SHOW AUDIO: Link is usually posted within about 72 hours of show broadcast. We take callers during this show at 713-526-5738.

 

Apologies for the layout.

TOPICS:  SUPPORT KPFT! Trump celebrates solar eclipse by looking up without special viewing glasses, Secret Service says it will run out of money to protect Trump and his family, The Republicans who want to legalize running over protesters, Russian defense official Embargoed by EU to replace Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Bannon’s departure has huge implications for the U.S.-China relationship, University of Texas takes down four Confederate statues overnight, Robert E. Lee would have wanted his statue (and others) removed. Here’s why, The Bernie Bros and sisters are coming to Republicans’ rescue, More

GUEST: OPEN FORUM

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio), a listener call-in show  airing live every Monday night from 9-10 PM (CT) on KPFT-FM 90.1 (Houston). My engineer is Bob Gartner.

Listen live on the radio or on the internet from anywhere in the world! When the show is live, we take calls at 713-526-5738. (Long distance charges may apply.)

For the purposes of this show, I operate on two mottoes:

• You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts;
  

  Houston Mayor Annise Parker [L] with Mike, just before the show. (Dec. 7, 2015)

• An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.

SIGNOFF QUOTE[s]:

“I, Robert E. Lee of Lexington, Virginia do solemn, in the presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, the Union of the States thereafter, and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithful support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves, so help me God.” ~ Amnesty oath to the United States (2 October 1865)

Madam, don’t bring up your sons to detest the United States government. Recollect that we form one country now. Abandon all these local animosities, and make your sons Americans.  ~ Advice to a Confederate widow who expressed animosity towards the northern U.S. after the end of the American Civil War, as quoted in The Life and Campaigns of General Lee (1875) by Edward Lee Childe, p. 331. Also quoted in “Will Confederate Heritage Advocates Take Robert E. Lee’s Advice?” (July 2014), by Brooks D. Simpson, Crossroads, WordPress. This quote is sometimes paraphrased as: “Madam, do not train up your children in hostility to the government of the United States. Remember, we are all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and bring them up to be Americans.”

1. 1.   Trump celebrates solar eclipse by looking up without special viewing glasses, By Herman Wong, The Fix, (WASHiNGTON POST) August 21, 2017 at 4:50 PM

   1. Emerging with first lady Melania and son Barron on the Truman Balcony of the White House shortly before the eclipse reached its apex, Trump waved at the crowd and responded to a reporter’s question — “How’s the view?” — with a thumbs up, according to the White House pool.
   2. Then he tilted his head upward and pointed toward the sky, prompting a White House aide standing beneath the balcony to shout “don’t look,” according to the White House press pool. It is unclear if Trump looked directly at the sun.

   2.   Secret Service says it will run out of money to protect Trump and his family Sept. 30, By Lisa Rein August 21, 2017 [Washington Post]

   a.   The Secret Service said Monday that it has enough money to cover the cost of protecting President Trump and his family through the end of September, but after that the agency will hit a federally mandated cap on salaries and overtime unless Congress intervenes.

   b.   If lawmakers don’t lift the cap, about a third of the agency’s agents would be working overtime without being paid, agency officials said.

   c.   …The spending limits are supposed to last through December, but the cost of protecting the president and members of the extended first family, who have traveled extensively for business and vacations, has strained the Secret Service, local governments and at least one other federal agency, the Coast Guard.

   3. The Republicans who want to legalize running over protesters, By Catherine Rampell Opinion writer [WASHINGTON POST] Opinions August 17, 2017

   a.   This year, Republican lawmakers in at least six states have proposed bills designed to protect drivers who strike protesters. The first bill was introduced in North Dakota in January, and similar bills have since come under consideration in North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Texas and Rhode Island.

   b.   They were joined by other states trying to discourage protests — typically relating to Black Lives Matter, the Dakota Access Pipeline or other left-leaning causes — that sometimes obstruct traffic.

   c.   The North Dakota bill would shield drivers from civil and criminal liability. The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Keith Kempenich, perversely suggested that shielding drivers who kill protesters was a necessary anti-terrorism measure.

