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

(01-11-2020, 05:23 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-11-2020, 04:44 PM)Anthony Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-11-2020, 02:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]Winston Churchill in his youth had this daydream.  Some day, Great Britain was going to stand against an ultimate evil, and he was going to lead his country in the style of King Arthur and save the day.  It was a harmless daydream.  It hurt nobody.

Then Hitler and fascism came along and he recognized it from his daydream.  He made a few speeches.  He set himself up to become what he always pictured himself being.

Fortunately for the West, he did it incomparably well.

And it still didn't help him in the 1945 election - just like Trump's winning World War III over the Muslims won't help Mike Pence, if the Democrats play the role of loyal opposition during the war.

Then it's single payer, here we come, in 2026.

Single payer for blue America maybe if we were to formally split and function as separate nations.

In 1945 the Brits knew that the Great Struggle was  coming to an evident end as the Devil's Reich was collapsing. Even in Asia, Britain was (liberating? reconquering?) Burma while the United States (which had more at stake in the Pacific theater) was tightening the noose on Japan  and ensuring that Malaysia, Brunei, and Hong Kong would return to Britain. Churchill's romantic dream was becoming obsolete through its military success -- and the exhaustion of British economic resources. 

What we have is unsustainable. We cannot have both an end of scarcity and grinding poverty. Feudal inequity and economic modernity are as incompatible as an alkali metal and liquid oxygen.

Fortunately, I suspect the conservative strategy is to try to fool all of the people, all of the time.

(01-11-2020, 06:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-11-2020, 05:23 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-11-2020, 04:44 PM)Anthony Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-11-2020, 02:41 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]Winston Churchill in his youth had this daydream.  Some day, Great Britain was going to stand against an ultimate evil, and he was going to lead his country in the style of King Arthur and save the day.  It was a harmless daydream.  It hurt nobody.

Then Hitler and fascism came along and he recognized it from his daydream.  He made a few speeches.  He set himself up to become what he always pictured himself being.

Fortunately for the West, he did it incomparably well.

And it still didn't help him in the 1945 election - just like Trump's winning World War III over the Muslims won't help Mike Pence, if the Democrats play the role of loyal opposition during the war.

Then it's single payer, here we come, in 2026.

Single payer for blue America maybe if we were to formally split and function as separate nations.

In 1945 the Brits knew that the Great Struggle was  coming to an evident end as the Devil's Reich was collapsing. Even in Asia, Britain was (liberating? reconquering?) Burma while the United States (which had more at stake in the Pacific theater) was tightening the noose on Japan  and ensuring that Malaysia, Brunei, and Hong Kong would return to Britain. Churchill's romantic dream was becoming obsolete through its military success -- and the exhaustion of British economic resources. 

What we have is unsustainable. We cannot have both an end of scarcity and grinding poverty. Feudal inequity and economic modernity are as incompatible as an alkali metal and liquid oxygen.

I agree, what we currently have going on is unsustainable in the long term and the notion of being to have it both ways like we do now will eventually catch up to us as a nation. You see, right now the government is using debt to offset the loses as a means for government and society in general to continue having it both ways and remaining together as a country. We are being warned that the current system will eventually fail. Hint..Social Security is going broke. Medicare is going broke. Public education is going down the tubes with the exception of wealthier suburban areas but even they're struggling these days with all the liberal policies, liberal rules and liberal laws in place that are dumbing down curriculum and education standards. Do you live in area where people feel bad or buckle and cave to liberal demands like liberal Democrats seem to do a lot these days. Or, do you live in an area that's largely conservative in nature. You are aware that what's left of the blue dog Democrat's (rank and file Democrats who are mainly women these days) are largely government union related or union related these days. As I've mentioned, I'm non partisan or agnostic when it comes to politics and it's a simple matter of valuing one party over the other right now. As I mentioned before, the Democratic party of today lost me a long time ago. You see, I was completely turned off by what I witnessed going on in Florida following the 2000' election. I watched a bunch of liberal crooks tried to illegally change an election result.

(01-11-2020, 07:02 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]Fortunately, I suspect the conservative strategy is to try to fool all of the people, all of the time.

The conservative strategy to try and fool us went out the window with the Bush administration and the death of John McCain. So far, I'd say the liberal strategy to continue doing it with their own still seems to be working and holding its own right now. Hint...The hardcore Americans substantially outnumber the GOP itself these days. What are you going to do when you find yourself stuck in the middle of an asymmetrical/ideological war between quasi socialists and hardcore Americans?

I am tempted to translate. The extremists have vile stereotypes for whomever opposes them. Criticism should be allowed. Neither faction is perfect. Vile stereotypes should not be allowed. That leads one into not listening and stalemate.

The “hardcore Americans” are a strange alliance. There is a deal of evangelical white male tribal thinking. There is an evolved from Scottish militaristic fighting culture. There is a streak of racism. There is a desire to keep manufacturing jobs in the US, which is understandable, assuming somebody can counter the elite’s stranglehold on the government. Quite a trick. That is one place where they could make common cause with the progressives if they were not so locked in their perspective. There is a more rural culture of being self reliant rather than committing to teamwork and specialization. That is just a function of where people live and how is is best to be in their environment.

The “quasi socialists’ are looking back at when America was great, towards stepping back to the 1950s and 1960s. Much less wealth is slowed off to the elites as division of wealth. There is a commitment to everyone, not just the white male evangelicals. The amount of things that must be done in terms of infrastructure is less than what was done in the 1950s and 1960s. Then there was a belief that America could do anything it set its mind to. I see the current vision of how much America could and should do today as smaller than in the heyday of tax and spend liberalism. At that time the opposition was the Soviet Union, there was a War on Poverty, and we were flying to the moon. Current plans are smaller and doable. It is just that we are living in a small government time where we are far less confident and ambitious.

Do we believe in that all men are equal under law? (The alternative is being a bigot.) Do we believe that there should be a smaller division of wealth. (The alternative is that a very few should have larger yachts.) Do we believe that the younger generations, working multiple jobs but unable to save towards retirement are being given a bum deal? (Is there an alternative to that one?)

Todays conservatives are in a strange place. The Republican Establishment has been identified as being tied to the elites. The Republican Base will shoot down most anyone but a Trump or Palin as a candidate for national office. Trump is busy demonstrating that he will betray his base. He will run chants about locking Hillary up when it is his appointees that are being locked up. Oh, he will flirt with bigotry enough to keep his rallies full, but he ends up loosing every time he endorses anybody. The base is wising up, but the big shots in the Republican Party seemingly have not noticed. Well, some of them have noticed. A lot of people are retiring from congress. The rest are trying to keep the schema going for a few more years.

Basically, if Trump continues to crash, what will the conservatives do? Will they keep the core not despicable conservative values and try to find a replacement for Trump and Palin to push a small government, no elites, light on taxes, strong on defense agenda? Will they be tempted to gain volume but reduce the size of their tent by stepping away from the evangelical, elite and racist elements? Who can step up and copy Reagan and try to make his ideas work after many decades of diminishing return have made this virtually impossible?

