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Anyone who truly cares about the future of American democracy knows that we need a healthy Republican Party as well as a healthy Democratic Party. The two-party system has been corrupted by the emergence of special interest groups with lots of money and motivated voters, and even more by the application of computerized models to the task of redistricting. There are remedies to both those diseases, but no one has yet devised a plausible replacement for the two-party system.

What is the best future for the Republican Party? Last week, I called attention to a fine article by Robert Christian at Eureka Street in which he wrote:

The real mystery is over the future of the Republican Party. Will alt-Catholicism collapse without a president that affirms its illiberal, antidemocratic impulses? Will it find a new leader to champion its ideas? Will President Trump run again in 2024 or will one of his children take up the cause? We are unlikely to see Trumpian nationalism disappear, since this election was not a clear rejection of it. But its future and the role of Catholics in promoting it are murky right now. Some may double down, while others may pull away.

The happily-named Christian edits the online journal for young Catholics, Millennial, which should become a must-read for anyone who is serious about Catholic engagement with politics. And, here, he is right: The GOP first needs to decide if it is going to remain the party of Donald Trump or if it is going to try a less morally compromised alternative.

Christian argues the GOP should "build a more working class, diverse Republican Party that is guided by communitarian andwhole lifevalues. Instead of relying on the dark side of populism, this approach would seek to reshape the party by promoting pro-family policies on issues like childcare and economic security, while displaying a more consistent commitment to protecting human life."

This is plausible with one significant correction: It is next to impossible to imagine a Republican Party that is communitarian. One of the commitments that stretches across the entire party is a commitment to individual liberty. It is a bridge too far to expect the party to replace that commitment with communitarian values.

The GOP of the future could, however, embrace liberty in the manner of the great founder of modern conservative politics, Edmund Burke. I have been rereading the outstanding intellectual biography of Burke, The Great Melody by Conor Cruise O'Brien. You will recognize the title from Yeats' poem, "The Seven Sages," in which he writes:

The First. American colonies, Ireland, France and IndiaHarried, and Burke's great melody against it.

Yeats discerned, and O'Brien explains, what Burke's many critics could not, that he was no mere reactionary. Burke's sympathy with the American Revolution (and for that matter with the English Revolution of the previous century) and his antipathy to the French were of a piece, that he saw the American Revolution as an effort to conserve liberties already enjoyed, while there was something dangerous, something totalitarian, at work in the French Revolution. Similarly, Burke's love for the people of his native Ireland and his hatred for the East India Company were of a piece too, both emotions stirred by a disgust with arbitrary authority or tyranny.

O'Brien may have overreached in arguing that Burke was truly a liberal pluralist. (He published a fascinating correspondence with Isaiah Berlin on the subject at the end of the book.) But he is correct to cite Philippe Raynaud who said of the Burke: "A la fois liberale et contre-revolutionnaire," that is "simultaneously liberal and a counter-revolutionary." Here is a potential future for the Republican Party.

By "liberal" in this context, we do not mean aligned with what passes for liberalism in America today. We mean committed to liberty as a fundamental value in public life. Burke did not share the negative conception of liberty that animated the Founding Fathers. For him, the liberty that mattered was the liberty embedded in the customs and circumstances of a people and it was ordered, that is, legitimate when disposed to the good or the true. He would not have flown a "Don't tread on me" flag, but he would have respected the conception of liberty the flag conveyed for Americans of his day.

It is not possible for Republicans to embrace Burke's conception of liberty in its entirety, but they could leverage it against the libertarian iteration of freedom that must be abandoned by the GOP and by the Democrats too! Sadly, even the public health crisis through which we are passing has not caused some people to recognize the limits of libertarianism. The Planned Parenthood worker-turned-pro-life activist Abby Johnson posted this tweet:

To which someone thoughtfully tagged: #MyBodyMyChoice. The joke cuts both ways: The libertarian arguments for liberal abortion are identical to the libertarian arguments against wearing a mask.

