Posted on by Nathan Riley

Is Trump a Tyrant?

Trump is making everybody nervous. His latest proposal for a 30-day ceasefire threatens his plans to establish normal relations with Russia.

Russia will only accept a ceasefire if Ukraine demobilizes its armed forces. Putin won’t allow Ukraine to rearm during a ceasefire, and so far he is winning this war. At the same time, Putin would look really bad if he rejected this idea. So Trump is making everybody nervous. Is he destroying the progress he’s made towards normal relations with Russia? Or is he making nice to the vast majority in the United States who damn Russia for invading Ukraine?

His other claim to progress in foreign affairs is the ceasefire between Palestine and Israel continues. But everybody is worried that war will resume any week now. Given the intense hatred between Israel and Palestine, this tension will remain normal.

The two wars conducted when Joe Biden was President horrified me and made me an unenthusiastic Democrat. Trump is doing so badly that he is restoring my enthusiasm for the Democrats.

His attacks on DEI, a desirable Democratic program, have inescapable racist overtones and anti-LGBTQ messages. His promises to dismiss and humiliate women make Trump indefensible. To nobody’s surprise, the President makes rational discussion impossible.

Diversity is a necessary ingredient of Democracy. It makes the pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian Americans members of the same community. In this sense, it serves the goal of inclusion—we should all get along. Equity offers all persons in the United States an opportunity to choose their own path.

Trump tears down computer sites offering applications for student loans, making it difficult, if not impossible, for families to pay for higher education. Computer information about filing a complaint is quelled.

It is absurd and embarrassing that in the 21st century the United States is closing its Department of Education. All governments have education offices, and the United States looks screwy to close its department.

Clear signals are being sent that it is okay to hire whites and create obstacles to blacks and Spanish-speaking people. Turning the Civil Rights gains of the 1960’s into partisan programs supported by Democrats and opposed by Republicans is a sop to those who accept the weak arguments that blacks and Spanish-speaking people take jobs away from whites. The objective should be finding jobs for everybody.

It is foolish to blame diversity, equity, and inclusion for making wages fall behind rising prices. The public has to make this clear to the political leadership. Prosperity is not full employment; prosperity is full employment if wages keep up with prices.

Trump’s pleasure at squashing DEI programs is too often embarrassing. On March 7th, the Enola Gay was removed from the Defense Department’s website. The word “gay” is a no-no, and Defense Department Secretary Hegseth has banned it from its website. Unhappily, Enola Gay doesn’t mean two guys holding hands; it is the name of the airplane that dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima in 1945. Like the censors, who try to squelch sexual scenes, banning words leads to foolish embarrassment that makes, in this case, the Defense Department look stupid.

Add it all up, and Trump appears to be volunteering for the role of tyrant. He is tilting at programs that make free speech and divergent political views feasible. He gets furious when his order doesn’t happen. Most adults accept that they only get their way some of the time. It is unclear if Trump has accepted this reality.

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Immigration Crisis

In case you missed it, the growing number of immigrants in this country is a major political issue. Whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump becomes the new President, they and their political party must deal with the political fallout.

The arrival of hundreds of thousand of Venezuelans will move the nation to the right. They and most U.S. journalists have an easy explanation for their plight: socialism. Venezula used to be a wealthy Latin American nation until it took control away from the U.S. oil companies pumping black gold from the nation’s large reserves. This political act forced Venezuela into poverty. According to the U.S. version of events, President Nicolas Maduro led a reign of political oppression, stifling Venezuelans who supported the privileged position of the big oil companies.

It wasn’t U.S. wealth and prosperity that brought the Venezuelans to the U.S. border. It was the turmoil and economic downturn in their country that persuaded Venezuelans to make the long journey.  

A U.S. embargo against the “authoritarian” regime of President Maduro prevents the country from using U.S. dollars in its trade. Like most countries, Venezuela depends on imports for vital supplies; no dollars meant no supplies. Venezuelan doctors have complained about severe shortages of medicine. In any case, the political turmoil from the U.S. blockade has led to the emigration of seven million Venezuelans.

In Haiti, the breakdown of the government led to severe lawlessness. Gangs took over the country. Thousands fled, many reaching the United States border. These are the people Trump claimed ate the pets of Ohio residents. In Texas, the flood of Haitians has created grave tensions among Mexican Americans, many of whom have families and friends in Mexico. Border crossings that used to take a matter of minutes can now take hours.

Immigration will be a central issue in the United States, no matter who wins the election. The arrival of Venezuelans who believe their nation was ruined by socialism means they will be a conservative force. If either Democrats or Republicans make a plausible case that a new policy is socialist, we can expect the Venezuelans in the United States to oppose it. Most likely these new immigrants, like the Cubans who fled Fidel Castro, will become stalwart Republicans. Democrats will no longer assume that immigrant voters are supporters.

The point of this article is that a world government, in all likelihood, would prevent these mass migrations. The collapse of the Haitian government would automatically lead the United Nations, assuming it had become the global sovereign, to send armed forces to restore order in Haiti and provide assistance to this beleaguered nation.

The complaints of the United States about Venezuela could then be adjudicated by a world court, which could use soldiers to enforce its decisions. In this way, world government prevents crises that force thousands, if not millions, of people to leave their homes searching for safety. For example, migrations, from North Africa especially, shattered German political coalitions and forced Angela Merkel, surely one of the great leaders of this century, to resign.

