if you think that not selling arms to the saudis is going to save any lives in yemen...
i mean, they can always call the president and ask for another drone strike, right?
the saudi government is full of bad guys. sure. but the policy that needs to change is at a much higher level. the opposition to the arms deal is consequently really just a lot of empty moralizing.
which isn't to say that i think it should go through, so much as to say that i realize that it doesn't make any difference if it does or not.
the liberals will usually prefer to take the position of engagement over the position of boycott. and, it's probably legitimately the better starting point if you want to actually make some progress.
but, if you truly just want to pat yourself on the back without actually accomplishing anything substantive then by all means keep screaming and yelling.
he wants to be seeing it a little tighter than this, right now. but, it's not particularly surprising, either. i think the larger ramification out of new york may be a push for a more transparent primary process. it's simply undemocratic to cut off registration so far in advance.
fwiw, i am 100% supportive of fiat currency relations and i believe that a strong central bank is a necessity to prevent currency speculation by the wealthy. i would prefer to abolish currency and property altogether. but, so long as we are stuck with currency, i do believe that the fractional reserve banking is a superior system to any kind of fixed system of exchange, like the gold standard. i am a socialist. i understand that this is a socialist concept of currency. i support it because it is a socialist concept of currency.
i support a lender of last resort. i understand that the bailouts were loans. i believe that money can and should be printed at whatever volume is necessary to bring the economy to full employment. further, i realize that there is no such thing as debt.
so, i don't have any of these right-wing economic ideas. and, as such, i have little point of identification with the economic programme on the right.
i am a classical liberal on social issues, and i understand that i may be confusing to a lot of the modern left as a result of that. but, i am closer to a traditional concept of leftism than the modern left is. and, when i attack the left as authoritarian, i tend to do it from the left. that is, i tend to go after what passes as "liberalism" nowadays (from elizabeth warren through to the tumblr types) as a lot of confused conservatives. there's nothing liberal about the social justice warriors. it's just a post-modern spin on religion, and dangerous for all the same reasons.
we live in a reality where a defined left does not really exist. rather, we are presented with various strains of conservatism and told that they are liberalism and socialism, respectively. i reject all of this. so, you cannot place me on your spectrum, as you understand it.
but, i am clear where i stand in a broader spectrum. i am an anarchist/communist in the tradition of bakunin, kropotkin, wilde, malatesta and chomsky. i tend to lean marxist (mostly from engels, actually) on economic matters and liberal (mill, largely) on social matters. these are old fashioned perspectives that most people have jettisoned in favour of some concept of authoritarianism, to the point that i'm broadly misunderstood most of the time.
but, i am a leftist - a very pure one that refuses to be corrupted by conservative concepts of human nature, even when it takes me out into left field. that's fine. i'll set up camp. you'll leave me there. that's ok. but, make no mistake of this - a leftist, i am.
...even if i ultimately defer to science, whenever i can.
"As president, I will work to raise the federal minimum wage back to the highest level it’s ever been — $12 an hour in today’s dollars — and support state and local efforts to go even further."