As for the "counter-revolutionary" side of Burke, I am reasonably confident that Democrats will give Republicans ample opportunity to charge that a cultural revolution is afoot. From the cranks who refuse to abandon the slogan "Defund the police!" even though they admit they do not actually want to defund the police, to the academics who "call out" those who fail the latest test of wokeness, to those so-called liberals who put the words religious liberty in scare quotes, apparently unaware that the doctrine of religious liberty is one of liberalism's greatest achievements, there are those on the left who, like the Jacobins of old, have a totalitarian itch that they love to scratch. The American people, in their wisdom, will resist any party that comes to be dominated by such faux liberals, but I am not sure the Democratic Party will be able to resist for long. Apres Biden, le deluge!

Burke was a contemporary of without being a child of the Enlightenment, but he differed from Johann Gottfried Herder, and Giambattista Vico and Joseph de Maistre in that he never crafted a full-blown philosophy against the Enlightenment: He resisted theory when it clashed with practice, and in this sense was a kindred spirit to America's pragmatic bent. He detested tyranny but worried that any violent overthrow of social custom invited tyranny as much as it might eradicate it. He also knew that more pedestrian human vices like greed and lust could oppress a people as easily as any theory. He was not a systemic thinker, and critics in his day and since have charged him with inconsistency. Certainly, if the Republican Party of the future needs a synthesis between the Enlightenment ideals of the Founding Fathers and the Christian faith espoused by their base, they will not find it in Burke or anywhere else. In the third century of modernity, we Christian moderns still await a new Aquinas who can fashion such a synthesis, or we need admit none can be fashioned.

Still, the Republican Party would have a better chance of regaining some semblance of a moral compass after this debacle of Trumpism if all of its leading members were to sit down and read O'Brien's biography of Burke, or read Burke himself. There really has never been a Burkean conservative party in this country, and maybe one is not possible. It is worth the effort, and it surely beats descending back into alt-right Trumpism.

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Originally posted here:
The GOP's future? Ditch Trump and read Edmund Burke - National Catholic Reporter

We know what the symbols mean. So what is VicPol doing about it?

Police are supposed to protect all of us. Theyre some of the only civilians we allow to use violence in the name of peace and, from a young age, were taught that we can always go to them for help. But at times, their actions and the lack of condemnation from their superiors can make it seem like not everyone is, in fact, under their protection.

Victoria Police have been spotted with imagery associated with the far-right in the past 12 months, fuelling concerns of poor attitudes towards minorities from within the force.

Officers have been seen, and photographed, with white supremacist-associated imagery on their bodies, uniforms, and vehicles, even when tasked to work on racially sensitive events like Indigenous rights protests despite the symbols being banned or required to be covered up.

Thin Blue Line patches have been seen multiple times. Tattoos associated with far-right movements have also been spotted, as well as extremist memes on officers personal social media accounts. The thin blue line patch is an Australian version of the American pro-police and anti-Black Lives Matter symbol, which is said to symbolise support for police but has also now become synonymous with opposing Black Lives Matter and is flown at racist events. Donald Trump even adopted it to signify his opposition to Black Lives Matter.

Recently, a police officer was photographed handing a Thin Blue Line patch to a child to pose with in Chelsea, in Melbournes South East. A Facebook post characterises the interaction as the child earning his sergeants stripes, but the patch is clearly an Australian flag devoid of all colour but a thin blue line. Victoria Police told Junkee that Thin Blue Line patches were not allowed to be worn by officers.

In a response to Junkees questions about the incident, Victoria Police said the child was being handed a badge to wear to brighten his day. It did not respond to a question about whether or not VicPol approved of the banned patched being used as a prop.

One example of the patchs misuse was the Unite The Right in rally in Charlottesville, Louisiana, USA, where far-right protestors also flew confederate flags, chanted Jews will not replace us, and an alt-right supporter mowed down a group of counter protestors in his car.

Anti-racist activist Tom Tanuki said the Blue Lives Matter and the Thin Blue Line movements were hard to separate from racism.

Its a reaction and response to BLM in America. Its utilised in a way that sits alongside anti-BLM and anti-activist movements in the US, he said. Its increasingly being taken to be an anti-Black rights movements symbol. It symbolises police as the thin blue line between order and chaos.

It situates Black people as being the chaos. This is straightforward stuff, its sometimes outwardly racist but its more generally anti-social justice and activist.

Black Lives Matter is an anti-racism movement, specifically arguing for an end to racist policing. By wearing these patches at events related to BLM, police were sending a message, Mr Tanuki said.

