Are Some Haters Of Government Sensing The Looming Regeneracy?

[SomeGuy]

(03-15-2017, 03:35 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 03:23 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 03:15 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: You're claiming so does not make it so. Yes you did, yes you did.

Lol.  Thanks for living up (down?) to my expectations, Eric.  Well done. 

As long as your expectations for Eric are below your expectations for your average 2 year old he never disappoints.

I was referring to my previously-mentioned expectation on this thread, but, yeah, pretty much. 

[beechnut79]

(03-15-2017, 08:39 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 07:12 AM)Odin Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 04:27 AM)Galen Wrote:

(03-14-2017, 07:23 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:Like it or not the petrodollar will eventually end and the largess of the federal government will implode in on itself.

Yeah, I don't think a lot of progressives have grappled with what the end of imperium, "white privilege", and a shift to sustainability will actually mean in material terms, particularly for them.

They haven't.  Truth is they have this nasty tendency to think in linear trend lines that last forever.  Those of us in the real world know better.

Do you know what the next winning Powerball numbers are going to be, too?

I understand perfectly well that linear trends don't last forever, but, as shown by how wrong futurists often are, making ideologically dogmatic statements abiut the future like "the largess of the federal government will implode in on itself" just sets you up to look like a fool.

Says a person who was talking about the world inevitably becoming even smaller, more connected, and more urban.

If we become more urban, doesn't that mean that many suburban areas will have to embrace the denser housing patterns they have so far rejected in order to make public transit for feasible and reduce dependency on the private auto. On the old forum I had a thread titled "Will We Ever Reduce Auto Dependency" and got a mixture of respondents. Many seemed to think that we don't as yet have the will to do so, and I tend to agree more and more. The wild card is whether the Millennials, once they began to start families, will continue to embrace urban living or will they follow in the footsteps of previous gens and head for the car dependent suburbs.

[beechnut79]

(03-15-2017, 08:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 07:05 AM)Odin Wrote:

(03-14-2017, 05:51 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:I'm assuming that was supposed to be some kind subtle jab insinuating that concerns over Russian influence are a modern day witch hunt...

No, no, that was a not-so-subtle jab over campus hysterics, which we have discussed recently.

I am disappointed in you, Odin.  I expect Eric to be stupid, you I just hold to be tragically misguided.  You're not helping my case right now. 

Well, some of the college campus stupidity is witch-hunt-like, too. Russia-gate was just the first thing that popped in my head at the moment.

And IMO I would consider a lot of the people supporting Alt-Right populists to be the ones who are tragically misguided. A lot of them identify completely valid issues, Muslim immigrants in Europe not assimilating into Western culture, the EU being technocratic and unaccountable, educated people in the major cities thinking everyone else are just dumb hicks, treating identity as something only minority groups are allowed to have, etc. But the Alt-Right uses all these issues to promote xenophobia and romantic nostalgia that does not lead to workable solutions.

Whereas a lot of the people on the Left deny those issues exist and/or insist that nobody is allowed to talk about them.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some xenophobia and romantic nostalgia to promote.

This is exactly why we don't move further into said progressive direction. The corporate controlled media might as well have a noose around the necks of more progressive minded reporters as they are badgered into silence. Recall how much Bernie Sanders was ignored by the MSM until his campaign gained steam, and even then they tended to give him as little coverage as they could get away with. Even quasi-progressive MSNBC ousted Ed Schultz, about the only one on TV who allowed Sanders considerable air time. Had he had more air time, he just might be our President today.

[beechnut79]

(03-15-2017, 09:43 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 07:12 AM)Odin Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 04:27 AM)Galen Wrote:

(03-14-2017, 07:23 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:Like it or not the petrodollar will eventually end and the largess of the federal government will implode in on itself.

Yeah, I don't think a lot of progressives have grappled with what the end of imperium, "white privilege", and a shift to sustainability will actually mean in material terms, particularly for them.

They haven't.  Truth is they have this nasty tendency to think in linear trend lines that last forever.  Those of us in the real world know better.

Do you know what the next winning Powerball numbers are going to be, too?

I understand perfectly well that linear trends don't last forever, but, as shown by how wrong futurists often are, making ideologically dogmatic statements abiut the future like "the largess of the federal government will implode in on itself" just sets you up to look like a fool.