I just don’t see a winning hand there. Fortunately, I don’t have to. I am inclined to see the pendulum swinging the other way. I am enough a fan of cyclical history to expect that the pendulum will eventually swing the other way. I am hoping this is a spectacular enough failure to start a swing.

I wonder about the American readiness to use military force to spread our way of life. That results in our spending a lot of money that other countries just do not spend. We have essentially got out of the Middle East. If we are going to give up the World’s Policemen role, can we cut the absurd amount of spending?

I wonder if you can keep the conservative agenda alive if you tie it to racism and division of wealth. Some of the conservative agenda makes sense. Not all of it is deplorable. The demographics are changing.

I am seeing too much elite bootlicking in the liberal side of things. Can they push the more aggressive radical agenda without running afoul of the recent decades of small government memes. I am not worried that a more equal and more active government could sustain itself for a few decades. It worked just fine between the New Deal and Great Society. It is the small government mind set that has been pushed from Nixon through Trump that is my concern. It is not whether America could be great again, but whether our voters are willing to risk being great again.

Anyway, there is a core set of ideas on both sides that are solid and should be looked at. The two groups should be able to talk to each other. Thing is, the extremists have pushed their opposites toxic. They engage between socialists and bigots, not between two group of people with solid ideas and are willing to let go of their more deplorable brethren. As long as you continue to demonize those not riding the poisoned perspective, you cannot be involved in a real conversation. Neither can many of the blue extremists that demonize the red.

(01-11-2020, 10:58 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]I am tempted to translate.  The extremists have vile stereotypes for whomever opposes them.  Criticism should be allowed.  Neither faction is perfect.  Vile stereotypes should not be allowed.  That leads one into not listening and stalemate.

The “hardcore Americans” are a strange alliance.  There is a deal of evangelical white male tribal thinking.  There is an evolved from Scottish militaristic fighting culture.  There is a streak of racism.  There is a desire to keep manufacturing jobs in the US, which is understandable, assuming somebody can counter the elite’s stranglehold on the government.  Quite a trick.  That is one place where they could make common cause with the progressives if they were not so locked in their perspective.  There is a more rural culture of being self reliant rather than committing to teamwork and specialization.  That is just a function of where people live and how is is best to be in their environment.

The “quasi socialists’ are looking back at when America was great, towards stepping back to the 1950s and 1960s.  Much less wealth is slowed off to the elites as division of wealth.  There is a commitment to everyone, not just the white male evangelicals.  The amount of things that must be done in terms of infrastructure is less than what was done in the 1950s and 1960s.  Then there was a belief that America could do anything it set its mind to.  I see the current vision of how much America could and should do today as smaller than in the heyday of tax and spend liberalism.  At that time the opposition was the Soviet Union, there was a War on Poverty, and we were flying to the moon.  Current plans are smaller and doable.  It is just that we are living in a small government time where we are far less confident and ambitious.

Do we believe in that all men are equal under law?  (The alternative is being a bigot.)  Do we believe that there should be a smaller division of wealth.  (The alternative is that a very few should have larger yachts.)  Do we believe that the younger generations, working multiple jobs but unable to save towards retirement are being given a bum deal?  (Is there an alternative to that one?)

Todays conservatives are in a strange place.  The Republican Establishment has been identified as being tied to the elites.  The Republican Base will shoot down most anyone but a Trump or Palin as a candidate for national office.  Trump is busy demonstrating that he will betray his base.  He will run chants about locking Hillary up when it is his appointees that are being locked up.  Oh, he will flirt with bigotry enough to keep his rallies full, but he ends up loosing every time he endorses anybody.  The base is wising up, but the big shots in the Republican Party seemingly have not noticed.  Well, some of them have noticed.  A lot of people are retiring from congress.  The rest are trying to keep the schema going for a few more years.

Basically, if Trump continues to crash, what will the conservatives do?  Will they keep the core not despicable conservative values and try to find a replacement for Trump and Palin to push a small government, no elites, light on taxes, strong on defense agenda?  Will they be tempted to gain volume but reduce the size of their tent by stepping away from the evangelical, elite and racist elements?  Who can step up and copy Reagan and try to make his ideas work after many decades of diminishing return have made this virtually impossible?

I just don’t see a winning hand there.  Fortunately, I don’t have to.  I am inclined to see the pendulum swinging the other way.  I am enough a fan of cyclical history to expect that the pendulum will eventually swing the other way.  I am hoping this is a spectacular enough failure to start a swing.

I wonder about the American readiness to use military force to spread our way of life.  That results in our spending a lot of money that other countries just do not spend.  We have essentially got out of the Middle East.  If we are going to give up the World’s Policemen role, can we cut the absurd amount of spending?

I wonder if you can keep the conservative agenda alive if you tie it to racism and division of wealth.  Some of the conservative agenda makes sense.  Not all of it is deplorable.  The demographics are changing.

I am seeing too much elite bootlicking in the liberal side of things.  Can they push the more aggressive radical agenda without running afoul of the recent decades of small government memes.  I am not worried that a more equal and more active government could sustain itself for a few decades.  It worked just fine between the New Deal and Great Society.  It is the small government mind set that has been pushed from Nixon through Trump that is my concern.  It is not whether America could be great again, but whether our voters are willing to risk being great again.

Anyway, there is a core set of ideas on both sides that are solid and should be looked at.  The two groups should be able to talk to each other.  Thing is, the extremists have pushed their opposites toxic.  They engage between socialists and bigots, not between two group of people with solid ideas and are willing to let go of their more deplorable brethren.  As long as you continue to demonize those not riding the poisoned perspective, you cannot be involved in a real conversation.  Neither can many of the blue extremists that demonize the red.

Bob, it isn't about spreading our way of life as you say, it's about securing our country and protecting our way of life as the world goes nuts for a while. You shouldn't buy into the liberal hype and vile stereotypes (like conservatives being racists, fascists and evil Evangelicals) used by liberals these days either. You're to old to still be into remedial high school/college level shit. Me, I gave up going to rock concerts, partying like crazy and raising hell a long time ago.

I don't demonize liberals as you say, I'm not God or Jesus or a preacher like Obama's either. I tell them the brutal truth about them and I tell them what I don't like about them and tell them why so many Americans hate them and want nothing to do with them. Whether you deserve to be lumped in with them or not, I leave for you to decide. The bulk of your politicians are two faced boot lickers who got rich by being able to get away with playing both sides of the fence. Right now, I'm comfortable with liberal demonizing and liberals doing/ supporting the bulk of the demonizing these days and eventually paying the price for being directly associated with those above them who are still into practicing demonizing, still teaching demonizing and still believing in the value of demonizing most American citizens one way or another these days. You see, I know it's eventually going to blow up in the liberals face and the result isn't going to be a pleasant experience for most so called liberals these days.

(01-12-2020, 03:57 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]Bob, it isn't about spreading our way of life as you say, it's about securing our country and protecting our way of life as the world goes nuts for a while. You shouldn't buy into the liberal hype and vile stereotypes (like conservatives being racists, fascists and evil Evangelicals) used by liberals these days either. You're to old to still be into remedial high school/college level shit. Me, I gave up going to rock concerts, partying like crazy and raising hell a long time ago.

