The Purple Noose of Freedom

Democrats, do as you are told!

As a left-wing progressive, I believe that each human is important and that society should be organized in such a way as to promote the maximum level of individual freedom for the greatest number of people. In the progressive tradition, I interpret “freedom without options” to be “slavery” and therefore I utterly reject the libertarian fantasy that freedom means you are on your own and isolated with only the resources you received from your rich parents. For this reason, I favor the policies presented by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Now both Sanders and Warren are out of the running and Joe Biden is the Democratic Party’s designated presidential candidate. There couldn’t be a more stark contrast, Joe Biden agrees with the Republican views on almost all levels. He believes that corporate officers are god-like captains of industry and magical creators of jobs. He believes that the budget of the federal government is separate from and irrelevant to the private economy. He believes that white men are superior to white women who are almost superior to black men. He believes that poor people are poor because they don’t work as hard as Jeff Bezos who works literally ten thousand times harder than the single mother with three jobs.

Meanwhile Sanders believes that in order to be free, one must be part of a civilized society wherein, for certain common needs, everyone participates in assuring that reliable resources are provided to meet those needs. He agrees with Franklin Delano Roosevelt who cited a British judge proclaiming that “A necessitous man is not a free man.” We are communal creatures. On a desert island isolated from all other humans our freedom is technically assured but literally meaningless. Living in a de facto society where our actions invariably either help or hurt others, our true freedom derives through cooperation with others in a common project to assure best possible outcomes for all involved. We together must join into a society which facilitates a healthy body of resources into which the citizens contribute and from which the citizens may draw.

These two philosophies are diametrically opposed: one believing that people are individual actors responsible, in this ruthless wasteland, for winching themselves from the muck by their very bootstraps and the other believing that individuals should form a rational community and help each other to thrive. Nonetheless, the rational advocate is no longer in play. When that happens, of course, all left-wing progressives are called upon to enthusiastically support and promote, the moderate compromise that the Democratic Party has selected. I have done this for forty years and am told that I should be pleased with the results.

Freedom Is Not Free Thinking (apparently)

This, of course, is entirely reasonable. I, and people like me, happily vote for whatever candidate our party has elevated. We do this because to vote for the candidate we think will make the best president, such as the Green candidate, would allow evil to triumph and would serve as an affront to the political experts to whom we have sworn fealty. Only by voting as our party tells us can we truly be free thinking liberals. Free thinking is important but it can be carried too far.

Our Democratic Party leaders understand that if we change things too quickly, there will be great suffering. The heads of giant monopolies will have to give up summer homes; the petroleum industry will have to give way to renewable energy; and the drug industry will be required to cure diseases which have become very profitable as chronic illnesses. Surely no moderate person wants to see that happen. Therefore, we are better to elect executive and legislative officers who will hold our current system steady for the remaining habitable future of our planet.

Thanks to our highly profitable petroleum industry, this future may be manageable thanks to its relatively limited duration. As the oceans acidify and the marine algae and free cyanobacteria begin to burn, they may stop producing the oxygen that promotes the current system. Now that kind of change is natural and therefore any moderate would agree that it is good. The rich will artificially produce oxygen and will sell it to those they need; thus everyone will have access to oxygen (if they can pay for it) in exactly the same way that everyone has access to healthcare. A better system could not be conceived even though it is as fragile and temporary as any profit-based plan.

For the time remaining, the Democratic Party reminds us that we should let our established leaders inform each of us regarding the direction we must take. Pay close attention to the primary conduit of essential information and its sincere and attractive pundits. Rachel Maddow will assure that you do not stray from the designated path. Chris Hayes will provide the continued comforting assurance that all will be well as long as you do as you are instructed. There is no time to actually research other alternatives, you need to hold down two jobs just to put food on the table. Back when The League of Women Voters (LWV) was sponsoring debates among the Presidential candidates, all significant parties were included. Numerous alternative views were presented for evaluation by the electorate. In 1987, the LWV withdrew because the Democratic and Republican parties insisted that they be the only participants in a fraudulent pretense at debate. This, of course, was good because we really don’t have time to consider hard problems or alternatives to the provided canon. Let the Party do the thinking. That is what the Party is for.

You Can Smell the Moderately Better

So, to be free, we are best to leave the thinking to the adults in the room. They are the ones who have actually thought through the long-term strategy. They are the most qualified and surely no one, not even Greta Thunburg, could disagree with that. By charting our course with reference to a forty year pedigree of failure, our Republican colleagues will be emotionally scarred by our harshly worded missives of disdain while they continue their sincere and well-funded enterprise of corruption.

Yes, well-funded is the key and those funds come from Capitalism which we are told by Nancy Pelosi is the only way to organize an economy. For this reason, Capitalists must prevail so that we all may help them prosper. A Joe Biden presidency will be greatly superior to a second Trump term. With conservative Democrats manning the congress, he will assure that the next nomination to the Supreme Court is moderate and well-behaved. This will lead to slightly less strident rulings in favor of large corporate doners. He will assure that the medical industry remains profitable and that your euphemistic access to health care is assured. President Biden will see to it that the economy continues to favor the wealthy and that unions are not allowed to thrive.

The corruption will be held in check while incompetent Supreme Court decisions drive future rulings as if they had been written by a legitimate body. It must be held in check because to eliminate it would require that the infestation be expunged root and branch, and our Republican colleagues would certainly have a thing or two to say about that. Listen carefully. Lawrence O’Donnell will remind you that expunging corruption is not what Democrats do. This is not Progressive. That rude weed died with the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Let us not nurture our failures but instead the heavily perfumed corpse flower of compromise and moderation that the Democratic Party so confidently tends. You will be reminded that the sweet scent of corporate domination almost completely obscures the slight odor of decay built up over forty years of submission. Instead we will vote as we are directed for moderate centrists who will successfully oversee the gradual collapse of our Democracy as opposed to a Republican-led precipitous crumbling. That is surely superior to a revolutionary reforming of our government by the unwashed masses who might make laws infringing upon the rights of the wealthy. Oh, it is certainly convenient to be able to purchase a wide variety of healthy foods and to vote without hindrance and to receive regular medical examinations; but we must not cause the wealthy to suffer for our convenience.

A revolution wherein the workers withhold their services in pursuit of substantive change would be oh so messy and inappropriate. A nation-wide boycott of Amazon would be very inconvenient leaving many people to actually walk through physical shops and interact with other people. A series of large protests demanding 100% renewable energy would simply not be covered by the corporate media and therefore would never have happened. So, my Democratic reader, you must surely see that you should vote as you are told. The alternative is simply not practical.

Julian S. Taylor is the author of Famine in the Bullpen a book about bringing innovation back to software engineering. Available at or orderable from your local bookstore. Rediscover real browsing at your local bookstore. Also available in ebook and audio formats at Sockwood Press.