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

(07-26-2020, 06:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not sure if the progressives went too far by throwing money at things. It was something like that, but the old Democrats of the fifties and sixties used to think in terms of wholesale slum clearance and putting up huge housing blocks. They took away community downtown shopping streets according to the idea that people wanted lots of land around the buildings. They built freeways which decimated inner cities. They paved paradise and put up parking lots. They too often thought of themselves as people with power and grand plans. People like Robert Moses and Mayor Daley. They over-did it, but more correctly, they did it without much refinement, sensitivity or humility. It's called hubris.

In another sense, they did not go far enough. The war on poverty was a good war. It started a process of creating a middle class of all races. However, just as it was starting, LBJ decided to make his hubristic power play and tried to impose his will on another country half way around the world and at the same time remake American society wholesale, without even raising taxes. It was spend, but no tax, or whatever you have called it. The war on poverty stalled; riots broke out. People of all races resisted his deadly, unjust, hopeless and unnecessary foreign war, and unrest spread over the land. LBJ bowed out and several Lichtman Keys turned. The progressives never got power again until today. For sure, they lost the South with their policies and achievements toward racial justice and a great society, and that was a positive Lichtman Key, but they also lost the confidence of many young people and many others who weren't racists in swing states but who bought Nixon's pledge to end the war and bring us together in 1968. The election was close, but the tide turned, and it never turned back. It was a redefining election in the sense of which parties represent which policies and which regions. The blueprints for today's red states and blue states were laid out.

Reaganomics in 1980 was never necessary or justified. But it appealed to the mood of the times of distrust of government. Johnson and Nixon had betrayed that trust. The end of the line of this mood is Trump. Many now feel betrayed by him, and it's a chance for the progressives to take another shot. Will they overdo it? Probably. But maybe not in the way their opponents will say. Progress has to be smart. And it has to know what is sustainable, and what is merely based on limitless ambition for power. It needs to keep its eye on the prize, and not be distracted by hopeless projects based on the delusions of the past.

So, what's the prize? I hope its not our homes and business's and all our rights related to them because America will unite and kill every one of you. I'm going to give you a hint, you can win wars on poverty by allowing and enabling a steady stream of poverty. Like I said, are you ready for the flood when America soundly rejects the liberal Democrats and forces them to capitulate and hand over the reigns to a stronger more qualified individual American associated with law enforcement vs some worthless hand picked politician/public official associated with Liberal Democratic politics. Dude, only a Liberal hack would see a difference in value between a black ghetto slug and a white ghetto slug these days.

(07-26-2020, 07:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]Your values lost in 1932, and they will lose again in this 4T as well. We are all in this together. Trickle-down doesn't trickle. Government is not the problem. Reaganomics fails every time. Self-reliance is an illusion. Free enterprise is not free, and health and welfare is our right if we need it. It protects us all from the bosses and the whims of their activities. Students and teachers should be provided for, not forced to buy their supplies. Schools in poor neighborhoods should be equally funded to those in rich ones. Bosses need to be cut down. The Business of America is not Business. The rich do not earn their riches, they extort them. The workers will rise up for their rights again, and so will consumers. The government should not be bought and paid for, or gerrymandered, or voting rights destroyed. DC and PR should be represented in congress, as is their right. Immigrants should be treated fairly and admitted in proper fashion.

The government needs to restrain rich uneducated white business folks like you so that everyone of every race and gender can move into the middle class and stay there and live on a clean and green Earth. You better wake up. Your side has despoiled and stolen the nation and the world, and the bill is coming due. The pitchforks are coming, and the Democrats may be coming for yer guns too if you have any designs on using them for your evil purposes. Classic Xer, Isoko, Warren Dew, Marc Lamb and Mickey 123 had better take note!

My values didn't really come into play back in 1932 but had they, the old world values that you represent would have been wiped out like they're going to be today. I'm well educated, I'm just not a very good writer. You're right, the pitchforks are coming. What are you going to do about it? Are you going turn to a demoralized police force that's you've been attacking and calling murderers and accusing of being racist for years. You think they're dumb enough to die for an unappreciative society or smart enough to keep their guns and pack up the family and get the fuck out of Dodge. Dude, I'd give you the finger, wave a Dixie flag in flag (universal symbol of American defiance)and leave you to deal with the savages. That's what Liberal people like you deserve today.

(07-26-2020, 09:08 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-26-2020, 07:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]Your values lost in 1932, and they will lose again in this 4T as well. We are all in this together. Trickle-down doesn't trickle. Government is not the problem. Reaganomics fails every time. Self-reliance is an illusion. Free enterprise is not free, and health and welfare is our right if we need it. It protects us all from the bosses and the whims of their activities. Students and teachers should be provided for, not forced to buy their supplies. Schools in poor neighborhoods should be equally funded to those in rich ones. Bosses need to be cut down. The Business of America is not Business. The rich do not earn their riches, they extort them. The workers will rise up for their rights again, and so will consumers. The government should not be bought and paid for, or gerrymandered, or voting rights destroyed. DC and PR should be represented in congress, as is their right. Immigrants should be treated fairly and admitted in proper fashion.

The government needs to restrain rich uneducated white business folks like you so that everyone of every race and gender can move into the middle class and stay there and live on a clean and green Earth. You better wake up. Your side has despoiled and stolen the nation and the world, and the bill is coming due. The pitchforks are coming, and the Democrats may be coming for yer guns too if you have any designs on using them for your evil purposes. Classic Xer, Isoko, Warren Dew, Marc Lamb and Mickey 123 had better take note!