Since that was my prediction and not Galen's I'll address it here.

1.  The US produces very little in the way of goods and exports primarily food and raw materials.  (real third world type of situation)

2.  The US imports lots of just about everything else.  It pays for it with its own currency because people want that currency.  But since the US mainly sells food and raw materials it clearly isn't to buy finished goods from the US.  So why?

3.  The US Dollar is used in international trade because it can always be converted into oil.  Sure people may accept it for copper or rubber or widgits but it all comes down to petrolium.  AKA the Petrodollar.

4.  A group of states that can defend themselves decides they don't want dollars and will take something else instead for their oil.  The petrodollar quakes.

5.  Situation 4 becomes the norm, large inflows of dollars make their way back into the country and the USD is no longer seen as being worth being held for other currencies or gold for example leads to a flood of delayed inflation coming home all at once.

6.  With this inflation and loss of reserve status the Federal Government will need to raise taxes and cut spending and likely both at the same time. 

In short my prediction is that the sun will rise at some point, and when it does it will be in the east.

Considering that the conflicts in Iraq, Libya and possibly Syria are all related to the Petrodollar is telling.  Saber rattling with Russia and Iran only tells me that Iran's acceptance of RMB and Rupee for oil and the Russians taking RMB, Yen, and Euro for oil has already severely weakened the petrodollar.

Saudi is starting to run short of oil so when they go, the oil will be left with Iran, Russia, and a few countries with no government currently.   The empire is in its death throws.  Get used to it.  If we're lucky Trump will cut a Gorbachev figure and we'll have managed collapse, if he fails we'll have unmanaged collapse.

But all empires inevitably collapse.  Or have you forgotten about Egypt, Greece, Rome, Maya, Olmec, Anasazi and the various incarnations of China?

And also the fabled British Empire, of which it was once quoted that the sun never set on it.

[beechnut79]

(03-15-2017, 09:25 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 04:27 AM)Galen Wrote:

(03-14-2017, 07:23 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:Like it or not the petrodollar will eventually end and the largess of the federal government will implode in on itself.

Yeah, I don't think a lot of progressives have grappled with what the end of imperium, "white privilege", and a shift to sustainability will actually mean in material terms, particularly for them.

They haven't.  Truth is they have this nasty tendency to think in linear trend lines that last forever.  Those of us in the real world know better.

This is a tendency that I've noticed with progressives on this board, and you'd think that on a forum about a cyclical model of history they would know better.

And yet the situation of excessive corporate power has held steady for nearly four decades, long enough to make it seem to be linear. Would love to be proven wrong on this one.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:If we become more urban, doesn't that mean that many suburban areas will have to embrace the denser housing patterns they have so far rejected in order to make public transit for feasible and reduce dependency on the private auto. On the old forum I had a thread titled "Will We Ever Reduce Auto Dependency" and got a mixture of respondents. Many seemed to think that we don't as yet have the will to do so, and I tend to agree more and more. The wild card is whether the Millennials, once they began to start families, will continue to embrace urban living or will they follow in the footsteps of previous gens and head for the car dependent suburbs.

I am uncertain that consumer preferences are the sole determining factor.  The Great Recession had a serious impact on fuel consumption (already slowing previously due to rising prices) and miles driven.  Rising in resource consumption in the erstwhile "Third World" will affect prices even more going forward, to which we an add any future action on CO2 emission.  Fossil Fuels are a non-renewable resource, and average earnings are not exactly growing gangbusters, and neither is credit consumption.  I personally suspect that we have essentially passed the peak of that particular lifestyle, although unlike, say, Kunstler I don't expect it to all evaporate in the next few years (which he has been claiming for at least a decade now).

[beechnut79]

(03-15-2017, 10:21 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: I wouldn't oversell the US loss of manufacturing too much.  It's still a major manufacturing power, with exports in aircraft (subsidized by the MIC) and various capital goods outweighing food in dollar terms.

Seems to be that way because of new technology including robots. They are not the gigantic employers they once were.

[SomeGuy]

(03-15-2017, 04:10 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 10:21 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: I wouldn't oversell the US loss of manufacturing too much.  It's still a major manufacturing power, with exports in aircraft (subsidized by the MIC) and various capital goods outweighing food in dollar terms.

