Category: Transpartisan Notes

To ONLY be used with the Standard Weekly Transpartisan Notes. This category sorts Transpartisan Notes into their own section.

A New, Transpartisan Voice In Foreign Policy

Transpartisan Note #123

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

On February 26, The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft cohosted (with Foreign Policy magazine) a foreign policy event in Washington, D.C. focused on ‘A New Vision for America in the World’. (Featured in Transpartisan Note #122.)  Co-sponsored by Charles Koch and George Soros, the Quincy Institute proclaims itself a new, transpartisan voice searching for an engaged, internationalist foreign policy that does not depend on fighting endless wars.

General David H. Petraeus, former Commander of the U.S. Central Command and former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, led the discussion by describing the military’s role in what is sometimes called a ‘strategic concept of peace’.  The conference, following Quincy’s mission, aimed at presenting an alternative to this vision, based on ‘military restraint and vigorous diplomacy’ and the pursuit of peace.

Transpartisans seeing political relationships through the Four-Quadrant Matrix believe that solutions are strongest when they integrate values from all quadrants, bringing together all ideologies.  Integrating the quadrants first depends on avoiding binary (‘either-or’) views, while seeking common ground in apparently opposing positions.

Gen. Petraeus is an ideal subject on which to built a transpartisan dialogue.  Although he presented a case for a strong military role, his widely-read 2006 article on the fourteen principles of counterinsurgency warfare explored important non-military activities, which he noted in his talk are essential to ‘military’ victories in irregular warfare.[i]

His first principle relies on a widely-quoted statement by T.E. Lawrence, writing in 1917:

‘Do not try to do too much with your own hands,’ Lawrence wrote about the Arabs.  ‘Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. . . .  [T]he work . . . may take them longer and it may not be as good as you think, but if it is theirs, it will be better.’

The idea here is that what they do is more important than what you do.  This insight is crucial for promoting empowerment of people, especially in traditional societies, to play an active – even primary role – in promoting democracy, development, and especially security.

It is widely believed, even in ‘difficult’ places like Afghanistan, that when a community owns a school or a well, people will protect it from terrorists and insurgents. The central element is ownership – ownership of what they do and also from deciding what to do.

The importance of ownership is evident in Hernando de Soto’s pioneering work on property rights for the ‘informal sector’ and also in the work of Educate Girls Globally, promoting shared community ownership of government schools.  Both experiences promote empowerment of passive, preconscious traditional people to become active, self-determined community citizens.

Where people are strongly influenced by traditional cultures, their passivity makes them vulnerable targets for insurgents, thus creating ‘vacuums’ for military force to fill.  When people are passive, diplomacy, even if ‘vigorous’, is a weak instrument for promoting peace.  When they become active citizens, protecting what they own, they present no targets, thus greatly reducing the need for military action.

We believe Quincy will succeed in its transpartisan mission by focusing attention on empowering citizens for nation-building, democracy, and security.  Pursuing this objective, their greatest challenge will not be to change the attitudes of military leaders like Gen. Petraeus, but to promote development of capacity in our governmental institutions, both military and civilian, to promote citizen empowerment as a major objective of foreign policy.

[i]  LTG David Petraeus, “Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq”, Military Review, January/February 2006.

(Feature image of Gen. Petraeus taken from the Twitter feed of the Quincy Institute.)

A New Vision for America in the World

Transpartisan Note #122

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a peace-advocating, action-oriented think tank funded by an unlikely, but potent, transpartisan partnership between the foundations of George Soros and Charles Koch, launched in December 2019 to “focus on promoting peace and diplomatic agreement rather than war and military action in U.S. foreign policy.” (George Soros, Charles Koch Foundations Help Launch Pro-Peace Think Tank, The Hill, 12/03/19)

This week the Quincy Institute, in partnership with Foreign Policy magazine, will share their transpartisan vision with the world during a one day “peace forum” at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington D.C.

Focusing on issues of national security, world peace, and U.S. foreign policy from a transpartisan matrix view of managed order without suppressed freedom with leaders from left and right, their February 26th one-day event will explore topics like ending the endless wars in the Middle East; the impact of the Sino-American antagonism; democratizing foreign policy; and international cooperation in an era of American restraint.

