Politics and Music

Artemus5,

“The 60's  movement was all about peace, love and ending wars. Yet since we, the baby boomers have grown and taken the roles of power, we have endless wars, violent riots and now the cancel culture where only one viewpoint is even allowed.”

As a  youth I marched to oppose the Vietnam War, and the songs of Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs, The Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe, and Barry Maguire were very much the playlist of protest. Even then there were Young Republicans who counterprotested, shouting Love it or Leave It,  Cut your hair, Get a job, etc. The ‘60s Woodstock generation was not everywhere the same, and there were plenty of straight young people who would not have had to reject the pieties of the left in order to become the adult Neo-Cons who pushed our dear country into endless unwinnable wars of opportunity.  As for “violent protests”, they were a reaction to police murder of Black men and really were a new expression of the Civil Rights movement.  Their legitimate protest was commingled with property damage in some places, but overwhelmingly they were peaceful. Left “Cancel culture” is a regrettable campus  phenomenon and an abuse of Social media.  On the Right It is more widely practiced …ask Liz Cheney!  

Why does Florida’s Ron DeSantis promote laws banning public schools from teaching the role played in our Founding by the legacy of Slavery by labeling it “CRT”?  Why ban the discussion of current thinking on gender identity by falsely claiming educators are “grooming” students?  In the current highly siloed world of Red vs. Blue, Truth is the central victim..

Please remember to add that the Democratic party of the 1800s was constituted by Andrew Jackson's Nativist/populist coalition, and the GOP was a brand new party devoted to abolition, with its base in the industrial North.  In today's world, the polical roles of the parties has flipped 180 degrees.  The GOP turned into its current alignment when it sought to improve its electoral performance by capturing George Wallace's voters.  The Democrats came to be what they are now after the Dixiecrats switched their alliegance to the newly re-positioned GOP.  Under FDR and LBJ, Democrats  championed of an activist Government promoting societal progress and strengthening the safety net.  The GOP opposes this, and favors nothing but reducing taxation.

The issue of stare decisis today is fraught with political overtones.  The SCOTUS with its new Republican appointed majority can lay waste to many progressive achievemants of the past by applying their tortured "originalist" logic.  Stare Decisis for Thee, Judicial Activism for Me.