I don't demonize liberals as you say, I'm not God or Jesus or a preacher like Obama's either. I tell them the brutal truth about them and I tell them what I don't like about them and tell them why so many Americans hate them and want nothing to do with them. Whether you deserve to be lumped in with them or not, I leave for you to decide. The bulk of your politicians are two faced boot lickers who got rich by being able to get away with playing both sides of the fence.  Right now, I'm comfortable with liberal demonizing and liberals doing/ supporting the bulk of the demonizing these days and eventually paying the price for being directly associated with those above them who are still into practicing demonizing, still teaching demonizing and still believing in the value of demonizing most American citizens one way or another these days. You see, I know it's eventually going to blow up in the liberals face and the result isn't going to be a pleasant experience for most so called liberals these days.

Some conservatives are bigots.  Not all of them, but the Southern Strategy was and remains real.  When LBJ went after the minority vote, it was to be expected that the other party would do the obvious.  It lingers.

Absurdly few conservatives are fascist.  Oh, a few who enjoy confrontation will wear the swastika and use the old salutes.  I am not saying they are into 20th century fascism and the original meaning of the word.  No one is building gas chambers or serious about bringing back openly lynching people.  I am not saying the ‘all conservatives are fascist’ is any more true than ‘all democrats are socialists.’  That is demonizing, in either direction.  I will call out folk who do either, including you.

Some evangelicals organize into political action. This is one part of the conservative scene.  They attempt to enforce their religious values on those that don't share them.  Denying this is kinda futile, an effective lie.  I too will call them like I see it.

It is no more American to believe that America was great in the 1950s and 1960s, during the New Deal through Great Society progressive peak, than it is American to throw oneself into the Nixon through Trump conservative era.  It is not un-American to tax the rich or believe in equality.  To use the word ‘American’ as if it only applied to conservatives is a lie.  Many liberals were born in and live in America and believe in values which are deeply rooted in the USA.

Most liberals are not socialists.  The conservatives use the word when they wish to demonize.  When you have bigots and socialists debating one another, calling each other names, you are not having a serious conversation where both sides are listening to one another.  You are having a name calling contest, with both sides exchanging school yard level insults.

Ever since Nixon was forced out of power, the Republicans have daydreamed about doing the same to a Democrat.  They have not come close.  If you do not believe in big government, you are free to step outside of rule of law so long as you don’t get caught.  A bunch of conservative administrations have got caught.  Watergate.  Iran Contra.  Lying about causes of war.  Violating campaign finance laws.  Refusing to recognize oversight.  Promising to disregard oaths.  There is only lying about their sex life going the other way.  Not the same.

To escape the problematic Democratic habit of obeying the law, many conservatives have stepped into a world of alternate facts.  In short, they lie and don’t care that they are lying.  Their daydreams of locking her up have no basis in reality.  The official investigations have once again cleared Hillary, but will this slow down the chants?  Will it free the members and allies of the conservative administration being investigated, plea bargaining and in some cases being actually locked up?  This is problematic.  It is Republican administrations who indulge in a very small minority of those who act outside the law.

Now as long as you use prejudicial language like ‘American’ and ‘Socialist’ I will tell it like I see it.  You are spouting propaganda which is just not true.  You are deliberately poisoning attempts at real conversation.  More than a few who are die hard into the liberal way of looking at things are doing the same.

That is what I mean by demonizing.

(01-12-2020, 08:24 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]Some conservatives are bigots.  Not all of them, but the Southern Strategy was and remains real.  When LBJ went after the minority vote, it was to be expected that the other party would do the obvious.  It lingers.

Absurdly few conservatives are fascist.  Oh, a few who enjoy confrontation will wear the swastika and use the old salutes.  I am not saying they are into 20th century fascism and the original meaning of the word.  No one is building gas chambers or serious about bringing back openly lynching people.  I am not saying the ‘all conservatives are fascist’ is any more true than ‘all democrats are socialists.’  That is demonizing, in either direction.  I will call out folk who do either, including you.

Some evangelicals organize into political action.  They attempt to enforce their religious values on those that don't share them.  Denying this is kinda futile, an effective lie.  I too will call them like I see it.

It is no more American to believe that America was great in the 1950s and 1960s, during the New Deal through Great Society progressive peak, than it is American to throw oneself into the Nixon through Trump conservative era.  It is not un-American to tax the rich or believe in equality.  To use the word ‘American’ as if it only applied to conservatives is a lie.  Many liberals were born in and live in America and believe in values which are deeply rooted in the USA.

Most liberals are not socialists.  The conservatives use the word when they wish to demonize.  When you have bigots and socialists debating one another, calling each other names, you are not having a serious conversation where both sides are listening to one another.  You are having a name calling contest, with both sides exchanging school yard level insults.

Ever since Nixon was forced out of power, the Republicans have daydreamed about doing the same to a Democrat.  They have not come close.  If you do not believe in big government, you are free to step outside of rule of law so long as you don’t get caught.  A bunch of conservative administrations have got caught.  Watergate.  Iran Contra.  Lying about causes of war.  Violating campaign finance laws.  Refusing to recognize oversight.  Promising to disregard oaths.  There is only lying about their sex life going the other way.  Not the same.

To escape the problematic Democratic habit of obeying the law, many conservatives have stepped into a world of alternate facts.  In short, they lie and don’t care that they are lying.  Their daydreams of locking her up have no basis in reality.  The official investigations have once again cleared Hillary, but will this slow down the chants?  Will it free the members and allies of the conservative administration being investigated, plea bargaining and in some cases being actually locked up?  This is problematic.  It is Republican administrations who indulge in a very small minority of those who act outside the law.

Now as long as you use prejudicial language like ‘American’ and ‘Socialist’ I will tell it like I see it.  You are spouting propaganda which is just not true.  You are deliberately poisoning attempts at real conversation.  More than a few who are die hard into the liberal way of looking at things are doing the same.

That is what I mean by demonizing.

Yes, I am guilty of raining/peeing on the so called liberals parade and disrupting their clueless/mindless conversations and forcing them to have think about other stuff more than usual too, Dude, if I'm using using the term "Socialist" to describe you, your views, your beliefs, worldview, ideology of preference, political affiliation and so forth then you or whoever else has given me more than enough information/ proof for me to use it effectively. Yes, the traditional Democrats are in a bind these days. You see, no free lunches and teaching the value of working for a living are no longer acceptable/viable and no longer can compete or prevail on the Democratic side these days. Like I said, the so called liberal ideal based on a false belief in the government being able to continue to have it both ways ain't going to last/ remain able to be hid by the liberal side for much longer. Hint...I suggest that you learn to view and accept rather criticism, sarcasm and harsh truth for what it is and quit referring to them, viewing them as demonizing. Ok. You don't like broad brushing or so called demonizing as you say. In my opinion, the left has a major issue with big baby/ uppity liberal c*nt/ uppity liberal prick syndrome these days and a hardcore American asshole who has been succeeding with pointing it out and effectively using it against them in front everyone these days.

(01-12-2020, 08:24 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-12-2020, 03:57 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ](deleted for brevity)

Some conservatives are bigots.  Not all of them, but the Southern Strategy was and remains real.  When LBJ went after the minority vote, it was to be expected that the other party would do the obvious.  It lingers.