This leadership forum brings together voices from across the Transpartisan Matrix,  featuring speakers including retired General David H. Petraeus; Matt Duss, Senator Bernie Sanders’ Foreign-Policy Advisor; retired Ambassador Gerald Feierstein; and Foreign Policy magazine Editor-in-Chief Jonathan Tepperman.  Congress members conservative Arizona Representative Andy Biggs and progressive Representatives Pramila Jayapal from Washington and Ro Khanna from California will also speak.

We are delighted to see that General Petraeus is one of the speakers at the conference because he wrote in a powerful way about one transpartisan principle having to do with the empowerment of citizens to promote social and political development and reduce conflict.  In a widely-cited article in 2006, he laid out fourteen basic principles of counterinsurgency warfare.*  His first principle relied on T. E. Lawrence (in 1917) writing about empowerment of the Arabs.  His principal strategy for doing this was to give them authority in making and implementing plans.  This would in turn encourage them to take leadership in promoting social and political development, thus promoting solidarity against external enemies.  A common mechanism for thus motivating them is by sharing ownership of schools, wells, and other resources important for local welfare.  Such empowerment would add significantly to local assets supporting economic and political development, following examples of successful civil society empowerment programs in many areas.

Most importantly, this event signals growing awareness of the “Transpartisan” impulse and the transpartisan vision toward which it points.  The Quincy Institute announcement of this forum says “Volatility in the Middle East and tensions between the U.S. and Iran have reached a new high, while public frustration with U.S. military involvements, and transpartisan calls for restraint, suggest a historic opening for a new mode of American foreign policy.”

The transpartisan impulse points to historic openings on every issue throughout the American Political Matrix. The Foreign Policy – Quincy Institute Forum opens the door to transpartisan foreign policy.  We will be there reporting on the forum’s events.

* LTG David Petraeus, “Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq”, Military Review, January/February 2006.

Brexit Has Arrived

Transpartisan Note #121

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

New York Times writer, Richard Seymore, in his op-ed Brexit Has Arrived, But Boris Johnson’s Reign Is Just Beginning, offers a glimpse of the left/right amalgamation that drove England out of the EU, propelled Boris Johnson into a “Conservative” Parliamentary majority (by “borrowing” traditionally labor votes), and secured promises, and even some action, on some of Labour Party’s strongest held positions, such as expanding funding to the National Health Service.

But by fulfilling his pledge, Seymore writes, Mr. Johnson has won enormous good will from nationalist voters across England and Wales. Outside the European Union, he will also have more scope to change the British government’s role in the economy. This gives him a unique opportunity to do what his predecessors could not: build a lasting popular base for the Conservative Party. Mr. Johnson can now take advantage of his big majority to overhaul British capitalism, incentivizing long-term Conservative voters while permanently annexing chunks of the Labour Party’s historic base.

This article, written on January 31st, Brexit Day – the day England left the European Union ­– states, with his signature campaign promise fulfilled, “the prime minister can now reshape Britain for a generation.” But Seymore cautions us to remember who Boris Johnson is: 

Mr. Johnson is not a nationalist by conviction. He is the epitome of the “reckless opportunists” that, as the sociologist Aeron Davis says, run Britain. His voting record in Parliament shows him to be slightly more liberal than his party. But his performance over the last few months — during which he agitated against Parliament, accused opponents of “collaboration” with Europe, and saber-rattled against the courts and media — showed him to be adept at using the far right’s template. Whenever the contradictions in his government threaten to unravel, he is likely to return to these tactics.

Our initial, “first blush” impression suggests to us that the Prime Minister is combining the Order-Left and Freedom-Right quadrants of the Transpartisan Matrix. This also suggest to us that, like any two-quadrant political approach, Johnson fasces choppy waters ahead.

The waters could smooth if either the Order-Right or Free-Left quadrants embrace the Johnson program.  Of course, from our point of view, the most lasting solution comes from an integration of all four quadrants.  We see the Transpartisan Matrix pointing a way forward for Johnson after Brexit. What do you see?

(Image CC BY-ND 2.0 by the Boris Johnson campaign, photo by Andrew Parsons.)

Trump’s “Sturm und Drang”

Transpartisan Note #120

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

In his January 9th N.Y. Times  op-ed, provocatively titled Trump Has Made Us All Stupid, self-described “conservative columnist” David Brooks says we Americans are all mixed up in trying to understand the real issue behind the Trump-led killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani, turning it into another American fight over the character/nature/syntax of Donald Trump.

