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+---- Thread: The Partisan Divide on Issues (/thread-3410.html)
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RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Eric the Green - 07-01-2020
(07-01-2020, 02:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: How many America blacks, whites, yellows, browns and reds have the same basic American values and rights as me today? I'm suggesting that a clash between Americans of all kinds and the Left-wing is inevitable at this point and once the cultural clash begins it's not going to stop until the Left-wing is destroyed. You are on the wrong side of history and seem to be deaf, dumb and blind too. So, I hope have fun trying to survive an ugly 4T.
We can't put up a statue of our World War II heroes either because the country was still legally segregated during World War II and we have Japanese people living here who might/could get upset or view them as racists. The time is coming for minorities to decide whether they prefer to be viewed as blacks, Hispanics, browns or whatever else forever and ever or whether they prefer to be viewed Americans become part of the country where none of that matters
You still do not define "American values and rights," which proves that you don't know what these are. Of course, we know you think we have a right to bear arms. If that's all you are concerned about, then you can go to the OK Corale and have your fun, and I don't care.
You refer to a cultural clash now too, but you do not define the cultures that are clashing.
One's ancestry still matters if one is still discriminated against on that basis, which is still the case. But slavery is not legal, and those who fought and were heroes in WWII were not fighting for slavery. They were not traitors.
But you support venerating and memorializing traitors who set up a new country and made war on and invaded the United States in order protect slavery. That makes you complicit in their fight.
You are on the wrong side of history and seem to be deaf, dumb and blind too. So, I hope you have fun trying to survive an ugly 4T.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - pbrower2a - 07-01-2020
(07-01-2020, 02:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-01-2020, 01:29 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(06-30-2020, 07:28 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(06-30-2020, 03:30 AM)taramarie Wrote: Actually i think i know more about what goes on in your country than it may seem. I never said covid brought you guys together. You guys are tearing yourselves apart. However i can always learn something new about the USA and one thing that was new info was that people do not care unless its a white cop killing a black person. Can the democrats here please explain this? I wonder why you are ok with resorting to physical violence but have issues with people destroying property? Perhaps you have needs that you think are necessary to resort to violence if pushed, but do not see it as needed when pushed for others because you do not see or share their same needs? Btw i know it is a belated response. I am still trying to settle down in Europe and so i have been very busy.
The destruction of property is still viewed as illegal by most of the people who live in the USA. The liberal Democrats refuse to enforce basic American laws that most still highly value in this country. They refuse to do much about crime and illegal immigration/immigrants in their cities these days. Personally, I don't care what their problem is or what excuse they use or make for doing it either. Eric seems to think that everything evolves around racism or involves racism. He seems to view everything that we and others do or say about him, the liberal Democrats, the Left or some black or some Hispanic or some mixed raced people or some immigrants or some Marxist group that's negative is racist for some dumb reason these days.
Hold on right there. Suppose that you are a a Jew and someone puts up a statue of Adolf Hitler (or of any major Holocaust perpetrator). What would that mean to you? You would want that statue torn down -- fast! That statue effectively vilifies you for being a Jew.
Maybe the Confederates were not that bad -- but they waged a bloody war to save slavery as an economic practice. Now imagine that you are a descendant of the slaves that those Confederate leaders tried to keep in bondage. The optics are lousy, to put it mildly. Add to this -- those Confederate leaders sacrificed lots of unfortunate young men as victims of an ultimately failed effort to keep black people in bondage. Don't give me the "but not the white ancestors of that black person". In some cases those white ancestors raped a slave woman. Besides, anyone identifiably of African origin, no matter how slight in America, is considered black.
Confederate "heroes" are the wrong heroes. Put up statues of America's real heroes instead -- like war heroes of World War II. Replace a statue of Jefferson Davis with one of General George Catlett Marshall and you have a win-win situation. (What? You expected me to suggest Vladimir Lenin?)
Quote:It's a nice crutch but that's all it is to those who are sharp enough to see it for what it is these day.
I don't live in a big city like most people in Minnesota these days. We live outside of them. You don't seem like the type who would have an issue with people stepping up and defending their property when government officials refuse to do what's expected of them when it's comes to stopping mobs of violent people and criminals like we've seen and done lately.
Stop right there. Police have a duty to protect the safety of all Americans, including criminal suspects such as George Floyd. I'm not going to say more about that aside from saying that the Minneapolis police failed to do that job. Major reforms are necessary to ensure that the police do the job, and do it right.
Quote:I think the liberal Democrats forget that they have a responsibility/obligation to us, the safety of our communities and the lives of our people too. We hear a lot about our responsibility/obligation to them, their poor and funding their programs and their communities. I don't think they realize that during all the hoopla that went down in Minneapolis, a significant portion of our cops were sent to Minneapolis to support the Minneapolis police and keep them from being over run and keep their neighborhoods safe until the Minnesota National Guard was completely mobilized and sent in to reestablish law and order and end large scale looting and destruction of property.
Looting and property destruction are crimes best left to the judgment of courts of law. As for the poor in America, Jesus Himself left some guidance on that:
https://www.jesusfilm.org/blog-and-stories/jesus-cares-for-poor.html
In case I got your religious heritage wrong:
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/jewish-attitudes-toward-poverty/
you still have no excuse. If you think that the poor are simply people to be treated as expendable objects suitable to abuse, exploitation, and neglect, then any claim that you have of being a decent person is hypocritical in the extreme.
Quote:One of these times, the Left is going to fuck up and injure a bunch of decent people and the gloves are going to come off and the guns are going to come out and there's going to be liberal bodies scattered all over and liberals bodies laying in hospitals all over the place too. I know America and the America that I know is not going to be understanding or nice at all once the gloves are off. You see, the American right doesn't need permission from it's government to deal with an obvious threat to it while the political inbreds and morons in DC are busy playing political games with each other.
You are suggesting that left-wing terrorism is imminent. The proper approach to terrorism is for law enforcement to apprehend the perpetrator sand courts of criminal law to judge the persons with the possibility of long prison terms. Does anyone really care what the motivations were for the bombers at the Boston Marathon? It was in Boston, so I assume that the crowd exposed to the bombs were largely liberal.
The solution is not vigilante action against one side of the political spectrum.
You do not know America. You do not recognize its diversity. You have a narrow definition that means people who think as you do. We liberals, contrary to your myth, have little use for political violence. As for your "Right" -- even it is far from the monolith that you claim that it is. Much of the population that calls itself conservative would expect the government to either put away or blow away anyone who does bad things to people on behalf of some political cause. The vigilante action that you predict is terrorism.