Most conservatives recognize that ethnic and religious bigotry might be a good campaign pitch, but that it is futile policy. Enforcement of bigoted ideas as public policy interferes with the freedom of businesses to conduct business as seems to fit the desires of owners and managers. Business is more intent on suppressing the rights of workers and any competition.   

Quote:Absurdly few conservatives are fascist.  Oh, a few who enjoy confrontation will wear the swastika and use the old salutes.  I am not saying they are into 20th century fascism and the original meaning of the word.  No one is building gas chambers or serious about bringing back openly lynching people.  I am not saying the ‘all conservatives are fascist’ is any more true than ‘all democrats are socialists.’  That is demonizing, in either direction.  I will call out folk who do either, including you.

That takes a destructive sadist or a fanatic... like Hitler. Hitler would have been wise to leave the Jews alone, but he so believed that he was doing a favor to the German people that it was worth the disruption to the economy. Conservatives are as hostile to fascists as liberals and social democrats are to Commies. Conservatives at their best recognize that contradictory promises invariably lead to catastrophic failures of policy.   

 

Quote:Some evangelicals organize into political action.  This is one part of the conservative scene.  They attempt to enforce their religious values on those that don't share them.  Denying this is kinda futile, an effective lie.  I too will call them like I see it.

Here is a generational angle: the older evangelicals church-shopped and found churches that fit their political and economic values while offering the authority of religion even to the point of Biblical literalism -- even young-earth creationism, Noah taking a forty-day cruise around a completely-flooded world, and ridiculously-long lifespans for patriarchs up to Abraham. Abraham does live to 120, which is just less than the longest reliably-recorded lifespan of anyone living in the 19th and 20th century (nobody has yet attained that age living in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, and never will)... and as the first to have a covenant with God and teach any morality... well, I find it impossible to believe anything in the Bible that precedes Abraham. 40-day circumnavigation of the globe? That is about the length of time that Columbus used in getting across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492 or the Mayflower took in crossing the Atlantic in 1620.   

Their kids? They were dragged into an evangelical church on Sunday morning, like it or not...and they are told to read the Bible.  Some parts are more interesting than others. The Jesus that their parents know is not the Jesus that the kids discover. The kids see sociopathic or narcissistic hucksters and see characters just like the Temple priests that Jesus recognized as hypocritical frauds.  I discussed this on a long-vanished Forum (the new York Times had one for discussing all sorts of issues) -- that if I were Jesus returning to the world as Jesus and first appearing in America I would go onto the plush stage set of some televangelist with a chainsaw and cut his Louis-quatorze chairs to pieces and warn the television audience that that televangelist had turned my message into a fraudulent sales pitch and his church into a "den of thieves". Kids can see through hypocrisy very well.      

Quote:It is no more American to believe that America was great in the 1950s and 1960s, during the New Deal through Great Society progressive peak, than it is American to throw oneself into the Nixon through Trump conservative era.  It is not un-American to tax the rich or believe in equality.  To use the word ‘American’ as if it only applied to conservatives is a lie.  Many liberals were born in and live in America and believe in values which are deeply rooted in the USA.

I do not miss the Blood Alley roads that superhighways have supplanted; I do not miss polio; I do not miss Jim Crow practice; I do not miss the Red Scare and nuclear fear; I do not miss homophobia. If you wonder whether the technological achievements of our time are not so much something that I would miss, it is because the technologies of entertainment allow us to do much the same things that we used to (e-mail is a good substitute for a telegram, and recorded video is a good substitute for movie-going) -- perhaps less expensively. The quality of entertainment is far more important than the medium.

Quote:Most liberals are not socialists.  The conservatives use the word when they wish to demonize.  When you have bigots and socialists debating one another, calling each other names, you are not having a serious conversation where both sides are listening to one another.  You are having a name calling contest, with both sides exchanging school yard level insults.

Even with "socialists" one has a great variety from social democrats (who have a good reputation for human rights and civil liberties) to the Khmer Rouge. But with that caveat, name-calling is pointless unless the name has some validity. I use a word like "thief", "rapist", "arsonist", "murderer", "traitor", or "pedophile" with great care.  If I call President Trump a "useful idiot" it is with regret that the label fits. 

Quote:Ever since Nixon was forced out of power, the Republicans have daydreamed about doing the same to a Democrat.  They have not come close.  If you do not believe in big government, you are free to step outside of rule of law so long as you don’t get caught.  A bunch of conservative administrations have got caught.  Watergate.  Iran Contra.  Lying about causes of war.  Violating campaign finance laws.  Refusing to recognize oversight.  Promising to disregard oaths.  There is only lying about their sex life going the other way.  Not the same.

We do not get to decide what laws we obey and which laws we disobey unless the laws are so odious that they merit disobedience. I think of the Fugitive Slave Law or the Nuremberg Laws as extreme examples. Bad systems such as the old Soviet Union can develop a law so horrible as Article 58 of the Soviet Criminal Code that defines practically everyone as a criminal. I might report a drunk driver to the local police, but I am not going to tell some secret police official tell which way a political dissident went. 

Quote:To escape the problematic Democratic habit of obeying the law, many conservatives have stepped into a world of alternate facts.  In short, they lie and don’t care that they are lying.  Their daydreams of locking her up have no basis in reality.  The official investigations have once again cleared Hillary, but will this slow down the chants?  Will it free the members and allies of the conservative administration being investigated, plea bargaining and in some cases being actually locked up?  This is problematic.  It is Republican administrations who indulge in a very small minority of those who act outside the law.

Such people still think that Obama was born in Kenya even if such would have never made a difference (his mother's womb made him an American by birth, according to law. Law does not exist for our convenience. 

Quote:Now as long as you use prejudicial language like ‘American’ and ‘Socialist’ I will tell it like I see it.  You are spouting propaganda which is just not true.  You are deliberately poisoning attempts at real conversation.  More than a few who are die hard into the liberal way of looking at things are doing the same.

That is what I mean by demonizing.

Classic X'er fails to recognizes that there are many ways in which to be an American. As an example, America has Latino communities that existed long before the American Revolution. Those are as American as some WASP community settled by the Puritans that subsequent waves of immigrants somehow missed. Never mind that those communities have expanded due to natural growth and immigration. Many communities in New England have at most small contingents of "early New England" stock now have populations of  Irish, French-Canadian, Portuguese, or Italian stock. So "Rodrigues" became "Rogers", "Pereira" became "Perry"; "Racine" got translated into "Root", or "Jankowiak" became "Johnson". So what?

We are culturally richer because of our immigrants. How do you know that any one of the kids at a birthday party at which a pinata appears is Hispanic? Need one be Italian to appreciate pizza or Puccini?

(01-04-2020, 01:18 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-04-2020, 07:56 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-30-2019, 11:43 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(12-30-2019, 11:36 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]People are not as media-savvy as they need be. They need learn the techniques of manipulation, including logical fallacies.

Amen.  I figure learning how to read liars is one of the natural skills we all well have to have in the Information Age.  It is one of the new values we have to transition to, and the Trump alternate reality is a hard lesson which will drive the values change.

