05-27-2017, 07:27 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-28-2017, 11:43 AM by Bob Butler 54.)
Just repeating myself here… We need something. I’m not sure it should be called ‘Militant Nationalism’. Perhaps? Maybe it should be?
Two of my core political documents are the American Declaration of Independence and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first has equality, rights and happiness as gifts from God, with governments established to distribute them, with a right to rebel if the governments don’t do their job. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights gets a bit more specific on what might be necessary for equality and happiness. These include food, shelter, clothing, medial care and retirement planning.
I don’t see this as simply pie in the sky abstract philosophy. If people haven’t got a reasonable path to these things, they are apt to rebel. That’s not just Enlightenment ideals and post World War II euphoria. Miserable people rebel. One path to preventing rebellion is respecting and supporting those among us who have least. If you don’t try to pull people up, they’ll try to drag you down.
There is talk about entering a post scarcity economy. We’re producing well enough stuff to go around. Technology helps us get what we need while less human labor is required to produce it. And yet we’re still using scarcity economy structures. The less equal among us haven’t got what they need, and there aren’t enough solid jobs for them to earn it. More effective manufacturing can produce stuff without calling for sufficient labor. While this is common knowledge in some places, the practical political work for the voters to understand and correct certain things hasn’t really started.
On the flip side, the conservative side, the language of inequality and freedom is being turned upside down. It is tyranny and oppression to work for equality. There is a right, supposedly, to create ever greater economic and social inequality. It is OK to fight for privilege and deny basic sustenance in order to maintain and increase an absurd wealth gap.
I don’t see or seek absolute equality, with everybody in the world being guaranteed equivalent income. There are going to be elites for the foreseeable future. I would not seek to knock the few out of their penthouses, but I would make sure that the many can get into the ground floor.
And a good part of the problem is tribal morality, if you can call it morality. Some care so much for their own wealth and privilege and so little for others who don’t share their racial, national, cultural, social, gender or other identity. It is no longer polite to openly advocate privilege and prejudice, but in cutting taxes to the wealthy while cutting services to the unfortunate, one can see we are not moving in the direction of the hypothetical post scarcity economy. And it isn’t just dollars and cents in play, it is attitudes, privilege and prejudice.
A tad more equality please.
Two of my core political documents are the American Declaration of Independence and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The first has equality, rights and happiness as gifts from God, with governments established to distribute them, with a right to rebel if the governments don’t do their job. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights gets a bit more specific on what might be necessary for equality and happiness. These include food, shelter, clothing, medial care and retirement planning.
I don’t see this as simply pie in the sky abstract philosophy. If people haven’t got a reasonable path to these things, they are apt to rebel. That’s not just Enlightenment ideals and post World War II euphoria. Miserable people rebel. One path to preventing rebellion is respecting and supporting those among us who have least. If you don’t try to pull people up, they’ll try to drag you down.
There is talk about entering a post scarcity economy. We’re producing well enough stuff to go around. Technology helps us get what we need while less human labor is required to produce it. And yet we’re still using scarcity economy structures. The less equal among us haven’t got what they need, and there aren’t enough solid jobs for them to earn it. More effective manufacturing can produce stuff without calling for sufficient labor. While this is common knowledge in some places, the practical political work for the voters to understand and correct certain things hasn’t really started.
On the flip side, the conservative side, the language of inequality and freedom is being turned upside down. It is tyranny and oppression to work for equality. There is a right, supposedly, to create ever greater economic and social inequality. It is OK to fight for privilege and deny basic sustenance in order to maintain and increase an absurd wealth gap.
I don’t see or seek absolute equality, with everybody in the world being guaranteed equivalent income. There are going to be elites for the foreseeable future. I would not seek to knock the few out of their penthouses, but I would make sure that the many can get into the ground floor.
And a good part of the problem is tribal morality, if you can call it morality. Some care so much for their own wealth and privilege and so little for others who don’t share their racial, national, cultural, social, gender or other identity. It is no longer polite to openly advocate privilege and prejudice, but in cutting taxes to the wealthy while cutting services to the unfortunate, one can see we are not moving in the direction of the hypothetical post scarcity economy. And it isn’t just dollars and cents in play, it is attitudes, privilege and prejudice.
A tad more equality please.
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.