Generational Theory Forum: The Fourth Turning Forum: A message board discussing generations and the Strauss Howe generational theory

(11-28-2016, 06:52 PM)FLBones Wrote: [ -> ]I just want to get these next few years out of the way. I want to get to the 2020s already.

-- yeah me too

(11-28-2016, 06:50 PM)Dan Wrote: [ -> ]Just a reminder not to get too heated here guys

Oh why yes , man.   Ad homs are way of admitting you've already lost the argument.


So....... since everything's is sooooo.   awesome,  here's some   humor. 

(11-28-2016, 04:16 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]A quick google got me to a web page of the California Secretary of State.

Quote:Qualifications
To register to vote in California, you must be:

• A United States citizen,
  
• A resident of California,
  
• 18 years of age or older on Election Day,
  
• Not currently imprisoned or on parole for the conviction of a felony (for more information on the rights of people who have been incarcerated, please see the Secretary of State's Voting Rights for Californians with Criminal Convictions or Detained in Jail or Prison), and
  
• Not currently found to be mentally incompetent by a court of law (for more information, please see Voting Rights: Persons Subject to Conservatorship).
  

It is possible that they don't ask for documentation on these things.  It is also possible that Breitbart lies as much as Trump.

It's possible that if you read the whole thread, you'd know instead of just guessing. Or even if you just followed the links on that site to the ID requirements.

(11-28-2016, 04:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I was not familiar with that reference at all. I guess because I don't know Minnesota that well.

cake eater
A cake eater actually refers to Edina, MN, saying the people in it are so rich they can have their cake and eat it too. It could also refer to rich white suburban kids in general, too. And BTW- Mighty Ducks was filmed in Minnesota, so he's probably literally calling that kid a cake-eater from Edina.
"look at that f*cker driving his brand new BMW out of the school parking lot. what a cake eater"
by Britta D May 27, 2005
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.ph...ke%20eater





kind of a cross between rap and Owl City (Minnesota native). It's always a Good Time!

"Let 'em eat cake!"-- Marie Antoinette (supposed quote).

That was funny. I'm not exactly a cake eater. I don't fit their social profile or the uppity red stereotype that's associated with them. Me, I work like everyone else who works in the trades. I don't toot my horn, flaunt my wealth and promote my association with higher wealth in public like play Playdude. I will toot my horn, chime in and inform Playdude that his wealth and political connections and the bulk of social programs associated with them doesn't mean much to me. How large and how much more technologically advanced is the group who are associated with those who earned their independence and gave us the Constitution? Ever think about that? Well, 60 some million for sure and probably millions more once the shooting starts and sides are taken. Had core America showed up in force in this election. Is it a helluva lot bigger than you ever thought it was? Is it much bigger and more powerful than you ever believed or were able to comprehend?

(11-28-2016, 05:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I just hope the opposition and resistance to Trump and his GOP is strong enough to MAKE their victory "pyrrhic."

And they may achieve "victory," but everything they do or ever will do is likely to destroy the country whose rule they have won. Pyrrhic indeed.

Keep writing here, Classic. Practice makes perfect, maybe even for someone who doesn't value the skill.

I valued the skill enough to earn A's in advanced English courses during high school. I blew off typing and I regret that mistake today. Since high school, my speaking skills took over the drivers seat and my writing skills took the back seat. No disrespect, writing just isn't my cup of tea.

(11-29-2016, 03:00 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-28-2016, 05:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I just hope the opposition and resistance to Trump and his GOP is strong enough to MAKE their victory "pyrrhic."

And they may achieve "victory," but everything they do or ever will do is likely to destroy the country whose rule they have won. Pyrrhic indeed.

Keep writing here, Classic. Practice makes perfect, maybe even for someone who doesn't value the skill.

I valued the skill enough to earn A's in advanced English courses during high school.   I blew off typing and I regret that mistake today. Since high school, my speaking skills took over the drivers seat and my writing skills took the back seat. No disrespect, writing just isn't my cup of tea.

