Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[pbrower2a]

(08-28-2016, 01:13 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'll acknowledge art as a possible way of understanding the world and achieving fulfillment.  I'll note that in the past you have objected that mysticism and religion are distinct enough to deserve to be counted as different things.  I'm glad you have come over to my way of thinking.    

I'll deny that politics isn't a framework for understanding the world (world view) as well as providing goals for how one should improve one's culture and one's role within it (values).  We spend an awful lot of time, you, me and others on this forum, comparing, contrasting and insulting various political world views and values.  Trying to further comprehend and resolve such things won't be helped if you can't step out of your personal world view far enough to see what is going on in front of your face.  Your refusal to see outside your personal framework isn't optimal.

As I have said, I understand other political views better than those who hold them. I stand by that. The fact that I am still partisan, despite this, just shows that I consider those views to be false, at least when held with the narrow rigidity that some people hold them today.

I'c consider the above attitude a possible symptom of values lock.  Conservatives commonly explain to me how all liberals think, and say that because I am a liberal it follows that they know what I am thinking.  Buzz, wrong.  It is common for those holding one set of world views and values to have stereotypes  of opposing world views and values.  It seems to me that conservatives are more blatant about this than progressives, but in part that is because I lean progressive.  Hey, I have values too.  I do the "I understand them and still disagree with them" thing too.  Well, you know that.  That's what you are complaining about, no?  That's an occupational hazard.  It's part of being human.  Just don't think you're immune, that you are doing it less than others.  There are reasons for the "Eric the Obtuse" tag.

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: People have strong political beliefs and values.  Your inability to see and acknowledge this doesn't change it.

I can see fine that these are in the realm of philosophy.

There is a saying.  "Those that can, do.  Those that can't, teach."  Most of the good professional philosophers I have encountered, respected and learned from are in academia.  The good professional politicians aren't.  I see a clear difference in how the two professions understand and manipulate the world.  Most people can.  I shall continue to speak to most people.

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Acknowledged.  I may be aware of how world views and values can both focus and contain an individual's thinking, but don't claim total immunity to the effects.  Scientific values are better than most at reminding practitioners that new data requires new thinking, that no paradigm should be considered sacrosanct, that anything one believes should be subject to reevaluation.  Some variations of mysticism echo a similar principle, which is why the masters pour too much tea in the student's cup.  One must empty out old beliefs to make learn for new learning.  We could both gain by pushing these aspects of our varied traditions.

I agree there.

Hey.  Wow.  It can happen!  

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I acknowledge that you have found a path that brings you a knowledge of how the world works and a guidance on how you should act that gives you a deep satisfaction.  I have walked enough steps of that path to understand its basic nature, and to know it is not for me.  I doubt any man could or should try to walk every path he encounters to the same degree as someone who has committed a lifetime to one path alone.  My own path suggests trying to acknowledge, respect and understand many diverse paths, but I'm not going to be able to out quote the bible with JPT, discuss in detail the many and varied economic cycles with Mikebert, or critique one of your astrological charts.

Some aspects of my path are so simple that anyone can follow, if willing. The obvious does not have to be difficult to see. But the willing isn't there, without curiosity; which seems to have vanished from most people the moment the 2T ended. But when I was 16 and 17, my curiosity drove me to discover the obvious, and my path opened.

I think this too can be viewed as a universal.  People with a wide variety of ways of seeing the world will say the basics are simple, obvious to the willing, to those ready to open their eyes.  The fact that others can't see it and are unwilling to open their eyes is troubling.  You have a world view.  It isn't universally embraced.  Welcome to the human race.  Worry less about others with closed eyes.  You can do more about your own eyes.  Or can you?  Have you the insurmountable handicap of being human?

(08-28-2016, 12:04 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-27-2016, 04:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: But as you might push meditation and astrology, I'll be trying to push walking at least a kilometer in the other guy's shoes.  It's what I do.

So you claim. But your pronouncements about me and others refute this to a degree. You, like almost all people here (at least if they are older than about 25), and most people today, are locked into their particular views, whatever you call them, and often angrily dismiss opposing views. I don't look for this to change. I look for one political philosophy to defeat the other; that's what happens in 4Ts, every time. For the rest, revolutions and awakenings come and go, followed by long periods of stasis. That's the way of evolution, human and otherwise.

Too true for comfort.  To a great degree, in advocating our various world views and values, we're all tilting at windmills.  Again, your are stating a near universal, a broad truth that applies to you as well.  You too have been known to angrily dismiss opposing views.  They are not to be taken seriously.  They are to be swept aside by the tides of history.  Do you not recall Classic's recent post to that effect, predicting that Americans will triumph over liberals?

As I've said to Mikebert recently, we are becoming a confrontational hostile culture.  As a whole we are becoming better at screaming than listening.  I'd rather solve problems through the ballot box than on the battlefield.  I'd rather solve problems through courtesy and respect than through politics.  That's hard to do in today's culture, and part of it is the late 3T early 4T season.  Part of the problem is the culture of hostility and prevalence of closed minds itself.

At this time you and I seem near the point where we are obstinately  screaming at each other, trying to see who can deliver the same message in the most decisive way.  I'm thinking we are near a point of diminishing return.

Values lock -- one cannot legitimately understand why others hold the views that they have, and probably can't legitimately express the views of others.

So how can someone be wrong?

1. Intellectual inadequacy, a/k/a stupidity or ignorance.
2. Insanity and delusion.
3. Gross inadequacy of moral standards, as with sociopaths and sadists.
4. Selling out to the highest bidder.
5. Myopic class interest.
6. Brainwashing.
7. Fear -- fear the tyrant who can do anything to one or the God that can have one burn in Hell for the slightest deviation.
8. Revenge-seeking against old enemies.

1. Stupidity is one of the most commonly attributed faults to those who disagree with one, but it may be one of the least important. Stupid people still get their ideas from someone else. Ignorance about politics is something of which one is easily disabused, unless one is sheltered from the reality. Besides, the frequency of persons of cognitive impairment in the imbecile and idiot range is rather rare outside of institutions. More people are called stupid for their political beliefs than really are stupid.

Ignorance? Some people find it comforting.

The polar differences in how black people and white people see American life must reflect a difference in their world.

OK, so I am a little more enlightened about the reality of white (or should I say non-black?) privilege. You might want to keep the vehicle registration somewhere other than the glove (if you are white) or gun (if you are a young black male). That;s the difference that cops see in such places as Ferguson, Missouri.

2. Paranoid, schizophrenic, and other delusions are possible. But those on the Left (9/11 was an inside job) are as commonplace as those on the Right (Zionist Occupation Government).

3. Probably commonplace in contemporary America, at least among official elites and among gangsters. As capitalism has gone from a model of largely competitive enterprise to oligarchic capitalism and as economic inequality has intensified, predatory models of business have become the norm. Subprime lending and rip-off retailing that used to exist only in the ghettos and barrios have spread to rural areas and Suburbia. Such activities hold potential for great profits for businesses with captive clienteles. Operation of one of these (or ownership from afar) can be far more lucrative than the old-fashioned cash-and-carry retailer. I could name names, but I would more insult the customers than harm the businesses. We need remember that a culture that fosters economic inequality makes such the norm.  In case people thought that being overworked and underpaid created some security, then think again -- such is the way with day laborers.

4. Intellectual prostitutes are nothing new. Some people whored their intellect by extolling the lavish beneficence of slave owners upon the slaves. In more recent times they defended the cancerweed industry from medical attacks on 'coffin nails'. People with high intelligence can be just as callow as idiots; they know what they are doing. What is in it for them? Getting to live the good life for doing something evil but easy. Getti9ng paid like Hemingway while having not-so-extraordinary talent just by pushing horrible stuff? If one has brains but no conscience....

5. How luscious life must have been for French aristocrats around 1785... or Russian aristocrats around 1910.... or Cuban aristocrats around 1955. I think we all know how that line will go.