Photo: Renters and Housing Union

Thin Blue Line patches were also spotted at the Djab Wurrung trees protests in October, where the Djapwurrung supporters were fighting to prevent the loss of irreplaceable cultural artefacts, what they say is genocide in motion. Police said they briefed officers on the ground about sensitivity, but only about the womens camp at the Djab Wurrung site and not about the racial conflict at the heart of the protest.

In Brisbane, a police officer was spotted wearing a Thin Blue Line patch at a September Black Lives Matter Rally following the death of Aunty Sherry in police custody. Queensland Police Force said he was told to remove it.

An email purported to be sent by VicPol management banned the wearing of the patch in response to the Queensland incident, citing its association with white supremacists and the far-right.

At the same Djab Wurrung protests, a police officer was spotted with a Valknut tattooed on his forearm. Police told Junkee offensive tattoos must be covered up, but did not respond to a question about the Valknut.

Photo: Renters and Housing Union

A Valknut is a symbol found on historical Viking artifacts, but its original pagan meaning can only be speculated upon.

Anti-hate group ADL says: Some white supremacists, particularly racist Odinists, have appropriated the Valknut to use as a racist symbol. Often they use it as a sign that they are willing to give their life to Odin, generally in battle.

The police officers tattoo appears alongside another which reads Valhalla, the mythical resting place of warriors who fall in battle.

However, ADL says that non-racist pagans can also use the symbol, and warn that the context it appears in should be considered.

Mr Tanuki said that the appearance of these two symbols was unlikely to be coincidental.I can imagine police didnt realise or dwell on the significance of it and that bloke and his edgelord tattoos, I find it unlikely at the end of the day that officer wouldnt know that significance, he said.

The officers in question have come there to send a message to protestors. The officers in question know what messages they are sending.

Mr Tanuki said to prevent the behaviour, higher-ups would need to act. They dont expect a bad reaction from their managers, he said. The officers are showing people what they think of their movements. If they wear a thin blue patch at an Indigenous sovereignty event, we know what they mean.

Late last year police officer Travis Gray was also spotted giving the OK hand gesture at the violent Blockade IMARC protests, where left-wing protestors attempted to prevent a fossil fuel and mining conference from going ahead.

The OK hand gesture has been coopted by white supremacists as a coded message meaning its OK to be white. Gray directed the sign to an Asian-Australian woman who was wearing a t-shirt that read immigrant in rainbow letters, she told Junkee.

Travis Gray noticed me looking and he started making faces at me, like taunting me. And then he gave me the OK symbol, she said. A couple of minutes later, he came up to me and said: you can take photos, you can take videos. It doesnt matter, nothing will happen. He said he was just checking if I was OK. It felt intimidating.

A Facebook profile belonging to Gray was discovered soon after and had posted far-right associated memes like Pepe the Frog and Wojak/Feels Guy.

At the time, Victoria Police said they were extremely disappointed and condemned the memes. When asked by Junkee if they had taken any further action against Gray, they said the protestors account was unsubstantiated.

Junkee sent a list of questions to Victoria Police about all the images seen in this story. It did not directly respond to each question.

On their own, the patches, stickers, and tattoos would normally not be cause for concern, but given Victoria Polices record of violence and over-policing towards minorities and protestors, and the added context that officers were reportedly warned about the patchs association with far-right ideologies, makes the imagery seem more sinister.

The Black Lives Matter movement in Australia is calling for accountability for the deaths in custody and over-policing of Indigenous people. To position this reasonable request as chaos as Mr Tanuki put it, shows how the officers may really feel. They may claim ignorance but it is nearly impossible to believe.

If policing is to survive the BLM reckoning and become a force for good for all Australians, officers cannot position themselves as an opposing force to those rightfully calling for justice.

Jim Malo is a journalist with an interest in politics and social justice. He tweets at @thejimmalo.

See the original post:
VicPol Has A Problem With Right-Wing Extremist-Associated Symbols - Junkee

Times-Union readers| Florida Times-Union

Republican Partys reputation is crumbling

before the eyes of many Americans

We are witnessing the demise of the Grand Old Party. And the Republican Party has earned the consequence they wrought.

The GOP enabled the dishonesty and ineptness of President Donald Trump while he tried to eliminate the Affordable Care Act without any real attempt at a substitute.

His administration separated babies from their parents at the border to set an example while making virtually no attempt to reunite them.