   d.   Protesters who blocked cars were committing “an intentional act of intimidation — the definition of terrorism,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

   e.   … The bills all include language about how drivers who injure or kill protesters must have done so “unintentionally” or while exercising “due care” if they wish to be spared liability. (Hitting protesters intentionally, as the Charlottesville driver appears to have done, could still make one subject to civil and criminal liability.) Even so, the foreseeable effect of passing laws like these would be to change the calculus for any frustrated driver considering whether to plow through a crowd of protesters.

   f.     In five of the six states where bills were introduced, the legislation would shield drivers who hit protesters or demonstrators only. Drivers who kill pedestrians who are not out exercising their First Amendment rights would still be subject to the usual criminal and civil liabilities.

   g.   In other words, the purpose of these proposals was to make acts of protest, and acts of protest alone, more lethal.

   h.   So far none of these bills has made it into law. Hopefully Heyer’s tragic death this past weekend destroys their chances.

   1. The moral rot in the Republican Party runs deep.
   2. Maybe the state legislators who introduced these bills are malevolent, and maybe they’re just morons. In politics, I tend to err on the side of the latter explanation. Either way, they advocated reckless bills whose foreseeable consequence was increased vehicular killings.
   3. These politicians are not fit to serve the public, in any level of government.
   4. Residents of North Dakota, North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Texas and Rhode Island: Look these goons up and vote them out.
   5. Tough former Russian defense official to replace Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, BY Oren Dorell, [USA TODAY] Published | Updated 2:17 p.m. ET Aug. 21, 2017
   6. Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday appointed a former defense official, Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Antonov, to replace longtime and controversial Ambassador Sergey Kislyak as his envoy to the United States.
   7. Antonov, 62 and a 30-year veteran of the foreign ministry, is under sanctions imposed by the European Union for his role in the Ukraine conflict while serving as deputy defense minister. Russia has been supporting a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine. In 2015, the EU blacklisted him for “supporting the deployment of Russian troops in Ukraine.”

   5.   Bannon’s departure has huge implications for the U.S.-China relationship, By Josh Rogin[WASHINGTON POST]  August 18, 2017

   a.   The sudden departure of White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon could disarm his drive to drastically alter U.S. strategy on China. That effort was central to Bannon’s plan to transform U.S. foreign and economic policy.

   b.   “Bannon’s particular unique idea was that this is a civilizational challenge,” said Michael Pillsbury, who met with Bannon regularly on China over the past year. “His warning is, if they surpass us, they will have earned the privilege of redesigning the world order.”

   c.   As a special assistant to Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Thomas Hayward four decades ago, Bannon became enamored with the work of the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, led for decades by Andrew W. Marshall. Bannon believes the United States needs a long-term strategy for maintaining advantage over China similar to what Marshall helped devise for the Soviet Union, while acknowledging that the China challenge is much harder.

   d.   In Bannon’s view, the liberal international order the United States led since World War II has ceased to work in America’s interests. The theory that bringing China into that structure would transform China has failed and now the Chinese government abuses those systems to siphon huge amounts of wealth, technology and know-how from the United States and its partners…

   e.   [Bannon] also sees a new China policy as a pillar of his plan to reorient American politics around economic nationalism. He views the rebalancing of the U.S.-China economic relationship as key to returning manufacturing jobs to the United States and vice-versa.

   f.     Now that Bannon is gone, the Trump administration officials pushing for that realignment have lost their champion. “You had a guy at the chief-of-staff level leading that charge. Losing him creates a huge imbalance now,” one White House official said. As [Rampell has] previously argued, there’s plenty of blame to dump on President Trump for emboldening white supremacists and for encouraging violence against peaceful protesters. But to treat him as an aberration in encouraging violence against protesters — in particular, liberals and people of color — is flat wrong.

