America’s ‘loony’ left – the mainstream

[:en]kate shaw - law professor[:]

https://cardozo.yu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/scale_850x850/public/2020-04/KATE_SHAW_480-ret-flat-crop-8×8-HI-RES.jpg?itok=WgRhWvvd

There was a popular phrase in the UK from 1980’s – ‘the loony left’. This was directed at the far left, such as members of the Trotskyite movement. However, the strange behaviour of what passes for a left in USA can be described as fairly ‘loony’, and, ironically, these persons and views are part of the Democratic mainstream.

GUN CONTROL

Somehow the American left have bought the idea that the availability of guns causes school massacres. This is so implausible and obviously wrong one wonders how such thoughtful people could be persuaded to buy this lie. Switzerland has laws requiring mass gun ownership but does not experience US levels of gun crime. There is a Taoist position: let there be weapons but let no one have any use for them. So, according to that view the issue is not the availability of guns but the fact that people have a bad use for them. This leads us to a far better understanding of the issue: mental health. 

For some young person to wish to kill their grandmother and fellow students seems prima facie evidence of serious mental health issues. While the data is unclear there seems some correlation between low per capita mental health spending per state and mass shootings.

Rather than a debate about the quality and availability of mental health services, the left debate gun laws as if healthy people go about killing their parents and fellow students. Mental health services is an area of substantial budgetary expenditure, so it suits a neo-liberal and neo-cons to divert the discussion towards something as cheap as changing gun laws…. And the American loony left bought it.

ABORTION

Kate Shaw, Melissa Murray, Leah Litman expressed the mainstream Democratic point of view:(NOTE 1)

They express violent vituperation against the Supreme Court overturning of Roe v Wade. BUT NOT ONE WORD about the rights of the child! All their arguments about a woman’s rights over her own body would imply that a baby was like her tonsils or a kidney, not a sacred being within them. Following their stated argument would allow abortions up till the moment of delivery.

If the Catholic Church is on one side, then some engagement will be necessary to change opinion. Repeated rantings about a woman’s body is preaching to the choir. There are quite legitimate competing claims. Failing to address the competing claims reveals a deep pattern of group thinking.

UKRAINE

Almost to a man and a woman, the USA left supports the war in Ukraine. This is despite the fact that NATO admits preparing for this war since 2014 and Poroshenko’s admission that the Minsk accord was never entered into sincerely but just as a ruse to buy time to prepare for an intended war.

‘The former president apparently confirmed that Kiev hadn’t come to the talks in good faith, but simply wanted a reprieve after suffering a military defeat.  Note 2( 

Jens Stoltenberg added to the story:

‘The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has been preparing for a conflict with Russia since 2014, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday. Addressing media reporters following the NATO summit in Madrid…. “The reality is also that we have been preparing for this since 2014,” he said. “That is the reason that we have increased our presence in the eastern part of the alliance, why NATO allies have started to invest more in defence, and why we have increased [our] readiness.” (NOTE 3)

THE RESTORATION

This period after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that brought about the unipolar moment, and which many considered the end of history, was really a ‘restoration’. We have to look at the restoration that followed the English Revolution, and the restoration that followed the French Revolution. In both cases the ‘ancien regime’ returned only to remind everyone why the revolution had occured in the first place. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the restoration has been reminding people exactly why the Russian revolution took place. The ancien regimes brought impoverishment of the majority of the population, pillaging of pensions, and unnecessary wars. In the midst of all this the US left is all for the restoration. ’Loony left’ seems the most appropriate moniker.+

NOTES

  1.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twb_v78C1q4 
  2. https://ussanews.com/2022/06/18/poroshenko-admits-the-minsk-agreements-were-merely-a-distraction-to-buy-time-and-allow-ukraine-to-build-up-its-military/ 
  3. https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/russia-ukraine-crisis/natos-stoltenberg-admits-alliance-has-been-preparing-for-conflict-with-russia-since-2014-articleshow.html