My sister, once, when we kids were around High School, was very pleased that summer was over, no school, and since the organ was to be left behind when we moved to the summer cottage, no more music lessons either.  She made the mistake of saying this in ear shot of mother.  No more lessons?  Thus, that summer, everyone started typing lessons.

The question came up as to why I had to take typing lessons.  Why would a male ever have to touch type?  That was what secretaries are for!  It was just silly that I had to type.  That was girl stuff.

As it turned out, tradition had the last laugh, even if upside down.  One sister became a nurse, and never did much typing.  The other became an elementary school teacher, and never did much typing.  I became a software engineer, and spent my professional life behind various computer consoles.

(11-29-2016, 01:49 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not exactly a cake eater. I don't fit their social profile or the uppity red stereotype that's associated with them. Me, I work like everyone else who works in the trades. I don't toot my horn, flaunt my wealth and promote my association with higher wealth in public like play Playdude. I will toot my horn, chime in and inform Playdude that his wealth and political connections and the bulk of social programs associated with them doesn't mean much to me. How large and how much more technologically advanced is the group who are associated with those who earned their independence and gave us the Constitution? Ever think about that? Well, 60 some million for sure and probably millions more once the shooting starts and sides are taken. Had core America showed up in force in this election. Is it a helluva lot bigger than you ever thought it was? Is it much bigger and more powerful than you ever believed or were able to comprehend?

You are still very much mistaken in thinking Red America is America. The country is truly split, and the role and values of both halves or American have contributed and will continue to contribute. We're stuck on a see saw, with two groups of politicians getting power for time, pushing the perspective of one culture or another, ticking off the other culture in doing so, thus guaranteeing the other will take over for a time. If the blue side has a snobbery about it, believing in the superiority of urban culture and the virtue of their values, the red side seems to have a proactive vindictiveness to it.

In engineering classes it is called feedback. If pushing things one way results in a force that pushes things back the other way hard enough, things swing back and forth with increasing and vicious intensity. The best known example is the scream produced when a microphone gets too close to a speaker it is driving. While the feedback loop is unstable, no other signal is discernible. The system is unusable. One has to move the microphone further from the speakers or reduce the volume level on the amplifier. I suppose one could also pull the plug or crash a guitar through the speakers...

I for one am in favor of reducing the volume some. If we keep pushing at each other hard whenever we have the chance, the feedback will continue.

(11-28-2016, 04:24 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-28-2016, 07:52 AM)Odin Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-27-2016, 06:37 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]You're a rootless wannabe cosmopolitan stuck some where in rural America. I'm a rooted suburbanite (I have no desire to live anywhere else) who is a good old country boy at heart. I love being in the outdoors. I love to hunt and fish. I like and I'm able to relate to most of the regular country folks. I'm not one to impose or bother or interrupt someone's life. So, I not the one who knocks on a farmers door to ask if we can hunt on their land. However, I'm the one who the farmer ends of talking to and getting to know and makes his decision on whether or not he/she allows us to hunt his/her land. Values, understanding the values people who own land that you'd like an opportunity to hunt. The farmer didn't see a cosmopolitan decked out in fancy hunting clothes, a city slicker attitude, who has soft hands who wasn't all that interested in listening to him/her or their rules who didn't seem to value or appreciate anything they owned. The farmer saw a man whose clothes were obviously worn who didn't have a city slicker attitude, who had an attitude more like them, whose hands were a bit rough, who listened to them with respect, who'd ask questions relating to the rules associated with the use of their property who showed interest in them and an appreciation for their land and for them as people as well. Could you learn a valuable thing or two from me ? Probably. Bob doesn't mean all that much to me. Bob's academic degree doesn't mean that much to me. Bob's negative view and opinions of me doesn't mean that much to me. I'm not here to cozy up and snuggle with Bob to gain his support or friendship. I'm not here to impress people like yourself or Bob with uppity liberal talk and uppity liberal values associated with uppity liberal who live in blue bubbles. Intellectual play grounds don't accomplish very much but interesting to screw around in while nothing important is needed to be done.