2. University of Texas takes down four Confederate statues overnight, By Amy B Wang [WASHINGTON POST] August 21 at 9:27 AM
   6. The statues of Lee, Johnston and Reagan will be reinstalled at UT’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, while the one of Hogg may be relocated to another campus site, Fenves said. Classes for the fall semester begin Aug. 30.
   7. Robert E. Lee would have wanted his statue (and others) removed. Here’s why. By Paul Prather, Contributing Columnist [Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader] August 14, 2017 12:42 PM
   8. … white supremacists carrying Confederate battle flags and sporting Nazi helmets turned a controversy over the planned removal of the town’s Gen. Robert E. Lee statue into a pitched street battle.
   9. Among their many sins, the supremacists in Charlottesville displayed a stunning ignorance of history — including how old Bobby Lee himself would have reacted to their spectacle.
   10. After his surrender to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, at the close of our nation’s bloody Civil War, Lee defied the illogic and passions of many of his fellow Southerners. He publicly, repeatedly advised them to move past the war, embrace peace and become stellar citizens of the United States.
   11. This directly contradicted the intentions of other leading Confederates, who urged Southern soldiers to hoard their weapons, melt into the hills and wage a never-ending guerrilla war.
   12. The late Kentuckian Charles Bracelen Flood, in his book “Lee: The Last Years,” writes that “conciliation was his creed. Lee knew that the war was over and that everything depended on a new attitude for a new day.”
   13. When a man in Richmond, Va., solicited donations for a monument to honor Lee’s legendary comrade Stonewall Jackson, Lee declined to contribute.
   14. In Flood’s words, “Lee believed that the erection of Confederate monuments would keep alive the wartime passions that he was trying to eradicate.”
   15. [Paul Prather, writer of this article is] not one of the Lost Cause’s wistful faithful who ennoble Robert E. Lee. Far from it. I believe he was tragically flawed to help lead the South in the Civil War.
   16. That said, there’s little question of what he’d say about that statue in Charlottesville — or the ones here in Lexington, for that matter.
   17. He’d say, “Cut them down, and forget them.”
3. Bernie Sanders’s advisers are promoting a “litmus test” under which Democrats who don’t swear to implement single-payer health care would be booted from the party in primaries. Sanders pollster Ben Tulchin penned an op-ed with a colleague under the headline “Universal health care is the new litmus test for Democrats.” Nina Turner, head of the Sanders group Our Revolution, told Politico this week that “there’s something wrong with” Democrats who won’t “unequivocally” embrace “Medicare-for-all.”

TOPICS FROM PREVIOUS WEEKS:

Is It Time for the U.S. to Rein in the Presidency? Two historians consider whether it’s time to raise the possibility of decentralization amid frustrations with the federal government. By Julian E. Zelizer and Morton Keller [Theatlantic.Com] Jun 9, 2017

Exclusive: In latest job, Jim DeMint wants to give Tea Party ‘ a new mission’,by Fredreka Schouten , [USA TODAY] Published 6:02 a.m. ET June 12, 2017

1. Former South Carolina senator Jim DeMint, ousted last month as head of the Heritage Foundation think tank, is joining a fast-growing, conservative movement that is pushing states to seek a constitutional convention to rein in federal spending and power.
2. DeMint, a prominent figure among the Tea Party activists who helped Republicans seize control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 2010, will serve as a senior adviser to the Convention of the States Project, providing a jolt to its efforts to marshal grassroots support for a state-led movement to amend the U.S. Constitution.
3. Under Article V of the Constitution, there are two avenues to propose amendments: Two-thirds of each house of Congress can vote to do so or two-thirds of the states – 34 in total – can request the convention.
4. In either case, three-fourths of the states – or 38 states – must ratify any amendment proposed by convention delegates.
5. The movement DeMint is joining asks for a convention covering three sweeping topics: imposing “fiscal restraint” on Washington, reducing the federal government’s authority over states and imposing term limits on federal officials.
6. The group said the convention that results from the state applications could also propose a range of amendments from one requiring the federal government to balance the budget or to one ending lifetime appointments for federal judges, including Supreme Court justices.
7. At the center of the effort: Mark Meckler, a co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, and his nonprofit, Citizens for Self-Governance. Meckler has teamed up with other conservative groups, including American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), to advance the plan at the state level.
8. Later this summer, he will travel to Denver to address conservative state legislators at ALEC’s annual gathering. ALEC, whose members include Republican lawmakers and business interests, writes model legislation, allowing conservative lawmakers to quickly replicate bills across the country. It has adopted the Article V language advanced by Meckler’s group.
9. Legal questions abound: Would the convention be open to the public? Is it fair to allow tiny states like Maine to have the same power as populous states like California at a convention? And how would states prevent a “runaway convention” that could make wholesale changes to the Constitution on everything from religion and gun rights?
10. Proponent[s] say their application limits of the scope of a convention to amendments that deal with federal term limits, fiscal restraints on the federal government and limits on Washington’s power.
11. Bu[t] some legal experts question whether organizers can limit the topics at all. “When there’s a constitutional convention, in a sense, all bets are off,” said Michael Gerhardt, an expert on the Constitution and a law professor at the University of North Carolina. “I would think almost anything would be fair game.”
12. As the under-the-radar movement gains steam, some liberal groups and Democratic legislators are scrambling to block proponents from reaching the two-thirds threshold. This year, New Mexico, Maryland and Nevada all rescinded their applications for a convention, some of them on the books for decades. Delaware did so last year.
13. Opponents say the topics described by the convention advocates are broad enough to bring sweeping change. “This idea of opening up our Constitution, which gives everyone in the country our basic protections, is a bad idea, particularly in this hyper-partisan environment,” said Viki Harrison, the executive director of Common Cause New Mexico. She helped lead the successful effort to yank New Mexico’s convention applications — one of which dated to 1951.

