ACA Repeal/Replace: Progressives Face Moral Dilemma

[Kinser79]

Bob,

WRT to charts:  You should consider the source.  Eric's charts are naturally going to support his perverse version of reality mine are going to support mine.  The chart I offered conforms to my basic understanding of reality, and according to it I would be registered at 2, -2 point with a general trend over time of Down and to the Right.

I doubt I will ever get down to being an AnCap as their views are both utopian and extreme, even my libertairan scores which are quite strong are muted by my understanding that humans by nature are incapable of not concentrating power and resources.  Even at their most primitive social and economic development levels.  To this point in history all developments in economic production and politics has been toward the concentration of more and more resources and power into the hands of fewer and fewer people. A lot of this is driven by the tribal instinct.

WRT to the Parties:  I would say that having a two party system is going to be the status quo until such time as we change to some other method than FPTP voting.  That being said, both parties in the US have traditionally been coalitions of political groups, ideologies, and so forth.

I would argue that the split in the GOP will result in time in the following result.  The Tea Party and Trump Wings will merge into a new GOP while the Neo-Con establishment GOP factions will be absorbed by the Democrats.

WRT intuition verses intellectualism:  I would say that Trump's intuition has served him well as both a business person and will serve him well as President.  Remember he owns hundreds of businesses, only four of which have gone bankrupt for a failure rate that is far lower than the broad average failure rate in business.

You are of course free to doubt him.  I don't think anything I can say, or anyone else can say, will change your mind on Daddy.  I think your views are driven by your values, much like my views are driven by my values.  I also feel that we're probably driven by a differing set of values.  Mine have always tended toward the Jacksonian side of the spectrum if we are to use US history as context to describe those values.

WRT HRC:  I would argue that she was destined to lose.  If you recall people were talking about her running in 2016 back in 2012 after Obama got re-elected.  I said she wouldn't win.  My reason for making that statement at that time was historical precedent.  At no time has a candidate who lost the primaries of their own party later gone on to be president with one exception (1976--Ronald Reagan who was running against the incumbent president in a non-gop year).

HRC is no Ronald Reagan.  Seriously I was saying back in 2012 that she'd never be President.  In 2008 I was telling my elderly relatives that if she was nominated I was going to vote for whomever the GOP offered.  I found her to be repugnant even back then.

We could argue about her baggage and her experience but we would get nowhere fast.  She wasn't electable, indeed without cheating she would probably not even gotten the nomination as Sanders (who I believe is the other, Whig GC) would have likely been nominated (probably after more than a few ballots).

Add to the historical precedence and the fact that she ran an incredibly weak campaign, and also appears to be in poor health (I think she is [again I grew up around hospitals, doctors and nurses so I have an advantage here], but for obvious reasons I don't have access to her medical records) and you have a recipe for a loss.


You can bring up the popular vote if you like, but doing so is pointless.  I happen to think the electoral college works for a large country like the US even today.  Without it every election would center on the top five cities and no one else would get any attention--which is a recipe for disaster in the best of times never mind a 4T.  As my BF explained it to his class, the EC and the election of the President is much like the world series.  It doesn't matter how many runs you score, what matters is how many games you win.  When we elect the president we don't have a single election, rather we have 51 elections (the States + DC).

WRT Values:  I think you're creating a false dichotomy between individualism and strong communities, individuals compose communities. 

Blue values these days focus on differences and multiculturalism.  Diversity weakens communities as Putnam has exposed.  Furthermore given the unstable nature of communities in America to start with we are left only with individualism.  As far as communities go, I'd probably help my neighbors out (in fact did so after digging out from Hurricane Matthew) but outside of dealing with immediate disasters I'm not overly concerned with what they do provided they do not interfere with what I want to do.  I could go into a long winded example here but I think it would detract from my point rather than add to it.

WRT Economic policy:  I would argue that if you want to push wages down the best way to do that is to have unlimited immigration.  A trait shared by the Dim-ocrats and the NeoLiberal/NeoConservative wing of the GOP (the part I think that is going to break off and join the Dims).  Let us assume that automation is inevitable, for what reason then is there a need to import large numbers of people into the country?  There isn't.  The US is under no obligation to take in anyone for any reason who isn't already a citizen.  The same goes for the countries of Europe.

Given that there is a push toward an economy of abundance, and a push toward automation of nearly all labor I see no reason to import an underclass except for one potential reason--a nefarious one at that.  To establish a permanent monopoly on a dependent class for the Blues.  Yes, it is a conspiracy, and no it is not a theory--it is happening right now.

WRT Selfishness:  I would argue that all humans are inherently selfish.  It is part of our animalistic natures to be selfish.  What selflessness I have is as limited as everyone else's.  I'd be willing to sacrifice myself for my kid, or my niece/nephew or even my boyfriend or my sister (not so much my brother-in-law though).  Out of side of that I really have no reason to sacrifice myself for others.  The same is true for most other people.

In the past we've discussed how humans are tribal in nature.  I have my tribe, you have yours, but I am not about to sacrifice my tribe's safety, security, and happiness for yours.  Is that unethical?  It could be.  It could not be.  Depends on perspective here.  Over all I would say that generations that perform selfless actions do so in the view that it is in their selfish tribal interests.  People did not stop Hitler and Nazi Germany based on ideology (not even the Soviets) or on some idealistic woo (Americans and British).  People stopped Hitler and Nazi Germany because both were an existential threat to their tribe. 

WRT S&H Theory:  I would argue that S&H theory works much like the Assmovian Psychohistory of the Foundation series.  It works because over the course of time actions and reactions to events and the course of history create generations and thus create more events and history.  It actually operates best when fewer people know about it.

I would argue that part of the problem with the current 4T is not that we're not having a 4T, but rather that unlike 4Ts in other saecula, 4Ts in Mega-Unravelings tend to not have overt existential threats to the tribe (and by extension nation).  What was the major war of the Glorious Revolution?  There wasn't one.

The point of this 4T is to set the stage for the saculum in which everything about the current order breaks down and the ideologies that arise out of the next 2T will establish a new economic and political paradigm.

Does this conform to classic S&H? Probably not.  My own theories and hypotheses are based on a bit of a hodgepodge.  I would also say that humanity can be divided into several ages ranging over the course of mega-saecula the whole Warrior, Intellectual, Acquisator, Laborer-cum-Acquisator stages that Ravi Batra explained in The Great Depression of 1990.

https://www.amazon.com/GREAT-DEPRESSION-...0440201683