring and call it an exercise of right; We now deny and degrade the definition of family, and replace it with one that simply services our lust; We now accept the concept of assisted suicide and call it our right to die; We now permit the use of recreational drugs to ease our pains, rather than facing our stress; We deceitfully proclaim that this poisonous stew is prepared to lift-up the poor, bring solace to the outcast and enhance the dignity of all, and; We trample upon the liberty of all while unknowingly preserving the power and privileges of the elite.

The question is, can America sustain this experiment in ordered liberty if the only thing we agree upon are the rules by which we sue one other? John Adams realized this when he said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Americans need only to look around to see the damage that moral relativism and skepticism are wreaking on our communities and our very lives.

Heads-Up
America at War with Itself, By Henry A. Giroux, 2017

Our present government may not yet be fascist in the strict sense of the word, but it’s beginning to display elements of a new style of authoritarianism constituting a proto-fascist movement. Our leaderships call to raise the nation to greatness, the blaming of Mexican immigrants and Muslims for America’s troubles, the vitriolic disdain for protesters, and the groups that seem to delight in references to violence, all echo historical elements that have shaped the totalitarian regimes that plagued the west; from the Nazis of Europe to the dictators of Latin America.

Of course, thinking critically and acting independently often take place in public spheres that install convictions rather than destroy them, and encourage critical capacities rather than shutting them down. Unfortunately, what is happening today is not being honestly investigated by our corporate media system, that benefits from the ratings and revenues that these antics generate.

Without the vigilance of public debate, as America’s political sphere is diminished authoritarianism will continue to gain ground; exploiting working-class resentments and fears while ushering in the tyranny of an intolerant elite control.

When our leaders become the embodiment of a party and economic order in which informed judgments, moral responsibility, and collective action disappear from the world of politics, they will represent the new face of what was once called the “banality of evil”.

Being unapologetic about the racist nature of their remarks, unreflective about a savage economic system that is destroying the planet and the lives of most of its inhabitants, and unaware of their own criminal participation in furthering a culture of intolerance and cruelty, will be typical of an expanding mass of experts, anti-public intellectuals, and fundamentalists who live in a historical void and for whom emotion overtakes reason.

When our citizens exhibit an inability to think, to be considerate, or assume responsibility for their own actions, it will not only speak to a regrettable type of civic and political illiteracy, it will contribute to the formative cultures that permit authoritarian tendencies to fully consolidate into totalitarian regimes.

As America’s social fabric unravels, individuals will be socially uprooted, losing their sense of community and compassion, thrust into a world that destroys politics, methodically eliminating speaking and acting as human beings, and attacking the very humanity of at first a select group, and then all groups.

Absent any residue of moral responsibility, political indignation, and collective resistance, atrocities committed in a systemic way will emerge, in part, from a society in which passive spectatorship is considered normal, and acts of conscience have become taboo.

Change
Christian Freedom, By Adam Kokesh, https://www.github.com

When we see government for what it is we are tempted to call for revolution, a relatively quick change. However, the transition to a truly free society will not happen overnight, nor should it, because it is an evolutionary process not a revolutionary one. As we have seen in the past, revolutions without changes in the paradigm have resulted in more of the same.

In some places, revolutions will be necessary. Hopefully, they will be backed with sufficient wisdom to avoid turmoil, violence, and the creation of new governments. Given the rapidly-accelerating pace of information, the shift from the statist paradigm could happen relatively quickly, but building a new society will take years if not decades or even centuries.

The more we interact with others, the more aware we are of the universality of the global human experience. We all want to live peacefully. We all want fair treatment. We all want to be able to prosper. We all need freedom. We all need love. We all suffer under statism: Governments want us to identify as citizens, but we are much more than mere subjects of their protection rackets.

If the message of freedom has stirred a passion for justice in you and changed the way you see the world, it is your personal revolution. If you do not share this message, then that revolution dies with you. Short of life itself, the message of freedom is the greatest gift you can give, and it gets stronger every time it is shared. If you embrace the message of freedom, having lived until now in a state of ignorance, frustration, or emotional slavery, it will be the beginning of a whole new life.