6. Some political groups (including the Republican party in my county!) have taken on cult-like characteristics.

7. Today we 'only' fear the Boss, someone who can cast us off with little notice. We can go from precarious membership in the middle class to poverty in a few months. Maybe the objective of one side of the political spectrum is to create as much mass poverty as possible so that people will do anything to avoid being fired. Just think of what it would be like if continued employment depended upon 'volunteering' for political activity that the Boss likes, doing unpaid domestic work for ownership or management, or making purchases for excess prices with Shylock-style terms of repayment of the loan.  Then of course there is 'voluntary' unpaid overtime, failure at which to perform gives cause for firing.

8. Revenge is sweet. So, supposedly, are highly-toxic lead compounds.

[Eric the Green]

(08-29-2016, 07:06 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote:

Quote:I'm not sure myself any more than you or Butler that Hillary will buck the system, or how far. I just have a hunch that she will to a degree, since she is an idealist and a rebel girl at heart. The people will need to push her, and I don't know now if the people are any more up for a regeneracy now than the Democratic "Establishment." As I said, real change is unlikely for the next four years. Events move in cycles, and one important cycle is the 20-year one that corresponds to Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions. People get this one mixed up with others. But a "zero year" election and the following "one" year means a change in direction in Establishment politics, one way or another. It happens every time. So Hillary may not make it into the new decade, which will be a transformative one, whereas the last 2 decades have been the stand-pat and muddle-through time.

You see hope for Republicans to buck the system, because you agree with their ideas. But I see opposition to welfare and minority rights and support for trickle down, free market economics as more in line with the Establishment, and Trump comes from that system, and claims that his knowledge of cronyism means that he alone can fix it. If you believe that an expert practitioner of the current Establishment big-money, robber-baron system is the one to "fix" it, then I've got some California real estate to sell you at bargain Detroit prices.

There is also a perihelion/opposition of Mars and the Sun in 2020 - and it is the start of a "4" decade, the last two of which - the 1930s and 1840s - played host to the two worst depressions in U.S. history, and both needed wars to end (World War II and the Mexican War).

The 1840s were not one of the worst depressions. That would be either the 1890s or 1870s. We have already (I predict) dodged the worst depression that will happen this century until at least the 2060s, and probably longer (a depression, of course, that I predicted in my videos and book and lectures).

That's a good idea, the '4' years, but I think astrology "trumps" numerology. And Sun opposite Mars happens every two years, and Mars is always at perihelion at opposition. But I do see a major war breaking out at the end of the year 2020, as I have said before. That's because of Mars-Saturn-Pluto aspects as well as a Mars station in Martian-sign Aries (think Pearl Harbor on that one). I have suggested locations; probably in the old Soviet area or possibly the far east. But the USA will not be involved unless it lasts past 2025.

[Eric the Green]

(08-28-2016, 01:13 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'c consider the above attitude a possible symptom of values lock.  Conservatives commonly explain to me how all liberals think, and say that because I am a liberal it follows that they know what I am thinking.  Buzz, wrong.  It is common for those holding one set of world views and values to have stereotypes  of opposing world views and values.  It seems to me that conservatives are more blatant about this than progressives, but in part that is because I lean progressive.  Hey, I have values too.  I do the "I understand them and still disagree with them" thing too.  Well, you know that.  That's what you are complaining about, no?  That's an occupational hazard.  It's part of being human.  Just don't think you're immune, that you are doing it less than others.  There are reasons for the "Eric the Obtuse" tag.

A tag given to me by the most blatantly-obvious locked libertarian ideologue around? I don't think so.

I would say it's possible too for some conservatives to understand how their liberal opponents think. If you make the attempt, it can happen. Usually though, what I hear is their ideology and not much understanding. For some of them, the need to articulate and argue for their position on the air keeps them loyal and tied to their cause, even though they know it's not necessarily the only valid view.

Quote:There is a saying.  "Those that can, do.  Those that can't, teach."  Most of the good professional philosophers I have encountered, respected and learned from are in academia.  The good professional politicians aren't.  I see a clear difference in how the two professions understand and manipulate the world.  Most people can.  I shall continue to speak to most people.

You are off track there. The "profession" is irrelevant. Again, everyone does philosophy. Some just devote more conscious attention to it, and they aren't necessarily paid for doing that. My point again is, to the extent that politics is a form of "knowledge," it is in the realm of philosophy, or some supposed social "science." Ideologies such as Marxism or supply-side/free-market are philosophies, and are also taught in philosophy departments by academics. I know; I studied both Hayek and Marx there. Mises was a visiting professor for 25 years. This is a theoretical question, not an issue of ideology or values. But I think what you say agrees with me. Those who can't do, teach. Politics is in the realm of action; putting knowledge or lack thereof into effect. Teaching is in the realm of knowledge. Those who teach, learn.

Quote:I think this too can be viewed as a universal.  People with a wide variety of ways of seeing the world will say the basics are simple, obvious to the willing, to those ready to open their eyes.  The fact that others can't see it and are unwilling to open their eyes is troubling.  You have a world view.  It isn't universally embraced.  Welcome to the human race.  Worry less about others with closed eyes.  You can do more about your own eyes.  Or can you?  Have you the insurmountable handicap of being human?

I am concerned, for the reasons I have stated. I observe that there are needs to address, such as high prices of various kinds, low wages, climate change, wars of choice, pay-to-play politics, and so on, and I observe who is standing in the way of action on these concerns, and why, and who supports action. It is not my ideology, but my observation from which I speak, when I say that trickle-down free market ideology is the main obstacle to action on these needs. And it is quite obvious to all which parties support and adopt this ideology.

Quote:Too true for comfort.  To a great degree, in advocating our various world views and values, we're all tilting at windmills.  Again, your are stating a near universal, a broad truth that applies to you as well.  You too have been known to angrily dismiss opposing views.  They are not to be taken seriously.  They are to be swept aside by the tides of history.  Do you not recall Classic's recent post to that effect, predicting that Americans will triumph over liberals?

This is a 4T. May the best side win!

Quote:As I've said to Mikebert recently, we are becoming a confrontational hostile culture.  As a whole we are becoming better at screaming than listening.  I'd rather solve problems through the ballot box than on the battlefield.  I'd rather solve problems through courtesy and respect than through politics.  That's hard to do in today's culture, and part of it is the late 3T early 4T season.  Part of the problem is the culture of hostility and prevalence of closed minds itself.

That's what some people say. It's clear to me that this problem lies more on one side than the other, in politics. It is seasonal; there we agree. But you misspoke there; the ballot box is politics. There's no alternative to using it, and the better side must prevail at the ballot box if we are to meet the needs of our time. The problem is that the correct side has not won enough victories; not that there's not enough courtesy. Not that I would not prefer courtesy to screaming, as a method of persuasion. But the truth about how to meet the needs of our time is the issue. That truth does not necessarily come from the most courteous people.

Quote:At this time you and I seem near the point where we are obstinately screaming at each other, trying to see who can deliver the same message in the most decisive way.  I'm thinking we are near a point of diminishing return.

That too, as you say, is universal. Most people here on this site stick to their views. You and I are certainly among those, but there are few if any here who are not also among those.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-29-2016, 09:38 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Values lock -- one cannot legitimately understand why others hold the views that they have, and probably can't legitimately express the views of others.

So how can someone be wrong?

1. Intellectual inadequacy, a/k/a stupidity or ignorance.
2. Insanity and delusion.
3. Gross inadequacy of moral standards, as with sociopaths and sadists.
4. Selling out to the highest bidder.
5. Myopic class interest.
6. Brainwashing.
7. Fear -- fear the tyrant who can do anything to one or the God that can have one burn in Hell for the slightest deviation.
8. Revenge-seeking against old enemies.

I would start looking in other places, though my list contains rewords of yours.

Self Interest:  If one is living day to day, having trouble finding a good job, living on Main Street day to day, one is apt to sympathize with Demand Side economics, approve of government assisted health care and otherwise lean blue.  If one has a large stock portfolio, is secure in one's job, has a large inheritance, then tax breaks to the wealthy, reduced capitol gains taxes, and paying one's own way rather than sharing burdens through tax and spend seem like good ideas.

Cultural Difference: One inherits a lot of one's parent's beliefs.  What worked for them gets preached to the new generation.  Churches and schools are a similar sources for explanations of how things work and ought to work.  For many, it is hard to let go of one's upbringing.