While I agree with this, it's not the entire story.  Ask yourself three questions

1. Which nations with long(ish) histories of democratic values and responsible government are flailing around in this cesspool?
   
2. Which nations have Murdock media as dominant news providers?
   
3. How close is the correlation?
   

We're in a close race here.  Brexit may do more damage to the UK than anything short of the world wars, and Australia is burning while both political parties offer total support to the coal industry.  It's hard to cite the Murdock's as uniquely at fault, it's impossible to give them a bye.

Too much of a coalition, but that only reenforces the need for the skill.

I've been super busy so this is very late.  You have a great point about knowing what's BS and what's at least feasible, but the Republicans really don't care.  They've found a mode of operation that's impervious to reason or even shame.  Some of it's old (Roy Cohn was pitching this in the McCarthy era), and some is new (Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the no-ethics new media).  Essentially, the game is all emotion: hate trumps reason every time.  And this won't change unless this modality is beaten into the ground -- a prospect I seriously doubt, at least in the near term.  

The old order sees its dominance fading, and will fight that to the death.  Count on it.  The forces opposed must get into the ring too, or concede.  The trick: getting into the ring without descending into the mud.

(01-08-2020, 04:13 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-08-2020, 04:09 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]I agree with what you're both saying but liberal talk is cheap these days.

Yah.  Some conservatives seem to enjoy being gullible.

It is just that after so many lies, you would think they would wise up.

In a rational world ...

(01-08-2020, 06:18 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-04-2020, 08:16 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]Good question, though a bit cynical.  The GOP has a near lock on the Senate, due entirely to their dominance of lower-population states.  Once Ted Kennedy died, the Obama landslide was over, and hyper-partisan Mitch McConnell stopped everything in its tracks -- not to belay bad legislation, but to stop anything the Dems could call a win.  But while the Dems had control in that period, they had too few votes to pass anything if the filibuster continued.  That was especially true for court appointments, so Harry Reid made the move.  It may not have been totally wise, but the alternative was even worse, from the Dem perspective.

With comity dead in the political sphere, the fights will get even more brutal and demographics will win in the end.  This looks pretty bad for the Republicans long term, but they may do well for the next decade or so.  If Trump is reelected, cut that to a few years.

Yes, the demographics as you are in your favor now and therefore the long term as you say. Of coarse, that will only be a problem if we remain loyal to a government with liberals in charge  and liberal policies in place. Hint...I've/we've seem what your side is capable of doing to get what it wants and get even so to speak. I must say its impressive when the liberal system (liberals above) caters to them and allows them the freedom to do it for our education and liberal plublicity. I wonder how much of that stuff that we've seen was coordinated by liberal groups.

Of coarse, our more preferred American  system ain't as permissive or as into racial preference as your liberal system and what we see is illegal and reminds us of what quasi socialist groups tend to do to assert and gain power. I wonder how many of them people of yours I would lay out before a liberal up above would respond. Liberals ain't quick.  I wonder how of those punks of yours are used to facing gunfire and used to seeing wounded people and a bunch of hand held weapons scattered all around them. You say I couldn't, I say I could because I know I would in that situation and I don't lie. I'm sorry to inform you but I place more value on a deer or a pheasant than I place on the folks wearing masks and using sticks and I shoot them.  

Hint...The Devils Advocate had a political association and a personal handicap like Bush II, that I didn't have to contend with and a broad brushing largely unappealing approach that I didn't use initially.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but America is not yours to own.  And please, let's agree that dirty tricks are the GOP's stock in trade.  The Dems and other non-party liberal groups are rank amateurs.  BTW, threats,, implied or direct, have negative consequences.  You need to tone it down.  Remarkable as it may be to you, liberals are both patriotic and brave.  If you actually start a civil war, be prepared to lose it.  That's how it played last time.

(01-11-2020, 07:02 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]Fortunately, I suspect the conservative strategy is to try to fool all of the people, all of the time.

… or enough of the people to win.  They don't need everyone; they don't even need a majority.  Just enough.

(01-13-2020, 10:31 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry to burst your bubble, but America is not yours to own.  And please, let's agree that dirty tricks are the GOP's stock in trade.  The Dems and other non-party liberal groups are rank amateurs.  BTW, threats,, implied or direct, have negative consequences.  You need to tone it down.  Remarkable as it may be to you, liberals are both patriotic and brave.  If you actually start a civil war, be prepared to lose it.  That's how it played last time.

And I Have been noting the ‘terrorism is not the way to change America’ meme seen first with Oklahoma City, then with September 11th. Both parties rejected terrorism, and both bases followed suit. Classic seem to be obsessed with the old Industrial Age love of violence, not ready to switch to the major legislative bill approach. Violence in the form of a civil war or revolution used to be required for a major cultural change, but has not been necessary in the USA domestically since the New Deal. The spiral of violence is not escalating. I am not anticipating violence making a comeback now. Crisis wars are an age out.

(01-13-2020, 10:31 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-08-2020, 06:18 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-04-2020, 08:16 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]Good question, though a bit cynical.  The GOP has a near lock on the Senate, due entirely to their dominance of lower-population states.  Once Ted Kennedy died, the Obama landslide was over, and hyper-partisan Mitch McConnell stopped everything in its tracks -- not to belay bad legislation, but to stop anything the Dems could call a win.  But while the Dems had control in that period, they had too few votes to pass anything if the filibuster continued.  That was especially true for court appointments, so Harry Reid made the move.  It may not have been totally wise, but the alternative was even worse, from the Dem perspective.

With comity dead in the political sphere, the fights will get even more brutal and demographics will win in the end.  This looks pretty bad for the Republicans long term, but they may do well for the next decade or so.  If Trump is reelected, cut that to a few years.

Yes, the demographics as you are in your favor now and therefore the long term as you say. Of coarse, that will only be a problem if we remain loyal to a government with liberals in charge  and liberal policies in place. Hint...I've/we've seem what your side is capable of doing to get what it wants and get even so to speak. I must say its impressive when the liberal system (liberals above) caters to them and allows them the freedom to do it for our education and liberal plublicity. I wonder how much of that stuff that we've seen was coordinated by liberal groups.

Of coarse, our more preferred American  system ain't as permissive or as into racial preference as your liberal system and what we see is illegal and reminds us of what quasi socialist groups tend to do to assert and gain power. I wonder how many of them people of yours I would lay out before a liberal up above would respond. Liberals ain't quick.  I wonder how of those punks of yours are used to facing gunfire and used to seeing wounded people and a bunch of hand held weapons scattered all around them. You say I couldn't, I say I could because I know I would in that situation and I don't lie. I'm sorry to inform you but I place more value on a deer or a pheasant than I place on the folks wearing masks and using sticks and I shoot them.  

