Notes From Up-North

  What makes me a conservative ? I believe in the inalienable right of men to be free to pursue happiness.  This is the classic liberal idea, part of man’s unalterable natural state. Civilized society restricts man's animal instincts for self preservation by organizing to cooperate in pursuit of the fundamental necessities to survive. We call these restrictions government. The most common forms are top-down and authoritarian in nature. Government of people by people was recently introduced to the world.   Viewed historically, it is an idea that must be considered experimental and, as such, subject to failure. Two competing ideologies vie for supremacy in pursuit of government by the people; Capitalism enshrined in the US Constitution in 1788 and Communism introduced by the Russian Revolution 1917. Capitalism is a   laissez-faire philosophy; unrestricted it will crush the weakest. Communism demands central control of all aspects of society; eliminating an...

  Jan 6, 2021; a grievance was laid on the table of public opinion. There is no excuse for violence at the Capital and those involved should and will be punished.  There is also no excuse for depicting peaceful demonstrators as riots.  I am personally opposed to large public demonstrations since they are subject to being usurped by anarchists leading to unforeseen consequences.  That said, peaceful demonstrations have been normalized political speech for many decades. The question is where to go from here? A long view The Republic can only survive with free and fair elections. A very large portion of the U.S. voting population is highly suspicious based on sworn eye witness testimony.  Our long view needs to focus on correcting that problem.  The aggrieved population numbers approximately 80 million.  That’s a lot of political power currently available to organize and pressure federal and state governments to clean up  elections.   A ...

  Since the demise of the Wig Party Americans have generally aligned themselves with the Democrat and Republican parties. During the industrial rebirth of America following the Civil War the Democrat party emerged as advocates for the “little people” while the Republican party generally supported   laissez-faire capitalism until Theodore Roosevelt’s moved to breakup the big monopolies.  That gradually changed after WWII. FDR’s efforts to bring the U.S. economy back from the great depression of the 30’s created voting habits that persisted until 2016.  In the interregnum President Eisenhower warned of the power possessed by the Military Industrial Complex (Big Money). Big Tech emerged and connected the world via the internet and handheld communication devices. Big Media aligned with big Tech and  Big money. Shadowy big money is corrosive in politics.  For six decades following WWII the people continued to identify personal self interest with one of ...