Posts: 880
Threads: 18
Joined: May 2016
08-31-2016, 12:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-31-2016, 12:44 PM by Mikebert.)
(08-27-2016, 12:19 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I sense I'm stating this in a way you're not satisfied with, but the base point is that you can't expect others to always defer to your own world view and values....If one wants to make sense of the convoluted conversations we have around here, it is interesting to keep track of who is working in what realm and maybe even try to follow.
No. I understand posts from Classic. I ask a question I get a short answer that I can actually understand without much effort. It's called clarity. I understand Eric's points, he makes some good ones in those areas where our interests overlap. The issue is you, actually. Your posts are long and lack clarity. But you are one of the two people in my side of the aisle who has had an idea I have used (Chas is the other). Most of the other ideas I have drawn from folks here have come from people on the other side. So it is worth trying to pick your brain. That is what I am trying to do.
Posts: 3,956
Threads: 11
Joined: May 2016
(08-31-2016, 12:40 PM)Mikebert Wrote: (08-27-2016, 12:19 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I sense I'm stating this in a way you're not satisfied with, but the base point is that you can't expect others to always defer to your own world view and values....If one wants to make sense of the convoluted conversations we have around here, it is interesting to keep track of who is working in what realm and maybe even try to follow.
No. I understand posts from Classic. I ask a question I get a short answer that I can actually understand without much effort. It's called clarity. I understand Eric's points, he makes some good ones in those areas where our interests overlap. The issue is you, actually. Your posts are long and lack clarity. But you are one of the two people in my side of the aisle who has had an idea I have used (Chas is the other). Most of the other ideas I have drawn from folks here have come from people on the other side. So it is worth trying to pick your brain. That is what I am trying to do.
OK. Noted. I'll try to keep it short and clear. Alas, the world as I understand it is not simple and logical. If you assume most major viewpoints have a historical basis, a logic of sorts, and can be seen as valid by those who want to see them as valid, you don't get simple black and white.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Posts: 449
Threads: 2
Joined: May 2016
(08-30-2016, 02:39 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (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.
Cousins, along with Albion's, is another of what must be the top 10 non-fiction reads by the "reading class" on this forum.
Two other books in this area: Jim Webb's Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America and much more recently, JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis are also must-reads.
I have mixed feelings about Webb, and one needs to take that into a reading of his book, but Born Fighting does take the more impersonal context of Albion's and Cousins' to a more personal level of insight - remembering both that it is about the Scot-Irish and it is written from the perspective of a Scot-Irish political being that questions that heritage but is obviously proud to be a part of it.
The deeper dive, however, is this new Hillbilly Elegy. Webb's book will tell you why Trumpism has emerged; Vance's book provides the longer-term insight of where these people are headed long after the election has past and the likely consequences for the rest of us.
Posts: 449
Threads: 2
Joined: May 2016
(08-31-2016, 12:40 PM)Mikebert Wrote: (08-27-2016, 12:19 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I sense I'm stating this in a way you're not satisfied with, but the base point is that you can't expect others to always defer to your own world view and values....If one wants to make sense of the convoluted conversations we have around here, it is interesting to keep track of who is working in what realm and maybe even try to follow.
No. I understand posts from Classic. I ask a question I get a short answer that I can actually understand without much effort. It's called clarity. I understand Eric's points, he makes some good ones in those areas where our interests overlap. The issue is you, actually. Your posts are long and lack clarity. But you are one of the two people in my side of the aisle who has had an idea I have used (Chas is the other). Most of the other ideas I have drawn from folks here have come from people on the other side. So it is worth trying to pick your brain. That is what I am trying to do.
That's kinda scary. 
On the other hand, I agree that picking Bob's brain has merit.
Posts: 449
Threads: 2
Joined: May 2016
Morning Joe trying to make Trump go berserk -
- based on the Talking Yam's immigration speech last night, Joe's ploy seems to have worked.
Posts: 3,956
Threads: 11
Joined: May 2016
(09-01-2016, 09:11 AM)playwrite Wrote: Two other books in this area: Jim Webb's Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America and much more recently, JD Vance's Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis are also must-reads...
The deeper dive, however, is this new Hillbilly Elegy. Webb's book will tell you why Trumpism has emerged; Vance's book provides the longer-term insight of where these people are headed long after the election has past and the likely consequences for the rest of us.
I've just started into Hillbilly Elegy. It seems to me that Hillbillies are quite messed up.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
(09-01-2016, 09:17 AM)playwrite Wrote: (08-31-2016, 12:40 PM)Mikebert Wrote: (08-27-2016, 12:19 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I sense I'm stating this in a way you're not satisfied with, but the base point is that you can't expect others to always defer to your own world view and values....If one wants to make sense of the convoluted conversations we have around here, it is interesting to keep track of who is working in what realm and maybe even try to follow.