Hint...The Devils Advocate had a political association and a personal handicap like Bush II, that I didn't have to contend with and a broad brushing largely unappealing approach that I didn't use initially.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but America is not yours to own.  And please, let's agree that dirty tricks are the GOP's stock in trade.  The Dems and other non-party liberal groups are rank amateurs.  BTW, threats,, implied or direct, have negative consequences.  You need to tone it down.  Remarkable as it may be to you, liberals are both patriotic and brave.  If you actually start a civil war, be prepared to lose it.  That's how it played last time.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but America is not yours to have or give away. Just so you understand where I'm coming from, my American ancestors directly participated in the American Revolutionary war against the British and the American Civil War against the Confederacy and the American war against the Axis Powers during World War II.  Yes, I agree with you, the American side won the last time and the times before it as well. I expect that to continue/prevail against the quasi socialists of our time as well. So, how much of the country are you able to lose and still be able survive and adequately maintain liberal government with all its liberal policies and programs these days. Your state could on the verge of splitting and seeing its tax revenues significantly reduced by a bunch of self righteous fools who have this crazy notion in their heads that have the same power as the government of New Zealand or Australia.

(01-12-2020, 04:43 AM)pbrower2a (updated and corrected) Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-11-2020, 10:58 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]I am tempted to translate.  The extremists have vile stereotypes for whomever opposes them.  Criticism should be allowed.  Neither faction is perfect.  Vile stereotypes should not be allowed.  That leads one into not listening and stalemate.

Vile stereotypes are nothing new -- always ugly and grossly unrepresentative. Most people are complicated enough that simple, crude stereotypes fit them badly. When one sees ugly stereotypes of a whole group one might as well discount them. Maybe a subculture such as the Sicilian Mafia, Hell's Angels, MS-13, or the Klan neatly fits a stereotype but that invariably relates to a group that develop common behaviors to consolidate identity -- usually a vile one. Then, and only then, do vile stereotypes fit.   

Quote:The “hardcore Americans” are a strange alliance.  There is a deal of evangelical white male tribal thinking.  There is an evolved from Scottish militaristic fighting culture.  There is a streak of racism.  There is a desire to keep manufacturing jobs in the US, which is understandable, assuming somebody can counter the elite’s stranglehold on the government.  Quite a trick.  That is one place where they could make common cause with the progressives if they were not so locked in their perspective.  There is a more rural culture of being self reliant rather than committing to teamwork and specialization.  That is just a function of where people live and how is is best to be in their environment.

Those Appalachian whites were good factory workers and miners, and they did unusually well for their heritage when the Tennessee Valley Authority brought electricity and unprecedented opportunity to a big chunk of the Mountain South. Coal mining well served their work ethic, their low demands for satisfaction on the job, their materialism, and their limited education. Tennessee exemplifies how well things went at one time: it was the most progressive of the former Confederate states in economics and politics. That is past. 

Quote:The “quasi socialists’ are looking back at when America was great, towards stepping back to the 1950s and 1960s.  Much less wealth is slowed (sloughed?) off to the elites as division of wealth.  There is a commitment to everyone, not just the white male evangelicals.  The amount of things that must be done in terms of infrastructure is less than what was done in the 1950s and 1960s.  Then there was a belief that America could do anything it set its mind to.  I see the current vision of how much America could and should do today as smaller than in the heyday of tax and spend liberalism.  At that time the opposition was the Soviet Union, there was a War on Poverty, and we were flying to the moon.  Current plans are smaller and doable.  It is just that we are living in a small government time where we are far less confident and ambitious.

In some respects those were the best times for many Americans. Well, maybe not for women unless they sought to be homemakers; certainly not for Southern blacks who still endured the strictures of Jim Crow practice. The generational cycle suggests that the 2030's will be parallel in many ways to the 1950's -- material and bland, with comparatively good opportunities for work as such. The current reality of people holding multiple jobs to make ends meet because elite indulgence is the key principle of the time will be no more. People will more likely save than go into hock. Such was a more conservative time in the better sense of the word -- a time in which more people had a stake in the status quo, a consequence of liberal policies of the recent past that gave people more of a stake in the status quo. Small-scale creditors (savers with  a few months' income socked away in a bank account or with a whole-life insurance policy) have the desire that their assets not be gutted in inflation but that the economy be vibrant enough that people not need to eat those away or borrow against them in a depression. Neither inflation nor depression? That is a good thing, and people with a stake in the system tend to become moderate conservatives. If only a few people have a stake in the system because they can restrict economic opportunity for everyone else to near-peonage, then those people become reactionary extremists who exploit the helplessness of others to the fullest while others have nothing but fear.   

Quote:Do we believe in that all men are equal under law?  (The alternative is being a bigot.)  Do we believe that there should be a smaller division of wealth.  (The alternative is that a very few should have larger yachts.)  Do we believe that the younger generations, working multiple jobs but unable to save towards retirement are being given a bum deal?  (Is there an alternative to that one?)

Note well: today's young adults will be supplanting today's oldies-but-not-so-goodies as politicians as they enter midlife, and the Millennial generation already has its political values in place. It has no use for the idea that people are nothing but machines of meat on the job, and that an economy works first for the elites of ownership and management who get to decide that everyone else must be poor -- and almost invariably make the predictable decision for every all-powerful elite that has ever existed, whether the Pharaohs of Egypt or the Soviet nomenklatura: "Suffer, oh peon, for my indulgence!  

Quote:Today's conservatives are in a strange place.  The Republican Establishment has been identified as being tied to the elites.  The Republican Base will shoot down most anyone but a Trump or Palin as a candidate for national office.  Trump is busy demonstrating that he will betray his base.  He will run chants about locking Hillary up when it is his appointees that are being locked up.  Oh, he will flirt with bigotry enough to keep his rallies full, but he ends up losing every time he endorses anybody.  The base is wising up, but the big shots in the Republican Party seemingly have not noticed.  Well, some of them have noticed.  A lot of people are retiring from congress.  The rest are trying to keep the schema going for a few more years.

Nothing forces a reorientation of a party as do electoral defeats. Republicans relied upon the Gilded consensus (tellingly, the Gilded acted much like a Civic generation after the Civil War) for electoral victories as late as the 1890's. People familiar with the ideas of the Gilded Age could revive much of its ethos in the 1920's, only to see it implode once and for all.   Democrats used to rely upon the New Deal coalition; that is now impossible for obvious reasons. 

He is not losing the base through defections other than those resulting from death and debility. The problem is that that base is shrinking because it attracts few young adults.  For them, such a slogan as Make America Great Again means something very different -- an America in which people have a chance to not live hand-to-mouth due to low pay and high costs of commuting and rent. Just think of Trump's idea of how to improve transportation: add tolls where they do not yet exist.  Such is obviously unwelcome. Work harder, pay more, and get less... such is a raw deal, and people hate raw deals. 

Quote:Basically, if Trump continues to crash, what will the conservatives do?  Will they keep the core not despicable conservative values and try to find a replacement for Trump and Palin to push a small government, no elites, light on taxes, strong on defense agenda?  Will they be tempted to gain volume but reduce the size of their tent by stepping away from the evangelical, elite and racist elements?  Who can step up and copy Reagan and try to make his ideas work after many decades of diminishing return have made this virtually impossible?

