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Ramaswamy's ten 'TRUTHs' are a mixture of lies, damn lies, and opinion [1]
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Date: 2023-08-21
For whatever reason, Vivek Ramaswamy is the leading also-ran in the Republican primaries. Ron DeSantis still has a small polling lead over the unknown tech entrepreneur — whose wealth now hovers around $1B. However, the bookies have Ramaswamy as both the second favorite, behind Trump, to win the GOP nomination - and a better bet than DeSantis to win the presidency, behind Biden and Trump.
I have no idea if his early favorability among non-Trump Republicans will last through the debates and into the primaries. However, he can speak in sentences. And he has a list of ten TRUTHs, which I assume he is running on.
He took to Twitter to share his beliefs with the world. And in doing so received an attaboy from social media’s richest troll.
x He states his beliefs clearly.
https://t.co/SjpuXLCFpo — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 18, 2023
So while Vivek is still with us, let us consider his philosophy.
1. God is real.
As with all non-Christian Republican candidates, the Hindu Ramaswamy has to assure the evangelical base that he is not a suicide bomber. Unlike his fellow Indian-American candidate, Nikki Haley — who, although born into a Sikh family, converted to Christianity in 1997 after she married a Methodist — Vivek will have to reassure the base he will respect their Christofascist desires. In the same way that the non-religious Trump has.
Concerning his simple statement, he offers no proof. But we all know this is not a debate class. It is merely a statement of theocratic longing.
2. There are two genders.
Ramaswamy hops on the social warfare bandwagon. MAGAs have convinced themselves that Americans who are not bigender-conforming are somehow a threat to the state. They never explain why. But hysterical alarmism about supposed sexual deviancy is the hallmark of totalitarian states (see Nazi Germany and modern-day theocracies)
In his book , Woke, Inc.: Inside Corporate America's Social Justice Scam, Vivek complains that corporate America’s decision to give a shit is the defining scam of our century. If it is a scam, it is an odd one. Corporate interests and equity holders are doing pretty well. However, no problem. He is running for the approval of the “facts be damned" party.
3. Human flourishing requires fossil fuels.
Why? You might as well argue that human flourishing requires horses. He should ask his man Musk what that EV entrepreneur thinks. Conservatism seems to turn even young, tech-oriented, forward-looking 30-somethings into crotchety grandpas, clinging to the old ways.
4. Reverse racism is racism.
This favorite conservative chestnut makes as much sense as saying that atheism is a religion. When racism has promoted one race over the others — in America’s case, whites — redressing that imbalance is not reverse racism, it is not even racism. When the plucky nerd punches the school bully in the eye, it is not “reverse bullying.”
5. An open border is no border.
Has he told the Canadians this?
6. Parents determine the education of their children.
They do? If true, why are schools in red states banning so many subjects from the curriculum? If you want parents to determine the education of their children, let schools teach everything — and let parents opt their children out of the classes they do not want them to attend.
7. The nuclear family is the greatest form of governance known to mankind.
It is tough to grow up in a poor single-parent home. But that happens frequently when you ban abortion and shred the social safety net. So if Ramaswamy wants to support the “nuclear family,” he should lobby for Scandinavian family policies.
In two-parent homes, there is no evidence that the children of gay parents have worse outcomes than straight parents. Here is a TRUTH. Same-sex parents rarely have kids they do not want.
8. Capitalism lifts people up from poverty.
This one is true. However, American-style capitalism also keeps people in poverty. So let profits reign. But establish tax policies that do not funnel most wealth to the top few. And regulate business so we do not all have to live in an overheated sewer while consuming poisoned food and water and breathing smoke.
9. There are three branches of the U.S. government, not four.
Is Ramaswamy referring to the mythical deep state? Is he talking about federal agencies? Or is he kvetching about behind-the-scenes Soros money? I do not know. But as the Supreme Court, for the foreseeable future, will be a bought and paid-for conservative watchdog, Vivek has little to worry about.
10. The U.S. Constitution is the strongest guarantor of freedoms in history.
For some, it is. But that venerated document has produced the least free voting system in the developed world. It has also bequeathed — despite its clear admonition not to — primacy to religious freedoms over civil freedoms. On its face — the 3/5ths clause — the Founders wrote the Consitution to enshrine the freedoms of white men while it kept millions of others in literal chains (slaves) and financial and sexual chains (women)
Now conservatives are using the First Amendment to keep a wannabe freedom-stripping tyrant out of jail.
Next time Ramaswamy — or another candidate — should take a chance and move beyond the Abrahamic symbolism of 10 as in the Ten Commandments. He could be like Nigel Tufnel in Spinal Tap when he needed “that extra push over the cliff.”
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