You practically ask for America to rift on ethnic and political divides analogous to those in Yugoslavia or Rwanda. The time has already run out for that.
How many America blacks, whites, yellows, browns and reds have the same basic American values and rights as me today? I'm suggesting that a clash between Americans of all kinds and the Left-wing is inevitable at this point and once the cultural clash begins it's not going to stop until the Left-wing is destroyed. You are on the wrong side of history and seem to be deaf, dumb and blind too. So, I hope have fun trying to survive an ugly 4T.
You do not get it. There is no specific American way of thought, no well-defined American culture (but many different subcultures with equal claims to be American), no political ideology that one must hold to be American, and no single American Way of Life. We all know about the diverse origins of the American people. Michael Jackson was as much an expression of American culture as was Bing Crosby.
If you would read the Howe and Strauss literature on occasion, then you would find that what many consider the American Way of Life (if a composite of American subcultures based on class, religion, and ethnicity) changes from generation to generation due to changes in the basic realities of American life between eras of the Saeculum. What is possible in an Awakening Era is completely impossible in a Crisis Era. When practically all the young men wage a life-and-death struggle against such demonic powers as Nazi Germany or Thug Japan, then counterculture behavior that one associates with young Transcendental, Missionary, or Boomer adults becomes impossible. Twenty-five years or so after the end of a Crisis, young adults see the world safe enough for the Voyage to the Interior that includes religious experimentation and delving into hallucinogens while the assumptions of the war heroes of the Crisis Era start to have diminishing returns. If a Crisis Era compels people to set aside differences that define them, an Awakening Era allows people to rediscover the significance of those differences.
The cultural clashes are abating. What remains wins consternation in mainstream media. One can be white and find the White Power agenda abominable... as I do.
Quote:We can't put up a statue of our World War II heroes either because the country was still legally segregated during World War II and we have Japanese people living here who might/could get upset or view them as racists. The time is coming for minorities to decide whether they prefer to be viewed as blacks, Hispanics, browns or whatever else forever and ever or whether they prefer to be viewed Americans become part of the country where none of that matters
Did anyone say that America was ever perfect? It is safe to figure -- and mainstream black leaders of the time so recognized -- that defeating people who would have probably gassed blacks in America upon their victory was more important at the time than undoing Jim Crow practice. Were the Nazis to win World War II, then any struggle to end the separate-but-equal sham would be irrelevant because there might be no blacks in America. A few whiffs of fumes of hydrogen cyanide make every little frustration and every wondrous hope completely irrelevant.
The defeat of Nazi racism made American racism less supportable. Racism is no less tolerable because it has the word "American" attached.
Considering how vile the regimes in Germany and Italy that America defeated, it is safe to say that American conquest is genuine liberation. America is not perfect and has never been. The Generational Cycle ensures that America will not get into a rut and then rot from there.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Classic-Xer - 07-02-2020
(07-01-2020, 04:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:Once again, I don't see the logic in replacing values with no values. Nope, nothing you wrote was hard to understand as far as your personal values are concerned these days. I must say that your partisan liberal views tend to come through loud and clear,(07-01-2020, 01:03 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't see a shift from values to no values as good myself. It's true, the old Democratic values aren't working like they should considering all the money that we've been pumping in over the years. Yep. It's time to wait and watch as they're replaced by a mob that has no values.
No values? Values which you can’t understand or are unwilling to acknowledge is more like it.
COVUS. Use science. Value life over dollars. Acknowledge that while opening up is good for the economy, opening up before the curves are way down, before there is solid testing and tracing, is not good for the economy. Address the problems, don’t ignore them.
Black Lives Matter: Equality, justice. Differentiate between the protesters and looters. Support the former, arrest the latter.
Russian bounty for US Soldiers: If you claim to be commander in chief, with it comes a responsibility to do what one can to protect lives put at risk. Put concern for the country ahead of personal concerns.
Impeachment: Put concern for the country ahead of personal concerns. Do not use government function for personal gain.
Now, I don’t see any of the above as overly hard to understand. If you are way deep into the unravelling mind set, if you put selfishness way before the common good, the new values may become strange and incomprehensible. Perhaps they are so much so that you are unable to perceive them. That does not say they do not exist, that we are not speaking of them perfectly clearly. It is just that you don’t want to hear or acknowledge them.
In many ways S&H predicted it, that the unraveling would be a selfish time, the crisis heart would be a time of united effort for the whole. It is just that many conservatives are unwilling to let go of the selfishness.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Eric the Green - 07-02-2020
(07-02-2020, 08:23 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-01-2020, 04:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:Once again, I don't see the logic in replacing values with no values. Nope, nothing you wrote was hard to understand as far as your personal values are concerned these days. I must say that your partisan liberal views tend to come through loud and clear,(07-01-2020, 01:03 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't see a shift from values to no values as good myself. It's true, the old Democratic values aren't working like they should considering all the money that we've been pumping in over the years. Yep. It's time to wait and watch as they're replaced by a mob that has no values.
No values? Values which you can’t understand or are unwilling to acknowledge is more like it.
COVUS. Use science. Value life over dollars. Acknowledge that while opening up is good for the economy, opening up before the curves are way down, before there is solid testing and tracing, is not good for the economy. Address the problems, don’t ignore them.
Black Lives Matter: Equality, justice. Differentiate between the protesters and looters. Support the former, arrest the latter.
Russian bounty for US Soldiers: If you claim to be commander in chief, with it comes a responsibility to do what one can to protect lives put at risk. Put concern for the country ahead of personal concerns.
Impeachment: Put concern for the country ahead of personal concerns. Do not use government function for personal gain.
Now, I don’t see any of the above as overly hard to understand. If you are way deep into the unravelling mind set, if you put selfishness way before the common good, the new values may become strange and incomprehensible. Perhaps they are so much so that you are unable to perceive them. That does not say they do not exist, that we are not speaking of them perfectly clearly. It is just that you don’t want to hear or acknowledge them.
In many ways S&H predicted it, that the unraveling would be a selfish time, the crisis heart would be a time of united effort for the whole. It is just that many conservatives are unwilling to let go of the selfishness.