My values didn't really come into play back in 1932 but had they, the old world values that you represent would have been wiped out like they're going to be today. I'm well educated, I'm just not a very good writer. You're right, the pitchforks are coming. What are you going to do about it? Are you going turn to a demoralized police force that's you've been attacking and calling murderers and accusing of being racist for years. You think they're dumb enough to die for an unappreciative society or smart enough to keep their guns and pack up the family and get the fuck out of Dodge. Dude, I'd give you the finger, wave a Dixie flag in flag (universal symbol of American defiance)and leave you to deal with the savages. That's what Liberal people like you deserve today.

I don't always like to pay taxes, and I wouldn't like to pay too much. I don't like paying high prices. I'm glad I don't have to pay the extremely high rents that people pay where I live. I understand that you don't want to pay.

Back in 1932, the USA learned, as I see, it, that we need that "free stuff" from the government. Without it, people had been starving and dying by the millions. We Americans learned that we could not rely on businessmen to provide for us, give us jobs, or pay us well. We needed the government to provide work and set up youth conservation corps. We needed unions to make sure we were paid well and were provided with the benefits we needed. We set up social security to provide for ourselves in old age instead of just dying away in some tenement or in some back room in our childrens' house. Now in 2020 we are learning that we need a government to lead in response to a virus, and that because we have forgotten this, 147,000 of our people have needlessly died.

Folks like you since Reagan did not have to live in the upstairs-downstairs, unequal, starving world of 1929-1932, so you forgot the need for a social safety net. But even the Roman Empire had it. Jesus said render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God what is God's. It's really an easy concept. If we are required to contribute something to society, then we all do well. If we rely on voluntary charity, it's sometimes-at-least not enough to meet the need, just as it was not in 1929. Every other developed country is better at this than the USA. They pay high taxes and still have their homes and businesses and have better rights of citizenship than we have. We are a backward country largely because we are stuck with backward states like Alabama and the rest of those states in Dixie and their superior representation in our government; states that allow that "steady stream of poverty" that is like the worst third-world countries.

We do need the police. Maybe some people are going overboard attacking the police these days. I am not one of them. The police, however, have gone overboard in trampling and kneeling on our rights. We need the police, but we need rational and just policies and laws. I'm sorry if some of the police don't want to live up to their responsibilities and follow the law. They can find other work. Those who remain will do their job and we'll all be just fine.

I'm sorry that you have so little sense of justice that you think a flag that represents people being bought and sold is a symbol of American defiance, instead of what it is, a symbol of defiance against America. I'm sorry that you are so blinded by your dislike of paying taxes that you can't even see that you defend a symbol of racism. I can't help you with that. I can only hope that one day that amazing grace will come to you, and like Mr. Newton discovered while traveling on that slave ship and writing that song, that you will see that you have been blind. Most Americans are sickened by what your type of folks do who wave that flag and grin while choking a black man like George Floyd to death. Most Americans are rediscovering that we did not go far enough yet in the sixties, that racists like you still exist, and that you guys need to be disempowered from ruling our country, and your candidates taken out of office.

(07-26-2020, 07:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-26-2020, 06:44 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I'm not sure if the progressives went too far by throwing money at things. It was something like that, but the old Democrats of the fifties and sixties used to think in terms of wholesale slum clearance and putting up huge housing blocks. They took away community downtown shopping streets according to the idea that people wanted lots of land around the buildings. They built freeways which decimated inner cities. They paved paradise and put up parking lots. They too often thought of themselves as people with power and grand plans. People like Robert Moses and Mayor Daley. They over-did it, but more correctly, they did it without much refinement, sensitivity or humility. It's called hubris.

In another sense, they did not go far enough. The war on poverty was a good war. It started a process of creating a middle class of all races. However, just as it was starting, LBJ decided to make his hubristic power play and tried to impose his will on another country half way around the world and at the same time remake American society wholesale, without even raising taxes. It was spend, but no tax, or whatever you have called it. The war on poverty stalled; riots broke out. People of all races resisted his deadly, unjust, hopeless and unnecessary foreign war, and unrest spread over the land. LBJ bowed out and several Lichtman Keys turned. The progressives never got power again until today. For sure, they lost the South with their policies and achievements toward racial justice and a great society, and that was a positive Lichtman Key, but they also lost the confidence of many young people and many others who weren't racists in swing states but who bought Nixon's pledge to end the war and bring us together in 1968. The election was close, but the tide turned, and it never turned back. It was a redefining election in the sense of which parties represent which policies and which regions. The blueprints for today's red states and blue states were laid out.

Reaganomics in 1980 was never necessary or justified. But it appealed to the mood of the times of distrust of government. Johnson and Nixon had betrayed that trust. The end of the line of this mood is Trump. Many now feel betrayed by him, and it's a chance for the progressives to take another shot. Will they overdo it? Probably. But maybe not in the way their opponents will say. Progress has to be smart. And it has to know what is sustainable, and what is merely based on limitless ambition for power. It needs to keep its eye on the prize, and not be distracted by hopeless projects based on the delusions of the past.