You're a business owner who has no god damned right to speak for us rural working class people. You are far closer to the fucking cake-eaters in Edina than to us.

PS: "rootless cosmopolitans" was a Nazi euphemism for "Jewish intellectuals". The Nazis preyed on the same anti-intellectual sentiments among small businessmen as you have.

LOL@ cake-eaters in Edina! I shared on the old forum that's I'd done a fair bit of business in MN. In any case, what a mental picture. Made my day.

Yeah, Edina is a wealthy Twin Cities suburb full of people who think EXACTLY like Classic, he pretty much fits the stereotype of the well off middle class Republican who has created this myth in his mind of being "salt of the earth".

(11-28-2016, 04:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I was not familiar with that reference at all. I guess because I don't know Minnesota that well.

cake eater
A cake eater actually refers to Edina, MN, saying the people in it are so rich they can have their cake and eat it too. It could also refer to rich white suburban kids in general, too. And BTW- Mighty Ducks was filmed in Minnesota, so he's probably literally calling that kid a cake-eater from Edina.
"look at that f*cker driving his brand new BMW out of the school parking lot. what a cake eater"
by Britta D May 27, 2005
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.ph...ke%20eater





kind of a cross between rap and Owl City (Minnesota native). It's always a Good Time!

"Let 'em eat cake!"-- Marie Antoinette (supposed quote).

Cake-eater? I guess that there are people like that in Michigan, too. Suburbs of Grand Rapids?

(11-28-2016, 05:48 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]I'm a heating and air business guy. I'm not a writer or an academic or a book worm. If you don't use it, you don't need it, you don't value it and retain it. I'm sorry dude, I gradually lost the bulk of my writing skills some time during the 90's. I  assure you that if we were actually speaking, I would have a significant advantage over you. My verbal communication skills are used every day and are very important job wise.

You are useful. You are useful enough to make a very good living in an unglamorous job. I will take you at your word that you are what you claim to be because you have said nothing inconsistent with what you say you are and you do. If I had a son or daughter asking whether to take a career choice to do work like yours or be a glorified clerk... I would tell that child to do the unglamorous skilled work.  If you then want an intellectual life as a hobby, then you can have that on the side. After all, Baruch Spinoza ground lenses for a living and did philosophy on the side.

I would not be so sure that you would win a speaking contest with me. I have defects as a public speaker; I speak in a soft baritone voice easily lost in a crowd or in the presence of such things as heating and air conditioners that give off noise at the same pitch as mine. People generally speak much as they write. I have caught you misusing words before, and unlike me you would rather misuse a word than pause to find the precise word for the occasion. I may not be perfect, but I am a perfectionist. I am generally satisfied with a transcript because I can better analyze the content of a transcript than a speech in spoken form.

Quote:I thought you made a bad choice. I know what it is and what it entails and what it could result in as well. I read and comprehend meanings and most of what's written here just fine. I'm just not much of a writer as you've stated and I've agreed with many times.  A Pyrrhic victory requires a victory achieved with staggering/horrific losses. Clinton didn't achieve victory therefore it doesn't even apply her at all.  The Republican party committed very little and suffered no losses and made substantial gains from their victory therefore it doesn't apply to them either. I don't get you dude. I don't how you can proudly/ prominently proclaim that you're a teacher. BTW, the Battle of The Bulge or Midway wouldn't work as examples either. We won the Battle of The Bulge and Midway. The Battle of Bastogne, maybe.

I referred to the initial gains of the Wehrmacht in the Battle of the Bulge. The Wehrmacht defeated just about every American unit except the Americans in Bastogne whom George S. Patton had to rescue in his own risky charge. To be sure the Battle of the Bulge was a catastrophic blunder for Hitler, who saw practically the same position in the autumn of 1944 as the British, Belgians, and French were in after Hitler overran Holland. He failed to recognize how powerful the US Army was, and that that would prevent any German advance from the Ardennes to the coast of France or Belgium. I am tempted to say that every military blunder above a certain level of military operation looks at first like a brilliant move. Hitler got away with a risky attack in 1940 because his military opponents were badly organized and unable to counter-attack effectively. In 1944 the United States had plenty of troops to throw against a Germany reeling in the war against the Soviet Union. A badly weakened Army with supply problems and depleted forces is unwise to do anything to extend its supply lines and lengthen the front against a stronger enemy...