And there is nothing more valuable today than partisan liberal views.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Classic-Xer - 07-02-2020
(07-01-2020, 10:07 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Did anyone say that America was ever perfect? It is safe to figure -- and mainstream black leaders of the time so recognized -- that defeating people who would have probably gassed blacks in America upon their victory was more important at the time than undoing Jim Crow practice. Were the Nazis to win World War II, then any struggle to end the separate-but-equal sham would be irrelevant because there might be no blacks in America. A few whiffs of fumes of hydrogen cyanide make every little frustration and every wondrous hope completely irrelevant.I've never said America was perfect, life was perfect, employers were perfect, people are perfect or that I'm perfect either. I display my comfort with my own imperfections here with the use of my lack luster writing/grammar skills. Like I've said, I don't have a hard time reading or understanding what's being communicated or fail to get the jest of the direction the Left-wing wants America to go either and neither should you since you write so much better and spend your time reading way more books than me. Like I said, when the culture clash between America and the Left-wing begins, you are going to find yourself on the wrong side of American history and the wrong side of the history of the world as well. You better wise up and start using that mind of yours for something other than just the good of yourself.
The defeat of Nazi racism made American racism less supportable. Racism is no less tolerable because it has the word "American" attached.
Considering how vile the regimes in Germany and Italy that America defeated, it is safe to say that American conquest is genuine liberation. America is not perfect and has never been. The Generational Cycle ensures that America will not get into a rut and then rot from there.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Classic-Xer - 07-02-2020
(07-02-2020, 08:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: And there is nothing more valuable today than partisan liberal views.
In a way, I agree with you and so do the hardcore Republicans as well.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Bob Butler 54 - 07-02-2020
(07-01-2020, 10:07 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Did anyone say that America was ever perfect? It is safe to figure -- and mainstream black leaders of the time so recognized -- that defeating people who would have probably gassed blacks in America upon their victory was more important at the time than undoing Jim Crow practice. Were the Nazis to win World War II, then any struggle to end the separate-but-equal sham would be irrelevant because there might be no blacks in America. A few whiffs of fumes of hydrogen cyanide make every little frustration and every wondrous hope completely irrelevant.
The defeat of Nazi racism made American racism less supportable. Racism is no less tolerable because it has the word "American" attached.
Considering how vile the regimes in Germany and Italy that America defeated, it is safe to say that American conquest is genuine liberation. America is not perfect and has never been. The Generational Cycle ensures that America will not get into a rut and then rot from there.
If you consider the typical culture of the Agricultural Age, there were many flaws. Each crisis removed a few. The majors are kings, slaveowners, laissez faire businessmen, and dictators. If you include the last awakening as transformational, you have racism again, sexism, a simplistic version of the domino theory and the environment.
The major flaws confronting the culture at the time are addressed. All flaws are not addressed. In a sense I can sympathize with Classic. It becomes hard to celebrate defeat over any flaw without celebrating the flaws that remained. Many patriots who got rid of kings owned slaves. The economic victors of the Civil War were the robber barons.
But sometimes the conservative faction that looses a transformation lives on. The one time slaveowners get into Jim Crow, then into the violent racist police killings. Memorializing and celebrating the conservative losing faction that lives on seems different from celebrating the defeat of one issue but being wrong on an issues whose time has not come yet.
We seem to be getting better at it. One of the more celebrated pictures than statue that came out of World War II is of the flag raising at Iwo Jima. One of the more celebrated statues of the Civil Rights movement is that of Martin Luther King. Do we tear down the flag raising statue because everyone involved was white, and the minorities were segregated into non-combat units? Can we think of a modern issue that Martin Luther King didn’t address yet? Do we deny folk sainthood because an issue’s time has not yet come? Likely not. We might put a footnote in the history books, but we should be careful about judging a man by the standards of his time, not by the values that were changed four or eight years after.
But it has taken several transformations to reduce racism and tribal thinking. I am not inclined to honor those who resisted the values of equality and justice. Sure, rename the forts that are named after Confederate officers. Tear down the Confederate monuments. If racism is persistent to perpetual, let’s not memorialize and perpetuate it.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Bob Butler 54 - 07-02-2020
(07-02-2020, 08:23 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-01-2020, 04:39 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:Once again, I don't see the logic in replacing values with no values. Nope, nothing you wrote was hard to understand as far as your personal values are concerned these days. I must say that your partisan liberal views tend to come through loud and clear,(07-01-2020, 01:03 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I don't see a shift from values to no values as good myself. It's true, the old Democratic values aren't working like they should considering all the money that we've been pumping in over the years. Yep. It's time to wait and watch as they're replaced by a mob that has no values.
No values? Values which you can’t understand or are unwilling to acknowledge is more like it.
COVUS. Use science. Value life over dollars. Acknowledge that while opening up is good for the economy, opening up before the curves are way down, before there is solid testing and tracing, is not good for the economy. Address the problems, don’t ignore them.
Black Lives Matter: Equality, justice. Differentiate between the protesters and looters. Support the former, arrest the latter.
Russian bounty for US Soldiers: If you claim to be commander in chief, with it comes a responsibility to do what one can to protect lives put at risk. Put concern for the country ahead of personal concerns.
Impeachment: Put concern for the country ahead of personal concerns. Do not use government function for personal gain.
Now, I don’t see any of the above as overly hard to understand. If you are way deep into the unravelling mind set, if you put selfishness way before the common good, the new values may become strange and incomprehensible. Perhaps they are so much so that you are unable to perceive them. That does not say they do not exist, that we are not speaking of them perfectly clearly. It is just that you don’t want to hear or acknowledge them.
In many ways S&H predicted it, that the unraveling would be a selfish time, the crisis heart would be a time of united effort for the whole. It is just that many conservatives are unwilling to let go of the selfishness.
You distinguish between views and values as if they are not the same thing. I may express things a little differently than most blues, but we are coming from pretty much the same place.
I consider the S&H turnings as saying a lot about how values change over time. Conservatives value what has always been and should be perpetuated. Progressive have confronted new problems, and wish to change how we respond to them, to solve these problems. You can ask the typical royalist, slaveowner, laissez faire businessman or isolationist how well clinging to the old values worked in their crises. That is, if you can find one. After the crisis heart, they became rather hard to find.
The new values exist. We are perfectly clear in stating them. Your ’no values’ statement is without merit.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Eric the Green - 07-02-2020
(07-02-2020, 09:31 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-02-2020, 08:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: And there is nothing more valuable today than partisan liberal views.
In a way, I agree with you and so do the hardcore Republicans as well.