The gross mishandling and misrepresentation of the grave risks COVID-19 posed for the country serves as another reminder. Let's not forget the blocking of legislation in the Senate by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the Enabler-in-Chief; not the least of which was the final relief bill to innocent citizens who may be thrown out of their residences for lack of payment of rent and mortgages.

Let's recall the tax cut that mostly went to the richest Americans. There is the damage to the institutions and norms that have held our democracy together for over 200 years (with one notable exception). And the same can be said for the corporate tax cut, which helped the stock market, but left over 50 percent of the population in the lurch because they dont participate because they are too poor.

There is the politicization of the Justice Department by attempting to use the halls of justice to help friends (Roger Stone, General Flynn and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

And perhaps the worst transgressions on our traditions of fair play and decency involved hypocrisy of the most recent Supreme Court confirmation. No, it was not illegal, just morally reprehensible.

And the top prize for hubris and deceit are the attacks on the integrity of our voting processes without any evidence by Trump, whose only purpose is to sow dissent and open the doors to violence from his alt-right supporters should their party lose the presidential race.

The public will rightly recoil at these insults and attacks on our values and the institutions that keep us on the straight and narrow.

And it is for these reasons that the Republican Party will crumble under the pressure to retain credibility in the public's eyes. And it may well be that the punishment will last for a generation, as the American public recoils from what its leaders let happen to the country and their party in recent years.

Memories are very long for messing with our system of government to this degree for which so many have sacrificed so much except for Trump. He should leave the White House no later than Jan. 20th to the obscurity he so richly deserves.

Bob Fagin, Jacksonville Beach

I was raised as a Democrat but

the party I knew has left me

I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, and I with the rest of my family were brought up as Southern Democrats. Back then I was taught that a Democrat was a person who represented and fought for the working person. A person who stood up for the middle and lower class. A person who fought against government corruption and supported our military and the sanctity of life.

Republicans were viewed as old, fat, rich, white men sitting around their country club drinking scotch and reviewing stock market tickers.

Every morning at school, prior to class we stood with our hands over our hearts and recited the Pledge of Allegiance and remained standing through the playing of the "The Star-Spangled Banner."To not do so would be to invite a bloody nose at recess. My first presidential vote was cast for a peanut farmer named Jimmy Carter, as was my second.

Back then a man would be applauded for exposing government corruption and upholding the laws of the land.

Back then you depended on Huntley and Brinkley for honest non-biased news reporting.

A lot has changed since then.

Now Democrats justify the burning of the American flag and condone the kneeling of people during the playing of the national anthem.

Now Democrats openly invite illegal aliens to cross our borders and have sanctuary cities protecting them from deportation.

Now Democrats want to allow late-term abortion and state their reproductive health is being threatened by attempts to overrule Roe v. Wade. Just what is their definition of reproductive health? Isnt it the ability to give birth to a healthy child?

The Democrats have vowed to do away with the federal death penalty. How can Democrats be anti-death penalty but be pro-abortion?

The Democrats wasted tens of millions of taxpayer dollars attempting to impeach a president for shedding light on the corruption of the previous administration. They knew from the outset they could not win, yet proceeded to waste taxpayers' time and money anyway. The entire time they ignored Hillary Clintons false narrative of Russian collusion and Joe Bidens corruption while in office.

The Democrats and their media allies decide what they want you to see, hear or read. Honest journalism does not exist any longer. They have been reduced to a propaganda extension of the Democratic Party.

I watched with disgust as the Democratic Party condones rioting and looting, refusing to employ the police departments of their cities in stopping destruction of public and private property. Kamala Harris, probably the next vice president, tweeted support for a fund to bail out protesters, some of them violent.

The Democratic Party has become the party of The ends justifies the means. They have already shown that they will turn a blind eye to wrongdoing by their party members. They have spent the last four years undermining the current administration. They have refused bipartisan support on nearly every issue the president has worked for or enacted. The Democrats have spent $1 billion on this election. You cannot convince me that it is for the benefit of this country's citizens.

Is the Republican Party perfect? Not by a long shot. It still has corruption and deceit within its ranks. But they are more in line with my conservative views and ideology than what the Democratic Party now supports.

