The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(08-27-2020, 07:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-27-2020, 03:28 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-27-2020, 02:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-27-2020, 02:10 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Braaaaak, buck buck buck.

As I recall, the last time you fucked up and pissed me off and learned where you ranked with me as far as your importance and your overall contribution to society, you hid/disappeared for quite a while afterwards. Oh, and when you returned, you spent more time trying to appeal and trying to be more able to relate and accept bad information or news that directly relates to you and the side that you have chosen and have continued to blindly support regardless of the circumstances or obvious changes that are needed for people other than you or the typical Democratic supporter or Democratic fan  today.

I took a little vacation?  I might have, at that.  If so it was frustration at trying to hold a debate by one who doesn't bother to check against reality.  Still, I have to do something in a time where so many of my other commitments have been canceled by the bug.  I hate to tell you, but it didn't have anything to do with my putting a dent in your self image.  That resulted in a few giggles, nothing more.

Braaaaak, buck buck buck.

I think one differences between how we see the problem is in how we divide among motivations.  I separate groups with different motivations.  The violent racist cops, the federal secret police, the police, the military, Black Lives Matter, the Boogaloo Bois, the KKK, the Neo Nazi, Antifa, the SJWs, the Trumpists, the establishment Republicans, the Tea Party, etc...  In between there is often a blurring of motives.  The more sets of motives one includes, the more your perspective is harder to understand.  The fewer you use, the more the motives are confused.  I'm trying to include enough motivations to be inclusive, but am frustrated when one give for example Black Lives Matter the Boogaloo Bois motives, or assumes Antifa is active when they were opposed to the missing in action KKK and Neo Nazi.  If you lock onto blatant misunderstandings like that, how can there be communication?

You get different sorts of people interested in different things about the turning theory.  Many blues are interested in the possibility of periodic radical change, about a new birth of freedom every four score and seven years.  How does that come about?  What happens to the people who used to share the old values?

On the other hand, there are those obsessed with violence.   You are a prime example.  Xenakis is concerned with xenophobia as it used to exist in the Industrial Age, and does not care or seem to notice that we are not in that age anymore.  S&H made many insightful observations about what happened in the past.  They are sloppy about asking if the observations are true anymore.  If violence used to be necessary to make changes, is it truly necessary anymore?  If you can institute a change with non violence, is it prudent to try that first?

Yet many fans are in one way or another obsessed by the violence rich observation of past times.  They welcome the possibility of violence without noticing the periodic new births of freedom.  I for one am expecting a new birth of freedom.

I think that is much of the difference between us.  Some will see a 4T coming and be fascinated by the possibility of violence.  Others, so long as they can get their new birth of freedom, will use violence only as a last resort.  It could prove necessary if the old thinking is enough in opposition to listening to the new values.  They might refuse to hear.  The might refuse to change.  You have to change to get a new birth of freedom.

Right now, I see a path to get the new birth of freedom while avoiding the violence.  That seems the obvious win.  To one who is obsessed with the dream of violence and doesn't care about a new birth of freedom?  He wouldn't want see it.

Fortunately...  Braaaaak, buck buck buck.

Yep. There are those who are obsessed with looting and violence these days. We also have a political party that's either politically handcuffed for obvious reasons pertaining to race or creed or directly viewed as in cahoots with them as well. And yes, there are those who will resort or support those who resort to violence as a means to detour them or as means to defend themselves, their families, their communities, and so forth. Lets see, we earned our freedom with violence. The Texans earned their freedom with violence. The slaves were freed with violence. The Imperialist Japanese and Nazi Germany were conquered with violence and the Soviet Union was cutoff, isolated and contained by an understanding of America's history and American willingness/preference to fight wars abroad as a means to defend/protect the American homeland. So, whose territory am I in right now?

Let me discuss some reliable constituencies for the Democratic party as it now stands.

1. The Black bourgeoisie, a/k/a the Talented Tenth in the time of Booker T. Washington. This group has expanded, but much of it still is employed in government, or if it is not in government employment, relies heavily upon public payments for serving people on welfare, such as defense attorneys, grocery-store owners whose customers rely heavily upon food aid, medical providers who may get much of their income from Medicaid or Medicare (which means that it is more concerned with keeping Big Government serving people than cutting taxes). 

The biggest fault that white racists can find with them is that they do the worst possible thing (by racist standards)  to white people -- marrying them and having children by them. These people have much influence upon poor blacks as the only people that poor blacks can generally trust. 

