Political Thoughts of Timothy A. Raty

  At the time of this writing, news of the death of Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have been confirmed by Iranian government-run news.  And it is well past time.  And it may cost Americans their liberty.   Legitimacy of the Islamic Republic I have written about this topic before in the context of the Israel-Hamas War; a summary should be sufficient in re-applying it to this new war. Legitimate governments only exist with the consent of those it governs. To be so established, the governed must have the means to peacefully replace their governments, whether structurally or in composition. At a bare minimum, this requires: 1. Freedom of political speech (no censorship); 2. Freedom of political assembly (two or more political parties); 3. A legislative branch in which at least one chamber is directly elected by the governed; and 4. A judiciary which can independently apply the laws established by the legislative branch. A failure to meet these minimum r...

  The many violations of individual rights and attacks against the U.S. Constitution by the second Trump administration, compounded recently by the blatant murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, have led many in “the Resistance” to question whether the time to transition from peaceful protests to violence is now justified.  It is not. Not yet. A common formal framework to structure the moral justification for revolution can be found in the words of America’s Declaration of Independence: “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends [protecting inalienable rights], it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience h...

  I had originally considered entitling this article “The Death of Liberalism”, but it would be in bad taste while the patient is still technically alive on its deathbed. It did not take long for it to be sent there from its pinnacle at the end of the Cold War some thirty-four years ago. Ironically, this was partly caused by remnants of 20 th century collectivist ideologies ( e.g. , Islamic fundamentalism and communism) or variations thereof ( e.g. , Putin’s and Trump’s nationalism bear striking resemblances to those of the Axis Powers of the 1930s); ideologies which liberalism had mostly defeated by 1992. Even Nazism, which should have been dead and buried after instigating the bloodiest conflict in human history, has made a comeback.  Liberal democracies are under a threat no less existential than those of World War II, but now are in a more precarious position. Unlike then, the British Empire no longer exists (and several of the key nations composing it, such as Egypt an...