A time for choosing
October 2022
This fall, the weather is cooling down but the rhetoric is heating up.
Arizona is a swing state in a divided country. Our airwaves are flooded with political drama. Early voting starts October 12.
There’s much at stake in the upcoming elections.
President Joe Biden thinks we’re at an “inflection point in history.”
Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake thinks this is a battle “between those who want to save America and those who want to destroy her.”
Governor Ducey doesn’t seem too concerned about inflection points or existential battles. He recently delivered a speech and said,
Today, the answer to the question, “What does the Republican Party stand for?” is harder to answer, but it’s a question we must have a really good answer for, because the Republican Party is a party worth fighting for.
The speech was an address to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, part of a speaker series called A Time for Choosing. The speaker series invites “leading voices in the conservative movement to address critical questions facing the future of the Republican Party.”
Other speakers this year have included Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, U.S. Senator from South Carolina Tim Scott, and soon-to-be-former Congresswoman from Wyoming Liz Cheney.
The name of the speaker series comes from a speech delivered by Ronald Reagan in 1964. Reagan was speaking in support of conservative Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater for president.
Reagan said it was a time for choosing:
I suggest to you there is no left or right, only an up or down. Up to the maximum of individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.
He railed against the welfare state and the bureaucracy, which had grown significantly in the wake of the Great Depression.
Appeasement or courage?
This was the choice, Reagan said, and the answer should be courage. He was talking about facing down the Soviet Union.
The beauty of the American project is that we get to change our minds. We get to change course.
In 1964, Barry Goldwater lost his presidential election in a landslide. The electoral map was an ocean of blue.
In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the presidency in a landslide. This time the map was a sea of red.
The beauty of the American project is that it was built on rationality.
The American Revolution was strongly influenced by the Enlightenment. The authors of the Revolution were well-versed in world history and the Classics. The Constitution was designed with a keen awareness of the Greek and Roman democracies that had crumbled in ancient times.
At the heart of our nation is a simple, “self-evident” concept: Human beings are created equal and free, endowed with a natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The essential job of government, then, is also pretty simple: To protect people’s natural rights.
Ducey delivered a fine speech about his philosophy of conservatism. He said he believes in reducing the scope of the federal government. He said we need to reform the nation’s finances. He threw in a jab about the “bullies” in his own party, and noted the difference between a King and a Constitution.
The problem is, the Ducey brand of calm conservatism is not, at the moment, influential within the Republican Party.
The 2022 election in Arizona will be administered with beefed up security. The need for extra security is a direct result of the bullies in Ducey’s party who refuse to accept the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. These bullies continue to weaponize evidence-free conspiracy theories, doing damage to our civic culture and threatening to undermine the integrity of our elections.
I agree with Joe Biden that we’re at an inflection point in history.
Which direction will we go?
The beauty of the American project is that we (still) get to decide.
Links and News
The light rail construction from downtown to South Phoenix is halfway done, according to Axios. I have written previously about the history of public transportation in Phoenix, the ongoing gentrification happening in South Phoenix, and the impact of light rail construction on the community.
We’re not just voting on candidates in the upcoming election. We’re also voting on several ballot initiatives. The Arizona Agenda published a great cheat sheet to help you learn about the various initiatives. One example is Prop 308, which would allow Arizona Dreamers to pay in-state tuition to attend our public universities. Our immigration system might be broken, but it’s not the fault of young people who live in Arizona and want to contribute to the community. I’m a “Yes” on 308.
The referendum effort to block the universal school voucher law has failed. Parents can get $7,000 from public funds and spend it on private school tuition, private tutoring, or homeschooling resources. Arizona is now funding students and systems — and the public school system is in desperate need of reform. State lawmakers in recent years have placed several mandates on public school teachers, mostly related to civics instruction. These duplicative mandates create a paperwork burden, which is stacked on top of the burden of standardized tests. Private schools accepting taxpayer-funded ESAs need not comply with curriculum mandates, and will not be administering standardized tests. This disparity is untenable.
The Pathologies of Attention. An excellent Substack post by tech philosopher L.M Sacasas.
Final Thoughts
Substack can be an antidote to the pathologies of attention. My own attention has been moving away from the frenzied feeds of Twitter and Facebook and toward the Substack reader. You can add any RSS feed to the reader, much like the blogosphere of the ancient digital past.
Visit my profile to see which Substacks I follow.
🙌🏼