Situation Difference:  If one is living in wide open spaces, self reliance and independence can be productive, prudent and wise.  There is just more travel involved to get together and play team games.  If one lives in an urban area, the opposite can be true.

These are three common, broad and bland examples, but there are a lot more reasons for sincere disagreement.  If one is in the habit of solving a given problem in a given way, and it generally works, there is going to be sincere resistance to giving up the tried and true for an untried scheme.

Now, I'm not saying the things on your list never happen.  I just prefer to assume that someone I disagree with is intelligent, sane, and acting reasonably based on the world as he sees it.  I will try to maintain a benefit of the doubt as long as reasonably possible.  Someone might come from a different environment, a different culture, and thus have different world views and values.  However, I assume that the culture evolved to suit the place he came from.  Common cultures come to exist for a reason.  Understanding said reasons is a vital part of the process of political discussion.  If one hasn't made a sincere attempt to understand where the other guy is coming from, one shouldn't knee jerk instantly assume that he is evil, stupid, insane, brainwashed, etc...

That is the biggest difference between us.  I am ready to assume sincere differences between cultures, world views and values.  You are far more apt to assume that anyone who disagrees with you has major league mental or moral problems.  I consider the assumption that any disagreement in world views and values must be due to some sort of moral or mental deficiency to be a major and most problematic symptom of values lock.  Anyone who assumes that your list of reasons for disagreement above are common reasons for political disagreement is apt to be having values lock problems.

[pbrower2a]

(08-29-2016, 01:17 PM)ob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 09:38 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Values lock -- one cannot legitimately understand why others hold the views that they have, and probably can't legitimately express the views of others.

So how can someone be wrong?

1. Intellectual inadequacy, a/k/a stupidity or ignorance.
2. Insanity and delusion.
3. Gross inadequacy of moral standards, as with sociopaths and sadists.
4. Selling out to the highest bidder.
5. Myopic class interest.
6. Brainwashing.
7. Fear -- fear the tyrant who can do anything to one or the God that can have one burn in Hell for the slightest deviation.
8. Revenge-seeking against old enemies.

I would start looking in other places, though my list contains rewords of yours.

Self Interest:  If one is living day to day, having trouble finding a good job, living on Main Street day to day, one is apt to sympathize with Demand Side economics, approve of government assisted health care and otherwise lean blue.  If one has a large stock portfolio, is secure in one's job, has a large inheritance, then tax breaks to the wealthy, reduced capitol gains taxes, and paying one's own way rather than sharing burdens through tax and spend seem like good ideas.

Cultural Difference: One inherits a lot of one's parent's beliefs.  What worked for them gets preached to the new generation.  Churches and schools are a similar sources for explanations of how things work and ought to work.  For many, it is hard to let go of one's upbringing.

Situation Difference:  If one is living in wide open spaces, self reliance and independence can be productive, prudent and wise.  There is just more travel involved to get together and play team games.  If one lives in an urban area, the opposite can be true.

These are three common, broad and bland examples, but there are a lot more reasons for sincere disagreement.  If one is in the habit of solving a given problem in a given way, and it generally works, there is going to be sincere resistance to giving up the tried and true for an untried scheme.

Now, I'm not saying the things on your list never happen.  I just prefer to assume that someone I disagree with is intelligent, sane, and acting reasonably based on the world as he sees it.  I will try to maintain a benefit of the doubt as long as reasonably possible.  Someone might come from a different environment, a different culture, and thus have different world views and values.  However, I assume that the culture evolved to suit the place he came from.  Common cultures come to exist for a reason.  Understanding said reasons is a vital part of the process of political discussion.  If one hasn't made a sincere attempt to understand where the other guy is coming from, one shouldn't knee jerk instantly assume that he is evil, stupid, insane, brainwashed, etc...

That is the biggest difference between us.  I am ready to assume sincere differences between cultures, world views and values.  You are far more apt to assume that anyone who disagrees with you has major league mental or moral problems.  I consider the assumption that any disagreement in world views and values must be due to some sort of moral or mental deficiency to be a major and most problematic symptom of values lock.  Anyone who assumes that your list of reasons for disagreement above are common reasons for political disagreement is apt to be having values lock problems.

I was looking for some reasons for someone being absolutely wrong so that we could rule out others. Ethnicity, religion, region, and class cannot make one wrong as can idiocy, superstition, malice, perversion*, lunacy, or cowardice. Using such a technique as brainwashing to convince those on the wrong side of an ethnic, religious, regional, or class divide of some revolutionary way of thought will itself be wrong should it be tried. If one can develop some high ethical standard based on one's core beliefs then one has some justification worthy of recognition.

Someone can be terribly wrong for any of the reasons that I mentioned. Seeing the world differently because one has lived in the Ozarks all one's life and is a Protestant of Scots-Irish origin instead of mid-town Manhattan and being a Catholic of Puerto Rican origin is not wrong or right -- either way. One's environment can be a very pervasive and indelible truth. If one likes where one is, then one may have a good cause to defend the assumptions that go with the environment. We are going to accept environmental differences or we are going to have horrible strife, perhaps as in Spain in the 1930s or in the dissolution of Yugoslavia.  We will need solutions that make ethnicity, religion, region, and class irrelevant to the solution. Yes, I know how nasty history can be. History is a violent, obscene tale written to no small extent in the blood of innocent people.

Don't fool yourself: this Crisis could end in the rifting of America into multiple new entities. and not even along state lines. Such would be an ugly mess. People on the wrong side of some demarcation line because of their religion or ethnicity could be in big trouble. Getting the dubious privilege to stay where one is might depend on acquiescence in second-class citizenship (I am thinking of the large black minority in the South which could face Jim Crow policies again). Remember that in such rifting, majority rule could be the choices that a local lynch mob makes. Yes, lynch mobs  make their decisions by majority vote -- very reliably. That's why we have constitutional protections that ensure that certain decisions that majorities can impose upon a helpless minority not be made.

One could recognize the legitimacy of other people's viewpoints because of some environmental factor from ethnicity to age to the rural/urban/suburban divide.

Class differences? There could be successor polities that accept the principle that maximal inequality is the best way to get the economic growth necessary to escape post-Crisis poverty. If one is a worker in such a place, then the surest way to the improvement of one's situation will be to emigrate -- no matter how over-heated the local economy is.  Some could even adopt Karl Marx as a Founding Father. Such will fail.

I could easily see myself fitting in in some foreign countries than in some of the post-Crisis polities of America. Maybe in such a Crisis I will be fortunate to find that my polity has shown its intention to join Canada after some shaky period of independence.

We may be in such deep trouble that the United States of America as we know it may be irrelevant by the end of the Crisis. The United States will not be the first great entity to splinter as its political order becomes unsustainable. We messed up badly when a bare majority chose to realign the basis of political representation to the permanent advantage of that temporary majority. Democracy can die that way.


*Homosexuality is OK.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-29-2016, 02:06 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 01:17 PM)ob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 09:38 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Values lock -- one cannot legitimately understand why others hold the views that they have, and probably can't legitimately express the views of others.

So how can someone be wrong?

1. Intellectual inadequacy, a/k/a stupidity or ignorance.
2. Insanity and delusion.
3. Gross inadequacy of moral standards, as with sociopaths and sadists.
4. Selling out to the highest bidder.
5. Myopic class interest.
6. Brainwashing.
7. Fear -- fear the tyrant who can do anything to one or the God that can have one burn in Hell for the slightest deviation.
8. Revenge-seeking against old enemies.

I would start looking in other places, though my list contains rewords of yours.

Self Interest:  If one is living day to day, having trouble finding a good job, living on Main Street day to day, one is apt to sympathize with Demand Side economics, approve of government assisted health care and otherwise lean blue.  If one has a large stock portfolio, is secure in one's job, has a large inheritance, then tax breaks to the wealthy, reduced capitol gains taxes, and paying one's own way rather than sharing burdens through tax and spend seem like good ideas.

Cultural Difference: One inherits a lot of one's parent's beliefs.  What worked for them gets preached to the new generation.  Churches and schools are a similar sources for explanations of how things work and ought to work.  For many, it is hard to let go of one's upbringing.