Seems to be that way because of new technology including robots. They are not the gigantic employers they once were.

Automation is a factor, yes.

[beechnut79]

(03-15-2017, 11:07 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:1. Are we destined to become the modern-day Romans?

We've been modeling ourselves off them since the Revolution.  That's why we have a Senate, and the early government buildings, state and federal, were largely done in neoclassical style.  In terms of parallels, I'd say (with a tip of the hat to Spengler and Toynbee) that we are more around the era of the Grachii and Sulla than the fall of the Empire.

Quote:2. If the feds secede more power to the states, could the former Confederacy basically have carte blanche to restore at least some aspects of Jim Crow, or will the feds retain enough clout for this not to happen?

Do you live in the South?  Was 1965 yesterday?  How old are you?

Quote:3. Stopping behavoirs which are unsustainable? You mean like "free love" become unsustainable with the advent of the AIDS scare? Would the sexual revolution have ended even if there were no AIDS or equivalent?

No, he and I both were discussing environmental/economic practices more than purely social ones.  As for the specific point raised, you could argue that things like gay marriage and the whole transgender thingamaroo are part of it, suggesting it hasn't ended at all.  If you mean the "free love" thing specifically, while it is difficult to speak authoritatively on hypotheticals, I imagine it would have petered out on its own anyways.  The history of "free love" type communities in the 19th century, for one, suggest that it isn't really a stable social model.

In reply to line 2; no, I do not live in the South. I am in the suburban Chicago area; might be noted that MLK once said that the people of Mississippi should come north to learn how to hate. No, 1965 was 52 years ago; I am now 72. What I was questioning was, if more power was again ceded to the states whether the South might make any attempts at this. Some of the voting laws seem to be a step in that direction. I would hope that, in the intervening 52 years that folks there have become enlightened enough not to allow for anything of that nature to resurface.

[SomeGuy]

Quote:In reply to line 2; no, I do not live in the South. I am in the suburban Chicago area; might be noted that MLK once said that the people of Mississippi should come north to learn how to hate. No, 1965 was 52 years ago; I am now 72. What I was questioning was, if more power was again ceded to the states whether the South might make any attempts at this. Some of the voting laws seem to be a step in that direction. I would hope that, in the intervening 52 years that folks there have become enlightened enough not to allow for anything of that nature to resurface.

It's really not the same society it was 50 years ago.  This is not to say that *-ism is a thing of the past, or even that it won't be present in the future, only that worries of the reinstatement of Jim Crow make about as much sense as worries of the German re-establishment of the Third Reich.

[Eric the Green]

The South is a highly segregated society, with not much economic and social mobility and very racially-stratified neighborhoods and counties. The variance in living standards and education by race is high. Response to racist dog whistles about welfare blown by Republicans results in very polarized electorates by race. Voting rights are under attack and blacks are gerrymandered out of representation. Traditional attitudes keep peoples' minds very closed off to both alternative spirituality and rational scientific approaches to understanding the world, preferring to uphold superstitions like creationism, and making homosexuality and abortion issues central to voting preferences. Living standards and health and happiness levels are lower than the rest of the country. No, Dixie is still Dixie.

[Ragnarök_62]

(03-15-2017, 04:15 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: <snip>
In reply to line 2; no, I do not live in the South. I am in the suburban Chicago area; might be noted that MLK once said that the people of Mississippi should come north to learn how to hate. No, 1965 was 52 years ago; I am now 72. What I was questioning was, if more power was again ceded to the states whether the South might make any attempts at this. Some of the voting laws seem to be a step in that direction. I would hope that, in the intervening 52 years that folks there have become enlightened enough not to allow for anything of that nature to resurface.

I think both of us should move to saner states, man.    Illinois can't do a budget because of too many layers of government.  OTOH, Oklahoma is a fucking cheapskate state that can't balance it's budget because the income tax is said to be BAD, BAD, BAD. Extremism on both ends of the spectrum seems to cause ruin. [Note well, I've already picked Leadville, CO, or Truckee California because those states have some semblance of sanity.  You know, fixing budgets and legalizing RagWeed™.

So, yeah, I agree that some states are just so stupid!!!!!

