Yesterday, there were primaries held in four states: Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, and West Virginia. I will need an extra day to go into the details, but for now, I will say that some of the results disappointed me. That said, I would like to discuss a related topic: What government is for, what leaders are for, and what we should want out of them.
In the past few weeks, I got into some arguments with people, some of them were conservative and some of them were self-professed liberals. Believe it or not, the most heated exchanges I had were with the liberals. Usually, the conservatives I’ve clashed with over the years have ghosted once I countered their points. Many right-wing talking points (and pundits) infuriate me because if they’re not bereft of substance, they are contradictor or appear to be contrarian in nature — but liberals can be especially vicious to each other over disagreements.
Of course, there are some things that infuriate me about other liberals — and I have come across a discussion that made me think about where I part ways with similar-minded people. I especially don’t care for social progressives, those I have called social justice warriors; it’s because their economic, domestic, and foreign policy viewpoints are nonexistent, informed by whoever runs the country, or contradictory to their state social viewpoints. Also, they tend to be very authoritarian and ostracize people who are not in lockstep with them; that’s very toxic to any type of discussion.
Now, this is what bothers me about anyone, regardless of their ideological standing: if they are party loyalists and/or blind ideologues. If someone follows a party no matter what, that’s a problem. We also have a problem if people put their ideology over people and they refuse to intake now information.
All of this is encapsulated with the discussion of leaders and government. I would also like to revisit some thoughts I shared about what makes a good leader because this will help illustrate where I stand on the matter.
Shmaltz and Menudo 