The Republican Party will have to redefine itself or become irrelevant. Or it will have to become an outlet for people who have no chance of competing with entrenched machines, for those who challenge incompetence or corruption among existing Democrats -- much as the Republican Party became during the 1930's. Note well that as a group becomes more of a fringe entity its members become increasingly fanatical in support of the ideas that underpin their cause -- but such a group becomes increasingly narrow, and less likely to achieve electoral success. Electoral defeats of Goldwater in 1964 and McGovern in 1972 compelled the losing Party to seek new constituencies and deprecate extreme ideas. More damaging are the huge electoral defeats of an incumbent President whom voters repudiate, as with Hoover in 1932 or Carter in 1980. I do not yet predict that Trump will lose to a Democrat while getting only 50 to 80 electoral votes; such implies that strange things have happened this time that allow a Democrat to win states that either were once heavily Democratic but have swung fully Republican (most of the South) or have not gone for a Democratic nominee since 1964. Maybe this time Trump loses the farm and ranch vote? Mormons? Cuban-Americans?

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Trump still has the advantage of incumbency, and he has supporters who would do anything for him. There are people who love roguish characters who get away with such, and many white people have severe resentments toward successful people either non-white or non-Christian -- not that they have any empathy for poor people unless those be white... maybe. I look at the pattern of about 1.5% of the electorate turning over each year as younger voters enter and older voters die off. Voters over 55 are about 5% more R than D, and voters under 30 are about 20% more D than R. With no other trend, such suggests an electorate that will be 1.5% more Democratic if nothing else changes between 2016 and 2020. Trump loses if nothing else changes. That is before I look at his erratic foreign policy, his abrasive dismissal of anything not fanatically on his side, his substandard communication skills (he got away with those in 2016 but won't this time), and overall failure to win over voters who voted Democratic in 2016.          

Quote:I just don’t see a winning hand there.  Fortunately, I don’t have to.  I am inclined to see the pendulum swinging the other way.  I am enough a fan of cyclical history to expect that the pendulum will eventually swing the other way.  I am hoping this is a spectacular enough failure to start a swing.

I already see Donald Trump as a catastrophic failure as President. The question is whether enough people will so see him in 2020. I recognize well that my opinion is unrepresentative: I would have voted for Nixon in 1972, and I voted for Anderson in 1980. Otherwise I voted for the Democratic nominee for President.  I saw Trump's win as a freak.  I will see any Trump victory in 2020 as an even bigger freak, if not a fraud. 

History shows that we Americans opt for change when things aren't going well or when reality gets stale.  Trump has solved nothing as President.   

Quote: I wonder about the American readiness to use military force to spread our way of life.  That results in our spending a lot of money that other countries just do not spend.  We have essentially got out of the Middle East.  If we are going to give up the World’s Policemen role, can we cut the absurd amount of spending?

We need to clean up our own political mess before we try to impose our way of life or our political style where such is unwelcome.

Quote:I wonder if you can keep the conservative agenda alive if you tie it to racism and division of wealth.  Some of the conservative agenda makes sense.  Not all of it is deplorable.  The demographics are changing.

I am seeing too much elite bootlicking in the liberal side of things.  Can they push the more aggressive radical agenda without running afoul of the recent decades of small government memes.  I am not worried that a more equal and more active government could sustain itself for a few decades.  It worked just fine between the New Deal and Great Society.  It is the small government mind set that has been pushed from Nixon through Trump that is my concern.  It is not whether America could be great again, but whether our voters are willing to risk being great again.

Liberals have much to work out. Nationalizations are out of the question. Selling people on high taxes for more government services will be difficult. Maybe if we see that bigger government spending that guarantees that education be less costly, that government try to de-concentrate the income in America so that people don't have to leave Cleveland do not have to, that people with needs get those addressed... paying 60% in taxes but getting that back as benefits is not so bad after all if the alternative is an economic meltdown. Figure that many physicians have hundreds of thousands of dollars in educational debt before entering the profession, and working on a government payroll might not be so attractive. 

Quote:Anyway, there is a core set of ideas on both sides that are solid and should be looked at.  The two groups should be able to talk to each other.  Thing is, the extremists have pushed their opposites toxic.  They engage between socialists and bigots, not between two group of people with solid ideas and are willing to let go of their more deplorable brethren.  As long as you continue to demonize those not riding the poisoned perspective, you cannot be involved in a real conversation.  Neither can many of the blue extremists that demonize the red.

By 2030 I expect a general consensus that debt will be as vile a word as f**k... something only for dreamers of fools, unlike sex. Pay-as-you-go will be the way to do most things, including big projects.  People will insist upon being paid enough so that they can save, and they will be expected to make large down-payments on auto loans. College education will again be about as expensive as a hobby that one lacks the time for if one is in college. Rationality will be a virtue instead of cultural baggage. 

People who get welfare of any kind will be more regulated. Thus people who get food aid will find that more of what they get will be determined by some bureaucrat (more vegetables and far less candy, and fewer if any pastries, crackers, chips, and sodas -- if those at all).  College education will be more uniform, with the content of the first two years being nearly as uniform as is coursework in junior high school today.     

If one thing will be different in life, it will be that status symbols will be far less relevant. Post-scarcity society will mean that any attempt to distinguish oneself by having a costlier drink, phone, car, or sofa will be less meaningful. Besides -- taxes on conspicuous consumption will be high.

(01-13-2020, 04:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-13-2020, 10:31 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry to burst your bubble, but America is not yours to own.  And please, let's agree that dirty tricks are the GOP's stock in trade.  The Dems and other non-party liberal groups are rank amateurs.  BTW, threats,, implied or direct, have negative consequences.  You need to tone it down.  Remarkable as it may be to you, liberals are both patriotic and brave.  If you actually start a civil war, be prepared to lose it.  That's how it played last time.

And I Have been noting the ‘terrorism is not the way to change America’ meme seen first with Oklahoma City, then with September 11th.  Both parties rejected terrorism, and both bases followed suit.  Classic seem to be obsessed with the old Industrial Age love of violence, not ready to switch to the major legislative bill approach.  Violence in the form of a civil war or revolution used to be required for a major cultural change, but has not been necessary in the USA domestically since the New Deal.  The spiral of violence is not escalating.  I am not anticipating violence making a comeback now.  Crisis wars are an age out.

We needed a real old fashioned revolutionary to get rid of British rule and establish a new form of government that we are still associated with today. I take pride in my personal relationship (American ancestors) with those who played an active role in that great endeavor and all future endeavors that followed it. Classic understands that violence is still being used by others and becomes necessary to use at times. Did the 9/11 attack shock you as much as it shocked me that morning? True, terrorism is not the way to change America. I don't know whether the major legislature approach or Bernie approach will work to change it either at this point.

(01-13-2020, 09:06 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-13-2020, 04:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-13-2020, 10:31 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry to burst your bubble, but America is not yours to own.  And please, let's agree that dirty tricks are the GOP's stock in trade.  The Dems and other non-party liberal groups are rank amateurs.  BTW, threats,, implied or direct, have negative consequences.  You need to tone it down.  Remarkable as it may be to you, liberals are both patriotic and brave.  If you actually start a civil war, be prepared to lose it.  That's how it played last time.

And I Have been noting the ‘terrorism is not the way to change America’ meme seen first with Oklahoma City, then with September 11th.  Both parties rejected terrorism, and both bases followed suit.  Classic seem to be obsessed with the old Industrial Age love of violence, not ready to switch to the major legislative bill approach.  Violence in the form of a civil war or revolution used to be required for a major cultural change, but has not been necessary in the USA domestically since the New Deal.  The spiral of violence is not escalating.  I am not anticipating violence making a comeback now.  Crisis wars are an age out.