[Kinser79]

(03-15-2017, 04:09 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 09:25 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 04:27 AM)Galen Wrote:

(03-14-2017, 07:23 PM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:Like it or not the petrodollar will eventually end and the largess of the federal government will implode in on itself.

Yeah, I don't think a lot of progressives have grappled with what the end of imperium, "white privilege", and a shift to sustainability will actually mean in material terms, particularly for them.

They haven't.  Truth is they have this nasty tendency to think in linear trend lines that last forever.  Those of us in the real world know better.

This is a tendency that I've noticed with progressives on this board, and you'd think that on a forum about a cyclical model of history they would know better.

And yet the situation of excessive corporate power has held steady for nearly four decades, long enough to make it seem to be linear. Would love to be proven wrong on this one.

The situation of cheap oil lasted far far longer than a mere 40 years.  Cars started being run on gasoline to use a waste product from making lamp oil over 100 years ago.

[Kinser79]

(03-15-2017, 04:03 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: If we become more urban, doesn't that mean that many suburban areas will have to embrace the denser housing patterns they have so far rejected in order to make public transit for feasible and reduce dependency on the private auto. On the old forum I had a thread titled "Will We Ever Reduce Auto Dependency" and got a mixture of respondents. Many seemed to think that we don't as yet have the will to do so, and I tend to agree more and more. The wild card is whether the Millennials, once they began to start families, will continue to embrace urban living or will they follow in the footsteps of previous gens and head for the car dependent suburbs.

I think what a lot of people mean by more urban is more people living in the cities themselves.  Many of the inner suburbs of major cities are dense enough that mass transit in the form of buses or street cars to  central commuter rail station is feasible.  The Xurbs though are a white elephant for sure, and many of the middle burbs will turn to shanty towns.

As for car culture...it is doomed unless you find cheap oil.  Even with an all electric car (which honestly is a pipe dream) you'd need 7 barrels of oil just to produce the tires--never mind the plastic components it will require.  Long story short, cultures based around the private auto are essentially doomed.

Down here in the South where I live I could probably manage with a moped for 12 months out of the year.  I'd just have to go to the grocery every day except every third day.  (We eat lots of produce so...)

[Kinser79]

(03-15-2017, 05:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The South is a highly segregated society, with not much economic and social mobility and very racially-stratified neighborhoods and counties. The variance in living standards and education by race is high. Response to racist dog whistles about welfare blown by Republicans results in very polarized electorates by race. Voting rights are under attack and blacks are gerrymandered out of representation. Traditional attitudes keep peoples' minds very closed off to both alternative spirituality and rational scientific approaches to understanding the world, preferring to uphold superstitions like creationism, and making homosexuality and abortion issues central to voting preferences. Living standards and health and happiness levels are lower than the rest of the country. No, Dixie is still Dixie.

   

When were you last in the South Eric?  1968? 

Do we have our superstitious morons?  Yeah we do.  So does Commiefornia...they have you after all.  Given the choice between John Q. Redneck and you I'd take the redneck.  He's more likely to offer me a beer than he is to soot me.

If I was told I could only live two places, California or Mississippi I'd take Mississippi.

[Kinser79]

(03-15-2017, 04:15 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 11:07 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:

Quote:1. Are we destined to become the modern-day Romans?

We've been modeling ourselves off them since the Revolution.  That's why we have a Senate, and the early government buildings, state and federal, were largely done in neoclassical style.  In terms of parallels, I'd say (with a tip of the hat to Spengler and Toynbee) that we are more around the era of the Grachii and Sulla than the fall of the Empire.

Quote:2. If the feds secede more power to the states, could the former Confederacy basically have carte blanche to restore at least some aspects of Jim Crow, or will the feds retain enough clout for this not to happen?

Do you live in the South?  Was 1965 yesterday?  How old are you?

Quote:3. Stopping behavoirs which are unsustainable? You mean like "free love" become unsustainable with the advent of the AIDS scare? Would the sexual revolution have ended even if there were no AIDS or equivalent?

No, he and I both were discussing environmental/economic practices more than purely social ones.  As for the specific point raised, you could argue that things like gay marriage and the whole transgender thingamaroo are part of it, suggesting it hasn't ended at all.  If you mean the "free love" thing specifically, while it is difficult to speak authoritatively on hypotheticals, I imagine it would have petered out on its own anyways.  The history of "free love" type communities in the 19th century, for one, suggest that it isn't really a stable social model.