With opposite meanings.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - pbrower2a - 07-03-2020
(07-02-2020, 09:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-01-2020, 10:07 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Did anyone say that America was ever perfect? It is safe to figure -- and mainstream black leaders of the time so recognized -- that defeating people who would have probably gassed blacks in America upon their victory was more important at the time than undoing Jim Crow practice. Were the Nazis to win World War II, then any struggle to end the separate-but-equal sham would be irrelevant because there might be no blacks in America. A few whiffs of fumes of hydrogen cyanide make every little frustration and every wondrous hope completely irrelevant.
The defeat of Nazi racism made American racism less supportable. Racism is no less tolerable because it has the word "American" attached.
Considering how vile the regimes in Germany and Italy that America defeated, it is safe to say that American conquest is genuine liberation. America is not perfect and has never been. The Generational Cycle ensures that America will not get into a rut and then rot from there.
I've never said America was perfect, life was perfect, employers were perfect, people are perfect or that I'm perfect either. I display my comfort with my own imperfections here with the use of my lack luster writing/grammar skills. Like I've said, I don't have a hard time reading or understanding what's being communicated or fail to get the gist of the direction the Left-wing wants America to go either and neither should you since you write so much better and spend your time reading way more books than me. Like I said, when the culture clash between America and the Left-wing begins, you are going to find yourself on the wrong side of American history and the wrong side of the history of the world as well. You better wise up and start using that mind of yours for something other than just the good of yourself.
Your compositional skills are the least of the problem. If you are discussing such types as the old Weather Underground... those are now irrelevant. We are now in a Crisis mode, and extremists of all kinds tend to either take over or get shown the door.
What is Left by your standards has abandoned Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, and Castro. Such has a track record of making losers out of nations. You have the straw man fallacy in which you define the Other Side on its supposed behalf and then tear it down. It's like saying that gay rights is all about molesting children, that conservatives would restore slavery if they had the chance, that liberals really want central planning, that Christianity is all "holy roller" stuff, that Jews are a conspiracy intent on exploiting and degrading gentiles, that Islam is all about terrorism.
So suppose I want to make a case against people having dogs as pets. I then state that dogs, like predators known to have Man on the menu, are strong, swift, agile, cunning, and voracious -- and that they have sharp claws and teeth and the force behind those to make those lethal. You ignore something: that dogs differ from bears and Big Cats in that dogs are well behaved enough to be safe in our presence. But use a straw-man argument and you ignore the good behavior of Man's Best Friend.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Bob Butler 54 - 07-03-2020
(07-03-2020, 12:50 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(07-02-2020, 09:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never said America was perfect, life was perfect, employers were perfect, people are perfect or that I'm perfect either. I display my comfort with my own imperfections here with the use of my lack luster writing/grammar skills. Like I've said, I don't have a hard time reading or understanding what's being communicated or fail to get the gist of the direction the Left-wing wants America to go either and neither should you since you write so much better and spend your time reading way more books than me. Like I said, when the culture clash between America and the Left-wing begins, you are going to find yourself on the wrong side of American history and the wrong side of the history of the world as well. You better wise up and start using that mind of yours for something other than just the good of yourself.
Your compositional skills are the least of the problem. If you are discussing such types as the old Weather Underground... those are now irrelevant. We are now in a Crisis mode, and extremists of all kinds tend to either take over or get shown the door.
Nitpick: It is the progressives in the US that take over, the conservatives that are shown the door. No, progressives are not defined as the winners, but by such virtues as democracy, human rights and equality.
(07-03-2020, 12:50 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: What is Left by your standards has abandoned Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, and Castro. Such has a track record of making losers out of nations. You have the straw man fallacy in which you define the Other Side on its supposed behalf and then tear it down. It's like saying that gay rights is all about molesting children, that conservatives would restore slavery if they had the chance, that liberals really want central planning, that Christianity is all "holy roller" stuff, that Jews are a conspiracy intent on exploiting and degrading gentiles, that Islam is all about terrorism.
Nitpick: The nations that did a Marxist revolution were already losers. You have to be pretty desperate to trade one set of autocrats for another. Russia, China and Cuba of their respective revolutionary eras count as desperate. The trick is having enough checks and balances to force the government to work for the people rather than themselves. Overthrowing a government that has already proven itself good at the overthrowing government game is difficult.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Bob Butler 54 - 07-03-2020
(07-02-2020, 10:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(07-02-2020, 09:31 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-02-2020, 08:26 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: And there is nothing more valuable today than partisan liberal views.
In a way, I agree with you and so do the hardcore Republicans as well.
With opposite meanings.
Not necessarily. Some of the liberal views ought to be held by many conservatives as well. I would not mind seeing Classic elaborate. For example the strong on defense faction and the veterans should be upset at Trump not being protective of the troops. Those who have lost loved ones to the virus should welcome a strong scientific response.
The GOP has just been contaminated by elite and racist elements. The Tea Party did a good enough job at dismissing the GOP establishment at high levels, and in many ways are ahead of the Democrats at getting rid of their establishment. From the way Trump endorsed candidates are losing in the primaries, they are getting even better. Unfortunately, in shunting aside their establishment they embraced people like Palin and Trump. There is a certain type of spokesman that they seem ready to be duped by.
The racists? I would like to be able to sympathize with the conservatives being from less sparsely populated areas, and thus being more independent, less addicted to solving problems as a group. That's not Massachusetts, but Massachusetts is not there. Different environments, different optimal solutions to problems.
But it is hard to sympathize with the elites and racists. The GOP is just clinging to the privileges of the Agricultural Age, perpetuating inequality. As such, these elements need to be corrected or shunted aside rather than being sympathetic with.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - pbrower2a - 07-03-2020
(07-03-2020, 07:28 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(07-03-2020, 12:50 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:(07-02-2020, 09:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I've never said America was perfect, life was perfect, employers were perfect, people are perfect or that I'm perfect either. I display my comfort with my own imperfections here with the use of my lack luster writing/grammar skills. Like I've said, I don't have a hard time reading or understanding what's being communicated or fail to get the gist of the direction the Left-wing wants America to go either and neither should you since you write so much better and spend your time reading way more books than me. Like I said, when the culture clash between America and the Left-wing begins, you are going to find yourself on the wrong side of American history and the wrong side of the history of the world as well. You better wise up and start using that mind of yours for something other than just the good of yourself.