Truth Decay
Fight Truth Decay, By R. G. Price, www.rationalrevolution.net

Perhaps, there is no more poignant statement reflecting the condition of modern American society, than the growing rift over the truth. This rift is a product of over fifty years of Cold War ideology that has deeply impacted American society.

Fake news reflects a growing movement in America to bury one's head in the sand. The truth is that there is a significant disparity between reality and what many Americans believe is true. In the presence of this situation a strong conservative movement is growing in America, which is seeking to reshape "the truth" to fit their beliefs.

Example: The tendency for religious escapism, when facts do not match beliefs, reflects one of the most dangerous aspects of human culture. The mindset that the Bible holds the truth, and anything that conflicts with the Bible must be a lie, has been common throughout history, and today, in the most powerful country in the world, escapism is expanding to the matters of State as well.

The fact is that an entire worldview has been crafted in America, since World War II, which is very much removed from reality. This worldview has been crafted by establishment interests and encompasses matters of Church, State, and Commerce.

The call being issued is a call to prevent introspection and critical analysis of American history and past and current policy, a call to prevent expanding scientific knowledge and understanding, and a call not to dispel the popularly accepted fallacies pervasive in American society. In other words, a call to fight against "shattering the illusion". It is this attitude that now places the very principles of the founding of America at risk.

At the heart of this American movement to bury our collective heads in the sand is the conservative belief that America was founded on conservative principles. The irony of this, of course, is that nothing is farther from the truth. America was founded on the very principles of liberalism and reason. America was founded as the most progressive force in the history of the world. America's gift to the world was not conservatism, it was the triumph of radicalism, the triumph of reason, and the triumph of liberalism.

The founding of America was the most profound and successful liberal event in the history of the world, which helped to promote the next most profound and liberal event in the history of the world, the French Revolution, and the two complimented each other to strengthen the light of liberty around the world.

The past 60 years of Cold War ideology have destroyed the greatest strength that America ever had, it's liberal ideological core. The torch of liberty is the torch of liberalism, they are one and the same thing.

The most important man in American history is arguably Thomas Paine, as John Adams stated, "Without the pen of Paine the sword of Washington would have been wielded in vain". He is the man that helped to raise awareness and set the events of Revolution in motion. He certainly did not do that by telling people to bury their noses. In addition, Paine did not stop once the American Revolution had been completed; no, he then went to Paris and helped to promote revolution there as well. Paine was not a nationalist; his views were international; his goal was total liberty for all mankind.

Benjamin Franklin remarked to Paine after the American Revolution, "Where liberty is, that is my country," Paine replied, "Where liberty is not, that is mine."

The founders were not men who viewed themselves as the authorities of humanity, as codifiers of truth for all time, they were men who more than anything wanted to secure the idea that every generation must determine the truth and act on it accordingly. They were not dogmatic; they did not seek to cement the world to their views; they desired to make it possible for all of mankind to determine for themselves what they believed.

The established worldview in America is starting to come under serious attack. The events of 9/11 have cause some Americans to take notice and begin to question, the internet has opened new avenues of learning outside our own Corporate/State media, and people are once again fighting for the freedom to express dissenting ideas and to challenge the "official version" of the truth.

It is this exact situation that is causing many, those who are more comfortable with the illusion than the scary reality, to recoil into their institutions of mass deception to comfort themselves with delusion, rocking back and forth with their eyes closed hoping the “truth” will go away.

Tomas Pain said, "Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it".

Yes, their "version" of the truth is, once again, in decay. Maybe this time it will rot completely; but if not, what shall we be, a country whose gears of State are oiled by Reason or Ignorance?

Misinformation
Fake News Can Damage your Corporate Reputation, By Admin, http://www.davidpr.com

Recently, a North Carolina man drove to Washington, D.C. believing that a local pizzeria was the center of a child sex ring. After he read the fake news story online and thinking that the tale was true, he decided to “go superhero” and tried to bust-up the ring himself. Armed with a semi-automatic rifle, he entered the pizza joint where he may or may not have fired his weapon. Scary stuff!

If you think the news story sounds crazy and fantastical, then you are like most people who have figured out the difference between real and fake news. Unlike this guy, most of us can quickly tell the difference between bona fide news and information that is blatantly false. We also understand the concept of tabloid journalism and how some publications like the National Enquirer and The Onion offer sensational stories with the hopes of drawing readers who will patronize their advertisers.