In reply to line 2; no, I do not live in the South. I am in the suburban Chicago area; might be noted that MLK once said that the people of Mississippi should come north to learn how to hate. No, 1965 was 52 years ago; I am now 72. What I was questioning was, if more power was again ceded to the states whether the South might make any attempts at this. Some of the voting laws seem to be a step in that direction. I would hope that, in the intervening 52 years that folks there have become enlightened enough not to allow for anything of that nature to resurface.

Black Southerner here.

No.  In the South we've come a long way.  Is there still racism?  Yeah.  Always going to have it.  In fact if anything when I was in the Navy I found racism to be WORSE in both the North and California.  This probably also explains why in the North black run cities turn into Slums but in the South cities like Charlotte and Atlanta, and Birmingham are all doing just fine.

Seriously in the South the biggest racists were the poor whites and they eventually learned better.

As to our voting laws, specifically ID laws, that's a bunch of BS about them being racist.  Anyone can get a state ID at the DMV for 10 bucks (so if you have 10 bucks to buy rock but don't got 10 bucks to get a state ID you don't deserve to vote) and if you drive you already got one.  In many of the Southern states driving is pretty much a requirement as we have a lower population density.  Countries the left likes to trot out as their poster children like Sweden and Norway all have Voter ID laws too.

Seriously if you have to show an ID to board a Greyhound Bus you should have to show ID to cast a ballot.  The ballot has larger consequences than a bus ride.

[beechnut79]

(03-15-2017, 05:04 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The South is a highly segregated society, with not much economic and social mobility and very racially-stratified neighborhoods and counties. The variance in living standards and education by race is high. Response to racist dog whistles about welfare blown by Republicans results in very polarized electorates by race. Voting rights are under attack and blacks are gerrymandered out of representation. Traditional attitudes keep peoples' minds very closed off to both alternative spirituality and rational scientific approaches to understanding the world, preferring to uphold superstitions like creationism, and making homosexuality and abortion issues central to voting preferences. Living standards and health and happiness levels are lower than the rest of the country. No, Dixie is still Dixie.

But with the possible exception of larger southern cities such as Atlanta and Nashville. The former has become a financial powerhouse while the latter is a music powerhouse.

[beechnut79]

(03-15-2017, 07:28 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 04:09 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 09:25 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(03-15-2017, 04:27 AM)Galen Wrote:

(03-14-2017, 07:23 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Yeah, I don't think a lot of progressives have grappled with what the end of imperium, "white privilege", and a shift to sustainability will actually mean in material terms, particularly for them.

They haven't.  Truth is they have this nasty tendency to think in linear trend lines that last forever.  Those of us in the real world know better.

This is a tendency that I've noticed with progressives on this board, and you'd think that on a forum about a cyclical model of history they would know better.

And yet the situation of excessive corporate power has held steady for nearly four decades, long enough to make it seem to be linear. Would love to be proven wrong on this one.

The situation of cheap oil lasted far far longer than a mere 40 years.  Cars started being run on gasoline to use a waste product from making lamp oil over 100 years ago.

I wasn't referring specifically to oil when mentioning excessive corporate power. That began on a small scale late 1970s then accelerated big-time following Reagan's busting of the unions in the early 1980s and has been the Energizer Bunny ever since. Keeps going and going and going.

[Kinser79]

(03-15-2017, 08:07 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: [quote pid='23631' dateline='1489624128']
<snip>
The situation of cheap oil lasted far far longer than a mere 40 years.  Cars started being run on gasoline to use a waste product from making lamp oil over 100 years ago.

I wasn't referring specifically to oil when mentioning excessive corporate power. That began on a small scale late 1970s then accelerated big-time following Reagan's busting of the unions in the early 1980s and has been the Energizer Bunny ever since. Keeps going and going and going.
[/quote]

No you're not getting it.  I'm referring to cheap oil energy, not the power of oil corporations.  Oil was cheap for a long long long time. So long a time everyone thought it would last forever.  Obviously it hasn't and it won't.

As to corporate power, a great deal of corporate monopolies exist now due to governmental collusion.  They create regulations to prevent completion, there's a revolving door between the regulators and the corporations.  It didn't really start with Regan it started during the New Deal.