So, what's the prize? I hope its not our homes and business's and all our rights related to them because America will unite and kill every one of you. I'm going to give you a hint, you can win wars on poverty by allowing and enabling a steady stream of poverty. Like I said, are you ready for the flood when America soundly rejects the liberal Democrats and forces them to capitulate and hand over the reigns to a stronger more qualified individual American associated with law enforcement vs some worthless hand picked politician/public official associated with Liberal Democratic politics. Dude, only a Liberal hack would see a difference in value  between a black ghetto slug and a white ghetto slug these days.

The War on poverty became necessary as manufacturing became a smaller share of the American economy n the 1960's. Huge numbers of manufacturing jobs disappeared due to automation, and the ill-educated people who held those jobs and earned middle income were cast to the 1960's version of the 1890's industrial scrapheap. If the War on Poverty had as its original purpose the eradication of traditional poverty it ended up as a stopgap for the new poverty that had nothing to do with any political choice. 

There were new jobs appearing in fast-food places and shopping malls, but those were in the suburbs beyond the reach of cioty buses -- and owners of those businesses or their tenants preferred to hire suburban kids who were perfectly happy to work for the minimum wage because they would 'graduate' from those jobs to office work, skilled trades, or the usual jobs of college graduates. 

If you ever saw Roger And Me , then you might recall that many of the factory workers from the closed GM plants got jobs in fast-food places and could not meet the demands  such as constant smiles and deference to customers. Factory work does not involve such servility. 

I hope that you do not believe that a well-run America is one in which the vast majority suffer severe poverty on behalf of rapacious and demanding elites who take everything possible and leave life precarious and objectively miserable for everyone else. If such is a consequence of high technology, then maybe we need to return to older technology that demands the quantity of semi-skilled workers (as on the assembly line) that the American economy used to demand... and reward.  Maybe we could go so far back as to renew the old Packard line of cars (Ask the man who owns one!)

(07-26-2020, 07:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]So, what's the prize? I hope its not our homes and business's and all our rights related to them because America will unite and kill every one of you. I'm going to give you a hint, you can win wars on poverty by allowing and enabling a steady stream of poverty. Like I said, are you ready for the flood when America soundly rejects the liberal Democrats and forces them to capitulate and hand over the reigns to a stronger more qualified individual American associated with law enforcement vs some worthless hand picked politician/public official associated with Liberal Democratic politics. Dude, only a Liberal hack would see a difference in value  between a black ghetto slug and a white ghetto slug these days.

I guess the bottom line is that the Republican Party from Nixon through Trump had racist and elitist leanings, while the Democrats went for the workers and minorities.  There were just more racist and elite votes than worker or minority.  As a result labor unions were weakened, benefits were cut, jobs were sent overseas, the division of wealth became greater and boy were those working people and minorities kept in their place.

These days, that is becoming less true.  The idea of keeping down the lower classes so white people will be ’above’ minorities seems less attractive.  Black Lives Matter has discredited the racist vote.  We will perhaps return to the working man voting to improve the status of the working man.

That is a good deal of why I’m not so afraid of your Americans.  They will find themselves voting to favor themselves.

(07-27-2020, 05:43 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-26-2020, 07:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]So, what's the prize? I hope its not our homes and business's and all our rights related to them because America will unite and kill every one of you. I'm going to give you a hint, you can win wars on poverty by allowing and enabling a steady stream of poverty. Like I said, are you ready for the flood when America soundly rejects the liberal Democrats and forces them to capitulate and hand over the reigns to a stronger more qualified individual American associated with law enforcement vs some worthless hand picked politician/public official associated with Liberal Democratic politics. Dude, only a Liberal hack would see a difference in value  between a black ghetto slug and a white ghetto slug these days.

I guess the bottom line is that the Republican Party from Nixon through Trump had racist and elitist leanings, while the Democrats went for the workers and minorities.  There were just more racist and elite votes than worker or minority.  As a result labor unions were weakened, benefits were cut, jobs were sent overseas, the division of wealth became greater and boy were those working people and minorities kept in their place.

These days, that is becoming less true.  The idea of keeping down the lower classes so white people will be ’above’ minorities seems less attractive.  Black Lives Matter has discredited the racist vote.  We will perhaps return to the working man voting to improve the status of the working man.

That is a good deal of why I’m not so afraid of your Americans.  They will find themselves voting to favor themselves.

C-X was raised in the era of 'get yours; I got mine", so Social Darwinism seems to be a baked-in normality.  It may be in the wild, but we should be better than that.  Of course, the Real Winners™ like people hungry and clawing for more, because they always get a cut of the action.

Case in point: Jeff Bezos made $13 Billion in a week.  Anyone who thinks that a system that skewed is sane needs to seriously reevaluate their own belief structure.

CNN has an opinion piece up which seems to suggest Trump ought to have a new desk sign made up.  

"Pass the Buck"

(07-26-2020, 04:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-26-2020, 04:50 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-26-2020, 04:36 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-25-2020, 08:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]I expect his motive is more saving America.  If it were just the Democratic Party at risk, he would likely let another candidate take it.  With Trump, he was in a position to do what is necessary.

America is fine. The Democratic party is more at risk of falling apart. I think its pretty clear that the elites had no faith in any of the other candidates which why Biden had to be coaxed out of retirement to unify and save the Democratic party from imminent destruction.

It is the old values that are rejected and fall apart in a crisis heart.  Looks no different this time.

I don't represent the old Marxist laden Democratic values.