Fake news is nothing new, and some of it is even hard for us to figure out, but how we react to information will impact our survival. Our own government is notoriously bad at this despite huge budgets and technical expertise.

Swatting is the act of deceiving an emergency service into sending police and 9-1-1 response teams to another person's address. Swatting episodes range from small events to large incidents, from a single fabricated police report meant to discredit an individual as a prank or personal vendetta, to the deployment of bomb squads, police units including heavily-armed SWAT units, and the concurrent evacuations of schools and businesses.

In recent years, fake news stories have gained a toehold on the internet and most of us either ignore it or view it as annoying or maybe even amusing. Fake news was amplified during the recent presidential campaign, and some even believe that such stories impacted how people voted and even how it turned the election results.

Fake news is poised to make the leap from an obscure aspect of political skullduggery to a mainstream practice. Obtaining valid intelligence and analyzing its accuracy is going to be difficult. In any survival scenario, fake news will become even more prevalent and a threat to our safety.

Information
Ten Tips for Leading a Company out of a Crisis, By Doug Yakola, www.mckinsey.com

Since survival will require continuous surveillance and accurate information to make decisions, it will be important to be vigilant in our consumption of the rumors, news, and information that comes our way. So how we collect, evaluate, and respond to news will be critical to the management of our own safety?

Collect: When intelligence is received, the first step is to make a quick assessment. What does it say? Why was it published? Who benefits from the information? Who is the target of the information? Answer these questions quickly, and if you can’t, don’t react with negative emotions.

Evaluate: Look at the severity of the information. If it includes crazy allegations, then you will want to confirm the intelligence. Don’t accept what is said or heard as the truth just because it fits your expectations. Acting too quickly, especially if it impacts your safety or the lives of others, is not in your best interest.

Respond: Consider whether a response is necessary and how to respond if it is warranted. If the news or information turns out to be false, it will require a totally different response than if it’s true. Even if it is fake, if it is significant and is impacting your safety then you need to look at options. Everything should be on the table, including an explanation from the accused or accuser, and what is and is not an appropriate response.

In the end, you need to consider all your options even though you may choose to let it ride. Exactly how to handle all information will be problematic, but monitoring, quick assessment, and a sensible action plans could save individuals, your family, and/or your entire community from horrific consequences.

Freedom
Christian Freedom, By Adam Kokesh, https://www.github.com

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Freedom is not the right to do what we want, but what we ought.” Unfortunately, in the fearless affirmation of today's cultural climate, skepticism and relativism are frequently thought to be the best that we can do.

Pope John Paul II, paraphrasing Lincoln, insisted that we can do better because we are better; and he believed we must do better if our freedom is to support genuine human flourishing. Freedom, he said, is one of those words easily abused by the moral relativist who considers himself unbounded by objective truth and objective right.

John Paul II also felt that true freedom should not be irresponsible which is in fact not freedom at all. This is based on the biblical view that every freedom God granted was dependent on an exercised responsibility. His statement, "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought", affirms the sublime dignity of every human person. An irresponsible freedom detracts from the freedom of everyone and consequently stains, even eclipses, human dignity.

Furthermore, freedom is not something we exercise only regarding ourselves, but should be exercised regarding other human beings. For this reason, the meaning of freedom must not be restricted, considering it from a purely individualistic perspective and reducing it to the arbitrary and uncontrolled exercise of one's own personal autonomy. Thus, we don’t give something to someone for free, we freely give someone something.

Every human person (without exception), is created in the image of God and has the natural right (and therefore is) to be recognized as a free and responsible being. It is important to note the conjunction in this sentence; we have a natural right to be free and responsible, not simply free.

Freedom only truly exists where reciprocal bonds, governed by truth and justice, link people to one another. Freedom allows for legitimate self-expression within certain moral constraints, and allows for the expression of the singularity of each human person within the constraints of right and due order. We should never confuse freedom and license.

Propaganda
Christian Freedom, By Adam Kokesh, https://www.github.com

Abraham Lincoln also said, “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves.” A truly free society does not exist just because we have been convinced we are free. Furthermore, a truly free society cannot exist when we have been so thoroughly propagandized as to define “freedom” in terms of government-granted privilege rather than as a universal moral principle.

