Thoughts on Being Politically Homeless for 11 Years
Plus, Why Some Far-Leftists Want Trump to be President Again
…around 2013, something changed. The left began to be heavily influenced by postmodern critical theory. Looking back, it began with the obsession about things like whether this or that was cultural appropriation, and whether to call out this or that. Then came the supposedly 'progressive' developments like 'safe speech', 'check your privilege' and 'xyz is a social construct'. And if you raised objections to these viewpoints, they would show their most severe displeasure at the minimum, and actively try to cancel you at the maximum. All this eventually evolved into what is commonly known as 'wokeness' and cancel culture. I guess this was why a lot of freedom-loving people began to 'leave the left'. The 'left', whatever it was, was no longer for us. It was no longer a place without a specific agenda, except to live and let live. It now had an agenda, and it was not very live and let live at all.
After essentially being forced out of the left, we became politically homeless. This did not feel very good, but you get used to it. But it really didn't feel good to be 'lonely', especially in the beginning. I guess this was why some people who 'left the left' this way ended up on the right, and often became its loudest cheerleaders. They needed to side with something. They needed a community to agree with. Just like we joined the 'left' because we opposed neoconservatism, they now joined the 'right' because they opposed the postmodern critical theory new left. I think that's a tragedy, because the right simply hasn't given up on its authoritarian tendencies. They never did, and I suspect they never will, given how much they depend on funding from the religious right and political organization based in evangelical churches. In fact, they appear to have taken authoritarianism to whole new heights in recent years, with the rise of 'national conservatism' (NatCon) and similar ideologies.
Why Some Far-Leftists Want Trump to be President Again
…The other problem is that, true leftists actually can't be moral purist to the point of being totally consequence-agnostic, because their philosophy requires praxis in the real world. Unlike libertarians, for example, who are often more interested in consistently upholding their philosophical principles like the NAP, leftists have a fundamental need to cause change in the real world, and would certainly prioritize effective action over philosophical consistency. (This is one reason why so many on the left can't understand the point of libertarianism, after all.) Thus, while a libertarian can, in their own philosophy, justifiably refuse to vote for both major party candidates simply because they aren't libertarians, without any care or consideration of the consequences, this course of action would never be justifiable under left-wing philosophy. Therefore, we can't just accept the leftist's apparent ideological purity, like we accept the libertarian's. Instead, we need to understand that, for the leftist, whether to support the Democratic candidate is a matter of praxis, i.e. a calculated decision aimed at advancing their cause. This is also why, you don't see libertarians working hard to discourage other people from voting for the major parties, but you see far-leftists working hard to discourage people from voting for Biden.
Let's look at a practical example: many leftists chose 'Bernie or Bust' in 2016, on the calculation that Bernie could still run in 2020, thus allowing them to continue to build their movement, and this historical opportunity was worth enduring four years of Trump…
The Real Problem with Andrea Long Chu's Extremism on Trans Kids
…So the real question here is, why is the media giving attention to a single, very extreme opinion that is totally not representative of what the trans community think at all? Remember, there are many moderate, reasonable trans people out there who remain excluded from a lot of the trans discussion simply because the media (on both sides) would not give us any attention. For example, I have been trying to bring people together to discuss possible compromises that would both accommodate the needs of the trans community, and resolve the very real concerns that other stakeholders in society still have towards trans rights reforms.
Yet my work, and that of other trans people with similar views, remains severely hampered by the fact that the media keeps treating us as non-existent. Contrast this to the fact that an unrepresentative and unproductive opinion like Chu's has just been allowed to take up valuable space that could otherwise have gone towards more productive discussion. This positively makes me angry. I am angry because the media would choose to get people riled up and polarized, when they could have featured more moderate voices that would bring people closer to the necessary compromises to get this issue resolved.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).