Situation Difference:  If one is living in wide open spaces, self reliance and independence can be productive, prudent and wise.  There is just more travel involved to get together and play team games.  If one lives in an urban area, the opposite can be true.

These are three common, broad and bland examples, but there are a lot more reasons for sincere disagreement.  If one is in the habit of solving a given problem in a given way, and it generally works, there is going to be sincere resistance to giving up the tried and true for an untried scheme.

Now, I'm not saying the things on your list never happen.  I just prefer to assume that someone I disagree with is intelligent, sane, and acting reasonably based on the world as he sees it.  I will try to maintain a benefit of the doubt as long as reasonably possible.  Someone might come from a different environment, a different culture, and thus have different world views and values.  However, I assume that the culture evolved to suit the place he came from.  Common cultures come to exist for a reason.  Understanding said reasons is a vital part of the process of political discussion.  If one hasn't made a sincere attempt to understand where the other guy is coming from, one shouldn't knee jerk instantly assume that he is evil, stupid, insane, brainwashed, etc...

That is the biggest difference between us.  I am ready to assume sincere differences between cultures, world views and values.  You are far more apt to assume that anyone who disagrees with you has major league mental or moral problems.  I consider the assumption that any disagreement in world views and values must be due to some sort of moral or mental deficiency to be a major and most problematic symptom of values lock.  Anyone who assumes that your list of reasons for disagreement above are common reasons for political disagreement is apt to be having values lock problems.

I was looking for some reasons for someone being absolutely wrong so that we could rule out others. Ethnicity, religion, region, and class cannot make one wrong as can idiocy, superstition, malice, perversion*, lunacy, or cowardice. Using such a technique as brainwashing to convince those on the wrong side of an ethnic, religious, regional, or class divide of some revolutionary way of thought will itself be wrong should it be tried. If one can develop some high ethical standard based on one's core beliefs then one has some justification worthy of recognition.

Someone can be terribly wrong for any of the reasons that I mentioned. Seeing the world differently because one has lived in the Ozarks all one's life and is a Protestant of Scots-Irish origin instead of mid-town Manhattan and being a Catholic of Puerto Rican origin is not wrong or right -- either way. One's environment can be a very pervasive and indelible truth. If one likes where one is, then one may have a good cause to defend the assumptions that go with the environment. We are going to accept environmental differences or we are going to have horrible strife, perhaps as in Spain in the 1930s or in the dissolution of Yugoslavia.  We will need solutions that make ethnicity, religion, region, and class irrelevant to the solution. Yes, I know how nasty history can be. History is a violent, obscene tale written to no small extent in the blood of innocent people.

Don't fool yourself: this Crisis could end in the rifting of America into multiple new entities. and not even along state lines. Such would be an ugly mess. People on the wrong side of some demarcation line because of their religion or ethnicity could be in big trouble. Getting the dubious privilege to stay where one is might depend on acquiescence in second-class citizenship (I am thinking of the large black minority in the South which could face Jim Crow policies again). Remember that in such rifting, majority rule could be the choices that a local lynch mob makes. Yes, lynch mobs  make their decisions by majority vote -- very reliably. That's why we have constitutional protections that ensure that certain decisions that majorities can impose upon a helpless minority not be made.

One could recognize the legitimacy of other people's viewpoints because of some environmental factor from ethnicity to age to the rural/urban/suburban divide.

Class differences? There could be successor polities that accept the principle that maximal inequality is the best way to get the economic growth necessary to escape post-Crisis poverty. If one is a worker in such a place, then the surest way to the improvement of one's situation will be to emigrate -- no matter how over-heated the local economy is.  Some could even adopt Karl Marx as a Founding Father. Such will fail.

I could easily see myself fitting in in some foreign countries than in some of the post-Crisis polities of America. Maybe in such a Crisis I will be fortunate to find that my polity has shown its intention to join Canada after some shaky period of independence.

We may be in such deep trouble that the United States of America as we know it may be irrelevant by the end of the Crisis. The United States will not be the first great entity to splinter as its political order becomes unsustainable. We messed up badly when a bare majority chose to realign the basis of political representation to the permanent advantage of that temporary majority. Democracy can die that way.  


*Homosexuality is OK.

I don't know.  Ethnicity as in the KKK of a century or so back, religion when a fundamentalist is examining evolutionary biology, politics effecting the understanding of global warming...  Some quite understandable culturally driven factors can make you pretty (expletive deleted) wrong.  The different and quite firm opinions on the effectiveness of large government social programs and the usefulness of supply vs demand side stimulus are of a like nature.  It is possible to see how the cultural divides came to occur, why people believe as they do, but resolving the conflict is very problematic.

I'm not so worried about enough people being brainwashed to start a revolution, nor a social upheaval led by the stupid and insane.  I worry more about the intensely sincere normal.

I do watch the spirals of violence.  I don't disregard major upheaval as impossible.  I just don't see things starting to go critical yet.  There was a bump of blacks killed followed by cops killed earlier in the summer, but the response was 'this has got to stop' not 'they got one of ours, we must get two of theirs.'  The long hot summer wasn't nearly as long or hot as the summers I recall from my youth.

We'll see.

[pbrower2a]

(08-30-2016, 05:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 02:06 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 01:17 PM)ob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 09:38 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Values lock -- one cannot legitimately understand why others hold the views that they have, and probably can't legitimately express the views of others.

So how can someone be wrong?

1. Intellectual inadequacy, a/k/a stupidity or ignorance.
2. Insanity and delusion.
3. Gross inadequacy of moral standards, as with sociopaths and sadists.
4. Selling out to the highest bidder.
5. Myopic class interest.
6. Brainwashing.
7. Fear -- fear the tyrant who can do anything to one or the God that can have one burn in Hell for the slightest deviation.
8. Revenge-seeking against old enemies.

I would start looking in other places, though my list contains rewords of yours.

Self Interest:  If one is living day to day, having trouble finding a good job, living on Main Street day to day, one is apt to sympathize with Demand Side economics, approve of government assisted health care and otherwise lean blue.  If one has a large stock portfolio, is secure in one's job, has a large inheritance, then tax breaks to the wealthy, reduced capitol gains taxes, and paying one's own way rather than sharing burdens through tax and spend seem like good ideas.

Cultural Difference: One inherits a lot of one's parent's beliefs.  What worked for them gets preached to the new generation.  Churches and schools are a similar sources for explanations of how things work and ought to work.  For many, it is hard to let go of one's upbringing.

Situation Difference:  If one is living in wide open spaces, self reliance and independence can be productive, prudent and wise.  There is just more travel involved to get together and play team games.  If one lives in an urban area, the opposite can be true.

These are three common, broad and bland examples, but there are a lot more reasons for sincere disagreement.  If one is in the habit of solving a given problem in a given way, and it generally works, there is going to be sincere resistance to giving up the tried and true for an untried scheme.

Now, I'm not saying the things on your list never happen.  I just prefer to assume that someone I disagree with is intelligent, sane, and acting reasonably based on the world as he sees it.  I will try to maintain a benefit of the doubt as long as reasonably possible.  Someone might come from a different environment, a different culture, and thus have different world views and values.  However, I assume that the culture evolved to suit the place he came from.  Common cultures come to exist for a reason.  Understanding said reasons is a vital part of the process of political discussion.  If one hasn't made a sincere attempt to understand where the other guy is coming from, one shouldn't knee jerk instantly assume that he is evil, stupid, insane, brainwashed, etc...

That is the biggest difference between us.  I am ready to assume sincere differences between cultures, world views and values.  You are far more apt to assume that anyone who disagrees with you has major league mental or moral problems.  I consider the assumption that any disagreement in world views and values must be due to some sort of moral or mental deficiency to be a major and most problematic symptom of values lock.  Anyone who assumes that your list of reasons for disagreement above are common reasons for political disagreement is apt to be having values lock problems.

I was looking for some reasons for someone being absolutely wrong so that we could rule out others. Ethnicity, religion, region, and class cannot make one wrong as can idiocy, superstition, malice, perversion*, lunacy, or cowardice. Using such a technique as brainwashing to convince those on the wrong side of an ethnic, religious, regional, or class divide of some revolutionary way of thought will itself be wrong should it be tried. If one can develop some high ethical standard based on one's core beliefs then one has some justification worthy of recognition.