Many of us are dependent on our government, and because of its large role in society one may claim that everyone benefits to some degree. This doesn’t mean the benefits justify the cost and most of us experience a net loss due to government. Even if we are convinced that most people have a net gain from government, we can always do better without instilling dependence.

Governments can control us by the direct threat of force, but it is relatively inefficient and creates far more resistance than emotional manipulation. Governments are especially adept at using propaganda to induce fear among citizens to control their behavior; because when people are frightened enough they turn to their government for aid and protection.

Additionally, because we all fear the judgement of others to some degree, governments also use propaganda to manipulate our perception of the expectations of others. If propaganda creates the impression that all the other citizens expect us to be obedient, our default position will be obedience, and that can only be overcome with careful, rational analysis. Any time someone trying to control us can fill our heads with emotions, they can keep us from thinking clearly and lead us to believe in whatever bad ideas advance their agenda.

Intellectual Credibility
The Silencing of Dissent, by Chris Hedges, www.Truthdig.com

The ruling elites, who grasp that the reigning ideology of global corporate capitalism and imperial expansion no longer has moral or intellectual credibility, have mounted a campaign to shut down the platforms given to their critics. The attacks within this campaign include blacklisting, censorship and slandering dissidents as foreign agents and purveyors of “fake news”.

No ruling class can long retain control when the credibility of the ideas that justify its existence evaporates. It is forced, at that point, to resort to crude forms of coercion, intimidation and censorship. This ideological collapse in the United States has transformed those who attack the corporate state into a potent threat, not because we reach large numbers of people, and certainly not because we spread propaganda, but because the elites no longer have a plausible counter argument.

The elites face an unpleasant choice. They could impose harsh controls to protect the status quo or veer leftward toward socialism to amend the mounting economic and political injustices endured by most of the population. But a move leftward, essentially reinstating and expanding the programs they have destroyed, would impede corporate power and corporate profits. So instead the elites, including those within the Democratic Party leadership, have decided to quash public debate.

The tactic they are using is as old as the nation-state; smearing critics as traitors in the service of a hostile foreign power. Tens of thousands of people of conscience were blacklisted in this way during the Red Scares of the 1920s and 1950s. The current hyperbolic and relentless focus on Russia, embraced with gusto by “liberal” media outlets such as The New York Times and MSNBC, has unleashed what some have called a virulent “New McCarthyism”.

The corporate elites do not fear Russia. There is no publicly disclosed evidence that Russia swung the election to Donald Trump. Nor does Russia appear to be intent on a military confrontation with the United States. Yes, Russia tries to meddle in U.S. affairs to its advantage, as we do in Russia. In today’s media environment Russia is the foil. The corporate state is unnerved by the media outlets that give a voice to critics of corporate capitalism, the security and surveillance state, and imperialism.

If we had a functioning public broadcasting system or a commercial press free of corporate control, dissidents like Tariq Ali, Kshama Sawant, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Medea Benjamin, Ajamu Baraka, Noam Chomsky, Dr. Margaret Flowers, Rania Khalek, Amira Hass, Miko Peled, Abby Martin, Glen Ford, Max Blumenthal, Pam Africa, Linh Dinh, Ben Norton, Eugene Puryear, Allan Nairn, Jill Stein, Kevin Zeese and others, would be included in the mainstream discourse. They are not bought and paid for. They have integrity, courage and often brilliance. They are honest. For these reasons, in the eyes of the corporate state, they are very dangerous.

The establishment politicians in the two leading parties, each in service to corporate power and responsible for the assault on civil liberties and impoverishment of the country, are no longer able to use identity politics and the culture wars to whip up support.

Silencing Dissent
The Silencing of Dissent, by Chris Hedges, www.Truthdig.com

Russia Today’s reports often characterize the United States as a ‘surveillance state’ and allege widespread infringements of civil liberties, police brutality, and drone use. It has also focused on criticism of the US economic system, US currency policy, alleged Wall Street greed, and the US national debt. Some of Russia Today’s hosts have compared the United States to Imperial Rome and have predicted that government corruption and “corporate greed” will lead to financial collapse.