Ronald Segrest, Jacksonville

See the article here:
Letters: Republican Party is crumbling and a former Democrat explains why he left - The Florida Times-Union

Over the past four years, weve seen an uncontrollable outpour of anger on social media about everything from the presidents infuriatingly racist tweets to emotionally manipulative political propaganda such as the QAnon conspiracy. These acts have led some people to conclude that social media is a real problem destroying our society.

Social media has a role in the increasing polarization of the U.S. The personalization of content has created echo chambers of views that limit us to our side of an argument. They bear the blame for encouraging the division of realities to make us feel comfortable. We seek the feeling of being heard and the desire to be among the majority opinion so much that we trap ourselves inside our echo chambers.

The filter bubble theory by Eli Pariser shows how social media locks us into our echo chambers by creating a false safe space. Our personalized data creates filter bubbles that restrict the information we see, and according to research in his book Filter Bubbles, our search history determines the results brought up by search engines.

Your computer monitor is a kind of one-way mirror, reflecting your interests while algorithmic observers watch what you click, Pariser said.

With every click or search on sites like Facebook or Google, our information is used to feed us targeted ads. These keep the constant pattern of only seeing posts and comments from people that we agree with, which leaves us out of circles with people or sites that we disagree with. This encourages a dangerously false perception of the world. The issue is worsened by our constant dependence on social media for information.

Have you ever had a conversation with someone who has a different opinion than yours, and they give evidence or an article that they refer to as popular, but youve never heard the news? That is the outcome of the filter bubble, giving us the feeling of living in different worlds. The filter bubble creates different realities that are common during intense and confusing times, like the election. Half of the country thinks the election was fair while the other half feels like the results were unfair.

The division is caused by the filter bubble and our desire to escape any meaningful interaction with people whose opinions differ from ours. This behavior encourages symmetric polarization that we can now see in our political spheres and creates the divisions seen in our society today.

An example of this would be conservatives claiming that Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are censuring them at an unequal rate. Broadly, rather than addressing the issues together and condemning hate speech, some people tend to criticize them and encourage the harsh censorship of conservative or controversial content. They bully the writers while thinking they are the majority.

This harsh and needed criticism has led to the social media divide aided by the filter bubble and the creation of alt-right social media such as Parler, which to put it mildly, is a disastrous place for hate where a myriad of dangerously false conspiracies further encourage and feed divisiveness in our country.

To avoid the dangerous backlash of the divide caused by the filter bubble, we should honestly listen to each other and encourage honest conversations with different opinions to protect the sanctity and unity of our country.

See original here:
OPINION: Social media problems have led to a divisive society - Red and Black

New York: Critically-acclaimed books by three Indian writers have featured among this years 100 Notable Books list of The New York Times that also includes former US president Barack Obamas newly released memoir A Promised Land.

Editors of The New York Times book review section selected 100 notable fiction, poetry and nonfiction works from around the world.

The prestigious list also includes the work of fiction A Burningby India-born Megha Majumdar.

A brazen act of terrorism in an Indian metropolis sets the plot of this propulsive debut novel in motion, and lands an innocent young bystander in jail. With impressive assurance and insight, Majumdar unfolds a timely story about the ways power is wielded to manipulate and crush the powerless, the report said of the book.

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Lineby Deepa Anappara, who grew up in Kerala, also features on the list.

This first novel by an Indian journalist probes the secrets of a big-city shantytown as a 9-year-old boy tries to solve the mystery of a classmates disappearance. Anappara impressively inhabits the inner worlds of children lost to their families, and of others who escape by a thread, the leading daily said.

Samanth Subramanians A Dominant Character: The Radical Science and Restless Politics of J. B. S. Haldaneis a nonfiction work.

Haldane, the British biologist and ardent communist who helped synthesise Darwinian evolution with Mendelian genetics, was once as famous as Einstein. Subramanians elegant biography doubles as a timely allegory of the fraught relationship between science and politics, the report said.

Subramanian is a journalist and lives in London.

Red Pill by British-Indian author Hari Kunzru also features on the list.

A fellowship at a study center in Germany turns sinister and sets a writer on a possibly paranoid quest to expose a political evil he believes is loose in the world. Kunzrus wonderfully weird novel traces a lineage from German Romanticism to National Socialism to the alt-right, and is rich with insights on surveillance and power, the report said.

(PTI)

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Books by Three Indian Writers Feature Among '100 Notable Books' of The New York Times - The Wire