Someone can be terribly wrong for any of the reasons that I mentioned. Seeing the world differently because one has lived in the Ozarks all one's life and is a Protestant of Scots-Irish origin instead of mid-town Manhattan and being a Catholic of Puerto Rican origin is not wrong or right -- either way. One's environment can be a very pervasive and indelible truth. If one likes where one is, then one may have a good cause to defend the assumptions that go with the environment. We are going to accept environmental differences or we are going to have horrible strife, perhaps as in Spain in the 1930s or in the dissolution of Yugoslavia.  We will need solutions that make ethnicity, religion, region, and class irrelevant to the solution. Yes, I know how nasty history can be. History is a violent, obscene tale written to no small extent in the blood of innocent people.

Don't fool yourself: this Crisis could end in the rifting of America into multiple new entities. and not even along state lines. Such would be an ugly mess. People on the wrong side of some demarcation line because of their religion or ethnicity could be in big trouble. Getting the dubious privilege to stay where one is might depend on acquiescence in second-class citizenship (I am thinking of the large black minority in the South which could face Jim Crow policies again). Remember that in such rifting, majority rule could be the choices that a local lynch mob makes. Yes, lynch mobs  make their decisions by majority vote -- very reliably. That's why we have constitutional protections that ensure that certain decisions that majorities can impose upon a helpless minority not be made.

One could recognize the legitimacy of other people's viewpoints because of some environmental factor from ethnicity to age to the rural/urban/suburban divide.

Class differences? There could be successor polities that accept the principle that maximal inequality is the best way to get the economic growth necessary to escape post-Crisis poverty. If one is a worker in such a place, then the surest way to the improvement of one's situation will be to emigrate -- no matter how over-heated the local economy is.  Some could even adopt Karl Marx as a Founding Father. Such will fail.

I could easily see myself fitting in in some foreign countries than in some of the post-Crisis polities of America. Maybe in such a Crisis I will be fortunate to find that my polity has shown its intention to join Canada after some shaky period of independence.

We may be in such deep trouble that the United States of America as we know it may be irrelevant by the end of the Crisis. The United States will not be the first great entity to splinter as its political order becomes unsustainable. We messed up badly when a bare majority chose to realign the basis of political representation to the permanent advantage of that temporary majority. Democracy can die that way.  


*Homosexuality is OK.

I don't know.  Ethnicity as in the KKK of a century or so back, religion when a fundamentalist is examining evolutionary biology, politics effecting the understanding of global warming...  Some quite understandable culturally driven factors can make you pretty (expletive deleted) wrong.  The different and quite firm opinions on the effectiveness of large government social programs and the usefulness of supply vs demand side stimulus are of a like nature.  It is possible to see how the cultural divides came to occur, why people believe as they do, but resolving the conflict is very problematic.

I'm not so worried about enough people being brainwashed to start a revolution, nor a social upheaval led by the stupid and insane.  I worry more about the intensely sincere normal.

I do watch the spirals of violence.  I don't disregard major upheaval as impossible.  I just don't see things starting to go critical yet.  There was a bump of blacks killed followed by cops killed earlier in the summer, but the response was 'this has got to stop' not 'they got one of ours, we must get two of theirs.'  The long hot summer wasn't nearly as long or hot as the summers I recall from my youth.

We'll see.

One of my favorite general books on American history, Albion's Seed, suggests that patterns in American life were set early by the first British and Dutch settlers. The Dutch colony of New Netherland failed to develop a Dutch identity because it allowed the immigration of so many people not of Dutch origin. If you think New York City is cosmopolitan today, then it was cosmopolitan when it was New Amsterdam. It attracted almost anyone who fled religious persecution, especially the Huguenots who were practically identical in religion to the Dutch Reformed Church. It hired German soldiers and plenty of Scandinavian sailors who remained. It invited religious dissidents from New England. It had people with Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian surnames -- but those were Jews fleeing the Inquisition. The pattern of New York City was set when it was New Amsterdam. All that changed from New Amsterdam to New York was the flag and the language. If one lives among people of diverse origins as peers, then one had better tolerate differences of origin.

New England was settled largely by the cosmopolitan population of southeastern England, by people who had familiarity with the sea and with using it as a means of trade and a source of food (fishing). Settlers from southeastern England were largely Protestant Dissenters of the Congregational variety. English settlers of New England were largely from what passed for the middle class -- many merchants and ship-builders. New England attracted few people for the wrong reason; there were few First Peoples to exploit, there were no minerals (like gold, silver, or gemstones) to extract; the winters were too severe and the soil too rocky for plantation-style agriculture. People had to work hard and smart for modest rewards to make the hardest colony  to make profitable work for those there. New England would be a land of shopkeepers and yeoman farmers, and it would be swift to get a university -- Harvard in 1636. Massachusetts' General Court would quickly establish itself as the first freely-elected legislature in the world still in existence. New Englanders took their disputes to a court of law and not to the street. Taking a dispute to a street for a fistfight or a duel was good for being taken to a criminal court no matter how valid one's claim. New England would quickly establish a democratic heritage, something possible where few people are spectacularly rich or spectacularly poor. New England would take over New Metherland and expand west to the Pacific Coast as a cultural zone, establishing such cities as Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. It would overpower the Spanish-Mexican mission-and-garrison San Francisco de Asis and the French mission-and-garrison city Détroit. With good business practices, rational economics, respect for formal learning, little respect for traditional hierarchies in economics, and reliance upon formal law, places settled by New Englanders and their descendants could proper. Except for Mormon country, which gets liberal results with conservative government (and heavily reflects the one great world religion founded in New England and Upstate New York) and the High Plains is very liberal this region generally along and north of what is now Interstate 80 could prosper and attract immigrants who liked things as they were in New England. It is worth remembering that even if New England is no longer predominantly Protestant due to mass immigration of Roman Catholics, the Catholics (beginning with the Irish) took over New England institutions intact. Most of these areas now lean Democratic.

Southeastern Pennsylvania, literally "Penn's Wood" began as a haven for Quakers largely from the British industrial Midlands. The Quaker institutions of humaneness, support for widespread education for the masses (if little use for elite education), faith in the manual laborer and his skills, disdain for violence, and rejection of ostentation could make life seem plain -- if comfortable. The Quakers invited their closest analogues in religion -- Swiss and German Pietists and practically made Pennsylvania a German colony in all but language.  Their world expanded westward as far as about Kansas, only to peter out as the land went from verdant prairie to precarious steppe. The Quakers rejected slavery on principle even if southeastern Pennsylvania is much more like northern Virginia than like New England. This is a true swing region of America with such large cities as Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Kansas City being very Democratic.

From Baltimore southward to almost Jacksonville, the aristocratic Cavaliers from southwestern England -- often second sons of aristocratic families -- tried to impose their hierarchical ways upon the land. They wanted the peasants to come along and be peasants in the New World, but few would take the costly and dangerous sea journey for much of the same. The Cavaliers offered indentured servants a chance to come to the New World, toil under harsh exploitation, and earn  some land if they survived the term and met the terms of the agreement. Few survived. Then they brought in the slaves, perfectly fitting the aristocratic, semi-feudal ideal. White descendants of the Cavaliers are generally reactionary now; black descendants of African unfree toilers (and Cavalier descendants who raped the slave women) have just about the opposite world view on politics as their white counterparts. The Cavaliers moved their plantation world as far west as Texas, and tried to establish it Arizona and New Mexico. Their order of unconstrained freedom for themselves but none for anyone else survived Abolition.

Moving quickly to the Appalachians from Pennsylvania and Virginia (they could get along with neither the Quakers nor the Cavaliers) were the xenophobic Backwoods settlers who found their little parcels of valley bottom lands to plant a few crops and raise some livestock while getting little interference from authorities of any kind. Coming from among the lowland Scots and the Scots-Irish, they had much respect for their own traditions and little for any others. Often herdsmen, they had to be ready to use force to stop theft of their four-legged assets. They were low in learning and swift to anger. People not of them may think such stereotypes of them in Li'l Abner, The Beverly Hillbillies, and The Dukes of Hazzard offensive -- but they love the characters. During the Civil War they were for the Union side because they disapproved strongly of the Cavaliers putting their slave system in their midst. It's not that they had humane attitudes toward the black slaves; they hated them. They preferred firearms to intellectual contests.