This “fear-stoking apocalyptic language,” Brooks explains, disguises the real important issue at the core of the matter:  what, if any, role can the US play in insuring peace, not war, in the Middle East.

We at The Transpartisan Review believe that the Transpartisan Matrix helps sort out the overheated, media-fueled rhetorical combat. Do you see the Matrix in Brooks’ examination of the oratorical battle surrounding Iran and the Soleimani killing?

In Trump Has Made Us All Stupid he writes:

“We fight viciously about Trump, but underneath, a populist left-right curtain is descending around America, separating us from the Mideast, China, even Europe. The real high-risk move is the one both parties are making together: that if we ignore the world it will ignore us. (It won’t.)”

“…the anti-Trump echo chamber is becoming a mirror image of Trump himself.”

“Most of this week’s argument about the Middle East wasn’t really about the Middle East. It was all narcissistically about ourselves!”

“Love or hate him, Trump has used military force less than any other president since Jimmy Carter.”

“And this is the final paradox. For all the “Sturm und Drang” that surrounds Trump, populist Republicans and Democrats are gravitating toward the same foreign policy: We’re in the middle of a clash of civilizations; the Middle East is so screwed up, we should just get out; we’re too stupid/ineffective/racist/imperialistic to do any good there anyway.”

We transpartisan advocates see a Transpartisan Matrix of Order/Left and Freedom/Right sorting our sense of the “multiplicity of impulses” Brooks writes about and, when integrated, how they might create useful policy.

What do you see?

(The term Sturm und Drang first appeared as the title of a play by Friedrich Maximilian Klinger, written for Abel Seyler’s Seylersche Schauspiel-Gesellschaft and published in 1776.  Sturm und Drang came to be associated with literature or music aimed at shocking the audience or imbuing them with extremes of emotion. From Wikipedia.)

A Historian’s View of Brexit

Transpartisan Note #119

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

David Edgerton (@DEHEdgerton), a professor of history at Kings College London and the author, most recently, of “The Rise and Fall of the British Nation: A Twentieth-Century History” tells an arresting story of the “British nation” as  a post WWII construct that began to disappear during the 1970s and 80s.

In a recent N.Y. Times op-ed, “Boris Johnson Might Break Up the U.K. That’s a Good Thing,” Mr. Edgerton suggests that “it’s time to let the fantasy of the ‘British nation’ die”, writing:

“The idea of breaking up the union isn’t quite as outrageous as it might seem. The ‘United Kingdom’ is neither ancient nor stable. Before 1945, ‘national’ Irish, Welsh, Scottish and English identities were for many not local varieties of national Britishness but part of something much bigger: an imperial identity.

“British World War II propaganda explained that the United Kingdom was just one equal element of a British Commonwealth of Nations that, along with India and the colonies, made up ‘the British Empire.’ It was the empire that fought the war, not the United Kingdom. Soldiers died for king and country” — but that country had no name. No one died for ‘the United Kingdom.’ 

“After 1945, ‘Britain’ — a national United Kingdom — was one of many post-imperial constructions that emerged from the ashes of the British Empire. From then into the 1970s, the United Kingdom existed as a coherent economic, political and ideological unit, distinct from the rest of the world. There was a national British economy, a national British Army and a national British politics dominated by two national, unionist parties. It was a brief period of British nationhood. In fact, it was the only one. This national United Kingdom was broken up economically starting in the 1970s by the closely related processes of globalization and deepening economic integration with Europe.”

To us at The Transpartisan Review, we see the Order/Freedom – Left/Right Matrix creating a way to account for the powerful transitional/trans-national forces rocking the British Isles—and every other nation of the world. Pundits were surprised when working class Labor and more affluent Conservative party members seemed to vote against their personal economic self-interest in the 2016 Brexit Referendum to pull Great Britain out of the European Union.  The spectacle deepened as former Labor and Conservative prime ministers broke with their parties to endorse “remain” candidates of all stripes in the 2019 General Election.

Unpredicted strange-bedfellow votes brought down two Conservative prime ministers and, as in many other countries, a media-master entertainer arrived at the seat of “power” (if sitting in the front seat of a runaway train can be called the seat of power).  Boris Johnson, the consummate actor that he is, then proceeded to summarily expel twenty-one (some high profile) members from his Conservative party.  All this to keep the “extreme right” (pundit talk)  from driving the country off other rails.