Then who does? Yeah, my body is loaded with Commie tattoos -- hammers and sickles, images of Lenin, Marx, Engels, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, and for good measure Kim il-Sung. And of course, the slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" Sure. And the household cat is a strict vegan. 

Truth be told, we liberals recognize that Marxism-Leninism is a catastrophic failure that brought neither peace, progress, nor prosperity that a humane capitalism couldn't achieve. Markets are good controls for keeping people from producing worthless stuff and are good at getting people to do things that they might find unpleasant or inconvenient.     

The only people that I know who believe most of the tenets of Marxism are those who believe that capitalism must be a brutal, inequitable, soul-crushing, repressive order in which over nine of ten people exist to suffer for a small elite responsible to none but themselves. Such people differ from Marxists only in endorsing what commies excoriate. It is best that such people wield no power, for if they do they are exactly the sorts of people who make a Marxist revolution a near certainty. Such people seek to meld the traditional hierarchy of feudalism with the productivity of capitalism. If you believe such, then it is a good thing that you have no power to exploit people as you endorse. 

Quote:I represent traditional American values that have withstood the tests of time.

Human sacrifice, slavery, despotism, religious persecutions and bigotry, racism, child labor, male subjection of women, helplessness of workers against bosses, and homophobia stood the test of time until they no longer did. Except for human sacrifice and despotism, all of those have been part of the American way of life. At that, Donald Trump acts like a despot instead of a Constitution-abiding President. 

Ancient truth and beauty withstand the test of time. Ancient superstition and cruelty do not.     

Quote:American culture itself is much stronger, much larger and much more powerful than it was back at the turn of the last century.

America is not and has never been a cultural monolith. Pizza and a pinata at a birthday party for a child of Polish and Swedish ancestry  is consistent with America. In case you think that America is such a cultural monolith, then check what you had for dinner over the last couple of weeks. 

Besides, this is clearly not American. 

Quote:I've been trying to tell you that for the last fifteen years but you don't want to listen. I hate to tell you this, but we could turn blue America upside down without the government and starve blue America and eliminate the blue courts and slaughter the blue tax collectors and the blue law enforcement that have the power to seize property. Do you think Americans are going to have a problem with pretty women like AOC being executed by an American?

The best-looking of women executed since 1976 in America might have been Karla Faye Tucker, who was stupid enough to say while in custody that she got an orgasm while stabbing someone to death with an ice pick. She was incarcerated long enough to have a change in her soul, and Pat Robinson believed her well enough to seek clemency for her. Most of the rest of such executed women seem to have not been the sort that you would pick from a dating site even had they not done horrible things, at least according to their mug shots.

More significant, though, is that you suggest that someone who has never done a violent crime, who has never dealt drugs, and who now has a stake as part of the Establishment is on the fast track to execution for holding values that you do not share. You project. 

I dislike capital punishment, and someone has to be a particularly culpable perpetrator of horrific crimes such as genocide or human trafficking to merit execution. 

I suggest that you get help. Social worker, psychologist, clergy -- whatever it takes to keep you from going off the deep end.   

Quote:You better wake up and recognize the position that Democrats are in these days? You won't find an American who is hooked on free lunches or free school supplies or free government housing or free health insurance or free college tuition or special rules or special treatment or positions relating more to their race or gender or sexual preference on the American side today.

For many businesses, health insurance is a costly fringe benefit, and many people are unable to do any better than to get group rates from an insurance company for working for the company for which they work. The largest vendor to General Motors is... Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Michigan. Not a steel or glass company. College education? In a country like Germany which offers college education for as far as one is qualified to benefit from it based on grades alone, the people who go farthest in the educational system typically end up paying huge taxes through income taxes, real estate taxes, and the VAT.  Nothing that the government does really is free.  

Quote:The gay American is nothing more than an American on the American side today. That's where we are at and plan to stay through hell and high water as Democratic groups are left to settle things and  fight it out among themselves like the old days so to speak.

We Democrats are not turning against each other yet.

(07-27-2020, 05:43 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-26-2020, 07:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]So, what's the prize? I hope its not our homes and business's and all our rights related to them because America will unite and kill every one of you. I'm going to give you a hint, you can win wars on poverty by allowing and enabling a steady stream of poverty. Like I said, are you ready for the flood when America soundly rejects the liberal Democrats and forces them to capitulate and hand over the reigns to a stronger more qualified individual American associated with law enforcement vs some worthless hand picked politician/public official associated with Liberal Democratic politics. Dude, only a Liberal hack would see a difference in value  between a black ghetto slug and a white ghetto slug these days.

I guess the bottom line is that the Republican Party from Nixon through Trump had racist and elitist leanings, while the Democrats went for the workers and minorities.  There were just more racist and elite votes than worker or minority.  As a result labor unions were weakened, benefits were cut, jobs were sent overseas, the division of wealth became greater and boy were those working people and minorities kept in their place.

These days, that is becoming less true.  The idea of keeping down the lower classes so white people will be ’above’ minorities seems less attractive.  Black Lives Matter has discredited the racist vote.  We will perhaps return to the working man voting to improve the status of the working man.

That is a good deal of why I’m not so afraid of your Americans.  They will find themselves voting to favor themselves.

Well, the unions slit their own throats by not adapting and changing with the times. You see, the industrialized world that was pummeled during World War II rebuilt and caught up so to speak. Dude, a strong economy and lower taxes across the board favors all working Americans. Blacks Lives Matter is racist and feeding off black racism which why so many Americans are turned off by the name of the organization.