As it turns out, Puritan and Quaker settlers accepted immigrants gladly so long as they had good work ethics and a respect for law and order. The Cavaliers imported Africans as slaves but destroyed whatever African culture the slaves had. They forced themselves into areas with large Cajun and Hispanic populations from Louisiana to Arizona, and treated them as white.

The bulk of European immigration from the Irish Potato Famine to the early 20th century went to the Puritan- Dutch settlement zones and Quaker lands where the opportunities were. Such explains why a small town in the American Midwest can have significant numbers of Scandinavian, Polish, and Irish surnames.

America has had regional distinctions in culture from when it was the Thirteen seaboard Colonies.   The sections of America settled by the Puritans and their successors are at least socially, if not always politically liberal. Quaker America is a genuine swing area. Cavalier country spli9ts largely on racial lines in politics. Backwoods America (the Mountain South) for now is quite  reactionary -- just look at the voting percentages that Barack Obama got in those states in 2008 and 2012. While Obama was winning by levels that one associates with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s in 2008, he was also losing the Mountain South by margins one associates with Walter Mondale if not George McGovern. Nothing says that such will hold true in the homogenizing culture of a 1T.

[playwrite]

From Stockholm sandwich shop -

 

[Eric the Green]

Use small hands to eat it!

[Eric the Green]

It's time for a closer look at the upcoming debate! Two "racists and bigots."

[playwrite]

(08-30-2016, 01:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-30-2016, 05:58 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 02:06 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 01:17 PM)ob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-29-2016, 09:38 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Values lock -- one cannot legitimately understand why others hold the views that they have, and probably can't legitimately express the views of others.

So how can someone be wrong?

1. Intellectual inadequacy, a/k/a stupidity or ignorance.
2. Insanity and delusion.
3. Gross inadequacy of moral standards, as with sociopaths and sadists.
4. Selling out to the highest bidder.
5. Myopic class interest.
6. Brainwashing.
7. Fear -- fear the tyrant who can do anything to one or the God that can have one burn in Hell for the slightest deviation.
8. Revenge-seeking against old enemies.

I would start looking in other places, though my list contains rewords of yours.

Self Interest:  If one is living day to day, having trouble finding a good job, living on Main Street day to day, one is apt to sympathize with Demand Side economics, approve of government assisted health care and otherwise lean blue.  If one has a large stock portfolio, is secure in one's job, has a large inheritance, then tax breaks to the wealthy, reduced capitol gains taxes, and paying one's own way rather than sharing burdens through tax and spend seem like good ideas.

Cultural Difference: One inherits a lot of one's parent's beliefs.  What worked for them gets preached to the new generation.  Churches and schools are a similar sources for explanations of how things work and ought to work.  For many, it is hard to let go of one's upbringing.

Situation Difference:  If one is living in wide open spaces, self reliance and independence can be productive, prudent and wise.  There is just more travel involved to get together and play team games.  If one lives in an urban area, the opposite can be true.

These are three common, broad and bland examples, but there are a lot more reasons for sincere disagreement.  If one is in the habit of solving a given problem in a given way, and it generally works, there is going to be sincere resistance to giving up the tried and true for an untried scheme.

Now, I'm not saying the things on your list never happen.  I just prefer to assume that someone I disagree with is intelligent, sane, and acting reasonably based on the world as he sees it.  I will try to maintain a benefit of the doubt as long as reasonably possible.  Someone might come from a different environment, a different culture, and thus have different world views and values.  However, I assume that the culture evolved to suit the place he came from.  Common cultures come to exist for a reason.  Understanding said reasons is a vital part of the process of political discussion.  If one hasn't made a sincere attempt to understand where the other guy is coming from, one shouldn't knee jerk instantly assume that he is evil, stupid, insane, brainwashed, etc...

That is the biggest difference between us.  I am ready to assume sincere differences between cultures, world views and values.  You are far more apt to assume that anyone who disagrees with you has major league mental or moral problems.  I consider the assumption that any disagreement in world views and values must be due to some sort of moral or mental deficiency to be a major and most problematic symptom of values lock.  Anyone who assumes that your list of reasons for disagreement above are common reasons for political disagreement is apt to be having values lock problems.

I was looking for some reasons for someone being absolutely wrong so that we could rule out others. Ethnicity, religion, region, and class cannot make one wrong as can idiocy, superstition, malice, perversion*, lunacy, or cowardice. Using such a technique as brainwashing to convince those on the wrong side of an ethnic, religious, regional, or class divide of some revolutionary way of thought will itself be wrong should it be tried. If one can develop some high ethical standard based on one's core beliefs then one has some justification worthy of recognition.

Someone can be terribly wrong for any of the reasons that I mentioned. Seeing the world differently because one has lived in the Ozarks all one's life and is a Protestant of Scots-Irish origin instead of mid-town Manhattan and being a Catholic of Puerto Rican origin is not wrong or right -- either way. One's environment can be a very pervasive and indelible truth. If one likes where one is, then one may have a good cause to defend the assumptions that go with the environment. We are going to accept environmental differences or we are going to have horrible strife, perhaps as in Spain in the 1930s or in the dissolution of Yugoslavia.  We will need solutions that make ethnicity, religion, region, and class irrelevant to the solution. Yes, I know how nasty history can be. History is a violent, obscene tale written to no small extent in the blood of innocent people.

Don't fool yourself: this Crisis could end in the rifting of America into multiple new entities. and not even along state lines. Such would be an ugly mess. People on the wrong side of some demarcation line because of their religion or ethnicity could be in big trouble. Getting the dubious privilege to stay where one is might depend on acquiescence in second-class citizenship (I am thinking of the large black minority in the South which could face Jim Crow policies again). Remember that in such rifting, majority rule could be the choices that a local lynch mob makes. Yes, lynch mobs  make their decisions by majority vote -- very reliably. That's why we have constitutional protections that ensure that certain decisions that majorities can impose upon a helpless minority not be made.

One could recognize the legitimacy of other people's viewpoints because of some environmental factor from ethnicity to age to the rural/urban/suburban divide.

Class differences? There could be successor polities that accept the principle that maximal inequality is the best way to get the economic growth necessary to escape post-Crisis poverty. If one is a worker in such a place, then the surest way to the improvement of one's situation will be to emigrate -- no matter how over-heated the local economy is.  Some could even adopt Karl Marx as a Founding Father. Such will fail.

I could easily see myself fitting in in some foreign countries than in some of the post-Crisis polities of America. Maybe in such a Crisis I will be fortunate to find that my polity has shown its intention to join Canada after some shaky period of independence.

We may be in such deep trouble that the United States of America as we know it may be irrelevant by the end of the Crisis. The United States will not be the first great entity to splinter as its political order becomes unsustainable. We messed up badly when a bare majority chose to realign the basis of political representation to the permanent advantage of that temporary majority. Democracy can die that way.  


*Homosexuality is OK.

I don't know.  Ethnicity as in the KKK of a century or so back, religion when a fundamentalist is examining evolutionary biology, politics effecting the understanding of global warming...  Some quite understandable culturally driven factors can make you pretty (expletive deleted) wrong.  The different and quite firm opinions on the effectiveness of large government social programs and the usefulness of supply vs demand side stimulus are of a like nature.  It is possible to see how the cultural divides came to occur, why people believe as they do, but resolving the conflict is very problematic.

I'm not so worried about enough people being brainwashed to start a revolution, nor a social upheaval led by the stupid and insane.  I worry more about the intensely sincere normal.

I do watch the spirals of violence.  I don't disregard major upheaval as impossible.  I just don't see things starting to go critical yet.  There was a bump of blacks killed followed by cops killed earlier in the summer, but the response was 'this has got to stop' not 'they got one of ours, we must get two of theirs.'  The long hot summer wasn't nearly as long or hot as the summers I recall from my youth.

We'll see.