We think the Transpartisan Matrix offers an additional way to look at the forces loose in the land and the way we are relating to them. Do you see the Matrix in these events?

(Image by ChiralJon and licensed CC BY 2.0.)

Find the Matrix: Evangelicals

Transpartisan Note #118

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

If you are a subscriber to our weekly Transpartisan Mailing, you are aware, for the past year, we have been sharing “Find the Matrix” articles from major news outlets as examples of the application of our Transpartisan Matrix. On December 19, in the article “Trump Should Be Removed from Office,” Christianity Today’s editor-in-chief wrote, in the very spirit of transpartisan:

We have reserved judgment on Mr. Trump for years now. Some have criticized us for our reserve. But when it comes to condemning the behavior of another, patient charity must come first. So, we have done our best to give evangelical Trump supporters their due, to try to understand their point of view, to see the prudential nature of so many political decisions they have made regarding Mr. Trump.

This editorial launched a nation-wide conversation focused on the political role of religious leaders and the evangelical press.

In this week’s “Find the Matrix” article, “Journalist leaves Christian Post amid its plans to attack Christianity Today,” Sarah Pullman Bailey of the Washington Post explores the impact of this conversation which recently included the resignation of a Christian Post journalist, Napp Nazworth, in protest of a Christian Post article condemning Christianity Today.

In our time of powerful forces – demographic, technological, economic, moral and others – sweeping across the country and the globe, every institution feels its moorings shifting.  This Washington Post article on the ‘Trump Evangelicals’ and Trump’s evangelical critics shows the Transpartisan Matrix form taking shape within the ranks of American Evangelism.  Making up about 25% of the American population, Evangelicals occupy various political positions on various issues.

To get a flavor of the history and development of Evangelical politics, see Wikipedia entries on Evangelicalism in the United States and on the Evangelical Left.  In the Washington Post article, note the references to efforts at dialogue – sticking to religious, moral and biblical issues; staying away from explicitly political issues; and questioning the notion that the Bible defines who a Christian should vote for.  These would tend toward what we call Transpartisan comments.

For a further context to consider in grasping the Evangelical situation in relation to politics in general and Trump in particular, note the following articles. In 2016, The Gospel Coalition shared “No, the Majority of American Evangelicals Did Not Vote for Trump” which suggests that about 35% of American Evangelicals voted for Trump and explains how the author arrived at that number.  The data-driven Outside the Walls regularly posts “This Week’s Shocking Stats” about religion in America. It reports only 8% of regular church attenders believe that sharing their faith is ‘very important.’

When looking at Evangelicals in American politics, it is useful to remember that the most successful Evangelical in those politics remains Democrat Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States.  In 2018, Cater wrote in Faith: A Journey for All:

“I believe now, more than then, that Christians are called to plunge into the life of the world, and to inject the moral and ethical values of our faith into the processes of governing.”

The powerful forces roiling the Earth flow through every institution, including those of American Evangelicals.  Read the articles and look for the Matrix.

(Feature image by ToBeDaniel and shared as CC BY 3.0 on Wikimedia.)

The Future and Purpose of Business: A Transpartisan Meditation

Transpartisan Note #117

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Responding to increasing attacks on capitalism and growing support for socialism, the Business Roundtable, representing the CEOs of the largest corporations in America, on August 19, released its Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, promoting a radically new direction for business’ purpose.

The Statement sought to separate business, philosophically, from the long-standing, defining purpose of maximizing profits and to embrace a larger economic and social agenda (in addition to profits).  The late Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman stated the older, ‘discredited’ view as follows: ‘There is one and only one social responsibility of business: to engage in activities designed to increase its profits.’

Friedman wrote this statement in 1970, fifty years ago, at a time very like the present.  In 1970, when we were still at war in Vietnam, the country was torn by political polarization and conflict, and criticism of business and capitalism were at fever pitch.  At that time, calls were being heard for business to change along the same lines as the Business Roundtable statement.  Friedman was responding to these calls.