I have no military experience or training, and only because I am a bookworm can I tell you what I just said.

You may not have caught the figurative meaning of Pyrrhic victory as I applied it to a company that wins a so-called bidding war to get control of the assets of a dying business that has a good division or two and some marketable assets (close the manufacturing operation that loses money but less as an operating unit than if shut down and sell the real estate upon which it sits to a real-estate developer who wants a shopping/condominium/hotel complex on the site) but some big, ugly lawsuits from a division with a tainted product (like asbestos) and some nasty toxic-waste sites full of cadmium, mercury, chromates, and dioxin that won't be treated easily and cheaply. In that case the bidder of the more figurative bidding war has won the war but gotten fleeced.

What I expect as a Pyrrhic victory for the Republicans is that they have a very flawed person as President, someone unlikely to build any coalition except of people who will treat him as a brittle target for ridicule and contempt. a Congress full of yes-men that would have fewer problems to face in 2020 if they had someone less troublesome (like Jeb Bush, John Kasich, or Mitt Romney as President), and many Republican -dominated state legislatures more interested in approving right-wing Amendments to the Constitution than in doing anything for anyone not already rich. Toxic waste (OK, this is hyperbole) is already coming from the President-Elect, he is facing the fan, and you can just imagine the consequences. Bungle a war or a natural disaster, incite racial strife by turning back race relations fifty years, and create Depression-like hardships for working people by turning labor-management relations back eighty years, have the Obama recovery falter on your watch, and watch the NATO alliance fall apart as European countries start fearing the USA more than they fear Russia... and the Republican Party has a Crisis Era going very badly. Most Presidents are trained attorneys who know how important words are and have learned great caution in their use. A President who uses language that sounds more like the taunts of a bully in the sixth grade than like a Professor of Constitutional Law is more likely to create problems than to solve them.

The Pyrrhic victory that I see for the GOP is that it wins a smashing success in an election that few but devoted partisans thought that it could win only to be ill-prepared to use the victory.

(11-29-2016, 11:38 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-29-2016, 05:15 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-29-2016, 03:00 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-28-2016, 05:52 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I just hope the opposition and resistance to Trump and his GOP is strong enough to MAKE their victory "pyrrhic."

And they may achieve "victory," but everything they do or ever will do is likely to destroy the country whose rule they have won. Pyrrhic indeed.

Keep writing here, Classic. Practice makes perfect, maybe even for someone who doesn't value the skill.

I valued the skill enough to earn A's in advanced English courses during high school.   I blew off typing and I regret that mistake today. Since high school, my speaking skills took over the drivers seat and my writing skills took the back seat. No disrespect, writing just isn't my cup of tea.

My sister, once, when we kids were around High School, was very pleased that summer was over, no school, and since the organ was to be left behind when we moved to the summer cottage, no more music lessons either.  She made the mistake of saying this in ear shot of mother.  No more lessons?  Thus, that summer, everyone started typing lessons.

The question came up as to why I had to take typing lessons.  Why would a male ever have to touch type?  That was what secretaries are for!  It was just silly that I had to type.  That was girl stuff.

As it turned out, tradition had the last laugh, even if upside down.  One sister became a nurse, and never did much typing.  The other became an elementary school teacher, and never did much typing.  I became a software engineer, and spent my professional life behind various computer consoles.

Took typing in Jr. High summer school, a must do course arranged by my Mom. The first Apple machines were still a year away. Nonetheless, there was already enough of typing at dumb terminals of mainframes to pique my Mom's interest in having the kiddies get good on the keyboard. And here I sit, not looking at my fingers at all as I type this ...  

