"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." - Plato

Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left
by Ronald Radosh

Ronald Radosh, the scholar who is probably most responsible for showing that Julius Rosenberg was indeed a spy for the Soviet Union, offers this honest memoir of growing up a red-diaper baby in New York and, many years later, falling out of favor with his fellow travelers. Born into a family that was both Jewish and Communist, Radosh spent much of his life orbiting these worlds (especially the latter) as an activist for all sorts of left-wing causes. The FBI even began keeping a file on him.

There's a certain amount of score settling on these pages, much of it amusing. What makes Commies fascinating, however, is Radosh's virtual banishment from left-wing politics for publishing The Rosenberg File, a book that definitively showed Julius Rosenberg was not the innocent martyr of liberal mythology but a traitor to his country. Radosh actually started the book believing he could vindicate Rosenberg; through the course of his research, however, he concluded the man was guilty, and set about saying so. This was too much for many of his friends, who soon refused to be seen with him in public. Here is a man who viewed the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 as very possibly a portent of "extreme reaction, if not fascism," suddenly blacklisted by the Left. He became disenchanted with how he had spent his life and "started to question the whole project of the Left." He even suffered professionally: in 1993, Radosh was denied a job in George Washington University's history department. "If I had still been a Communist writing left-wing history, I probably would have breezed in. But faculty members practicing a politically correct version of McCarthyism blackballed me."

Radosh is not a left-winger who has become a right-winger, like David Horowitz, but he is clearly a person who has had second thoughts about what he once believed. America, he writes, is "a country where I was born but didn't fully discover until middle age." Commies is a valuable document describing radicalism in the 1950s and 1960s from the inside. --John J. Miller

“I do not accept the assumption that it is somehow ‘risky’ to let taxpayers keep more of their own money. What is risky is when politicians are given charge of a surplus. There is a strong temptation to spend it. And, in Washington, that temptation is overwhelming.”

----- George W. Bush, President of the United States

Government and Election Reform

Redistricting Reform

Gerrymandering is so pervasive that it has in many places all but eliminated our democratic system. Commonly, the two major parties draw district lines as to create stacked districts heavily based in one party. This protects incumbency and deters real voter participation, and allows extremists to dominate Congress and the legislatures.

I propose a Redistricting Regulation Bill, akin to the Voting Rights Act, applicable to ALL elected bodies. Provisions of this measure would include:

A BAN ON OFFICIALS DRAWING THEIR OWN LINES

A 2/3rds VOTE REQUIRED FOR APPROVAL

REFERENDUM OF THE PEOPLE - New district lines must be submitted to the affected voters at the next regular election covering all the districts in question: if more than 50% of the voters vote no, then district lines would be redrawn commencing immediately.

Other standards outlining compactness and competitiveness, banning one-party redistricting, and mandating citizens' committees as a last resort would be added.

Campaign Finance Reform

Government ought to come FROM THE PEOPLE not AT THE PEOPLE. I would love it if a system where everybody gave to the candidates of their choice with no limitations worked. But by the buying and selling of Congresses and State Legislatures for the last 30 years, it is evident that there must be a reasonable limit on campaign spending. Yet it is also obvious the current system is stacked against any candidate who seeks to serve the people.

What I propose is the following:

SPENDING CAPS-a spending cap of $3 per registered voter per election, waivable only if one of the candidates in the race spends in excess of that amount in his own money, as he is constitutionally allowed. This figure should be adjusted for inflation.

LENDING LIMITS-on what a candidate or any other person may lend to a campaign: $25,000 total lending to a U. S. House or State Legislative race, $100,000 for U. S. Senate and Constitutional Office races.

A TIME LIMIT ON FUNDRAISING, prohibiting fundraising prior to six months before the first filing papers can be taken out for the House or State Legislative race, and one year prior to the date papers can be taken out for the U. S. Senate or Constitutional Offices.

PAC CAPS of total PAC receipts per election: State Legislative races $25,000, U. S. House races $50,000. U. S. Senate and Constitutional Offices $200,000. Applicable to corporate PACs, unions, political parties and legislative caucuses.

TERM LIMITS on U. S. Congressmembers.

A FUNDRAISING LIMIT of $50,000 for candidates who are or become unopposed.

FREE AIR TIME and MANDATORY DEBATES for any candidate for any elected office: This would be required as a part of the licensing of broadcast stations.

MATCHING FREE FRANKING for opponents of sitting elected officials in an amount equal to what that official has spent in taxpayer funded mailings.

Banning de facto "involuntary" campaign contributions from funds, such as union dues, which represent funds individuals were compelled to pay. All campaign contributions should be voluntary and not made under duress.

End Matching Funds

Generally speaking, since the practice of matching funds has been rendered obsolete on the federal level, and has not proven to be worth the money, I oppose any matching funds system where the state government pays for elections. I would not infringe upon localities such as Los Angeles deciding to operate a matching funds system, as they have done, because I believe in local control: I nevertheless do not approve of such schemes and do not advocate them.

None of the Above

I support a None of the Above provision for general elections, requiring that if None of the Above prevails on the ballot, that a new election must be held with the candidates who lost to None of the Above ineligible to run.

Streamline the Election Calendar

I support a federal law which would shorten the election calendars for federal elections. I would forbid any Congressional or Senate campaign from having primaries any earlier than June, would set the dates for the first presidential primaries and caucuses at April, and would order them staggered somewhat evenly from April through mid-July.

I support the elimination of the federal funding of political parties, presidential campaigns, and party conventions.

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