No. I understand posts from Classic. I ask a question I get a short answer that I can actually understand without much effort. It's called clarity. I understand Eric's points, he makes some good ones in those areas where our interests overlap. The issue is you, actually. Your posts are long and lack clarity. But you are one of the two people in my side of the aisle who has had an idea I have used (Chas is the other). Most of the other ideas I have drawn from folks here have come from people on the other side. So it is worth trying to pick your brain. That is what I am trying to do.
That's kinda scary.
On the other hand, I agree that picking Bob's brain has merit.
Are we vultures now?
Posts: 3,956
Threads: 11
Joined: May 2016
(09-02-2016, 12:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Are we vultures now?
Learning from others isn't scary or evil. You might try it. 
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Posts: 880
Threads: 18
Joined: May 2016
(09-01-2016, 09:17 AM)playwrite Wrote: (08-31-2016, 12:40 PM)Mikebert Wrote: Most of the other ideas I have drawn from folks here have come from people on the other side.
That's kinda scary.
It's counter intuitive, I agree. Here's an example. Marc Lamb was probably the biggest right winger we ever had at this site. Nevertheless I gained keen insights from him. Marc insisted on politics as key to the cycle, not economics as I believed at the time. Although he liked a lot of my stuff on this he thought I was barking up the wrong tree. For example, for him Reagan was cycle-equivalent to Teddy Roosevelt, wheras for me he was Warren Harding. He was using a "40 year cycle" as a ruler, so Clinton was like Wilson and Bush was like Harding-Coolidge and the 4T was still in the future (this was ca. 2002). I was using a K-cycle ruler based on the stock market as a ruler, so I had predicted the start of the 4T to be "soon" in August 2000 and believed it had come true 13 months later. This made Bush cycle-equivalent to Hoover.
By 2004-5 I had abandoned economics and was now using a political cycle basis for my paradigm model which forecasted the start of the 4T in 2006 plus or minus a few years. Marc was right and I was wrong. So I now use his ideas and his 40-year cycle concept as one of the themes I play with in my thinking.
Posts: 10,465
Threads: 197
Joined: May 2016
The eighty-year cycle reflects a biological reality: the extinction of the memories of the memories of children five to ten years old when events happened. Those are the last people to remember events and popular culture, and the last to warn us of the bad consequences of trends that they resist from early adulthood. The real-estate bubble that Sinclair Lewis described so well in the 1920s in Babbitt was impossible so long as many people dreaded another real-estate bubble was impossible so long as people who remembered the reality behind Babbitt were still around, even if they had been 'only' in early elementary school at the time. By the latter part of the Double-Zero Decade such was possible again because people born in the early 1920s had vanished from public life. People who could see only the quick profits coulld rule the day. (They even used much the same arguments -- such as that everyone will be able to tell when to get out. Sure. And cats are vegetarians!) Between the 1930s and the 1990s Babbitt seemed solely a recollection of the past. In the Double-Zero decade astute people could see it happening again as one of the basic rules of sound business (whatever you do, do not hurt your immediate or ultimate customer) got fresh neglect.
Crisis Eras get nasty because people start thinking (as Adaptive adults leave the scene) that demonizing people and using the most horrific weapons possible is reasonable so long as it serves some noble end. Highs get stale and complacent because Idealist types who could stir up some controversy as muckrakers are no longer around, and conformity seems a pragmatic way of doing things. An Awakening abandons much touch with reality as Civics begin gigantic projects that they believe can generate their own impetus, Adaptives break from their shells (Georgy Girl , iconic song from an under-recognized movie about an English equivalent of a Progressive-generation young woman), and Idealists take an often drug-sodden and boozy Voyage to the Interior just as children get neglected as Reactive adults would never let happen as happened to them in the most recent Awakening Era -- about as the Reactives start dying off. The Degenerate Third Turning becomes possible when the Civic types who start getting recognized as the social glue of a workable order start dying off in large numbers.
So what did America learn from the bubble economy of the Double-Zero Era? That real estate is to be seen only as an object to be doled out sparingly, with landlords' income the primary objective of residential building even if such means that tenants are to be gouged for urban housing, and real estate rentals are to cost about half the income of a middle-class person in urban California or New England. Don;t like such? Then go to places like Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cleveland where there are no opportunities. I doubt that we have filly learned the lesson that d*** is a nastier word than the crude words associated with sex and excrement.... don't worry. We will find that out fast enough as people living in cramped apartments and in thrall to legalized loan-sharks turn against landlords and loan-sharks as this Crisis unfolds. We will have to learn the hard way that business practices that hurt the worker and the ultimate consumer are themselves bad models of business due to their lack of sustainability.