It is easy to understand that Americans would be skittish about giving up sovereignty and placing it in the hands of the United Nations, whose authority would increase drastically if it became the sovereign responsible for making the Earth’s people cooperate and stop crises from developing.

Crises in far away countries are causing political turmoil in the wealthy nations. A world government can moderate, perhaps even prevent, the turmoil that convinces families to leave their native land in the hopes of finding a better future.

This is hardly the only benefit of world government. Indeed, a chief objective is preventing wars that plague the world. But by forcing nations to justify their actions and consider the impacts on other countries there would be a substantial increase in world cooperation. One obvious benefit is international cooperation to deal with climate change and reclaim desert lands. As these arid regions acquire water, transported across national boundaries, they will help feed the world’s growing population.

We live in a global economy and the advent of new information technologies like computers means that one institution, the U.N., can keep track of the world’s problems and offer assistance.

Such assistance will not always be welcome. Israel recently banned U.N. relief workers from their nation. The United States’s 62-year blockade of Cuba was recently rejected by 187 nations in the General Assembly. Only the United States and Israel supported the continued isolation of Cuba, which has found itself so short of petroleum that there have been electrical blackouts.

A major reason for the U.S. blockade are the Cuban-American votes in Florida, which are hardly a majority but are sufficiently large to make candidates lose if they support reform of U.S. Cuban policy. World government removes this obstacle.

World government is no panacea. Undoubtedly, nations will have conflicts and political groups will demand governmental reforms. But what world government promises when these conflicts occur is that the nations or their dissident citizens resolve their arguments with lawyers, not bullets. This is surely such a great benefit that the United States and other nations in the world should consider giving up their sovereignty in favor of making the United Nations the chief government in the world.

Posted on by Nathan Riley · 1 Comment

Strategy

Abraham Lincoln, at 33 and on his way to becoming a leader of the Whig Party in Illinois offered this caution to a local temperance society about helping people give up drink. His advice was simple: offer friendship. If you don’t do this but choose “to dictate to his judgment… or to mark him as one to be shunned and despised, he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself…you shall be no more be able to pierce him, than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise.” Be gentle, caring, and friendly was Lincoln’s advice.

Freedom Democrats are trying to start a movement by cultivating friendship. The key organizing tool is weekly parties. In my opinion, it should be an opportunity for sex workers, persons who are not highly educated, and those who want to reform government to dance, talk, and become friends.

United in their belief that freedom includes the right to take the currently illegal drugs, trade sex for money, watch and make porn, these people can unite in a common cause. One main hope is that these parties can bring the college professor together with the high school dropout. To be a success, black, brown, and white people must be welcomed and have fun.

The objective is to become players in the Democratic Party, and from this base, to have an impact on government.

Everybody goes to parties and has good times. The key to success is that everybody feels welcome at these weekly events. No special skills are required to throw a party, but since Freedom Democrats are political, the hosts should establish ties with lawyers. It can be expected that while we are enjoying ourselves other people will badmouth us and some will call the cops.

In this way, from the very beginning, the host will establish ties with people knowledgeable about the law. A major objective of Freedom Democrats is to get activists and people with little interest in politics to become acquainted. In this way, Freedom Democrats can grow until they have an impact.

People who party should become friends with coat-and-tie people.

For years, congress has talked endlessly about making marijuana legal, but in the end fear of change has limited progress to baby steps. The same hesitation slows progress among state and local officials. Freedom Democrats are numerous, and the strategy is to create unity so that politicians take notice.

By throwing parties we develop local bases in communities all over the state.

In my opinion, Freedom Democrats should push for new attitudes. Drug users should be able to go to their doctors without interference from government agencies like the DEA. Some people want to give up their habit; others want to be left alone. It is a private matter between the doctor and the drug user. Drug users, like everyone else, should get substances prepared by doctors and scientists that minimize side-effects.

Currently, drug users must buy their drugs from underground suppliers without any of the safeguards that a person has when they take a prescription to a drugstore. Overdose deaths rocketed higher after politicians made the disastrous mistake of telling Oxycontin users that they could no longer get pharmaceutical drugs. It made no more sense than telling overweight people they can no longer buy food. The chance of an Oxycontin user overdosing is limited, while illegal drugs are killing thousands every month. The Oxycontin users should have had the right to go to their doctor and develop a course of treatment. It is obnoxious and stupid for government to simply tell people, “Stop,” denounce the drug, and then expect people to give it up. Some do, but many don’t and buy their drugs from dealers. Government, in its stupidity, created a large market for criminals. Some Freedom Democrats can make it clear that this stupid policy subsidized criminals.

In recent months, wars in Palestine and Ukraine have added to the list of armed conflicts that are a constant feature of this century. Since the German philosopher Immanuel Kant and the United States’ Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delanor Roosevelt have recognized that the best way to hinder war is to start a world government that controls national states.

For this reason, I proposed that the United Nations become such a world government. It is a change that is familiar to American history. The Confederation of 13 colonies that beat the British couldn’t last. The Confederacy was too weak to collect taxes, make it easy to do business between states. Thus, in 1787, after the peace treaty was signed with Great Britain, a group of patriots drafted the Constitution, and the Confederation became history.

I propose that similar agreements be drafted that would control Israel, Russia, China, the United States, and all the other countries in the world. If a dispute develops, these nations would hire lawyers, not troops. I have no idea if this proposal would prove popular in the United States or with Freedom Democrats, but it is a major reason why I want the Freedom Democrats to get organized.