DAILY News V. G. on Politics  'The Ice Flow' refers to the shifting blocks of American and Global interests and tries to sort out where the Ice is melting and where Glaciers may be forming. Vagabond Guru is committed to the REALITY behind much-abused words like 'Freedom', 'Democracy' and 'Equality'. I believe that Freedom means F-R-E-E-D-O-M - to immigrate, to expatriate, to say, write, wear, pray, screw, dress, associate, live and be in accordance only with one's OWN desires as long as, in so doing, no harm is done to others. A belief that the Private sphere is the province of each individual and the Public sphere is the shared place where we provide for the common welfare. In this conception, you are free to opt out of the Public sphere and understand you opt out not only of responsibility but of benefit and you are free to opt IN, realizing there are responsibilities that COME with the benefit. I believe that the Founders desired us to move towards ever truer levels of DEMOCRACY and that they, better than we, understood the perils of despotism, of religious and nationalistic indoctrination and sought a platform from which the American people could, collectively through the ballot box, insure that the Government was as Lincoln described 'of the people, by the people, for the people' and that only DIRECT elections - sans Party Apparatus, Electoral College, 'Caucuses', Super-Delegates and insider deals represents real Democracy for America. Additionally, I believe that America must stand up for those beliefs she espouses on their OWN merits - meaning it is right and good that we seek to spread Democracy to the four corners of the Earth and that is INCUMBENT upon us, as a Free people, to allow others to Democratically elect those that THEY wish to represent them - regardless of our (foreign) interests. We have the right, as Americans, to refuse to deal with a duly elected government that we believe means us harm but we do NOT have the right to tell other peoples who they should elect to lead them. To me, EQUALITY means what Thomas Jefferson called 'the Natural Aristocracy', one built upon MERIT rather than lineage, relationship or economic standing. I believe in what Martin Luther King referred to as 'the content of one's character, not the color of one's skin'. 21st Century Humanity has no need for reconciliation regarding matters of race, creed, faith, sexual orientation - what Mankind need only do is accept Dr. King's thesis and make no distinction between human beings based upon differences that are irrelevant.  If all are equal as our Declaration holds as 'self-evident' then no further distinction need be drawn. I believe, further, that Patriotism, Faith, Belief Systems are to be carried lightly and held closely and agree wholeheartedly in what Teddy Roosevelt said of Hyphenated-Americans: '... There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts "native" before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or English or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance. But if he is heartily and singly loyal to this Republic, then no matter where he was born, he is just as good an American as any one else. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else. For an American citizen to vote as a German-American, an Irish-American, or an English-American, is to be a traitor to American institutions; and those hyphenated Americans who terrorize American politicians by threats of the foreign vote are engaged in treason to the American Republic.' Lastly, I believe that American Media have lost touch with the vast accumulation of voices in the central sphere of American Life and exacerbated the divisions between us by catering to the Religious Right and the Counter-Culture Left, both of whom seek to DRIVE America in a direction in line with their group belief systems, thus enshrining their biases and prejudices in the law of the land. I believe that the Founders sought to build a Limited Government in which the rights of the INDIVIDUAL, being the sole identification that can account for EVERY human being, every citizen, every voter, must always take precedence and that the role of government is SERVICE not 'leadership', that the Presidency exists to manage the country's affairs with the broadest possible benefit in mind rather than to coerce citizens towards adherence with personal or group agenda. That Economic, Domestic, International and Security decisions must be made in line with the TOTALITY of American voices in mind, not only those of the party in power. I believe that one's faith, finances, sexuality and belief systems are solely the affair of that individual and that neither the state, nor the neighbor has any right to intrude upon those sacred and personal spheres.
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