I was forced by circumstances to take typing class during my senior year. I needed an electorate to remain in school and finish out my senior year. I could have graduated early but decided to remain in school and finish out the rest of my senior year with my friends and class mates. I didn't miss out on all the experiences as we were getting closer and closer to graduation. It was fun. I didn't see or use a computer key board until my senior year. The school didn't have them available for use until my junior year (84). I had taken computer math as a sophomore (83). The class was still all about using the teletype and understanding binary code.

(11-29-2016, 05:34 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-29-2016, 01:49 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not exactly a cake eater. I don't fit their social profile or the uppity red stereotype that's associated with them. Me, I work like everyone else who works in the trades. I don't toot my horn, flaunt my wealth and promote my association with higher wealth in public like play Playdude. I will toot my horn, chime in and inform Playdude that his wealth and political connections and the bulk of social programs associated with them doesn't mean much to me. How large and how much more technologically advanced is the group who are associated with those who earned their independence and gave us the Constitution? Ever think about that? Well, 60 some million for sure and probably millions more once the shooting starts and sides are taken. Had core America showed up in force in this election. Is it a helluva lot bigger than you ever thought it was? Is it much bigger and more powerful than you ever believed or were able to comprehend?

You are still very much mistaken in thinking Red America is America.  The country is truly split, and the role and values of both halves or American have contributed and will continue to contribute.  We're stuck on a see saw, with two groups of politicians getting power for time, pushing the perspective of one culture or another, ticking off the other culture in doing so, thus guaranteeing the other will take over for a time.  If the blue side has a snobbery about it, believing in the superiority of urban culture and the virtue of their values, the red side seems to have a proactive vindictiveness to it.

In engineering classes it is called feedback.  If pushing things one way results in a force that pushes things back the other way hard enough, things swing back and forth with increasing and vicious intensity.  The best known example is the scream produced when a microphone gets too close to a speaker it is driving.  While the feedback loop is unstable, no other signal is discernible.   The system is unusable.  One has to move the microphone further from the speakers or reduce the volume level on the amplifier.  I suppose one could also pull the plug or crash a guitar through the speakers...

I for one am in favor of reducing the volume some.  If we keep pushing at each other hard whenever we have the chance, the feedback will continue.

You've already lost the majority of the country. If the country were to split, how much of the country would you have left? The majority of the country wants its independence back. The majority of the country voted to retain its national sovereignty.

(11-29-2016, 05:34 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-29-2016, 01:49 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not exactly a cake eater. I don't fit their social profile or the uppity red stereotype that's associated with them. Me, I work like everyone else who works in the trades. I don't toot my horn, flaunt my wealth and promote my association with higher wealth in public like play Playdude. I will toot my horn, chime in and inform Playdude that his wealth and political connections and the bulk of social programs associated with them doesn't mean much to me. How large and how much more technologically advanced is the group who are associated with those who earned their independence and gave us the Constitution? Ever think about that? Well, 60 some million for sure and probably millions more once the shooting starts and sides are taken. Had core America showed up in force in this election. Is it a helluva lot bigger than you ever thought it was? Is it much bigger and more powerful than you ever believed or were able to comprehend?

You are still very much mistaken in thinking Red America is America.  The country is truly split, and the role and values of both halves or American have contributed and will continue to contribute.  We're stuck on a see saw, with two groups of politicians getting power for time, pushing the perspective of one culture or another, ticking off the other culture in doing so, thus guaranteeing the other will take over for a time.  If the blue side has a snobbery about it, believing in the superiority of urban culture and the virtue of their values, the red side seems to have a proactive vindictiveness to it.

So far as I can interpret the 2016 election, it was the triumph of what Sarah Palin called the "Real America" -- people stuck in the values of a rural or small-town America, white and proud of it, and disgruntled with the successes of people who do not look like them. It looks like a victory for people who see the educated people as an exploitative and oppressive class, and who want Donald Trump to stick it to them hard. I expect Donald Trump to keep that promise. I also expect him to show his class affiliation and give the super-rich the bounty to be derived by sticking the educated classes of America through tax cuts that will have to be paid for by tax increases elsewhere and the destruction of the welfare state. I can see America becoming a work-or-die society, just like the typical fascist society.