(07-27-2020, 02:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Well, the unions slight their own throats by not adapting and changing with the times. You see, the industrialized world that was pummeled during World War II rebuilt and caught up so to speak. Dude, a strong economy and lower taxes across the board favors all working Americans. Blacks Lives Matter is racist and feeding off black racism which why so many Americans are turned off by the name of the organization.

That remains laughable. The Republicans favored the elites and racists and that preference is finally coming home to roost. Many reds are now beginning to see it. I don't doubt you are too ideological blind to do so.

(07-27-2020, 02:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]Then who does? Yeah, my body is loaded with Commie tattoos -- hammers and sickles, images of Lenin, Marx, Engels, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, and for good measure Kim il-Sung. And of course, the slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" Sure. And the household cat is a strict vegan. 

Truth be told, we liberals recognize that Marxism-Leninism is a catastrophic failure that brought neither peace, progress, nor prosperity that a humane capitalism couldn't achieve. Markets are good controls for keeping people from producing worthless stuff and are good at getting people to do things that they might find unpleasant or inconvenient.     

The only people that I know who believe most of the tenets of Marxism are those who believe that capitalism must be a brutal, inequitable, soul-crushing, repressive order in which over nine of ten people exist to suffer for a small elite responsible to none but themselves. Such people differ from Marxists only in endorsing what commies excoriate. It is best that such people wield no power, for if they do they are exactly the sorts of people who make a Marxist revolution a near certainty. Such people seek to meld the traditional hierarchy of feudalism with the productivity of capitalism. If you believe such, then it is a good thing that you have no power to exploit people as you endorse. 

How many times have you expressed/promoted Marxist tenets and beliefs? You've done it enough over the years for me to associate you with them. So, you like them and open to them but you're interested in the system itself. Well, guess what, I'd say about a third is interested in having a socialist system instead of our system. So, how many European countries still have monarchs hanging around just in case their experimental democracies take a turn for the worst like it did in Germany? As far as I know, the English monarch still has an army, an air force and a navy.

(07-27-2020, 02:16 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-27-2020, 02:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Well, the unions slight their own throats by not adapting and changing with the times. You see, the industrialized world that was pummeled during World War II rebuilt and caught up so to speak. Dude, a strong economy and lower taxes across the board favors all working Americans. Blacks Lives Matter is racist and feeding off black racism which why so many Americans are turned off by the name of the organization.

That remains laughable.  The Republicans favored the elites and racists and that preference is finally coming home to roost.  Many reds are now beginning to see it.  I don't doubt you are too ideological blind to do so.

In your mind that be the case and viewed as true. I mean, you are a progressive Democrat who hates the Republicans and the Republican party.

(07-27-2020, 02:43 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]So, how many European countries still have monarchs hanging around just in case their experimental democracies take a turn for the worst like it did in Germany? As far as I know, the English monarch still has an army, an air force and a navy.

Not an army, even though Elizabeth II when she was younger used to ride with the palace guards on various ceremonial occasions.  About the time of Cromwell the army dropped the 'royal' adjective.  For some reason, he didn't care for the royals.  Something to do with his backing the urban progressive faction against the royal preference for the rural conservative?  Anyway, the Army never picked up the adjective again, though the Air Force and Navy use it.

Don't know that the royals would actually use an armed force in earnest anymore.

(07-27-2020, 02:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-27-2020, 02:16 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-27-2020, 02:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Well, the unions slight their own throats by not adapting and changing with the times. You see, the industrialized world that was pummeled during World War II rebuilt and caught up so to speak. Dude, a strong economy and lower taxes across the board favors all working Americans. Blacks Lives Matter is racist and feeding off black racism which why so many Americans are turned off by the name of the organization.

That remains laughable.  The Republicans favored the elites and racists and that preference is finally coming home to roost.  Many reds are now beginning to see it.  I don't doubt you are too ideological blind to do so.

In your mind that be the case and viewed as true. I mean, you are a progressive Democrat  who hates the Republicans and the Republican party.

Hate is the wrong word.  They have their place.  When LBJ went further than the people were ready to go and an unravelling mood stuck, selfishness, a resistance to change plus the elite and racist tendencies were in season.

But right now they have gone way beyond the point of diminishing return.  A crisis heart is not the time to be advocating the old values.

I am kind of anticipating that the racist tendency at least will be purged in the crisis heart and high.  The next generation of conservatives will be different.  By the next unravelling they might be the voice of the people again.

I am not as ideological as many people here are.  They are with one party or the other regardless of where we are in the cycles.  That is a good way to be wrong at least part of the time.

(07-26-2020, 10:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I don't always like to pay taxes, and I wouldn't like to pay too much. I don't like paying high prices. I'm glad I don't have to pay the extremely high rents that people pay where I live. I understand that you don't want to pay.

Back in 1932, the USA learned, as I see, it, that we need that "free stuff" from the government. Without it, people had been starving and dying by the millions. We Americans learned that we could not rely on businessmen to provide for us, give us jobs, or pay us well. We needed the government to provide work and set up youth conservation corps. We needed unions to make sure we were paid well and were provided with the benefits we needed. We set up social security to provide for ourselves in old age instead of just dying away in some tenement or in some back room in our childrens' house. Now in 2020 we are learning that we need a government to lead in response to a virus, and that because we have forgotten this, 147,000 of our people have needlessly died.