As transpartisans, we believe that many conflicts are rooted in different uses of LANGUAGE that are never explored.  A hint of that problem here appears in the fact that Friedman embraced ‘profit-making’ as the central purpose of business, but he also, often, said that he thought the greatest threat to freedom in our society was the decline of both personal and social responsibility.  His concept of ‘capitalism’ was focused on freedom and freedom alone: freedom to choose, whatever one valued  material or non-material — pure Freedom Right.  Thus, he embraced the Israeli kibbutzim as a triumph of capitalism—because they are freely-chosen.

Since many socialists embrace the kibbutzim as a triumph of socialism (because of their communal values), the language problem rears its ugly head and is almost invariably ignored.  This problem goes to the heart of the Transpartisan challenge to the mainstream political debate and its defining Left-Right spectrum.  Perhaps without knowing it, Friedman—in this example, at least—was a transpartisan.

The Transpartisan Matrix can be applied in understanding policy proposals—working toward our objective of four-quadrant models—and also in understanding entire cultures.  Recalling the end of the sixties again, when conflict and polarization were high and social trust was low, demands were intense for forcing business to import Order Left values into their basic Freedom Right model.

Our thought here is at times of intense conflict and low trust, entire countries tend to shift toward multi-quadrant cultures; anyone who understands this point might therefore see  corporations would maximize profits by importing those other quadrant values into their business model.  Friedman’s vision might still be alive as long as no effort is made to compel business in this direction.

When societies are torn by conflict and social trust is low, people long for order—conservatives looking for it in traditional institutions and values, the province of the Order Right quadrant; and progressives looking for it in demands for justice as equality, the province of the Order Left quadrant.  As culture changes, it should come as no surprise that all social institutions will change, including profit-making companies.

Those who don’t like business wandering away from its core Freedom Right quadrants can reduce this temptation by promoting change in the political idiom toward four-quadrant, transpartisan values and institutions.  As long as the debate focuses exclusively on framing issues in mechanistic terms (with governments making decisions for citizens in areas where active citizens could make them) conflict will remain high and trust low, while demands will continue for business to find solutions for the essential problem of ‘Connection’ that only engaged citizens can solve.

(Featured image by Matt Henry and found on pexels.com.)

A New Book from Ralph Benko

Transpartisan Note #116

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

The Capitalist Manifesto: The End of Class Warfare, Toward Universal Affluence is the latest work from TTR contributor and advisory board member Ralph Benko whose contributions to The Transpartisan Review include Why Conservatives Should Love AOC, Political Armageddon, and A Republic, If You Can Keep It.

Ralph, a former deputy general counsel in the Reagan White House, is the principal of the public affairs firm of RalphBenko.com. He serves as editor-in-chief of the Supply Side Blog, was short-listed as Nonprofit Blogger of the Year for his work for the Lehrman Institute, and is a political columnist and professional blogger for a variety of outlets including American Spectator and Townhall.com.

Below you will find a press release for the book and several excerpts.  If you have enjoyed Ralph’s past contributions, we encourage you to check it out at TheCapitalistLeague.com (now on sale at this link).

A Call to Truly Liberal Radicalism

Transpartisan Review adviser (and self-described cispartisan) Ralph Benko, together with Tea Party progenitor William Collier, Jr., recently published The Capitalist Manifesto: The End of Class Warfare, Toward Universal Affluence (The Websters’ Press, 2019).

It is now available in eBook and, soon, a trade paperback edition at TheCapitalistLeague.com where you can also subscribe, free, to the League’s newsletter Universal Opulence.  Rather than  merely criticizing Socialism (which it does) Benko and Collier celebrate Capitalism in no uncertain terms as beneficial to workers as well as the affluent.

They cite President John F. Kennedy’s axiom from his last public speech, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”  The Manifesto’s epigram and leitmotif is Adam Smith’s statement from Wealth of Nations:

It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people.

A core point of The Capitalist Manifesto is that – from The Communist Manifesto to the present day – core socialist doctrine holds that capitalism is excellent at creating wealth and terrible at its equitably distributing wealth to workers. Factually untrue, according to the authors.

– Excerpts –

Marx and Engels, in inventing Communism, pitted the workers – the proletariat – against the middle class – the bourgeoisie. They claimed that the middle class was exploiting the workers.

❊ ❊ ❊

Marx and Engels, in The Communist Manifesto, pay homage to Capitalism’s ability to conjure abundance:

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam- navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground – what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour?

