What does it mean to be a radical free-thinker today?

Forget the disinformation around Project 2025 and other false constructs. Here's the code by which today's radicals should live by forty years after the 1984 Democratic Convention in San Francisco.

It's fascinating to see the evolution of what it means to be a radical free-thinker. Back in July of 1984, at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco, the issues rightly on the table were the wars in Central America, Jerry Falwell and the extreme religious right, protecting the environment, and nuclear proliferation. There were also side issues related to the legalization of pot and the always-inflated threat of the KKK (originally a Democrat-Party-aligned organization that hadn't been a bona fide threat for six decades) and Neo-Nazis (which never really were a domestic threat).

Many of us who might have protested for those causes in 1984 have evolved to a more mature position over the last forty years. While we realize that we have no business occupying Central America, we also see that drastic action needs to be taken to halt the invasion of terrorists, criminals, and other illegal immigrants across our borders. And that maybe it's time to quietly target the luxury hideouts of narco-terrorists waging war on America via human trafficking, fentanyl, and other lethal substances.

We also now realize, as the Supreme Court concurs, that being a gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans person is not a crime. But we are also mature enough to realize that the rightful cause of diversity and acceptance should not enable biological men to participate in women's sports or use women's bathrooms, nor should parents be cut out of decisions by underage offspring to change their gender, let alone undertake drastic life-altering medical interventions towards that goal, without parental consent.

We've come to accept the health imperatives of clean air, water, and land. To support that ideal, many of us eat locally, grow our food, buy organic, recycle, plant trees or community gardens, drive a hybrid or electric vehicle, bike, carpool, or take public transit. But we've also become suspicious of climate alarmism designed to grow the role of government and supranational organizations in our lives and redistribute our hard-earned wealth to corrupt governments in the name of “environmental justice.”

We also now know that quickly shutting off our fossil-fuel-based economy could subject billions of people to poverty and malnutrition, creating far worse externalities than climate change is projected to engender. We've rightly accepted nuclear and natural gas as essential, reliable transition fuels to a primarily renewable future.

We still worry about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, especially into the hands of terrorists or messianic terror regimes, while realizing that a robust atomic posture is likely preventing WWIII.

Being radical and free-thinking today means we no longer consider the government our savior. We look to ourselves. We look to our neighbor. We look to reduce the onerous intrusion of unfair federal regulations, taxes, and diktats. We seek to dramatically shrink the federal leviathan and move more decision-making to state and local leaders who embrace their primary responsibility to keep people safe from violent criminals, arsonists, vandals, and rioters, fully maintain and beautify critical public infrastructure, balance the budget, and vigilantly enforce laws against those using city streets, parks, and property as a campsite, drug emporium, toilet, or staging ground for political violence. We realize it is not the government's job to bail people out of dysfunctional behavior but to set bright lines for good behavior and enforce the law against quality-of-life crimes that lead to more significant crimes and chaos in the commons.

Most importantly, radical free-thinking people of today vote for politicians who do not unduly silence their speech, who do not collude with Big Tech to erase thoughts, words, and identities they don't like, who do not launch unnecessary wars abroad, who fully respect human dignity and sovereignty, who do not use the justice system to wage war on political opponents, and who do not inflict onerous impositions on persons or businesses in the name of “equity.”

A radical, free-thinking person today believes that racism, reverse racism, and bigotry of any kind is wrong, that quotas are inherently unjust and un-American, and that political violence is always wrong, especially when a court decision or election does not go one’s way. But when law enforcement fails to protect innocent persons from violent persons or mobs, we recognize the right of persons to defend themselves by any means necessary without fear of government reprisal.

To be a radical, free-thinking person today means embracing the noble goals of equal opportunity, self-determination, and self-reliance, not the lowly totalitarian goal of equal outcomes.

In 1984, radical free-thinking persons were Democrats. Today, they are anything but.