Volume 8, Issue 9
Establishment power brokers convinced them that they could not win. If they would drop out now to consolidate support around the moderate Joe Biden, they would be given prime speaking spots at the Democratic National Convention. And they would forever have the party’s gratitude. Normally a viable candidate, out of respect for their supporters and contributors, would have waited until after the ballots were cast on Super Tuesday to withdraw from the race. The appeal to them from the power brokers must have been shrill. If they didn’t acquiesce, a price would be exacted, jeopardizing their standing in the party.
Why did the establishment brokers execute such an unprecedented power play?
The answer is because Bernie Sanders represents an ideology so out of touch with reality that party operatives made the decision to intervene to save the party from grassroots destruction.
It may not work. It is not unprecedented for citizens to follow leaders to a mirage in the desert only to find that the water they desire is nothing more than the sand itself.
In 1904, J.M. Barrie published the tale of Peter Pan who lived in “Never Never Land.” It was a story about a utopian island where children never grew up. The problems of society were never faced because the residents never had to face reality as an adult. The premise was the appeal of a “child’s imagination.”
Prior to Barrie’s work, a political philosopher attempted to depict a fantasy form of government that resulted in a government in theory equally detached from reality. In 1848, Karl Marx published his first volumes on The Communist Manifesto. He and his compatriots, like Friedrich Engels, sought to completely redesign and restructure society based upon the philosophy that a totalitarian government was best suited to govern the lives of people through limited freedom, limited choices, redistribution of wealth, and equal outcomes for all individuals. The combination of the attraction to propose a utopian system, along with the propensity of a person’s imagination to believe that such a mirage exists, is the dilemma of the Democratic Party and the drastic measures taken to avoid its dismantling.
The fact that the United States, by respecting freedom, limited government, and free markets, has produced the greatest per capita wealth in the history of the world, is not in dispute. Have there been problems with fair distribution of that wealth? Yes. But, the United States, in its 243-plus years of short history, has achieved unprecedented levels of success in science, in the arts, and in the advancement of generational moral values of which all people have been the beneficiary.
It is quite extraordinary that Senator Sanders cannot find one positive thing to say about the attributes of a free market system. He finds it difficult to even criticize Fidel Castro, a communist dictator, and, in fact, apologizes for his oppression by pointing out that he prioritized literacy. Progressives project an imaginary place where equal outcomes, dictated by government, are the definition of happiness. They fail to give any credit to this system of freedom and its positive successes.
Conservatives often emphasize only the successes of a free-market democracy and overlook, or are at least insensitive to, those segments of society that argue they have been left behind. America in her past has had to work through the moral necessity for civil rights, elimination of poverty, and gender equality. It hasn’t always been perfect. But as a society, the United States has made tremendous progress.
Winston Churchill’s famous quote on government is that “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those others that have been tried.” In the spirit of that phraseology, free enterprise is the worst economic system to produce the greatest opportunity for all citizens, except for all other economic systems that have been tried.
Why, in fact, has the United States been so unique in its success? It is because, as a nation-state, we reverence freedom. Our government was established to be a servant to the people for the protection of freedom in their pursuit of happiness as we are free to choose. Our culture’s foundation was established on Judeo-Christian faith, committed to generational family values.
Freedom, supported by government as a servant, built on a foundation of commitment to the family, is the basis of the impetus that allows the human spirit to soar to its natural potential height.
This Super Tuesday election will present the ultimate debate for the people’s consideration on whether the Democratic Party will be led by an ideology of an imaginary fantasy detached from reality, or led by a progressive philosophy that at least has some respect for the natural societal benefits of free markets. The answer to the question will not be resolved today. Senator Sanders will win a majority of the delegates. Yet to be answered is: how many people are willing to follow him into the desert pursuing the false hope of a mirage that doesn’t exist?
Dr. Milton Friedman, the great 20th century economist, said, “Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.” This was the compendium of Karl Marx’s thesis. Freedom in communism is expendable. Only the state’s power matters. Why anyone would ever believe such a thesis is the appeal of “a child’s imagination.”
Leaders tend to put forward a distilled policy that generates a call for their ideology. The truth is that the secret of America’s strength has been her citizens’ ability to sift through the rhetoric to find the reality of a proposed government system’s ability to deliver unrestricted individual pursuit of happiness.
And, as so it has always been, it is also so in 2020.
When being presented with the option of never never land:
Never seek a past that has never been.
Never seek a future that will never be.
Seek a present that never ignores the reality of truth.
My name is Marc Nuttle and this is what I believe.
What do you believe?