One of my favorite general books on American history, Albion's Seed, suggests that patterns in American life were set early by the first British and Dutch settlers. The Dutch colony of New Netherland failed to develop a Dutch identity because it allowed the immigration of so many people not of Dutch origin. If you think New York City is cosmopolitan today, then it was cosmopolitan when it was New Amsterdam. It attracted almost anyone who fled religious persecution, especially the Huguenots who were practically identical in religion to the Dutch Reformed Church. It hired German soldiers and plenty of Scandinavian sailors who remained. It invited religious dissidents from New England. It had people with Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian surnames -- but those were Jews fleeing the Inquisition. The pattern of New York City was set when it was New Amsterdam. All that changed from New Amsterdam to New York was the flag and the language. If one lives among people of diverse origins as peers, then one had better tolerate differences of origin.

New England was settled largely by the cosmopolitan population of southeastern England, by people who had familiarity with the sea and with using it as a means of trade and a source of food (fishing). Settlers from southeastern England were largely Protestant Dissenters of the Congregational variety. English settlers of New England were largely from what passed for the middle class -- many merchants and ship-builders. New England attracted few people for the wrong reason; there were few First Peoples to exploit, there were no minerals (like gold, silver, or gemstones) to extract; the winters were too severe and the soil too rocky for plantation-style agriculture. People had to work hard and smart for modest rewards to make the hardest colony  to make profitable work for those there. New England would be a land of shopkeepers and yeoman farmers, and it would be swift to get a university -- Harvard in 1636. Massachusetts' General Court would quickly establish itself as the first freely-elected legislature in the world still in existence. New Englanders took their disputes to a court of law and not to the street. Taking a dispute to a street for a fistfight or a duel was good for being taken to a criminal court no matter how valid one's claim. New England would quickly establish a democratic heritage, something possible where few people are spectacularly rich or spectacularly poor. New England would take over New Metherland and expand west to the Pacific Coast as a cultural zone, establishing such cities as Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Seattle. It would overpower the Spanish-Mexican mission-and-garrison San Francisco de Asis and the French mission-and-garrison city Détroit. With good business practices, rational economics, respect for formal learning, little respect for traditional hierarchies in economics, and reliance upon formal law, places settled by New Englanders and their descendants could proper. Except for Mormon country, which gets liberal results with conservative government (and heavily reflects the one great world religion founded in New England and Upstate New York) and the High Plains is very liberal this region generally along and north of what is now Interstate 80 could prosper and attract immigrants who liked things as they were in New England. It is worth remembering that even if New England is no longer predominantly Protestant due to mass immigration of Roman Catholics, the Catholics (beginning with the Irish) took over New England institutions intact. Most of these areas now lean Democratic.

Southeastern Pennsylvania, literally "Penn's Wood" began as a haven for Quakers largely from the British industrial Midlands. The Quaker institutions of humaneness, support for widespread education for the masses (if little use for elite education), faith in the manual laborer and his skills, disdain for violence, and rejection of ostentation could make life seem plain -- if comfortable. The Quakers invited their closest analogues in religion -- Swiss and German Pietists and practically made Pennsylvania a German colony in all but language.  Their world expanded westward as far as about Kansas, only to peter out as the land went from verdant prairie to precarious steppe. The Quakers rejected slavery on principle even if southeastern Pennsylvania is much more like northern Virginia than like New England. This is a true swing region of America with such large cities as Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Kansas City being very Democratic.

From Baltimore southward to almost Jacksonville, the aristocratic Cavaliers from southwestern England -- often second sons of aristocratic families -- tried to impose their hierarchical ways upon the land. They wanted the peasants to come along and be peasants in the New World, but few would take the costly and dangerous sea journey for much of the same. The Cavaliers offered indentured servants a chance to come to the New World, toil under harsh exploitation, and earn  some land if they survived the term and met the terms of the agreement. Few survived. Then they brought in the slaves, perfectly fitting the aristocratic, semi-feudal ideal. White descendants of the Cavaliers are generally reactionary now; black descendants of African unfree toilers (and Cavalier descendants who raped the slave women) have just about the opposite world view on politics as their white counterparts. The Cavaliers moved their plantation world as far west as Texas, and tried to establish it Arizona and New Mexico. Their order of unconstrained freedom for themselves but none for anyone else survived Abolition.

Moving quickly to the Appalachians from Pennsylvania and Virginia (they could get along with neither the Quakers nor the Cavaliers) were the xenophobic Backwoods settlers who found their little parcels of valley bottom lands to plant a few crops and raise some livestock while getting little interference from authorities of any kind. Coming from among the lowland Scots and the Scots-Irish, they had much respect for their own traditions and little for any others. Often herdsmen, they had to be ready to use force to stop theft of their four-legged assets. They were low in learning and swift to anger. People not of them may think such stereotypes of them in Li'l Abner, The Beverly Hillbillies, and The Dukes of Hazzard offensive -- but they love the characters. During the Civil War they were for the Union side because they disapproved strongly of the Cavaliers putting their slave system in their midst. It's not that they had humane attitudes toward the black slaves; they hated them. They preferred firearms to intellectual contests.

As it turns out, Puritan and Quaker settlers accepted immigrants gladly so long as they had good work ethics and a respect for law and order. The Cavaliers imported Africans as slaves but destroyed whatever African culture the slaves had. They forced themselves into areas with large Cajun and Hispanic populations from Louisiana to Arizona, and treated them as white.

The bulk of European immigration from the Irish Potato Famine to the early 20th century went to the Puritan- Dutch settlement zones and Quaker lands where the opportunities were. Such explains why a small town in the American Midwest can have significant numbers of Scandinavian, Polish, and Irish surnames.

America has had regional distinctions in culture from when it was the Thirteen seaboard Colonies.   The sections of America settled by the Puritans and their successors are at least socially, if not always politically liberal. Quaker America is a genuine swing area. Cavalier country spli9ts largely on racial lines in politics. Backwoods America (the Mountain South) for now is quite  reactionary -- just look at the voting percentages that Barack Obama got in those states in 2008 and 2012. While Obama was winning by levels that one associates with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s in 2008, he was also losing the Mountain South by margins one associates with Walter Mondale if not George McGovern. Nothing says that such will hold true in the homogenizing culture of a 1T.

Nice summary!

Probably in the top 10 of favorite non-fictions of the "reading class" that's on this forum. 

I think before the Scot-Irish are homogenize, they'll be defeated as a national political power.  They're being out produced in reproduction and they a high incident of health concerns including addiction problems.  They have to be defeated before they can be helped.

_____________________

Just to add - I believe Southern Scot-Irish, the poor Whites of the South, fought and died for the South. There were nowhere near enough plantation owner elites or even small salve owners to fight the war. The elites got them to fight for the Confederacy, against the Scot-Irish's own economic self interest, by appealing to their tribal nature ("the Southern Way") and the need to be higher up the ladder than at least someone else, i.e. the slaves. Not much has changed; that's one of their characteristics.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-30-2016, 01:30 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: One of my favorite general books on American history, Albion's Seed, suggests that patterns in American life were set early by the first British and Dutch settlers.

I favor a book that covers much the same ground, The Cousins' Wars: Religion, Politics, Civil Warfare, And The Triumph Of Anglo-America  It's focus is a little narrower, proposing that the English Civil War, American Revolution and American Civil War are extensions of one another, can be understood as a continuation of the same conflict.  It shares much the same perspective of first the thirteen colonies then the United States being settled in three major zones, New England, Pennsylvania and the South.  Albion's Seed looks like it covers wider timeframes and territories, but it reflects a very similar framework.

[pbrower2a]

Donald Trump, model employer?


Former Models for Donald Trump's Agency Say They Violated Immigration Rules and Worked Illegally

"It's like modern-day slavery."

James West Aug. 30, 2016 12:07 PM


Republican nominee Donald Trump has placed immigration at the core of his presidential campaign. He has claimed that undocumented immigrants are "taking our jobs" and "taking our money," pledged to deport them en masse, and vowed to build a wall on the Mexican border. At one point he demanded a ban on Muslims entering the country. Speaking to supporters in Iowa on Saturday, Trump said he would crack down on visitors to the United States who overstay their visas and declared that when any American citizen "loses their job to an illegal immigrant, the rights of that American citizen have been violated." And he is scheduled to give a major address on immigration in Arizona on Wednesday night.