Your compositional skills are the least of the problem. If you are discussing such types as the old Weather Underground... those are now irrelevant. We are now in a Crisis mode, and extremists of all kinds tend to either take over or get shown the door.
Nitpick: It is the progressives in the US that take over, the conservatives that are shown the door. No, progressives are not defined as the winners, but by such virtues as democracy, human rights and equality.
The current "Right", which is anything but conservative in view of its acceptance of demagoguery, resentments as a unifying factor, a contempt for traditional decencies, support of Big Government (so long as such supports them at the expense of everyone else), and rejection of protocol and precedent. Such tendencies show a significant drift toward fascism, which is not conservative. Add to that a support for a nightmarish hierarchy in which the vast majority of people are obliged to suffer for the power, indulgence, and gain of a tiny minority of people of great and entrenched privilege, and such is either a feudal or bureaucratic nightmare. Whether it is the old aristocrat-and-serf world of the late middle ages or a science-fiction nightmare such as the Great Powers (Oceania, Eurasia, or "Eastasia"), the First Galactic Empire of the Star Wars Saga, the "classless society" of the Soviet Union gone awry (its nomenklatura of a bureaucratic elite becoming nearly hereditary and beginning to act like aristocrats) or the muddled trend that we see in America... the preservation of a rotten order is an ignoble activity that one does only out of fear or opportunism.
I expect things to go too far in the end. They always do. The question is when, and then some new variant of conservatism emerges. It certainly won't have much in common with Trump.
(07-03-2020, 12:50 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: What is Left by your standards has abandoned Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Hoxha, and Castro. Such has a track record of making losers out of nations. You have the straw man fallacy in which you define the Other Side on its supposed behalf and then tear it down. It's like saying that gay rights is all about molesting children, that conservatives would restore slavery if they had the chance, that liberals really want central planning, that Christianity is all "holy roller" stuff, that Jews are a conspiracy intent on exploiting and degrading gentiles, that Islam is all about terrorism.
Nitpick: The nations that did a Marxist revolution were already losers. You have to be pretty desperate to trade one set of autocrats for another. Russia, China and Cuba of their respective revolutionary eras count as desperate. The trick is having enough checks and balances to force the government to work for the people rather than themselves. Overthrowing a government that has already proven itself good at the overthrowing government game is difficult.[/quote]
I once told someone lamenting how horrible Communism is and telling me that we need a plutocratic order as its antithesis what Mark Twain said of pre-1789 France: people may find the guillotine shocking for all the aristocrats that it killed, but consider the terror that those aristocrats imposed upon the poor peasants. The legal system excused practically anything that an aristocrat did, but it would punish any desperate deed of a poor person to stay alive by filching a little bread with an often brutal means of execution. Aristocrats, including the clergy (advancement within the Catholic Church was largely a result of being born into the Right Family), had rights... and peasants had duties to deliver those rights, often as private taxes for which no service was rendered except for restraint of punishment.
Indeed it is the pre-revolutionary order that is itself a monstrosity. In France that was the real terror.
I once saw a list of characteristics of countries vulnerable to Marxist revolutions. Among them:
1. Early stage of industrial development. True peasant societies that have no industry have inequality connected strictly to unequal distribution of land or huge rents due to aristocratic landlords. The solution to such is a land reform that abolishes rents and redistributes land to those who work it. Genuine landed peasantry has often shown itself a cornerstone of democratic conservatism.
Early stages of industrial development are times of bitter disappointment for former rural toilers. Early factories were dangerous places in which people lost limbs or got killed in industrial accidents. The transition from the certainties of rural life to the harsh uncertainties of urban life is always difficult. There is no safety net for industrial workers. Industrial workers end up in fetid fire-traps in which epidemics and violent crime are the norm.
This said, every country seems to go through this phase of economic reality. Some go through it more gracefully than do others.
2. Rural distress. Obviously, the more desperate things are in the countryside, the easier it is to exploit and abuse factory workers escaping the extreme poverty of rural life.
3. Emphasis on producer goods, war weapons, exports, or the extraction of raw materials as opposed to consumer goods. Industrial workers can relate more to making things that can make life better for them or to people that they knew in the village. Shoes for peasants who have been going barefoot? Tableware? Foodstuffs? Such production leads easily to the satisfaction of people's needs. Farm implements make food easier to produce and less expensive.
So figure that the earliest examples of industrialization in the West occurred in such places as Tuscany, Flanders, and Britain.. and in each case the emphasis was on what could be sold... textiles, pottery, foodstuffs, farm implements. Countries that developed later typically had a bigger emphasis on the production of steel, coal, and chemicals -- or of luxury exports. The early industrial age was often an age of horrific wars, so the most warlike regimes commissioned huge numbers of warships, artillery weapons, rifles, armored vehicles, and the like that were more likely to turn peasants and factory workers into cannon fodder than to improve their lives. Note well that economies that depend heavily upon exporting oil, minerals, and plantation crops can work people to death ion mines and plantations and that little of the proceeds of the oil goes to the people.
4. Irresponsible, undemocratic government. The pre-revolutionary regimes may be of disparate styles from absolute monarchies to colonial rule to military juntas, but all have one thing in common: a lack of accountability to the People. Where democracy develops, the principle of one-man and one vote may result in political parties seeking the votes of working people. Liberal democracy gives writers the means of expressing the faults of the social order . Reformers can flourish. In undemocratic societies, entrenched elites use government to suppress dissent and of course labor unions. Those in power are able to use the state apparatus to enrich themselves and immiserate the workers. But even within undemocratic orders there is a huge difference between the British Raj in India and the aristocracy of Russia -- or the French in Indochina.
Where government is repressive, irresponsible, and undemocratic, dissent goes underground and concentrates itself in small cliques of violent conspirators who become increasingly ruthless, devious, and radicalized. A socialist party that operates in the open and seeks votes to force reforms cannot get away with plots of assassination and sabotage, but secretive cliques of extremists have violent plots as their normal operations. When some calamity befalls the incompetent leadership whose wars for profit rend society instead of unifying it , when some natural disaster ravages the people and well-connected people profiteer from such, then those who can effect change are those secretive, violent, ruthless cliques because other alternatives are no longer available. Wilhelmine Germany at the least had an active Social Democratic Party; imperial Russia had the Bolsheviki.