But note well -- I expect President Trump to hurt the American poor hard. He will load people with responsibilities without offering any certainties in return.

Yes, there is a huge difference in culture between the more cosmopolitan, educated people of all ethnic origins and the white poor. America really does have a national culture -- for white people. That culture does not include such un-American material as classical music, Renaissance and Impressionist painting, literature appreciably richer than supermarket tabloids, and BBC dramas. Poor blacks, Hispanics, and Asians  take their cultural cues from the middle class of their ethnic groups. The white middle class is split in its cultural affiliation.

Quote:In engineering classes it is called feedback.  If pushing things one way results in a force that pushes things back the other way hard enough, things swing back and forth with increasing and vicious intensity.  The best known example is the scream produced when a microphone gets too close to a speaker it is driving.  While the feedback loop is unstable, no other signal is discernible.   The system is unusable.  One has to move the microphone further from the speakers or reduce the volume level on the amplifier.  I suppose one could also pull the plug or crash a guitar through the speakers...

Good analogy. Remove the microphone or wreck the speaker.

Quote:I for one am in favor of reducing the volume some.  If we keep pushing at each other hard whenever we have the chance, the feedback will continue.

The worst situation for any polity is that large groups, however identified by class, race, language, region, or political orientation come to the conclusion that they will be permanently shut out of the political process and will find that the government will tax them without doing appreciable good for them. To be sure, sheer force and fear can people in line -- think of blacks in the American South for a century after the American Civil War, Kurds and Shiites in Ba'athist Iraq, and non-whites in Apartheid-era South Africa.

Ask how things are going in 2020. We will be obliged by then to ask some fundamental questions about the role of the Federal government. Should the Union be dissolved, with the fifty states becoming fifty independent republics? (Some might want to form their own unions and some might seek to join Canada.... Michigan would probably better off as part of Canada, but would Canada want a basket case of a state as a new province? I can also imagine city-states carved out of America, with the rural areas largely in one piece. . Cleveland and Atlanta have far more in common than does Cleveland with some small town in northeastern Ohio.  It could be the State structure (and in effect the federal system that we know) that goes. The big divide is between rural and urban populations (where ethnicity does not get in the way of white supremacy), with Suburbia as the swing region.

(11-30-2016, 12:33 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]You've already lost the majority of the country. If the country were to split, how much of the country would you have left? The majority of the country wants its independence back. The majority of the country voted to retain its national sovereignty.

From FDR through LBJ, from the New Deal through the Great Society, there was a relatively constant Democratic control.  These were the days when America was great, the days of tax and spend liberalism.  From Nixon to Trump, through the unravelling, we have had a swinging pendulum.  After a few years of either party, the country gets disgusted enough to hand the presidency back to the other party.

I'm not denying the real disgust.  The Democrats have a persistent habit of pushing too many urban solutions on the rural population.  If they don't learn from what just happened, should they get the presidency back in another four or eight years, they will lose it again if they don't start serving the needs of the whole country rather than push the supposed urban cultural superiority.

But Republican borrow and spend trickle down is apt to crash the economy again.  If the Republicans can't correct their economic policies, they are apt to lose the presidency.  If the Republicans can't stop making their usual mistake, they will give the Democrats the opportunity to make their usual mistake.

There is more to it than that, but I'm not seeing the basic situation changing.  If these boards are a reflection of the country, I'm seeing Taramarie as about the only person with me in seeing the extreme partisan divide as the core problem.  The board, like the country, is locked into screaming extreme partisanship while refusing to listen.

But then, I don't anticipate that you are listening.  Trump isn't the typical politician.  He might break the pattern.  We will have to see.