Considering what disasters we Boomers have been as business executives and right-wing politicians, it will be easy for adult generations of the 2040s to not miss us... until something starts going seriously wrong in a deadly-serious world of numbing conformity.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
(08-28-2016, 08:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (08-28-2016, 10:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (08-28-2016, 02:48 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You may want to take a bit of your own advice. It's going to be fun to watch as Hillary is being attacked from the left and right. Are you a fan of the Democratic party like most Democratic voters that I know? What are Democratic voters going do after their party is destroyed?
I'm more of a fan of blue values than of the Democratic Party. Though the unravelling, both parties were trying to win by spending more on advertising than the other guys, and thus were taking money hand over fist from those with the most money. As the Republicans were the party of Big Money, the Democrats didn't do well with this approach. Bernie took a good shot at changing the culture, but couldn't pull it off. We'll have to see if other Democrats follow his lead in future elections.
In the Awakening, the Democrats had been in power far too long. They had become corrupt and complacent. They were still working more for the People than Big Money, looking to buy black votes through programs like the War on Poverty and Civil Rights legislation. This lost them the southern racists vote when Nixon pushed his southern strategy. Hey. I liked the New Deal. FDR truly revitalized the nation. Still, leave any set of politicians in power indefinitely, even when they start out with fresh energetic ideas, and they can stand getting shaken up a few decades down the road.
I'm hardly a blind fan of the Democrats. The basic approach of working for the People rather than the Robber Barons is sound. As for the rest, they are still politicians. One always has to keep a fire lit under their rear ends or they'll implement rule of the elite, for the elite, by the elite.
The Republicans have always been the party of the Robber Barons. Thing is, there are too few Robber Baron votes that they can't stay in power serving the Robber Barons alone. They have to sell, one way or another, the idea that what is good for the Robber Barons (or General Motors) is good for America. Pro business is pro America, at least in theory.
I found myself somewhat bemused an upset by the Bush 43 era Republican coalition. Big Oil. Fundamentalists. Neo-Con militarists. Wall Street. They didn't have a lot in common save a dislike for the Democrats. That was enough to win the election, but could they play well together in the world? They couldn't play well together in Iraq at least. The militarists wanted to prove that high tech could replace boots on the ground, that the US could kick ass and didn't have to walk as gently as they had since Vietnam. They planed for quick in, take the WMDs, and quick out. High tech worked great for them during the conventional war, but couldn't replace boots on the ground when the insurrection came. Big Oil had boots on the ground near the oil and tried to reap the profits. They couldn't let the military do their planned quick exist. The idealists and fundamentalists thought changing the culture of a conquered people at gun point would be easy. I mean, couldn't anyone see how superior they were to the locals? It turns out that the local style of corrupt wasn't very compatible with the Republican form of corrupt. Why couldn't they just accept the oil money and behave themselves? I mean, that what the Arabs had been doing for years, why not now?
Add the unwillingness of 43 to pay the costs of his adventure with new taxes with the resultant collapse of the economy and you had a big time SNAFU. Situation Normal, All Fouled Up.
At this point the Republican base is fed up. Hey, even you are disassociating yourself with their fractured remnants. For many, supply side has failed once too often. For many, the Republican eagerness to put troops near the oil led to disaster. Some care that the Republicans had lied to start an optional war for oil. Others are upset that they didn't filibuster the Democrats persistently enough. The Establishment Republicans also seem to be loyal more to the Robber Barons than the Culture Warriors. As a result the Alt Right is rising, trying to pull together the next wave of Culture Warriors.
Fourth Turnings are supposed to be transformative. Well, the conservatives are doing their part... falling apart at the seams, nominating a total outsider who doesn't look to have a chance. Alas, the Democratic Establishment is too intact for my taste. They need to fall apart and reinvent themselves too. I don't know that Hillary will be a transformer. She sorta almost talks a decent game. She is persistent enough. Can she get a regeneracy going? I don't know. It's hard to fall apart and reinvent one's self when the opposition beat you to the punch. It would be too tempting to stand pat.
We'll have to see. You, Eric and I have three different visions of the upcoming regeneracy and transformation. I just don't know how hard Hillary will try to push, or whether the remnants of the Republican Establishment can or will try to dig in heels.