Folks like you since Reagan did not have to live in the upstairs-downstairs, unequal, starving world of 1929-1932, so you forgot the need for a social safety net. But even the Roman Empire had it. Jesus said render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God what is God's. It's really an easy concept. If we are required to contribute something to society, then we all do well. If we rely on voluntary charity, it's sometimes-at-least not enough to meet the need, just as it was not in 1929. Every other developed country is better at this than the USA. They pay high taxes and still have their homes and businesses and have better rights of citizenship than we have. We are a backward country largely because we are stuck with backward states like Alabama and the rest of those states in Dixie and their superior representation in our government; states that allow that "steady stream of poverty" that is like the worst third-world countries.

We do need the police. Maybe some people are going overboard attacking the police these days. I am not one of them. The police, however, have gone overboard in trampling and kneeling on our rights. We need the police, but we need rational and just policies and laws. I'm sorry if some of the police don't want to live up to their responsibilities and follow the law. They can find other work. Those who remain will do their job and we'll all be just fine.

I'm sorry that you have so little sense of justice that you think a flag that represents people being bought and sold is a symbol of American defiance, instead of what it is, a symbol of defiance against America. I'm sorry that you are so blinded by your dislike of paying taxes that you can't even see that you defend a symbol of racism. I can't help you with that. I can only hope that one day that amazing grace will come to you, and like Mr. Newton discovered while traveling on that slave ship and writing that song, that you will see that you have been blind. Most Americans are sickened by what your type of folks do who wave that flag and grin while choking a black man like George Floyd to death. Most Americans are rediscovering that we did not go far enough yet in the sixties, that racists like you still exist, and that you guys need to be disempowered from ruling our country, and your candidates taken out of office.

The Democratic party wasn't into giving away "free stuff" during the the Great Depression. It was into funding public works and building/modernizing American infrastructure. Have you ever seen the Hoover dam or jigged for fish along man made a wing dam on a major river or traveled on a US highway or freeway? I recognize the need for social safety nets and I wish the liberals where capable of saying no the other programs and add on's and expansions and global initiates and global commitments and so forth so that we can properly fund them and keep them available for our use versus trying to fund them along with everything else that the liberals keep committing us to pay for these days.

(07-27-2020, 02:43 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-27-2020, 02:02 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]Then who does? Yeah, my body is loaded with Commie tattoos -- hammers and sickles, images of Lenin, Marx, Engels, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, and for good measure Kim il-Sung. And of course, the slogan "Workers of the world, unite!" Sure. And the household cat is a strict vegan. 

Truth be told, we liberals recognize that Marxism-Leninism is a catastrophic failure that brought neither peace, progress, nor prosperity that a humane capitalism couldn't achieve. Markets are good controls for keeping people from producing worthless stuff and are good at getting people to do things that they might find unpleasant or inconvenient.     

The only people that I know who believe most of the tenets of Marxism are those who believe that capitalism must be a brutal, inequitable, soul-crushing, repressive order in which over nine of ten people exist to suffer for a small elite responsible to none but themselves. Such people differ from Marxists only in endorsing what commies excoriate. It is best that such people wield no power, for if they do they are exactly the sorts of people who make a Marxist revolution a near certainty. Such people seek to meld the traditional hierarchy of feudalism with the productivity of capitalism. If you believe such, then it is a good thing that you have no power to exploit people as you endorse. 

How many times have you expressed/promoted Marxist tenets and beliefs? You've done it enough over the years for me to associate you with them. So, you like them and open to them but you're interested in the system itself. Well, guess what, I'd say about a third is interested in having a socialist system instead of our system. So, how many European countries still have monarchs hanging around just in case their experimental democracies take a turn for the worst like it did in Germany? As far as I know, the English monarch still has an army, an air force and a navy.

You didn't even catch the sarcasm. Truth be told, I don't even have a tattoo on me. I'd rather have a canvas that I could sell.


I have explained much about Marxism-Leninism and why it fails to achieve what it promises (and Marx' promise is to create more economic progress by cutting out the profiteering capitalist who diverts much of it to self-indulgent excess that in no way leads to economic growth.  His promise of a classless society fails to remain classless as a bloated government making decisions that entrepreneurs do not make develops a class of bureaucrats that end up living as well as capitalists and aristocrats of the Old Order... markets and the profit motive are far better than  bureaucrats at making decisions to innovate and eschew waste.

As it turns out, world energy consumption dropped sharply in the 1990's despite people having more cars, refrigerators, and air conditioners because post-Communist regimes started recognizing that energy of all kinds was a valuable resource even though it requires far less labor to produce for its value than, for example, concrete (whose processing and shaping is highly labor-intensive). Commies couldn't recognize the value of a healthy environment, and some of the most egregious offenses against nature happened in 'socialist' countries in which an environmentalist movement would have been squelched with long-term stays in mental wards or prison camps. 

That's before I consider the body count, and if anything debunks the validity of Marxism-Leninism, the mass death associated with Commies does. 

One needs to know something about Communism to demonstrate how horrid it is in part because of its philosophical failure and the failure of Marxists to recognize human nature for what it is. Everyone wants to live well without doing any real work... and the raw truth is that no system works well without ordering its super-cheap labor about with the regimentation of soldiers. Except that we did that and people doing such work (as gets you cheap dairy and meat) started getting deathly ill from COVID-19 because the regimentation went to the level of requiring them to sacrifice personal sanitation for mechanical speed. 