5. Excessive centralization of industry. Cottage industries may not be your model of efficiency, but they allow a smoother transition from rural to industrial life. Farming is a highly seasonal activity, so labor in cottage industries does not require uprooting the rural poor. Markets are local, and the goods produced fit local needs. In contrast some countries seem to concentrate manufacturing in a few cities . There one finds great numbers of poor people that the capitalist order treats badly, people barely literate (if that) so that they are amenable to revolutionary propaganda when the system breaks down -- people with little to lose. Or as Karl Marx put it "Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!" So did Lenin, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, and Fidel Castro.
This may account for proletarian revolutions that succeeded (Russia, Yugoslavia, Albania, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Cambodia, perhaps some revolutions that had Marxist influences (Zimbabwe, Nicaragua) -- and those that failed because the conditions were not quite right (Germany and Hungary just after the end of World War I). It does not account for conquests by Marxist regimes; the only reason for there not being a socialist republic in the Netherlands after WWII was that the Soviet Army never got that far west.
So let us suppose that you have free and competitive elections to determine what sort of government you will have, the right to organize a union, an apartment with a flush toilet and running water, electricity that generates power for cooking food and running entertainment devices, a car, adequate heat and air conditioning (especially in a fire-and-ice climate in a place like Indianapolis), and union representation in collective bargaining. You may be bereft of chains unless you involve yourself in some disgusting form of sex... so you have much to lose if the capitalist system goes. Contrast what life is like if the incompetent, clueless leadership gives mystical explanations of why it is important to work to exhaustion yet live close to starvation and prefers that you be illiterate so that you be unable to respond to revolutionary handbills.
Such makes all the difference in the world.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Eric the Green - 07-03-2020
Classic Xer says that the Left will spawn more hard-right candidates willing to fight to defeat the Left. In Colorado, this just happened. But this candidate is as looney and creepy as they come: a gun-totin', xenophobic conspiracy theorist who opposes congressional aid to help people during the coronavirus crisis. It opens up this rural Republican district to a Democratic challenge. Quoting a politico report:
Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) was defeated in a primary election on Tuesday by Lauren Boebert, a conservative restaurateur and gun-rights activist.
Boebert — the owner of a restaurant in Rifle, Colo. that advertises the fact that its wait staff open-carry firearms — hit Tipton for his record on immigration and co-sponsoring coronavirus legislation that would give aid to local governments.
Should Boebert win in November, she would be one of a growing continent of incoming candidates who have expressed some belief in the QAnon conspiracy theory that sinister forces inside the government are working to thwart Trump. “I hope that this is real,” she said of the theory in an interview with a conservative outlet.
House Democrats' campaign arm quickly went on the offensive, casting Boebert as a fringe candidate.
“Not even multiple endorsements from President Trump could save Congressman Scott Tipton from his extreme, QAnon caucus challenger," DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos (Ill.) said in a statement. "Washington Republicans should immediately disavow Lauren Boebert and her extremist, dangerous conspiracy theories."
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/30/rep-scott-tipton-ousted-in-colorado-gop-primary-346493
Boebert will meet Democrat Diane Bush in November. Bush was the party's nominee in 2018, losing to Tipton by about 8%. While Boebert will start the race as the favorite in this GOP-leaning district on the state's Western Slope, her positions may create an opening for Democrats. Sabato's Crystal Ball changed its rating of the race from Likely to Leans Republican after Boebert became the nominee.
https://www.270towin.com/news/2020/06/30/rep-scott-tipton-ousted-in-co-3-gop-primary_1052.html
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Classic-Xer - 07-03-2020
(07-01-2020, 12:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:We have the right to bear arms and value our guns too. So, there's a good example of the American rights and values that I'm talking about that people like you don't seem to recognize or understand they're direct relationship to you as an American citizen these days. Oh that's right, you've already let go of them and embraced global citizenship and whatever values are imposed and rights eliminated by global institutions and foreign powers. I'm concerned about all our rights as citizens and all our advancement as a nation today. I view today's Left as being a direct threat to both these days. Right now, the folks who are at greatest risk are the more conservative Democratic population of Americans who are being targeted and persecuted by those on your side right now. Like I said, your shitty mobs, leftist groups and clueless/ powerless politicians better be really careful and start showing all of us something valuable about them that's worth keeping or they're going to find themselves being lumped in with the mobs and leftist groups that we see targeting, terrorizing and bullying American people/voters that we know today. So, how many 2nd Amendment deniers among the Democratic are 2nd Amendment believers/ supporters today. How many knee jerk Democrats who went along for years are waking up and seeing the direct threat to them and their communities that we are seeing today. I'm much better prepared and more naturally suited to survive an ugly 4t. I've been openly communicating, showing you and proving to you that for many years now.(07-01-2020, 02:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: How many America blacks, whites, yellows, browns and reds have the same basic American values and rights as me today? I'm suggesting that a clash between Americans of all kinds and the Left-wing is inevitable at this point and once the cultural clash begins it's not going to stop until the Left-wing is destroyed. You are on the wrong side of history and seem to be deaf, dumb and blind too. So, I hope have fun trying to survive an ugly 4T.
We can't put up a statue of our World War II heroes either because the country was still legally segregated during World War II and we have Japanese people living here who might/could get upset or view them as racists. The time is coming for minorities to decide whether they prefer to be viewed as blacks, Hispanics, browns or whatever else forever and ever or whether they prefer to be viewed Americans become part of the country where none of that matters
You still do not define "American values and rights," which proves that you don't know what these are. Of course, we know you think we have a right to bear arms. If that's all you are concerned about, then you can go to the OK Corale and have your fun, and I don't care.
You refer to a cultural clash now too, but you do not define the cultures that are clashing.
One's ancestry still matters if one is still discriminated against on that basis, which is still the case. But slavery is not legal, and those who fought and were heroes in WWII were not fighting for slavery. They were not traitors.
But you support venerating and memorializing traitors who set up a new country and made war on and invaded the United States in order protect slavery. That makes you complicit in their fight.
You are on the wrong side of history and seem to be deaf, dumb and blind too. So, I hope you have fun trying to survive an ugly 4T.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Classic-Xer - 07-03-2020
(07-03-2020, 02:01 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Classic Xer says that the Left will spawn more hard-right candidates willing to fight to defeat the Left. In Colorado, this just happened. But this candidate is as looney and creepy as they come: a gun-totin', xenophobic conspiracy theorist who opposes congressional aid to help people during the coronavirus crisis. It opens up this rural Republican district to a Democratic challenge. Quoting a politico report:Yep. I told you so.