Is the corporate state so obtuse it thinks the American public has not, on its own, reached these conclusions about the condition of the nation? Is this what is being defined as “fake news”? Most important, isn’t this the truth that the courtiers in the mainstream press and public broadcasting refuse to present? And isn’t it, in the end, the truth that frightens them the most?

In November 2016, The Washington Post reported on a blacklist published by the shadowy and anonymous site PropOrNot. The blacklist was composed of 199 sites PropOrNot alleged, with no evidence, that “reliably echo Russian propaganda.” More than half of those sites were far-right, conspiracy-driven ones. But about 20 of the sites were major left-wing outlets including AlterNet, Black Agenda Report, Democracy Now!, Naked Capitalism, Truthdig, Truthout, CounterPunch, and the World Socialist Web Site.

The owner of The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, also the founder and CEO of Amazon, has a $600 million contract with the CIA. Google, likewise, is deeply embedded within the security and surveillance state and aligned with the ruling elites. Amazon recently purged over 1,000 negative reviews of Hillary Clinton’s new book, “What Happened.” The effect was that the book’s Amazon rating jumped from 2 1/2 stars to five stars. Do corporations such as Google and Amazon carry out censorship on behalf of the U.S. government? Or is this censorship their independent contribution to protect the corporate state?

In the name of combating Russia-inspired “fake news,” Google, Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Agence France-Presse, and CNN imposed algorithms or filters, that hunt for key words such as “U.S. military,” “inequality” and “socialism,” along with personal names such as Julian Assange and Laura Poitras. Google’s vice president for search engineering says Google has amassed some 10,000 “evaluators” to determine the “quality” and veracity of websites.

Internet users doing searches on Google, since the algorithms were put in place, are diverted from sites such as Truthdig and directed to mainstream publications such as The New York Times. They are cheerleaders for American imperial projects and global capitalism, but because they are struggling in the new media environment for profitability, they have an economic incentive to be part of the witch hunt.

The World Socialist Web Site reported links displayed by Google in response to search requests fell dramatically over a short period after the new algorithms were imposed. It also wrote that a number of sites “declared to be ‘fake news’ by the Washington Post’s discredited [PropOrNot] blacklist … had their global ranking fall.

The accusation that left-wing sites collude with Russia has made them theoretically subject, along with those who write for them, to the Espionage Act and the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which requires Americans who work on behalf of a foreign party to register as foreign agents.

The Department of Justice called on RUSSIA TODAY America and its “associates”, which may mean it’s contributors, to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. No doubt, the corporate state knows that most will not register as foreign agents, meaning they will be banished from the airwaves: Which, as you might expect, is the intent. The government will not stop with Russia Today. The FBI has been handed the authority to determine who is a “legitimate” journalist and who is not. It will use this authority to decimate what’s left of the truth.

This is a war of ideas, and the corporate state cannot compete honestly in this contest. It will do what all despotic regimes do; govern through wholesale surveillance, lies, blacklists, false accusations of treason, heavy-handed censorship and, eventually, violence.

Stay Strong, Stay Moderate
Stay Strong, Stay Moderate, By Carlos Restrepo, Facebook Post

As this is being written, the apathy for our political appetite has created a full pendulum-swing mentality that has left the moderates of our country to slowly fade away. With extremes on both sides of the fence, it seems opinion has trumped, no pun intended, the issues and facts.

To say one is both a fiscal conservative and social liberal is blasphemous, or by being pro-life or pro-death penalty calls into question your patriotism. To question a broken welfare system or challenge the idea that if you make more than $119K you don’t have to pay Social Security taxes, will have all your “friends” screaming “how could you?”.

So why attempt it? Why put yourself out there as a minority who will be challenged by fools to the right of you and jokers to the left of you? It is through the small voices that greatness can be heard. It is through rational thinking and issue based voting that we can disqualify extreme thought from our political discourse.

It is the Moderates that can save our political system and as such it is you and I as a moderate that need to make our small voices of logic and practical application of human kindness heard. The pendulum swings, and it is a broad wide swing, but the truth is that even pendulums come to rest in the middle.

Don’t give up and fade away. Don’t disappear from the conversation. Don’t be bullied into quiet acceptance. Moderates can save our political system. Moderates provide perspective that is often lacking. Moderates tend to focus on the practical and we need that. We have needed that for a long time. Stay strong. Stay Moderate.