If you want my idea of how to make life better in capitalist societies... then it is to humanize capitalism.

(07-27-2020, 03:28 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-26-2020, 10:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: [ -> ]I don't always like to pay taxes, and I wouldn't like to pay too much. I don't like paying high prices. I'm glad I don't have to pay the extremely high rents that people pay where I live. I understand that you don't want to pay.

Back in 1932, the USA learned, as I see, it, that we need that "free stuff" from the government. Without it, people had been starving and dying by the millions. We Americans learned that we could not rely on businessmen to provide for us, give us jobs, or pay us well. We needed the government to provide work and set up youth conservation corps. We needed unions to make sure we were paid well and were provided with the benefits we needed. We set up social security to provide for ourselves in old age instead of just dying away in some tenement or in some back room in our childrens' house. Now in 2020 we are learning that we need a government to lead in response to a virus, and that because we have forgotten this, 147,000 of our people have needlessly died.

Folks like you since Reagan did not have to live in the upstairs-downstairs, unequal, starving world of 1929-1932, so you forgot the need for a social safety net. But even the Roman Empire had it. Jesus said render unto Caesar what is Caesar, and unto God what is God's. It's really an easy concept. If we are required to contribute something to society, then we all do well. If we rely on voluntary charity, it's sometimes-at-least not enough to meet the need, just as it was not in 1929. Every other developed country is better at this than the USA. They pay high taxes and still have their homes and businesses and have better rights of citizenship than we have. We are a backward country largely because we are stuck with backward states like Alabama and the rest of those states in Dixie and their superior representation in our government; states that allow that "steady stream of poverty" that is like the worst third-world countries.

We do need the police. Maybe some people are going overboard attacking the police these days. I am not one of them. The police, however, have gone overboard in trampling and kneeling on our rights. We need the police, but we need rational and just policies and laws. I'm sorry if some of the police don't want to live up to their responsibilities and follow the law. They can find other work. Those who remain will do their job and we'll all be just fine.

I'm sorry that you have so little sense of justice that you think a flag that represents people being bought and sold is a symbol of American defiance, instead of what it is, a symbol of defiance against America. I'm sorry that you are so blinded by your dislike of paying taxes that you can't even see that you defend a symbol of racism. I can't help you with that. I can only hope that one day that amazing grace will come to you, and like Mr. Newton discovered while traveling on that slave ship and writing that song, that you will see that you have been blind. Most Americans are sickened by what your type of folks do who wave that flag and grin while choking a black man like George Floyd to death. Most Americans are rediscovering that we did not go far enough yet in the sixties, that racists like you still exist, and that you guys need to be disempowered from ruling our country, and your candidates taken out of office.

The Democratic party wasn't into giving away "free stuff" during the the Great Depression. It was into funding public works and building/modernizing American infrastructure. Have you ever seen the Hoover dam or jigged for fish along man made a wing dam on a major river or traveled on a US highway or freeway? I recognize the need for social safety nets and I wish the liberals were capable of saying no (to) the other programs and add on's and expansions and global initiates and global commitments and so forth so that we can properly fund them and keep them available for our use versus trying to fund them along with everything else that the liberals keep committing us to pay for these days.

No that's not true. They gave away money to fund these projects. "emergency food programs were set up to prevent starvation. For instance, surplus agricultural goods were distributed to the poor. Also, a relatively small-scale “food stamp” program was established for needy federal workers."... "This first set of reforms, as previously stated, was an emergency stop-gap measure. From November of 1934 to November of 1936, the Roosevelt Administration implemented a second set of reforms meant to define an ongoing responsibility of the federal government, a responsibility for social welfare similar to that found in European nations.19 The major piece of legislation passed during this period was the Social Security Act of 1935.

This legislation constituted a package of social programs consisting of both insurance and poor relief (later referred to as “public assistance” or “welfare”). With respect to insurance, the act contained both unemployment insurance and old age pensions (commonly known as “Social Security”). Unemployment insurance was very unpopular with business leaders. To illustrate, as late as 1931, Henry Ford persisted in blaming mass unemployment on individual laziness. He claimed there was plenty of work for those who wanted it!20 Yet, packaging unemployment insurance with more popular programs such as old age pensions, Roosevelt was able to pass the legislation. The Social Security Act also contained several federal poor relief programs. Meant to be a continuing federal responsibility, these programs included Old Age Assistance, Aid to the Blind, and Aid to Dependent Children (ADC).21 ADC, as the name suggests, targeted relief to poor children in single parent families. It was not until 1950 that the single parent became officially eligible for assistance also. Note that prior to the New Deal, relief was a tool used by social workers to rehabilitate.22 To get relief, a person had to accept rehabilitation services from a social worker (including a significant dose of moral instruction!) With the New Deal, poor relief became a right of American citizens meeting certain eligibility standards, including of course, financial need. In other words, poor relief became, not a “means” to rehabilitation, but rather, an “end in itself.” The Social Security Act promoted cooperation between the federal government and the states in providing poor relief through the use of “matching funding formulas.”23 That is, for every dollar of state funding expended in the Old Age Assistance, Aid to the Blind, and Aid to Dependent Children programs, the federal government contributed a specified percentage of funding. Yet, the legislation allowed each state to determine eligibility standards and levels of benefits. Also contained in the legislative package were a number of smaller scale health and human service programs.
These included child welfare and maternal health programs in Title V of the act and public health programs in Title VI of the legislation. During this second round of reforms, the Roosevelt Administration continued to confront massive unemployment and labor unrest. Numerous strikes took place throughout the country. To support the rights of union organizers, the Wagner Act was passed in 1936.24 This legislation established the National Labor Relations Board. The board enforced the right of workers to start their own unions. For instance, specific procedures for starting unions were outlined, including voting procedures for choosing a collective bargaining agent. The Roosevelt Administration also implemented major federal initiatives during this “second New Deal” that were later terminated.25 One was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which replaced the Federal Emergency Relief Administration created at the start of the New Deal. About 85% of program participants were receiving poor relief. Program eligibility was limited to one member of each family..."