Rep. Scott Tipton (R-Colo.) was defeated in a primary election on Tuesday by Lauren Boebert, a conservative restaurateur and gun-rights activist.
Boebert — the owner of a restaurant in Rifle, Colo. that advertises the fact that its wait staff open-carry firearms — hit Tipton for his record on immigration and co-sponsoring coronavirus legislation that would give aid to local governments.
Should Boebert win in November, she would be one of a growing continent of incoming candidates who have expressed some belief in the QAnon conspiracy theory that sinister forces inside the government are working to thwart Trump. “I hope that this is real,” she said of the theory in an interview with a conservative outlet.
House Democrats' campaign arm quickly went on the offensive, casting Boebert as a fringe candidate.
“Not even multiple endorsements from President Trump could save Congressman Scott Tipton from his extreme, QAnon caucus challenger," DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos (Ill.) said in a statement. "Washington Republicans should immediately disavow Lauren Boebert and her extremist, dangerous conspiracy theories."
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/30/rep-scott-tipton-ousted-in-colorado-gop-primary-346493
Boebert will meet Democrat Diane Bush in November. Bush was the party's nominee in 2018, losing to Tipton by about 8%. While Boebert will start the race as the favorite in this GOP-leaning district on the state's Western Slope, her positions may create an opening for Democrats. Sabato's Crystal Ball changed its rating of the race from Likely to Leans Republican after Boebert became the nominee.
https://www.270towin.com/news/2020/06/30/rep-scott-tipton-ousted-in-co-3-gop-primary_1052.html
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Eric the Green - 07-03-2020
(07-03-2020, 02:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-01-2020, 12:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(07-01-2020, 02:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: How many America blacks, whites, yellows, browns and reds have the same basic American values and rights as me today? I'm suggesting that a clash between Americans of all kinds and the Left-wing is inevitable at this point and once the cultural clash begins it's not going to stop until the Left-wing is destroyed. You are on the wrong side of history and seem to be deaf, dumb and blind too. So, I hope have fun trying to survive an ugly 4T.
We can't put up a statue of our World War II heroes either because the country was still legally segregated during World War II and we have Japanese people living here who might/could get upset or view them as racists. The time is coming for minorities to decide whether they prefer to be viewed as blacks, Hispanics, browns or whatever else forever and ever or whether they prefer to be viewed Americans become part of the country where none of that matters
You still do not define "American values and rights," which proves that you don't know what these are. Of course, we know you think we have a right to bear arms. If that's all you are concerned about, then you can go to the OK Corale and have your fun, and I don't care.
You refer to a cultural clash now too, but you do not define the cultures that are clashing.
One's ancestry still matters if one is still discriminated against on that basis, which is still the case. But slavery is not legal, and those who fought and were heroes in WWII were not fighting for slavery. They were not traitors.
But you support venerating and memorializing traitors who set up a new country and made war on and invaded the United States in order protect slavery. That makes you complicit in their fight.
You are on the wrong side of history and seem to be deaf, dumb and blind too. So, I hope you have fun trying to survive an ugly 4T.
We have the right to bear arms and value our guns too. So, there's a good example of the American rights and values that I'm talking about that people like you don't seem to recognize or understand they're direct relationship to you as an American citizen these days.
Yeah, I know, and you don't seem to realize how little these so-called rights mean to people like me, and how ludicrous it is to think that guns have any relationship at all our rights as American citizens.
Quote:Oh that's right, you've already let go of them and embraced global citizenship and whatever values are imposed and rights eliminated by global institutions and foreign powers. I'm concerned about all our rights as citizens and all our advancement as a nation today. I view today's Left as being a direct threat to both these days. Right now, the folks who are at greatest risk are the more conservative Democratic population of Americans who are being targeted and persecuted by those on your side right now. Like I said, your shitty mobs, leftist groups and clueless/ powerless politicians better be really careful and start showing all of us something valuable about them that's worth keeping or they're going to find themselves being lumped in with the mobs and leftist groups that we see targeting, terrorizing and bullying American people/voters that we know today. So, how many 2nd Amendment deniers among the Democratic are 2nd Amendment believers/ supporters today. How many knee jerk Democrats who went along for years are waking up and seeing the direct threat to them and their communities that we are seeing today. I'm much better prepared and more naturally suited to survive an ugly 4t. I've been openly communicating, showing you and proving to you that for many years now.
You should read more of brower's essays, and learn what terms really mean.
I don't plan to show you anything that you would find valuable. I expect many of us Democrats would feel the same. You have proven only that all you value is violence. That is the extent of your "American values."
I look forward to the day when real Americans will repeal the 2nd Amendment. That doesn't mean that all Americans will have no guns. It only means that we will be able to deal with them in a sensible way, something entirely beyond your comprehension.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - pbrower2a - 07-03-2020
(07-03-2020, 02:04 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(07-01-2020, 12:53 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(07-01-2020, 02:10 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: How many America blacks, whites, yellows, browns and reds have the same basic American values and rights as me today? I'm suggesting that a clash between Americans of all kinds and the Left-wing is inevitable at this point and once the cultural clash begins it's not going to stop until the Left-wing is destroyed. You are on the wrong side of history and seem to be deaf, dumb and blind too. So, I hope have fun trying to survive an ugly 4T.
We can't put up a statue of our World War II heroes either because the country was still legally segregated during World War II and we have Japanese people living here who might/could get upset or view them as racists. The time is coming for minorities to decide whether they prefer to be viewed as blacks, Hispanics, browns or whatever else forever and ever or whether they prefer to be viewed Americans become part of the country where none of that matters
You still do not define "American values and rights," which proves that you don't know what these are. Of course, we know you think we have a right to bear arms. If that's all you are concerned about, then you can go to the OK Corale and have your fun, and I don't care.
You refer to a cultural clash now too, but you do not define the cultures that are clashing.
One's ancestry still matters if one is still discriminated against on that basis, which is still the case. But slavery is not legal, and those who fought and were heroes in WWII were not fighting for slavery. They were not traitors.
But you support venerating and memorializing traitors who set up a new country and made war on and invaded the United States in order protect slavery. That makes you complicit in their fight.
You are on the wrong side of history and seem to be deaf, dumb and blind too. So, I hope you have fun trying to survive an ugly 4T.