As a rule the Black Bourgeoisie is well-educated, indeed better-educated than America as a whole. Trump is the most anti-intellectual President ever, but that will apply to other groups that I mention. 

2. Middle-class Hispanics not of Cuban origin. They were drifting R as they assimilated into Anglo culture, although they might have found Obama particularly attractive as someone who embraced diversity. Then came Trump, who said horrible things. White racists can't distinguish middle-class Hispanics from poor Hispanics. Such people, when meeting the Hispanic wife of some unambiguously white person might think that "Mrs. Maria (nee Gonzalez) Hansen" is "the maid" and demand that "the maid" get "Mrs. Hansen" instead. (OK, if you are black or Hispanic, it might be a good idea to never wear casual clothing at home". Middle-class Hispanics not of Cuban origin know enough that antipathy toward poor Hispanics can easily extend to them. The Democrats better serve the interests of non-Cuban Hispanics in elevating poor Hispanics. 

3. East and Southeast Asians. OK, so you are unlikely to confuse Koreans and Filipinos, but at least there is some cultural connection. As groups they are model minorities... and paradoxically, model minorities are the people most at risk from anger-laden, nativist populism. See also Jews. More successful than Americans as a whole, and often associated with cultures difficult for self-described "real Americans" to understand and relate, they may rightly see themselves as objects of hatred when the economy collapses. Note well that in the last economic meltdown, politicians of both sides of the mainstream Democratic-Republic divide stayed clear of ethnic and religious bigotry more likely to create victims than solutions. Incarceration of Japanese-Americans in World War II and anti-Chinese bigotry in some other places (like Indonesia in 1965 for Communism and in 1998 for being excessively-successful as capitalists... there's another group that has had such used against them) is a warning. It is far easier to get along as a minority and avoid massacres and persecutions if that minority is oppressed and exploited because it will get protection by those who benefit from such oppression and exploitation. But if they prosper they are targets for looting and robbery should social stability break down.

4. South Asians. Separated from East and Southeast Asians because they would never be confused by appearance or culture with East and Southeast Asians. They might be safe when the other is under threat -- or vice-versa. Otherwise what I said about East and Southeast Asians applies. 

5. Muslim Americans. Aside from African-American converts, generally better off than Americans as a whole. Islamophobia is real, and our current President has turned the burner up on that bigotry without obvious cause for doing so. They were trending R; that is over under Trump. 

6. Jews.  It's hard to believe that anyone can still incorporate conspiracy theories about Jews plotting to take over the world and establish a "Jew [sic!] World Order" in which they alone take all the desirable opportunities (there simply aren't enough Jews to do that), or, should they fail at that, bring about "Jewish Bolshevism" to ruin everyone else in anger. If anyone is still foolish enough to believe that individual successes of Jews in everything from small business to law to music to academia to politics to cultural creation are not the result of individual effort... well, there are hucksters still peddling antisemitic garbage. Until the two left-wing causes of Bolshevism and Black Power emerged, mistreatment of Jews ordinarily came from conservative, traditionalist figures who preferred to keep all the fruits of agricultural and industrial productivity to themselves without competition from people unlike themselves as well as any challenges of the agrarian or industrial proletariat against plutocracy. Conservatives like Churchill, Thatcher, and either Bush did avoid antisemitism and get clean records from Jews. On the other hand, conservatives demanding an inequitable, repressive, conformist society from the Inquisitors to Russian tsars to Nazis to the KKK have typically been hostile to Jews and Judaism. Judaism has never been a perfectly-safe way of life even if it is far superior to Jew-haters in ethical, scientific, and philosophical content. 

Jews probably were drifting R in part because of converts who accepted the religion but could never assimilate the ways of the shtetl and because America was largely becoming safer to be a Jew. Then comes the Alt-Right with so hideous an appeal as "Jews will not replace us!" Enough said.  

6. LGBT people. To put it tamely, homophobia is not a family value; it is a dangerous attitude. Even if you are straight it should scare the Hell out of you because gay-bashers are unlikely to believe your protest that you are straight. The problem isn't that you aren't 'straight' enough; the problem is the violent hatred. Gay-bashing is lawless behavior, and more Americans are coming to that conclusion. There are still people who have yet to recognize that homophobia has no ethical defense. LGBT rights means that people of the same gender can love each other and get away with it -- if consenting adults. Mainstream LGBT people of course sacrificed the child-molesting pervs, so I don't know where the child-molesting pervs go except to prison.  

Donald Trump is a corrupt bigot with a loose hold on rationality and no morals.