But the mogul's New York modeling agency, Trump Model Management, has profited from using foreign models who came to the United States on tourist visas that did not permit them to work here, according to three former Trump models, all noncitizens, who shared their stories with Mother Jones. Financial and immigration records included in a recent lawsuit filed by a fourth former Trump model show that she, too, worked for Trump's agency in the United States without a proper visa.

Foreigners who visit the United States as tourists are generally not permitted to engage in any sort of employment unless they obtain a special visa, a process that typically entails an employer applying for approval on behalf of a prospective employee. Employers risk fines and possible criminal charges for using undocumented labor.

Founded in 1999, Trump Model Management "has risen to the top of the fashion market," boasts the Trump Organization's website, and has a name "that symbolizes success." According to a financial disclosure filed by his campaign in May, Donald Trump earned nearly $2 million from the company, in which he holds an 85 percent stake. Meanwhile, some former Trump models say they barely made any money working for the agency because of the high fees for rent and other expenses that were charged by the company.  

Canadian-born Rachel Blais spent nearly three years working for Trump Model Management. After first signing with the agency in March 2004, she said, she performed a series of modeling gigs for Trump's company in the United States without a work visa. At Mother Jones' request, Blais provided a detailed financial statement from Trump Model Management and a letter from an immigration lawyer who, in the fall of 2004, eventually secured a visa that would permit her to work legally in the United States. These records show a six-month gap between when she began working in the United States and when she was granted a work visa. During that time, Blais appeared on Trump's hit reality TV show, The Apprentice, modeling outfits designed by his business protégés. As Blais walked the runway, Donald Trump looked on from the front row.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016...mmigration

My comment:

If he cheats his own employees, can you trust him with labor policies?

[Mikebert]

(08-28-2016, 08:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Robber Barons have a tendency to get in the way of business which requires them to be removed.

How so?  Robber barons run and/or own the most successful businesses, and for all practical political purposes ARE "Business".

[Mikebert]

Eric the Green Wrote:The 1840s were not one of the worst depressions. That would be either the 1890s or 1870s.

 

Peter Rousseau Wrote:The financial panic that gripped the U.S. economy in the Spring of 1837 was among the most severe in this nation’s history.  Failures and loan losses reduced the book assets of the state chartered banks by 45 percent during the five years that followed, while 194 of the 729 banks with charters in 1837 were forced to close their doors.
 
The prices of banking, railroad and industrial securities in the early stock markets plummeted. The effects on the real sector were also substantial.  For example, the growth of real investment per capita fell from an annual average of 6.6 percent in the five years preceding the panic to -1.0 percent over the next five years.  Among 19th century U.S. financial crises, only that of 1893 posted a larger decline in investment.
 
Similar calculations show the average annual growth of real per capita income falling by 1.4 percent in the decade surrounding 1837, effectively drawing one of the nation’s early growth spurts to an abrupt close. This decline is comparable to that experienced in 1873 and considerably larger than those surrounding the crises of 1857 and 1893.
 
Douglass North (1961) reports decreases of nearly 50 percent in real imports per head from their 1836 level in each year through 1843. Accounts of widespread unemployment abound in the contemporarypress.  Indeed, one must turn to the 20th century and the Great Depression, with respective decreases of 10.2 and 5.0 percent in the annual growth of per capita investment and output, to identify a more catastrophic financial shock to the U.S. economy.

 
Reference Jacksonian Monetary Policy, Specie Flows, and the Panic of 1837

[Classic-Xer]

(08-30-2016, 07:24 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 08:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Robber Barons have a tendency to get in the way of business which requires them to be removed.

How so?  Robber barons run and/or own the most successful businesses, and for all practical political purposes ARE "Business".

Monopolies aren't very good for business.

[Eric the Green]

(08-30-2016, 08:06 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

Eric the Green Wrote:The 1840s were not one of the worst depressions. That would be either the 1890s or 1870s.

 

Peter Rousseau Wrote:The financial panic that gripped the U.S. economy in the Spring of 1837 was among the most severe in this nation’s history.  Failures and loan losses reduced the book assets of the state chartered banks by 45 percent during the five years that followed, while 194 of the 729 banks with charters in 1837 were forced to close their doors.
 
The prices of banking, railroad and industrial securities in the early stock markets plummeted. The effects on the real sector were also substantial.  For example, the growth of real investment per capita fell from an annual average of 6.6 percent in the five years preceding the panic to -1.0 percent over the next five years.  Among 19th century U.S. financial crises, only that of 1893 posted a larger decline in investment.
 
Similar calculations show the average annual growth of real per capita income falling by 1.4 percent in the decade surrounding 1837, effectively drawing one of the nation’s early growth spurts to an abrupt close. This decline is comparable to that experienced in 1873 and considerably larger than those surrounding the crises of 1857 and 1893.
 
Douglass North (1961) reports decreases of nearly 50 percent in real imports per head from their 1836 level in each year through 1843. Accounts of widespread unemployment abound in the contemporarypress.  Indeed, one must turn to the 20th century and the Great Depression, with respective decreases of 10.2 and 5.0 percent in the annual growth of per capita investment and output, to identify a more catastrophic financial shock to the U.S. economy.

 
Reference Jacksonian Monetary Policy, Specie Flows, and the Panic of 1837

Boom times at least from 1844 though.

[pbrower2a]

(08-30-2016, 09:40 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-30-2016, 07:24 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 08:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Robber Barons have a tendency to get in the way of business which requires them to be removed.

How so?  Robber barons run and/or own the most successful businesses, and for all practical political purposes ARE "Business".

Monopolies aren't very good for business.

Monopolies are bad business. They are lucrative for the monopolist, but bad for everyone else, including businesses that may be part of their captive markets. Customers face artificial scarcities that raise the price of the monopolzed good or service. For the end-user tht can result in genuine hardships. Of course any for-profit entity can make the claim that real economic progress depends upon the acceptance of mass hardship in the name of economic growth, as was the excuse for Gilded-Age entrepreneurs exacting exhausting toil for near-starvation pay. So what is wrong with monopoly that enhances profits and generates capital?

Monopoly might be good for getting quick investment and rapid development, but one can ask whether such is so good in itself.  After the initial investment one will get very high prices and an eternal shortage because shortages elevate prices. The monopolist has an incentive to under-invest in capital improvement that might enhance productivity. Lower production implies that the monopolist will not hire as many people as will a company operating under competitive circumstances. Monopolists are not as responsive to customer desires as competitive businesses; the monopolist forces customers to adapt to the practices of the monopolist instead of seeking ways to make things better for the customer. Monopoly slows innovation by compelling people to fit the ways that the monopolist standardizes. Monopoly profits become in effect a private tax to firms that must compete in places in which the monopoly does not exist. So if Germany has a steel monopoly and Britain doesn't, then British firms that supply iron and steel objects get an advantage over analogous firms in Germany -- and British manufacturers of iron objects from stepladders to machinery get an advantage over German firms in the French market. German workers pay in underemployment.

[Mikebert]

(08-30-2016, 09:40 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-30-2016, 07:24 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 08:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Robber Barons have a tendency to get in the way of business which requires them to be removed.

How so?  Robber barons run and/or own the most successful businesses, and for all practical political purposes ARE "Business".

Monopolies aren't very good for business.

They are very good for the monopolists and they are also very important businesses, whose interests the Republicans look out for as the business party.  I am speaking of politics here, not economics.

[Bob Butler 54]

With all the talk of whether Trump is or is not Hitler, I've had a silly image in my head of a bunch of Trump brownshirts with military uniforms marching around before Trump campaign stops.  This got me thinking...  what do Trump's private security forces wear for uniforms?  I finally got around to googling 'trump tower security uniform image'.

Not 1930s brownshirt.

No (expletive deleted) kidding imitations of Queen Elizabeth's household cavalry uniforms...  Scarlet jackets, gold braid and...  tall black bearskin hats.  I don't know if they are made of real bear.

A March of Trump Security would require a full brass band playing Rule Britannia.  I don't remember off hand the theme from The Apprentice.  Could it be arranged as a pompous ceremonial march for brass band?

I can just see a few hundred of them marching just ahead of the Imperial Coach in the inaugural parade.