The Republicans have always been the party of business. Robber Barons have a tendency to get in the way of business which requires them to be removed. Who are the Robber Barons of today? Who are the Rockefeller's, the Carnegie's, the Vanderbilt's and the Morgans of our time? Trump isn't financially big and powerful enough to be viewed as a Robber Baron. BTW, if you don't know who today's Robber Barons are, ask your candidate because she's most likely done business with them. Hillary isn't going to buck the system that turned her into a multi millionaire anymore than LBJ was going to buck the system that turned him into a millionaire. Bernie bucked the system enough to receive funds to purchase another home for himself. No, you're only hope is for a Republican to do what's needed to be done. Are Republicans falling a part at the seams or trimming off the unwanted fat/crap associated with the past? Nature has entered and is now the force in play within the Republican party. Do you trust nature or science? Hint...Republican voters are more in tune with nature than science.
Republicans are the ones who most steadfastly refuse to pass or enforce anti-trust laws. The Reagan ideology of the free market is against breaking up corporations and banks. That's "government interference with the market," according to Republicans and Reaganoids and Tea Party fanatics like the ones in congress. There is zero hope for them to do anything about robber barons. They are against any restrictions on them. Only the progressive Democrats would do it. I don't know if Hillary would, but Bernie would.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
(09-02-2016, 05:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (09-02-2016, 12:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Are we vultures now?
Learning from others isn't scary or evil. You might try it.
You being a great model?
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
09-02-2016, 12:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-02-2016, 12:26 PM by Eric the Green.)
sent to me by PFAW (there's an acronym fer ya  ) puh-fawww!
Eric,
Donald Trump just hired an ardent foe of campaign finance regulation: David Bossie, the man who helped open the floodgates for unlimited corporate political spending as the president of Citizens United.
As PFAW vice president Marge Baker said in our press statement:
This is just the latest addition to the mountain of evidence that as president Donald Trump would give free reign to special interests and appoint Supreme Court justices who will protect the privileges of the wealthy and powerful, but not the rights of ordinary people.
It's also more evidence that not only is the influence of big money in our elections growing, but even the influence of anti-campaign finance reform activists is growing!
We need to fight back -- that means real campaign finance reform and getting big money OUT of our elections.
The We The People Act offers a set of strong reforms that would help get money out and restore Government By the PEOPLE.
Posts: 880
Threads: 18
Joined: May 2016
09-02-2016, 12:34 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-02-2016, 12:40 PM by Mikebert.)
(09-02-2016, 09:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The eighty-year cycle reflects a biological reality: the extinction of the memories of the memories of children five to ten years old when events happened. Those are the last people to remember events and popular culture, and the last to warn us of the bad consequences of trends that they resist from early adulthood. The real-estate bubble that Sinclair Lewis described so well in the 1920s in Babbitt was impossible so long as many people dreaded another real-estate bubble was impossible so long as people who remembered the reality behind Babbitt were still around, even if they had been 'only' in early elementary school at the time. By the latter part of the Double-Zero Decade such was possible again because people born in the early 1920s had vanished from public life. People who could see only the quick profits coulld rule the day.
This idea seems plausible, there certainly was a 2000's bubble (peak 2006) that shows up in a plot of the Case-Shiller real estate price index. No such bubble appears in the index for the 1920's. On the other hand, the Hoyt index of land values in Chicago land value, shows a bubble peak in 1925. Both Case-Shiller (1894) and Hoyt (1891) show a bubble peak in the early 1890's. Hoyt also shows bubbles in land value bubble peaks in 1836, 1854, and 1869-73. Land sales volume show corresponding bubble peaks in 1836 and 1854 and also an earlier one in 1818. They all precede or are contemporaneous with financial crises in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929. In short, there is evidence in support of panic-producing peaks in real estate associated with 1929 and 2008, but also with 1893, 1873, 1857, 1837 and 1819. So as far as real-estate-driven financial crises go, it seems their recurrence rate was 16-36 years. If you add in the panic of 1907 (which reflected a stock market bubble, as I maintain was the case for 1929 as well) then the cycle length is 14-22 years, in other words about 1 crisis per turning, on average, not 1 per saeculum. The beguiling explanation for the apparent 80 year "cycle" suggested by the last two panics does not explain the phenomenon of recurrent panics before then.
The significance of this is, your concept would say we won't see another financial crisis in our lifetimes. The 19th century experience suggests we could see yet another in our lifetimes, and the Millies here--more than one. Thus, it is testable.
Posts: 1,131
Threads: 6
Joined: May 2016
(09-02-2016, 05:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (09-02-2016, 12:18 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: Are we vultures now?
Learning from others isn't scary or evil. You might try it.
