Nation-Building

Steven has a post at Red State that argues that liberals have a "I know what's best for you" mentality . He also points to the BART system in San Francisco, supposedly low sales numbers for Marko's book Crashing the Gate, and declining radio ratings for liberal network Air America, as examples. I certainly agree that the "what's best for you" mentality is antithetical to what I would broadly call the American Way of Life. I disagree as to how balanced the distribution of that behavior is along the political spetrum, however - it's less of a political impulse, in my opinion, and more of a simple failing of normal human behavior. It just manifests in different ways under different overlaying ideologies. That said, the BART ridership statistics show a pretty clear increasing trend . The total cost doesn't seem particularly crazy to me either - less than $1.7 billion , about half from a bond referendum passed back in 1962 for general infrastructure i...

I see a lot of critique against the Euston Manifesto in progressive circles and I decided to try and argue against the most common one - the accusation that it's an apology for imperialism. I posted a diary at DailyKos which I imagine will probably sink into the aether without any hope of rescue, like my previous ones .

Armando writes, at his new co-blogging venture with Josh Trevino "Swords Crossed" : First, those who know me are aware that I am as fierce a partisan Democrat as you can possibly find. When writng at daily kos that is the hat I wear. While being faithful to the facts, I have always written with one thing uppermost in mind - how can this help the Democratic Party? Here, my approach will be to try and discuss issues AND politics in a less partisan fashion. My beliefs will be the same. But my objectives will be different. My objective will be honest engagement. Josh Trevino is a good friend and a good person. His political beliefs are anathema to me, as mine are to him. But I respect his integrity and his intellect. I admit that his conclusions sometimes amaze me, but generally (we’re only human after all), I believe he arrives at them from honest thought. To me, this is the important first principle that allows for honest engagement on issues and politics. I hope that participa...

I'd cross-posted my Euston Manifesto praise below to a diary at DailyKos - which attracted all of two comments. As far as I know it's still the sole diary on the topic, which is kind of remarkable if you think about it. The Euston Manifesto is being trashed a bit - see for example this thread at EuroTrib and this rather ad-hominem attack at Crooked Timber . Interestingly, RedState praised my diary : Praise for dKos. No, really. [Moe Lane] I note with some pleasure this diary entry praising the Euston Manifesto (my thoughts on said Manifesto here). It is good to see individuals inside sites such as Daily Kos finally take any sort of stand against real tyranny and oppression; and may this diary entry be a harbinger of the day when we can count that site as being fully in the ranks of the Decent Left. Posted at 04/15/2006 11:15:53 PM EST Which I suppose does the Manifesto no favors. I am however sure that the Decent Left, when it arises, will be equally anxious to be joined ...

This is what I've been waiting for , for a long time. Founded by Norm Geras and Nick Cohen , it is a new democratic progressive alliance - committed to intellectual freedom, human rights, and progressive principles. It is pro-freedom and pro-labor, pro-liberty and pro-human rights. It is the synthesis of being liberal and being libertarian. It is the new American majority - it is Purple Politics. It is universal in a way that being just a Democrat or just a Republican can not be. It is a whole greater than the sum of its parts. Here is the formal announcement: Today, 13Apr06, we — bloggers, academics, campaigners, writers, scientists, journalists, citizens — launch the Euston Manifesto. With this document we hope to publicly assert our progressive, democratic, egalitarian, internationalist principles in the face of recent attacks upon them from the Right and, to our dismay, the Left. Many of us are of the Left, but we come from across the range of political positions. We are not fo...