ALEC’s Application for a Convention of the States under Article V of the Constitution of the United States

Article V, U.S. Constitution (The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

1. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

FREE SPEECH: What’s constitutionally guaranteed and what’s culturally expected

1. 1^st Amendment:  First Amendment | Constitution | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
2. The Amendment protects us against Government interference in speech, press and religion.
3. NON-government interference – private businesses, publishers. Etc. – is more culturally entrenched but usually not illegal.
   1. The Amendment protects us against Government interference in speech, press and religion.
   2. NON-government interference – private businesses, publishers. Etc. – is more culturally entrenched but usually not illegal.A Civics discussion:
      1. Our founders did not design our government to be “efficient”. They designed it to be “safe”.
      2. People who say that they want government to run like a business miss the point: Government is NOT a business.
      3. People who say that they want government to run like a household miss the point: Government is NOT a household.
      4. Government is a Sovereign, which is an entirely different and unique thing, totally unlike a business or a household.
      5. No one branch of government is meant to be ‘supreme’. The 3 branches of government – executive, legislative and judicial – were designed to be co-equal.
      6. The tug-of-war that goes on among them – this inefficient, tug-of-war that goes on among them – is designed to slow things down, and make them “safe” but “inefficient’.
      7. In today’s terminology, the inefficiency designed into our government is not a “bug”. It’s a “feature”.
      8. I’ve said for many years that people who have run big businesses should not be politicians, and certainly should not be president. If there was ever an example of why I believe that, it’s Trump.
      9. We are now experiencing the wisdom of that “feature”, as the Trump regime attempts to establish its Supremacy over the other branches.

NATO – Topic: Collective defence – Article 5

1. Highlights
   1.  Collective defence means that an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies.
   2. The principle of collective defence is enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.
   3. NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States.
   4. NATO has taken collective defence measures on several occasions, for instance in response to the situation in Syria and in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
   5. NATO has standing forces on active duty that contribute to the Alliance’s collective defence efforts on a permanent basis.
2. TEXT: NATO  Article 5
   1. “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
   2. ii) Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.” “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.
   3. Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.”

LINKS:

• Emoluments Clause of the Constitution (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia):
  1. The Ineligibility Clause, one of the two clauses often called the Emoluments Clause,^[1][2] and sometimes also referred to as the Incompatibility Clause^[3] or the Sinecure Clause,^[4] is found in Article 1, Section 6, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution. It places limitations upon the employment of members of Congress and prohibits employees of the Executive Branch from serving in Congress during their terms in office. The name “Ineligibility Clause” is only used by a minority of writers, as compared to the name “Emoluments Clause”.^[1][2][5]
  2. The clause states: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.”
• Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

The Twenty-fifth Amendment (Amendment XXV) to the United States Constitution deals with succession to the Presidency and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, as well as responding to Presidential disabilities. It supersedes the ambiguous wording of Article II, Section 1, Clause 6 of the Constitution, which does not expressly state whether the Vice President becomes the President or Acting President if the President dies, resigns, is removed from office or is otherwise unable to discharge the powers of the presidency.^[1] The Twenty-fifth Amendment was adopted on February 10, 1967.^[2]