https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/er...-and-wwii/

Our "global commitments" like foreign aid have been drastically cut back in recent years. "everything else that the liberals keep committing us to pay for these days" consists of needed programs for today. You can't expect "liberals" to pay attention only to the needs that were noticed in the 1930s. Perhaps you refer to medicaid, developed as part of the "great society" that expanded on the 1930s reforms, or maybe food stamps or Obamacare. But I don't know what you mean. In the last 40 years of Reaganomics, liberals have gotten very little new programs passed, and the ones that survive have been cut back. Welfare is no longer free and can be taken away before the need is over.

Just because liberals want to have these programs does not make them "Marxists." Yet you accuse all liberals of being Marxists because they support these liberal reforms. You and your president constantly put out misinformation like this in order to arouse prejudice and hatred among the gullible.

(07-27-2020, 02:43 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]How many times have you expressed/promoted Marxist tenets and beliefs? You've done it enough over the years for me to associate you with them.

The analysis of the problem remains valid and occurred early. The solution? Most people look at the result of Lenin, Stalin and Mao and reject that. I know you are too ideologically blind and not listening to those who oppose you. Thus, you sill associate whomever you please with whatever you please no mater how clearly or often their view is clarified. That is only a problem with someone as value locked and ideological as you.

But a lot of people agree that the division of wealth is a problem. Whether you call them the Military Industrial Complex, the Robber Barons, the one percent, the elites, or the owners of the means of production, the problem is still there. If you call anyone who thinks the division of wealth is a problem a Marxist, then there are lots of Marxists. If you only use that label for those who think the combination of capitalism and democracy has failed completely, and it requires violence to solve the problem, there are very very few who count as Marxists. Off hand, the Boogaloo Bois fall into that category, and I know of no others? Even they avoid Marxist language like the plague. Violence just leads to failure too often.

(07-27-2020, 03:15 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-27-2020, 02:50 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-27-2020, 02:16 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(07-27-2020, 02:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Well, the unions slight their own throats by not adapting and changing with the times. You see, the industrialized world that was pummeled during World War II rebuilt and caught up so to speak. Dude, a strong economy and lower taxes across the board favors all working Americans. Blacks Lives Matter is racist and feeding off black racism which why so many Americans are turned off by the name of the organization.

That remains laughable.  The Republicans favored the elites and racists and that preference is finally coming home to roost.  Many reds are now beginning to see it.  I don't doubt you are too ideological blind to do so.

In your mind that be the case and viewed as true. I mean, you are a progressive Democrat  who hates the Republicans and the Republican party.

Hate is the wrong word.  They have their place.  When LBJ went further than the people were ready to go and an unravelling mood stuck, selfishness, a resistance to change plus the elite and racist tendencies were in season.

But right now they have gone way beyond the point of diminishing return.  A crisis heart is not the time to be advocating the old values.

I am kind of anticipating that the racist tendency at least will be purged in the crisis heart and high.  The next generation of conservatives will be different.  By the next unravelling they might be the voice of the people again.

I am not as ideological as many people here are.  They are with one party or the other regardless of where we are in the cycles.  That is a good way to be wrong at least part of the time.

Have their place???? Boy does that sound like the words of an elitist. What place is that master? The back of the bus. You better wake and come to grips with the fact that we can stick in the back of the bus or throw you under the bus these days. The racist tendency won't be purged unless the Democrats take a hard line with all the racist minority groups that are supporting them today. So, how do the liberal Democrats do that without being called a racist or hurt politically these days? You're right about the danger of reinvesting in diminishing returns.

(07-27-2020, 04:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Have their place???? Boy does that sound like the words of an elitist. What place is that master?

Mostly the unraveling.  It takes a while for the new conservative thought pattern to take shape.  The Lincoln Project is one model for a Republican future.  So is the Tea Party, but so far they have fallen for Palin and Trump.  It is not clear that they will find a new leader who is more or less untainted.

(07-27-2020, 04:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]The back of the bus. You better wake and come to grips with the fact that we can stick in the back of the bus or throw you under the bus these days.

Again, I'm not worried about it.  I know you are obsessed with violence in a funny sort of way, but reds seem to be moving blue.  I don't think you speak for them anymore.

(07-27-2020, 04:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]The racist tendency won't be purged unless the Democrats take a hard line with all the racist minority groups that are supporting them today. So, how do the liberal Democrats do that without being called a racist or hurt politically these days? You're right about the danger of reinvesting in diminishing returns.

This misuse of the word 'racist', seems to be unique to you.  I know your ideological blindness and values lock can cause you to embrace all sorts of weird stuff, but do you know of anyone else that tries to reverse the racism problem?