We needed a real old fashioned  revolutionary to get rid of British rule and establish a new form of government that we are still associated with today. I take pride in my personal relationship (American ancestors) with  those who played an active role in that great endeavor and all future endeavors that followed it. Classic understands that violence is still being  used by others and becomes necessary to use at times.        Did the 9/11 attack shock you as much as it shocked me that morning? True, terrorism is not the way to change America. I don't know whether the major legislature approach or Bernie approach will work to change it either at this point.

You get no special status because of your ancestors, and I get no special guilt for cousins. I am quite sure that if I look hard enough (I choose not to -- I wonder why!!!) that I could find relatives in Germany who perpetrated the Holocaust. On the other hand, I notice that although the Founding Fathers were strictly not Jewish, that Jewish values are consistent with America's Founding Fathers except on chattel slavery. (You know what I have said about Nazi and KKK ideology -- that if I had to choose between Judaism and Nazism or the KKK, that I would choose Judaism because Judaism is compatible with my cultural and ethical values). It is telling that the Zionist ideal of Herzl looked more like a Jewish version of the United States of America than of anything else at the time. I so hate Nazism and the KKK that I would rather be black than anti-human. Indeed, if I had to choose between being a homosexual and a violent homophobe I would be gay. (I am not accusing you of racism including antisemitism, and I am not accusing you of hostility toward LGBT people). 

...as for future endeavors that followed the American Revolution I include the emancipation of slaves, the acceptance of one after another establishment of rights of women, children, workers, and minorities, and the defeat of the enslaving Axis Powers. Sorting out the mess that made Donald Trump possible could be as essential as emancipating the slaves, defeating the monstrous Axis, and winning the Cold War. Would that the Germans had rejected Hitler before it was too late, as that would have solved many problems that the world had -- especially preventing the annihilation of much of one of the richest and most distinguished cultures. The Germans failed not so much in 1944 and 1945 as they failed in 1932 and 1933.  Note well: no matter how ludicrous Donald Trump may be as an expression of postmodern rejection of rational thought, he will not be the last in America.

(01-13-2020, 12:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]Classic X'er fails to recognizes that there are many ways in which to be an American. As an example, America has Latino communities that existed long before the American Revolution. Those are as American as some WASP community settled by the Puritans that subsequent waves of immigrants somehow missed. Never mind that those communities have expanded due to natural growth and immigration. Many communities in New England have at most small contingents of "early New England" stock now have populations of  Irish, French-Canadian, Portuguese, or Italian stock. So "Rodrigues" became "Rogers", "Pereira" became "Perry"; "Racine" got translated into "Root", or "Jankowiak" became "Johnson". So what?

We are culturally richer because of our immigrants. How do you know that any one of the kids at a birthday party at which a pinata appears is Hispanic? Need one be Italian to appreciate pizza or Puccini?

You don't think that I'm completely aware that my ancestors were American immigrants at one time. OK. We have an issue with illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants who liberals view as your equals and therefore entitled to receive equal benefits as poor old you and other equally poor Americans these days. I don't know what the impact of adding 22 million illegal immigrants plus how ever many more make their way in is going to have on existing federal programs like medicare and medicaid or state funded programs but I'm sure its not going to be good for those who are reliant on them. Like I said, I don't really care if you guys continue digging your own graves as America goes about its business.

I'm also aware that are Mexican Americans who don't speak Spanish who had parents and grand parents who didn't speak Spanish who immigrated to Minnesota from Texas about forty years ago. How am I aware that? I went to high school with some of them and I've met others just like them since high school. I must say that ones that I know don't seem to take their skin tone or ethnic heritage into account like the liberals still seem to do these days.

(01-13-2020, 10:05 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-13-2020, 09:06 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-13-2020, 04:43 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-13-2020, 10:31 AM)David Horn Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry to burst your bubble, but America is not yours to own.  And please, let's agree that dirty tricks are the GOP's stock in trade.  The Dems and other non-party liberal groups are rank amateurs.  BTW, threats,, implied or direct, have negative consequences.  You need to tone it down.  Remarkable as it may be to you, liberals are both patriotic and brave.  If you actually start a civil war, be prepared to lose it.  That's how it played last time.

And I Have been noting the ‘terrorism is not the way to change America’ meme seen first with Oklahoma City, then with September 11th.  Both parties rejected terrorism, and both bases followed suit.  Classic seem to be obsessed with the old Industrial Age love of violence, not ready to switch to the major legislative bill approach.  Violence in the form of a civil war or revolution used to be required for a major cultural change, but has not been necessary in the USA domestically since the New Deal.  The spiral of violence is not escalating.  I am not anticipating violence making a comeback now.  Crisis wars are an age out.

We needed a real old fashioned  revolutionary to get rid of British rule and establish a new form of government that we are still associated with today. I take pride in my personal relationship (American ancestors) with  those who played an active role in that great endeavor and all future endeavors that followed it. Classic understands that violence is still being  used by others and becomes necessary to use at times.        Did the 9/11 attack shock you as much as it shocked me that morning? True, terrorism is not the way to change America. I don't know whether the major legislature approach or Bernie approach will work to change it either at this point.

You get no special status because of your ancestors, and I get no special guilt for cousins. I am quite sure that if I look hard enough (I choose not to -- I wonder why!!!) that I could find relatives in Germany who perpetrated the Holocaust. On the other hand, I notice that although the Founding Fathers were strictly not Jewish, that Jewish values are consistent with America's Founding Fathers except on chattel slavery. (You know what I have said about Nazi and KKK ideology -- that if I had to choose between Judaism and Nazism or the KKK, that I would choose Judaism because Judaism is compatible with my cultural and ethical values). It is telling that the Zionist ideal of Herzl looked more like a Jewish version of the United States of America than of anything else at the time. I so hate Nazism and the KKK that I would rather be black than anti-human. Indeed, if I had to choose between being a homosexual and a violent homophobe I would be gay. (I am not accusing you of racism including antisemitism, and I am not accusing you of hostility toward LGBT people). 

...as for future endeavors that followed the American Revolution I include the emancipation of slaves, the acceptance of one after another establishment of rights of women, children, workers, and minorities, and the defeat of the enslaving Axis Powers. Sorting out the mess that made Donald Trump possible could be as essential as emancipating the slaves, defeating the monstrous Axis, and winning the Cold War. Would that the Germans had rejected Hitler before it was too late, as that would have solved many problems that the world had -- especially preventing the annihilation of much of one of the richest and most distinguished cultures. The Germans failed not so much in 1944 and 1945 as they failed in 1932 and 1933.  Note well: no matter how ludicrous Donald Trump may be as an expression of postmodern rejection of rational thought, he will not be the last in America.

Hint...Irrational people don't deserve much rational thought and responding to irrational people doesn't require thought either. He's playing tit for tat with irrational liberals and never Trump and he's winning by showing America how irrational the two of them really are these days. The funny thing is that the folks that he's been playing liberal games with are supposed to be professionals.