[pbrower2a]

(03-15-2017, 11:07 AM)SomeGuy  (to Ragnarök_62) Wrote:

Quote:1. Are we destined to become the modern-day Romans?

We've been modeling ourselves off them since the Revolution.  That's why we have a Senate, and the early government buildings, state and federal, were largely done in neoclassical style.  In terms of parallels, I'd say (with a tip of the hat to Spengler and Toynbee) that we are more around the era of the Grachii and Sulla than the fall of the Empire.

Quote:2. If the feds secede more power to the states, could the former Confederacy basically have carte blanche to restore at least some aspects of Jim Crow, or will the feds retain enough clout for this not to happen?

(personal questions excised due to irrelevance)

Quote:3. Stopping behavoirs which are unsustainable? You mean like "free love" become unsustainable with the advent of the AIDS scare? Would the sexual revolution have ended even if there were no AIDS or equivalent?

No, he and I both were discussing environmental/economic practices more than purely social ones.  As for the specific point raised, you could argue that things like gay marriage and the whole transgender thingamaroo are part of it, suggesting it hasn't ended at all.  If you mean the "free love" thing specifically, while it is difficult to speak authoritatively on hypotheticals, I imagine it would have petered out on its own anyways.  The history of "free love" type communities in the 19th century, for one, suggest that it isn't really a stable social model.

1. There's one big difference between ourselves and the Romans: we abolished slavery. Slavery created its own pathology; it thwarted enterprise and innovation; it established a class of people of suspect loyalty to the political order; it allowed extreme concentration of wealth, power, and privilege. All such pathology is possible without slavery, but it is never so certain except in a slave-owning society.

Of course the constitutional Republic is in danger from inside because the economic elites have become consummately selfish and ruthless; those elites seek crushing power over everyone else and could be in a position in which to get it. Except for not having slavery we might be in the equivalent of the end stage of the Roman Republic.

Note well that Arnold Toynbee recognized the start of the rot in the Roman polity in late Republican times, and not during the Empire. A good Emperor might force some reforms that either stalled or even  (if only for that Emperor's reign) reversed the rot to a slight degree, but then would come another Emperor who inflicted grave misrule. After Marcus Aurelius, Commodus.

It could be that our institutions are designed for an agrarian society in which the needs for government are small, in which there are no giant cities, and in which the technology is still pre-industrial. Have our institutions changed too much -- or too little?

Obviously we are far from the Fall of the Empire, when the institutions of the Empire are no longer of value to those wielding the power. We are not yet in the empire. Because unelected lobbyists wield real power in the legislative branch  in the federal and most State governments, our legislative system in the federal system and many states is no longer representative. We did elect the President, but it is entirely possible that one Party can decide that it will never lose another election that it cannot afford to lose, in which case democracy is dead.

Donald Trump is a break with the traditions of (1) keeping business and government separate, and (2) political leaders not working hand-in-glove with a foreign power. Should the 2020 election entail a Sino-Russian dispute and the Democrats regain power with the aid of China because Democrats more support free trade, then we still have the problem of leadership owing its success to a foreign power hostile to democracy. 
 
2. "Jim Crow" is dead. Political reality in most of the South is that the Republican Party is the White People's Party and the Democratic Party is the Black People's Party.  Tribal slits in politics practically ensure machine government even in the tiniest of hick towns. Such ensures that government will look like the majority even if the majority is only 51% of the electorate, and that because of sure victories because of ethnic identity, corrupt and incompetent politicians can get away with corruption and incompetence indefinitely. Patronage becomes the norm. The solution for corruption and incompetence is obvious enough: vote the bums out. The right way in which to deal with corrupt black Democrats in public office is to vote for the white Republican as an alternative. The right way to deal with corrupt and incompetent white Republicans in public office should be obvious.

As usual we trade one set of problems for another.

3. Ragnarök_62 has this right. It may be difficult at times to determine what a bad habit is -- but reckless sexuality went from having the danger of an unwelcome pregnancy to becoming a vector for some horrible diseases. "Go monogamous" or "always use a condom" might solve the problem of STDs. Whether reckless sexuality might tear at the social fabric is a matter of debate. Does anyone know? It is natural that people would want to have exclusive relationships and would be offended when such is not the case.