(11-30-2016, 12:33 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-29-2016, 05:34 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-29-2016, 01:49 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not exactly a cake eater. I don't fit their social profile or the uppity red stereotype that's associated with them. Me, I work like everyone else who works in the trades. I don't toot my horn, flaunt my wealth and promote my association with higher wealth in public like play Playdude. I will toot my horn, chime in and inform Playdude that his wealth and political connections and the bulk of social programs associated with them doesn't mean much to me. How large and how much more technologically advanced is the group who are associated with those who earned their independence and gave us the Constitution? Ever think about that? Well, 60 some million for sure and probably millions more once the shooting starts and sides are taken. Had core America showed up in force in this election. Is it a helluva lot bigger than you ever thought it was? Is it much bigger and more powerful than you ever believed or were able to comprehend?

You are still very much mistaken in thinking Red America is America.  The country is truly split, and the role and values of both halves or American have contributed and will continue to contribute.  We're stuck on a see saw, with two groups of politicians getting power for time, pushing the perspective of one culture or another, ticking off the other culture in doing so, thus guaranteeing the other will take over for a time.  If the blue side has a snobbery about it, believing in the superiority of urban culture and the virtue of their values, the red side seems to have a proactive vindictiveness to it.

In engineering classes it is called feedback.  If pushing things one way results in a force that pushes things back the other way hard enough, things swing back and forth with increasing and vicious intensity.  The best known example is the scream produced when a microphone gets too close to a speaker it is driving.  While the feedback loop is unstable, no other signal is discernible.   The system is unusable.  One has to move the microphone further from the speakers or reduce the volume level on the amplifier.  I suppose one could also pull the plug or crash a guitar through the speakers...

I for one am in favor of reducing the volume some.  If we keep pushing at each other hard whenever we have the chance, the feedback will continue.

You've already lost the majority of the country. If the country were to split, how much of the country would you have left? The majority of the country wants its independence back. The majority of the country voted to retain its national sovereignty.

The majority of the country voted for Clinton. Land doesn't vote.

Oh, and you live in the Twin Cities, which went for Clinton. Like I said, you are a cake eater suburbanite who thinks you're salt of the earth and it just makes you look ridiculous.

Wrong. The majority of the country did not vote for Clinton. 18 states voted for Clinton while 32 voted for trump.

Clinton has plurality vote only because of California. Clinton won nearly 2/3 of the votes there.

Trump won the right votes, which is all that matters now.

(11-27-2016, 07:15 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]I just don't believe enough in The Theory to assume a successful likely progressive crisis transformation is inevitable.  Yes, in the United States we saw three of them appear at regular intervals, and you can trace that further back on the other side of the pond.  However, while this pattern works well enough for the Industrial Age and Anglo-American civilization, you have to squint and go cockeyed to apply it elsewhere.  With the Agricultural Age elites and patterns that drove most of the early crises long gone, have we any reason to be dead set sure another crisis transformation is inevitable?

I would like to see a political party trying to make the whole country happy, striving keep the bulk of their current base happy without going out of the way to tick off the other half.  I don't see the Republicans abandoning borrow and spend trickle down or climate science denial.  One might hope, but one certainly should not hold one's breath.  Thus, this hypothetical party for all of the United States seems more likely to grow out of the Democrats.

But whichever side abandons a crisis transformation that bashes the other half of the country into submission would have to stop demonizing the other half of the country and attempting to beat them into submission.  The problem might be less about economics, climate, guns or cultural arm twisting, more about a country paralyzed by extreme partisanship.

Good thoughts, but missing one point, I think.  Crises are, by definition, critical.  We simply lack a critical challenge today.  Climate change will go critical in a few decades (perhaps too late to avoid catastrophe), but that's then and not now.  The economy is poor, but not devastating, so that won't do.  All the social issues combined are a big hohum in crisisworld.

I disagree that a kumbaya moment has to be achieved, since it never has in the past.  What's needed is the victory of one idea or vision over another, where the advocates of the alternate idea see theirs go down in flames.  That isn't happening right now.  Perhaps, Trump will show \us the way ... or not.  If not, then the climate will ring all our chimes if an economic collapse doesn't intervene first.  Neither is likely in the near term, so this may be a bland crisis -- and unraveling crisis, if that theory holds.