❊ ❊ ❊

As we write this yet another Communist Manifesto is in press, garnering favorable attention from prestige publications such as The New York Times. It is entitled Fully Automated Luxury Communism: A Manifesto.  An excerpt:

Automation, robotics and machine learning will, as many august bodies, from the Bank of England to the White House, have predicted, substantially shrink the work force, creating widespread technological unemployment. But that’s only a problem driver or construction worker — is something to be cherished. For many, work is drudgery. And automation could set us free from it.

Gene editing and sequencing could revolutionize medical practice, moving it from reactive to predictive. Hereditary diseases could be eliminated, including Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia, and cancer cured before it reaches Stage 1. Those technologies could allow us to keep pace with the health challenges presented by societal aging — by 2020 there will be more people over the age of 60 than under the age of 5 — and even to surpass them.

What’s more, renewable energy, which has been experiencing steep annual falls in cost for half a century, could meet global energy needs and make possible the vital shift away from fossil fuels. More speculatively, asteroid mining — whose technical barriers are presently being surmounted — could provide us with not only more energy than we can ever imagine but also more iron, gold, platinum and nickel. Resource scarcity would be a thing of the past.

The consequences are far-reaching and potentially transformative. For the crises that confront our world today — technological unemployment, global poverty, societal aging, climate change, resource scarcity — we can already glimpse the remedy.

But there’s a catch. It’s called Capitalism. It has created the newly emerging abundance, but it is unable to share round the fruits of technological development.

There they go again. The new Communists, just like Marx and Engels, acknowledge Capitalism’s power to create abundance. Then they slyly indict Capitalism for its inability to  “share round the fruits.”

This overlooks the fact that all but the poorest of the poor in developed – Capitalist – countries tend to own cell phones, color TVs, and live in air-conditioned and centrally-heated homes with plentiful food.

❊ ❊ ❊

As The Spectator observed in an article titled Glad Tidings published in 2012:

It may not feel like it, but 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world. That sounds like an extravagant claim, but it is borne out by evidence. Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.

In 1990, the UN announced Millennium Development Goals, the first of which was to halve the number of people in extreme poverty by 2015. It emerged this year that the target was met in 2008. Yet the achievement did not merit an official announcement, presumably because it was not achieved by any government scheme but by the pace of global Capitalism. (Emphasis added.)

As Tim Worstall writing in Forbes.com – that Capitalist Tool! – noted a few years back, “the average American today is 90 Times Richer than the Average Historical Human Being.”

I have regularly tried to get over the idea that there is just no such thing as real poverty in the United States today. Absent those entirely outside our society through addiction or mental health problems there is just no one at all who suffers from what has been the usual human description of poverty. Actually, there’s no one at all in the US who has anything even close to what the human experience has been of poverty. By any historical, and by standards of all too large a part of the world today, all Americans are simply hugely, gargantuanly, richer than any but the fewest, most privileged, of our forefathers.

Capitalism, and with it the “universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people,” strikes again!

“Unable to share round the fruits?” Simply untrue to the point of inanity. How inconvenient a truth for those who wish to restore the neo-Feudalism that is Communism or Socialism. So they ignore it.

❊ ❊ ❊

What is to be done? Let us again take inspiration from the wisdom of Hayek, that great prophet of liberalism. In his essay cited above Hayek commanded the advocacy of a liberal utopia, founded in truly liberal radicalism:

Does this mean that freedom is valued only when it is lost, that the world must everywhere go through a dark phase of socialist totalitarianism before the forces of freedom can gather strength anew? It may be so, but I hope it need not be. Yet, so long as the people who over longer periods determine public opinion continue to be attracted by the ideals of Socialism, the trend will continue. If we are to avoid such a development, we must be able to offer a new liberal program which appeals to the imagination. We must make the building of a free society once more an intellectual adventure, a deed of courage.

What we lack is a liberal utopia, a program which seems neither a mere defense of things as they are nor a diluted kind of Socialism, but a truly liberal radicalism which does not spare the susceptibilities of the mighty (including the trade unions), which is not too severely practical, and which does not confine itself to what appears today as politically possible. We need intellectual leaders who are willing to work for an ideal, however small may be the prospects of its early realization. They must be men who are willing to stick to principles and to fight for their full realization, however remote.