We have the right to bear arms and value our guns too. So, there's a good example of the American rights and values that I'm talking about that people like you don't seem to recognize or understand they're direct relationship to you as an American citizen these days. Oh that's right, you've already let go of them and embraced global citizenship and whatever values are imposed and rights eliminated by global institutions and foreign powers. I'm concerned about all our rights as citizens and all our advancement as a nation today. I view today's Left as being a direct threat to both these days. Right now, the folks who are at greatest risk are the more conservative Democratic population of Americans who are being targeted and persecuted by those on your side right now. Like I said, your shitty mobs, leftist groups and clueless/ powerless politicians better be really careful and start showing all of us something valuable about them that's worth keeping or they're going to find themselves being lumped in with the mobs and leftist groups that we see targeting, terrorizing and bullying American people/voters that we know today. So, how many 2nd Amendment deniers among the Democratic are 2nd Amendment believers/ supporters today. How many knee jerk Democrats who went along for years are waking up and seeing the direct threat to them and their communities that we are seeing today. I'm much better prepared and more naturally suited to survive an ugly 4t. I've been openly communicating, showing you and proving to you that for many years now.
As far as the right to bear arms -- every Nazi in good standing was expected to keep and bear arms as a civic duty. Contrast the reality in the arch-conservative Britain of Margaret Thatcher, where there was no right to bear arms. That is two different styles of government on the political Right (and don't give me the malarkey about Nazis being 'socialists' in according to the stated name of their Party. Nazi Germany was a pure plutocracy to the extent that tycoons, executives, and big rural landowners were in good standing with the Hitler clique. Nazi Germany was a worker's Hell in which workers had no freedom to change jobs without the consent of their employers, in which strikes were illegal, and in which the compulsory unions were the sorts that exhorted workers to produce even more to the point of exhaustion under dangerous and demeaning conditions so that workers could deserve the benefits of the racist (which is how I translate völkisch) State.
Eric is right -- you don't yet understand that many people who consider themselves fully American are no less American for believing something very different from what you think is American.
I can give you no definition for what makes one an American except for being a citizen. People with birthright citizenship come from people of great difference in religion, culture, ethnicity (and mixtures of ethnicity), length of time since one's last immigrant ancestor came from elsewhere to America... and of course political values, occupation, and social class. Some fellow strung out on drugs can be as American as I am. Someone whose culture obviously comes from a country other than America (OK, I am nearly half German and Swiss and nearly half English, Welsh, and Scots-Irish) is as American as I am.
As we approach the 244th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence we need reflect on what America is. As early as 1783 the infant United States of America had an area impressive by the standards of many of the empires of the past. If America is an Empire, then it is the Empire of Liberty, the society that unlike the other empires has offered the most opportunity and demanded the least conformity of people. As an example, if you live in certain parts of Texas and New Mexico it is very American to speak Spanish. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo establishes that people who were transferred by a change of border from Mexico to the United States were to be treated by law as if white.
In 1865 the victorious Union could enforce the Emancipation Proclamation even in the last part of the Confederacy to come back under Union control... and recent slaves and their descendants were to be recognized as Americans with the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness denied them while they were in bondage. Of course the political hacks of the former Confederacy did everything possible to ensure that freedmen and their descendants got to exercise as few of those rights as possible. That, almost all Americans recognize, was terribly wrong. I see no right that I have lost that ever depended upon the subjection of American blacks, especially in the South. To be sure, there are pathological racists just as American as I am who believe that dignity for black people is a danger to the "white race". (I have no children, but if I had a white daughter or granddaughter in a choice between marrying some good black man and some white meth fiend who is a loser in every possible way... better a biracial child in a solid family than some white kid who sees the police as the Big Blue Meanies for busting Mommy and Daddy for cooking and distributing meth).
I am more concerned about the First Amendment because I love to express my opinions without fear of official abuse. The Second Amendment? It could be re-written to better delineate states' rights in determining who can have a gun and what sorts of guns, and for what purpose. I would re-write it with the anti-discrimination clauses that are the norm in Constitutional amendments. It would look much like the Eighteenth Amendment abolishing Prohibition (for example one would be prohibited from taking a firearm into another state in violation of that state's laws. I know sport hunters and I want them to act as if nothing happened.
Want a real defense of your property?
![[Image: Boerboel_head.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Boerboel_head.jpg)
This is a favorite among white South Africans... and it guards guns from theft. With a bit force of 800 pounds per square inch, the Boerboel is the sort of dog that you don't want as an enemy. It reminds crooks from the black majority of an animal part of their heritage as a menace:
![[Image: 220px-Okonjima_Lioness.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c6/Okonjima_Lioness.jpg/220px-Okonjima_Lioness.jpg)
The dog is even more aggressive than the above lioness, and can scare off lions. Dogs are typically better behaved than bears and Big Cats, but if someone does something truly stupid the dog can be similarly lethal to a bear or Big Cat... lions typically back off from humans by day because lions fear our guns. Boerbels do not back off from wayward humans at any time of day. Do crime in the presence of dogs, and discover what animal really is the top of the food chain in most of the human world. You do not want a dog, let alone a pack of dogs, as your enemy. Dogs can create the impression that human flesh is potentially on their menu.
This said, aside from wolves the animals most similar to large dogs in behavior might well be lions. (Small ones are closer analogues to domestic cats. Woe is it to a rat that encounters a rat terrier!)
Before you bring up the Nazis taking away 'gun rights' from Jews... the Nazis prohibited Jews from owning dogs. The SS and Gestapo had no desire to have some dog ripping the precious flesh of an enforcer of the 'racial' policies of the völkisch state.
Eight hundred pounds of bite force per square inch is a good reason to choose a non-criminal way of life.
... by the way... if there are any marauding mobs out there, their political values are the least of their menace.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Bob Butler 54 - 07-04-2020
CNN has an article up that compares what is happening now to the American Revolution, and calls some looking for change patriots. I Just noted that on many fronts it echoes what S&H says about crises, and how I see the turnings as how values change.
RE: The Partisan Divide on Issues - Bob Butler 54 - 07-04-2020
(07-03-2020, 08:23 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Want a real defense of your property?
Again, you get the basic partnership rules wrong. In the hunter gatherer days, the dog had superior ability to run an animal down, and had superior smell and other means to detect the approach of an enemy. Man, specifically an armed man, had the superior combat ability. While either might succeed on their own, together they were a most formidable pair.
By expecting the dog to have superior combat ability to an armed man, you are breaking the contract between species, putting the dog in a situation where he has no chance.