• 1. Section 1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
  2. Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
  3. Section 3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
  4. Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
  5. Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.^[3]
• Group will sue Trump over business’ foreign profits, By Cyra Master 2 hrs ago (The Hill) 1/22/2017 via MSN
  1. The Title of Nobility Clause [Also known as the Emoluments Clause] is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, that prohibits the federal government from granting titles of nobility, and restricts members of the government from receiving gifts, emoluments, offices or titles from foreign states without the consent of the United States Congress. Also known as the Emoluments Clause, it was designed to shield the republican character of the United States against so–called “corrupting foreign influences”. This shield is reinforced by the corresponding prohibition on state titles of nobility in Article I, Section 10, and more generally by the Republican Guarantee Clause in Article IV, Section^[2] ~ Title of Nobility Clause – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_of_Nobility_Clause
  2. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) announced Sunday night it is bringing a suit “to stop President Trump from violating the Constitution (the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause ) by illegally receiving payments from foreign governments.”
  3. At issue is Trump’s refusal to divest from his business or place his assets into a blind trust, which would separate him entirely from his business empire. He has said his adult sons will run his business while he is in office, that they will not conduct any foreign deals and will subject any domestic deals to an ethics review.

 SOURCES WHICH MAY BE RELEVANT TO OTHER DISCUSSION:

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1. Trial Balloon for a Coup? Analyzing the news of the past 24 hours, by Yonatan Zunger
2. Four Freedoms, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The Four Freedoms were goals articulated by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 6, 1941. In an address known as the Four Freedoms speech (technically the 1941 State of the Union address), he proposed four fundamental freedoms that people “everywhere in the world” ought to enjoy:
   1. Freedom of speech
   2. Freedom of worship
   3. Freedom from want
   4. Freedom from fear
   5. Roosevelt delivered his speech 11 months before the United States declared war on Japan, December 8, 1941. The State of the Union speech before Congress was largely about the national security of the United States and the threat to other democracies from world war that was being waged across the continents in the eastern hemisphere. In the speech, he made a break with the tradition of United States non-interventionism that had long been held in the United States. He outlined the U.S. role in helping allies already engaged in warfare.

• Differences between Liberals, Conservatives, Libertarians and neo-Conservatives
  • Left–right politics, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    • History of the terms: The terms “left” and “right” appeared during the French Revolution of 1789 when members of the National Assembly divided into supporters of the king to the president’s right and supporters of the revolution to his left. One deputy, the Baron de Gauville, explained, “We began to recognize each other: those who were loyal to religion and the king took up positions to the right of the chair so as to avoid the shouts, oaths, and indecencies that enjoyed free rein in the opposing camp.” However the Right opposed the seating arrangement because they believed that deputies should support private or general interests but should not form factions or political parties. The contemporary press occasionally used the terms “left” and “right” to refer to the opposing sides.^[9]
  • Greens and Libertarians: The yin and yang of our political future, by Dan Sullivan (originally appearing in Green Revolution, Volume 49, No. 2, summer, 1992)
    • … Libertarians tend to be logical and analytical. They are confident that their principles will create an ideal society, even though they have no consensus of what that society would be like. Greens, on the other hand, tend to be more intuitive and imaginative. They have clear images of what kind of society they want, but are fuzzy about the principles on which that society would be based.
    • Ironically, Libertarians tend to be more utopian and uncompromising about their political positions, and are often unable to focus on politically winnable proposals to make the system more consistent with their overall goals. Greens on the other hand, embrace immediate proposals with ease, but are often unable to show how those proposals fit in to their ultimate goals.
    • The most difficult differences to reconcile, however, stem from baggage that members of each party have brought with them from their former political affiliations. Most Libertarians are overly hostile to government and cling to the fiction that virtually all private fortunes are legitimately earned. Most Greens are overly hostile to free enterprise and cling to the fiction that harmony and balance can be achieved through increased government intervention.
    • Amongst published researchers, there is agreement that the Left includes anarchists, communists, socialists, progressives, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, anti-racists, democratic socialists, greens, left-libertarians, social democrats, and social liberals.^[5][6][7]
    • Researchers have also said that the Right includes capitalists, conservatives, monarchists, nationalists, neoconservatives, neoliberals, reactionaries, imperialists, right-libertarians, social authoritarians, religious fundamentalists, and traditionalists.^[8]

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