So far it would seem that learning in general presents a problem for Eric the Obtuse. So far his knowledge of science is at the sixteenth or seventeenth century when astrology was state of the art. If his knowledge of economics was at the same level of the Spanish Scholastics of the sixteenth century it would be an improvement over his current complete lack of knowledge in the subject.
Learning for Eric the Obtuse is a recreational impossibility like flying would be for the rest of us. As a consequence this situation is unlikely to improve.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
Posts: 3,956
Threads: 11
Joined: May 2016
(09-02-2016, 12:07 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (09-02-2016, 05:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (09-02-2016, 12:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Are we vultures now?
Learning from others isn't scary or evil. You might try it.
You being a great model?
Not for you. Try people with simpler points of view.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
09-03-2016, 07:06 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-03-2016, 07:07 PM by Eric the Green.)
(09-03-2016, 07:58 AM)Galen Wrote: (09-02-2016, 05:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (09-02-2016, 12:18 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: Are we vultures now?
Learning from others isn't scary or evil. You might try it.
So far it would seem that learning in general presents a problem for Eric the Obtuse. So far his knowledge of science is at the sixteenth or seventeenth century when astrology was state of the art. If his knowledge of economics was at the same level of the Spanish Scholastics of the sixteenth century it would be an improvement over his current complete lack of knowledge in the subject.
Learning for Eric the Obtuse is a recreational impossibility like flying would be for the rest of us. As a consequence this situation is unlikely to improve.
Right. I am MOST unlikely to adopt your laissez faire philosophy. I can only hope it is in decline now, after 36 years of predominance. The same for materialist science views.
Posts: 10,013
Threads: 103
Joined: May 2016
09-03-2016, 07:09 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-03-2016, 07:09 PM by Eric the Green.)
(09-03-2016, 11:13 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (09-02-2016, 12:07 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (09-02-2016, 05:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (09-02-2016, 12:18 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Are we vultures now?
Learning from others isn't scary or evil. You might try it.
You being a great model?
Not for you. Try people with simpler points of view.
Galen ^^^^ now that's pretty simple views
Posts: 1,131
Threads: 6
Joined: May 2016
(09-03-2016, 07:06 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (09-03-2016, 07:58 AM)Galen Wrote: (09-02-2016, 05:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (09-02-2016, 12:18 AM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: Are we vultures now?
Learning from others isn't scary or evil. You might try it.
So far it would seem that learning in general presents a problem for Eric the Obtuse. So far his knowledge of science is at the sixteenth or seventeenth century when astrology was state of the art. If his knowledge of economics was at the same level of the Spanish Scholastics of the sixteenth century it would be an improvement over his current complete lack of knowledge in the subject.
Learning for Eric the Obtuse is a recreational impossibility like flying would be for the rest of us. As a consequence this situation is unlikely to improve.
Right. I am MOST unlikely to adopt your laissez faire philosophy. I can only hope it is in decline now, after 36 years of predominance. The same for materialist science views.
That is because you are a nasty self-righteous totalitarian who likes to rule other people. Sadly, your lack of knowledge on so many subjects makes you the least qualified person to do so.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
Posts: 1,131
Threads: 6
Joined: May 2016
(09-03-2016, 11:52 PM)taramarie Wrote: (09-03-2016, 10:59 PM)Galen Wrote: (09-03-2016, 07:06 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: (09-03-2016, 07:58 AM)Galen Wrote: (09-02-2016, 05:04 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Learning from others isn't scary or evil. You might try it.
So far it would seem that learning in general presents a problem for Eric the Obtuse. So far his knowledge of science is at the sixteenth or seventeenth century when astrology was state of the art. If his knowledge of economics was at the same level of the Spanish Scholastics of the sixteenth century it would be an improvement over his current complete lack of knowledge in the subject.
Learning for Eric the Obtuse is a recreational impossibility like flying would be for the rest of us. As a consequence this situation is unlikely to improve.
Right. I am MOST unlikely to adopt your laissez faire philosophy. I can only hope it is in decline now, after 36 years of predominance. The same for materialist science views.
That is because you are a nasty self-righteous totalitarian who likes to rule other people. Sadly, your lack of knowledge on so many subjects makes you the least qualified person to do so.
You are not wrong there. From what i have seen he seem to think if you are for anything remotely to do with the 80s, not a new age hippy like person or anything that he believes in you are wrong and he is right and he sticks to it. Telling him others feel differently does not dissuade him. He is the most self centered person I have ever met. He even said he wishes he could get others to feel the way he does (regarding music.) I would not be surprised if this applies to his other beliefs. So much for being a lefty.
Now imagine growing up in the seventies surrounded by legions of idiots just like Eric the Obtuse. Generation X should now make more sense to you.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
|