(11-30-2016, 12:42 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-30-2016, 02:18 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(11-30-2016, 12:33 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]You've already lost the majority of the country. If the country were to split, how much of the country would you have left? The majority of the country wants its independence back. The majority of the country voted to retain its national sovereignty.

From FDR through LBJ, from the New Deal through the Great Society, there was a relatively constant Democratic control.  These were the days when America was great, the days of tax and spend liberalism.  From Nixon to Trump, through the unravelling, we have had a swinging pendulum.  After a few years of either party, the country gets disgusted enough to hand the presidency back to the other party.

I'm not denying the real disgust.  The Democrats have a persistent habit of pushing too many urban solutions on the rural population.  If they don't learn from what just happened, should they get the presidency back in another four or eight years, they will lose it again if they don't start serving the needs of the whole country rather than push the supposed urban cultural superiority.

But Republican borrow and spend trickle down is apt to crash the economy again.  If the Republicans can't correct their economic policies, they are apt to lose the presidency.  If the Republicans can't stop making their usual mistake, they will give the Democrats the opportunity to make their usual mistake.

There is more to it than that, but I'm not seeing the basic situation changing.  If these boards are a reflection of the country, I'm seeing Taramarie as about the only person with me in seeing the extreme partisan divide as the core problem.  The board, like the country, is locked into screaming extreme partisanship while refusing to listen.

But then, I don't anticipate that you are listening.  Trump isn't the typical politician.  He might break the pattern.  We will have to see.

RE: Bold and italicized text.

As I've previously noted I'm an NRA life member. Therefore, as you might imagine, in addition to reading every American Rifleman from cover to cover, I've received my share of various monetary appeals from the NRA-ILA. This past election season, the NRA cast their lot with Trump even before he had sewn up the nomination. The NRA had strategically determined that the white poor and white downward mobile middle class, who constitute a large portion of NRA membership, would be going with Trump for the long haul. One of the reasons for this is, from the PoV of the NRA-ILA, the Clintons are evil incarnate due to the 1990s "Clinton gun ban." That is a wedge issue that will never go away. Obama had similar notions hung around his neck, mainly due to the terrible selection of Holder as the initial AG and the pathetic "Fast and Furious" program, meanwhile, "Project Exile" type programs received short shrift. The DNC did it to themselves. Had the DNC looked at the "guns, God and apple pie" characteristics of certain white Dems, not to mention, white Indies, they would have run like hell from the Clinton mentality about "gunnn vaaaahlunce" (I can't get the sound of Slick Willie saying that out of my mind). They would have embraced the attitudes of the rare Dem politicians who get at least a C grade from the NRA. That would have been a tough and bitter pill to swallow, but had they done it, they would have won this election.

-- & that would be Bernie. He caught hell over his stance on guns. The only thing they could really cap him on. But the dumasses stacked the primaries against him instead. They reaped what they sowed

(11-27-2016, 12:05 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: [ -> ]The stimulus spending that Obama actually did was as wasteful and counterproductive as anything Trump might be proposing.  Obama managed to delay the recovery by his entire two terms, keeping our growth rate well below trend.

But whatever you think of Obama's spending, it clearly took us beyond the Bush deficit, and clearly was not Trump's doing.  For Bob's statement to be correct, you'd have to believe that Trump could magically roll back all of Obama's deficit spending, returning the deficit to where it was at the end of the Bush administration, when it stood at half it's current level.  That's clearly ridiculous.

First, Obama never really got a stimulus going.  Most of the money was drained away for tax cuts or bailouts, the latter for entities nearly killed in the crash.  That the auto companies repaid theirs is inconsequential, since the repayment never made it into other stimulus spending.  Using the accounting from Business Insider, certainly not a Democrat-friendly entity, all the spending was offset by cuts at the state and local level or handed out as tax cuts except a grand total of $150 Billion spent on transportation projects.  Not much stimulus there, considering the size of the collapse.

Second, the fault for the still enduring economic mess we're in lies 100% at the feet of the House of Representatives, where all spending must originate and obfuscation has been the rule for 6 years.  You can be happy that the obfuscation occurred, but own the results.