Sadly, I finally had to concede that the GOP and Democratic parties are simply mirrors of each other. The two sides of a coin are made of the same metal. Everything I dislike about the Democratic Party is in the GOP and visa versa.
The biannual two party coin flip is simply.
HEADS: the ruling elite win. TAILS the people lose.
I keep mentioning that, for the last six years, I've had a single minded goal of attending or hosting an event about free market health care reform.
The fact that for six years I've been unable to find either an event or a group interested in free market health care reform within 700 miles of Salt Lake City is quite troubling.
It is impossible for us to repeal PPACA (Obamacare) and enact free market health care reform if no-one is willing to talk about free market health care reform.
Conversely, it becomes easier to repeal PPACA if a group spoke about free market health care reform.
The fact that neither the GOP nor the Tea Party have held open meetings about the most important issue of our day--health care reform--is not just strange. It is troubling.
BTW: I am not asking for something outrageous. I am simply asking that a group meet for an evening to talk about free market health care reform. In six years of actively looking, I have not found a single group in Salt Lake City discussing this issue.
I look pretty hard. I maintain a calendar for Salt Lake events. I troll the web for events. In the last six years I've found tens of thousands of events, but not one event in which free market health care was the primary concern.
I spent $10,000 traveling to Phoenix, Denver, Reno and Las Vegas and was unable to find people interested in discussing free market health care reform.
The only way to repeal PPACA is to discuss the issue, but Conservatives slam the door the moment a person mentions free market health care reform.
When movement like the Tea Party or the GOP have such a contorted rational theory that they are incapable of holding meetings to discuss the most important issue of the day, then one has to write off the movements as inherently flawed.
The flaw of conservatism, of course, is that conservatism is not a constructive movement. It is a base reactionary movement.
To understand conservatism, we need to look back to the founding of this nation.
Contrary to conservative claims, the US Founders were not reactionary conservatives.
The US Founders had a classical liberal arts education steeped in a refined version of classical logic. The US Founders applied their liberal arts education to the question of liberty and came up with something wonderful ... The American Experiment in Self Rule.
I like to call the application of classical logic to the application of liberty "Classical Liberalism."
A hallmark of Aristotelian logic is a desire to avoid absolutes and paradoxes. Absolutes generally lead to paradoxes.
Aristotle taught that any virtue pushed too far became a vice. In the Aristotelian definition of tragedy, the tragic flaw is not a vice. The tragic flaw is a virtue pushed to the point that it causes a calamity.
On applying classical logic to liberty, one realizes that giving the people the freedom to enslave others leads to slavery.
The classical liberal approach to liberty is a balanced approach to liberty that recognizes that one's freedom stops at the doorsteps of others freedom.
The US Founders were not conservatives. The Conservatives of 1776 stood shoulder to shoulder with the monarchy and leveled their musket fire at the US Founders.
After the US revolution, Conservatives, wanting to preserve the social order of the feudal system and the peculiar institution of slavery, began weaving intellectual contortions to preserve the social structure of the ancient regime and the freedom to hold others as slaves.
As conservatives wanted to avoid social change, they set in at once on projecting negative images on liberals.
Back in Europe, the Kings of England were spinning their own intellectual contortions.
King George I, II and III were actually from Hanover, Germany. The Kings of England directly funded the German University System. Notably, they were the founders of the University of Gottingen in Hanover.
The Hanoverian Kings of England funded the German University System and charged the university to come up with contortions to reframe the monarchy as progressive. It is not happenstance that the German University system developed new systems of thought which framed centralization under a strong government as progressive. They were paid by the monarchy to build such a frame.
The best example of reactionary post revolutionary thinking is found with Georg Hegel (1770-1831).
Hegel developed a contorted system of thought called Modern Logic. Modern logic denies the basic rules of thought held by classical liberals. While classical liberals sought to avoid paradox, Hegelian thinkers embraced paradox. Hegel actively sought out every case where he could present freedom as slavery and slavery freedom.
In Hegelian thought, this process in which terms take on contradictory meanings is called "sublation."
The US Founders believe that liberalization came by limiting government and economic decentralization.
Hegelians exploited the paradox of freedom and sublated the term "liberal" and came up with claims that liberalization and social progress comes through economic centralization and expanding government.
The Hegelian Right lapped up this new modern logic as they saw it as a way to preserve the social structure of the ancient regime in the modern age. The Hegelian Left were seduced by Hegel's promise that economic and political centralization leads to progress.
The great left right split that dominates politics today did not come from the US Founders. The US Founders despised the partisanship of Europe. The left/right split that dominates politics today came from the French Revolution. It finds its intellectual base in the modern dialectics of Hegel.
I believe that the Modern Liberal who holds that freedom is slavery and that we need to seek a totalitarian state to achieve a higher liberty is more deluded than the Hegelian right that simply loves playing word games in a base grub for power.
But, when it comes down to it. I am adamantly opposed to the Hegelian Right and Hegelian Left.and dialectical center.
Much as I wanted to attend a caucus. I realized that both the right and left are corrupt and if I wish to stand for the Founders vision of a free society, I need to stand against both of these monstrosities.
It is true that the GOP is the lesser of two evils. But the way I see it, supporting the GOP is a greater capitulation in the stand for freedom than the act of giving up on both caucuses and trying to find a way to influence the GOP from within.
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