❊ ❊ ❊

The main lesson which the true liberal must learn from the success of the socialists is that it was their courage to be utopian which gained them the support of the intellectuals and therefore an influence on public opinion which is daily making possible what only recently seemed utterly remote. Those who have concerned themselves exclusively with what seemed practicable in the existing state of opinion have constantly found that even this had rapidly become politically impossible as the result of changes in a public opinion which they have done nothing to guide — unless we can make the philosophic foundations of a free society once more a living intellectual issue, and its implementation a task which challenges the ingenuity and imagination of our liveliest minds. But if we can regain that belief in the power of ideas which was the mark of liberalism at its best, the battle is not lost.

The battle is not lost, and in fact the odds are strongly in our favor if we but decide to join arm-in-arm to make common cause in defense of, and to advance, the greatest economic system ever known to humanity. Capitalism is the only economic system which we can point to and say, “it has made substantive progress toward its seemingly utopian aims.”

(Feature Image: Fortune by Tadeusz Kuntze-Konicz, Fortune, 1754 from the Collection of the National Museum in Warsaw.)

A Reader Response to “The Right to Bear Arms”

Transpartisan Note #115

by A. Lawrence Chickering and James S. Turner

Our colleague, Rob Gibson, does not see his response to Anthony Picadio’s February 2019 article “The Right to Bear Arms: A Disfavored Right” as transpartisan. He couldn’t be further from the truth. Although his response represents only one voice amongst many contributors to the greater conversation, transpartisan examination of any issue requires both participation and a willingness on the participant’s part to add their point of view to the search for meaningful policies.

In “The Right to Bear Arms” context, we note that the 9th Amendment plays a role in the Supreme Court’s recognizing a right to keep a hand gun for self-defense in your home.  We note that the Supreme Court also recognizes the 9th Amendment as playing a role in the right to privacy on which it has based the right to choice in the abortion issue. How these kinds of issues are integrated offers fertile ground for transpartisan exploration.  Likewise, Rob Gibson’s comment on Anthony Picadio’s Disfavored Right article also seems to us to offer opportunity for similar transpartisan exploration.

We present Rob’s comment below…

———–

While the [Picadio] piece raises many important issues about the Second Amendment, it seems that what’s missing is an analysis of what the Second Amendment actually protects; how it’s currently exercised; and how those two factors could affect our future. It’s a simple matter to say militia use, in general, is protected. “Well regulated” can be interpreted in various ways. Original interpretations tend to be permissive, I think.

Certainly, the definition of militia is very permissive. Lots of collective action qualifies, but it’s undeniable that militia action starts with folks showing up self-armed. Forget rebellion against tyranny scenarios. Hurricanes, earthquakes, blizzards, mass power outages, riots, etc., all require and justify collective armed defense, which is why we all need more than one “militia weapon,” since nobody can stay awake 24 hrs. a day.

It amazes me to hear people discuss the issue with the implicit assumption that things can’t go wrong in our lifetime. The above disasters have meant that, probably in a majority of the country, if you dialed 911, there would be no answer or, if there was an answer, a response was days/weeks away.

Two related things interest me: One is the demographics. Our kids are going to inherit a lot of guns that they, in terms of culture and habits, are not really prepared to deal with. I asked my oldest daughter, who is 29, how she felt about this, and keep in mind, she likes guns and shoots very well. But she said, “I don’t really know what I’ll do with them.”

The other is technology. Our guns, well cared for, will last hundreds of years, ammo, at least many decades. But technology that will allow effective defense without killing or seriously injuring the recipient is not that far off. How will we deal with the use of deadly force once deadly force is practically obsolete?

Won’t this add a huge impetus to confiscation arguments? While these may not be Transpartisan issues, they are areas of interest for me around this subject.

– Rob Gibson

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Not only do we encourage you to add your own voice to this conversation by commenting on Rob’s response below, we also invite you to (re)visit the Picadio article and comment there as well. We also invite you to read Anthony’s latest contribution to The Transpartisan Review website, Privacy in the Age of Surveillance.

The above response was shared with us via email as an extemporaneous comment and has been edited for grammar and spelling. The feature image is provided CC BY 2.0 by Fibonacci Blue and features a pro-2nd Amendment rally on the steps of the Minnesota capitol building.