11-10-2020, 01:18 PM
(11-09-2020, 03:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(11-09-2020, 11:00 AM)David Horn Wrote:(11-07-2020, 03:52 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(11-07-2020, 07:57 AM)David Horn Wrote: The Blue folks have had negative results with the Trumpists. Don't try to convince them, it merely motivates them to oppose, oppose, oppose! We have COVID hot spots in overwhelmingly Trump areas, and they go on their merry way making things even worse. Hospitals, such as they are in rural areas, are already overwhelmed. It's the libs fault! Nevermind that they only exist because the Dems finally passed Medicare expansion two years ago.
The only potential reversal is something so traumatic that it can't be ignored, or the death of the Boomers. Our age group is the flame in these rural areas. I don't see it passing until we do too. The Red Prophets are still Prophets, and they aren't going to stop.
I’ve been optimistically looking for a principle that would lead us from the argumentative unravelling mindset to the practical problem solving crisis. What I finally came up with was freedom against tyranny. Freedom is letting each individual make their own choice. Tyranny is using the government to force one culture’s choice on the other.
Obviously, freedom is preferable to tyranny. In one case, the right to bear arms is a choice a tyrannical government would take away. In another, the woman’s right to control her own body could be taken away. In another, a person’s skin tone might take away his right for equal justice.
The red and blue do have distinctly different cultures. The path to freedom means they should not try to impose their culture on the other. If Biden attempts to find a way to solve things, to stop the conflict between the two cultures, he could do worse than adopt this principle. If he takes sides and advocates the blue suppressing the red, it will be more of the same.
A libertarian solution is never going to work. On a fiscal level, it's rule by oligarch, instead of government. On a social level, it's only feasible in a world where religion can be set aside (maybe some day, but not now), and where your freedom doesn't imperil me and mine (which is the essence of the gun issue in cities). Those are irreconcilable for now -- maybe forever in a complex nation like ours.
I think we've elected trauma as our motivator, since neither side can accept the legitimacy of the other. The GD-WWII cycle created group cohesion; it's the one case where we achieved it. Even the ACW, with all the devastation and misery, left the adversaries in place and still in opposition. Our sclerotic governmental structure is certainly part of it too. But, so far, we're not making much progress, nor have we identified a viable alternative. We can't be Canada; we can't be Sweden.
You just supported rule by oligarch. I assume you weren't paying attention or assume that you were unable able to figure that out? I guess we'll get to see if the blue oligarchs are any better than the blue politicians as far as ruling blue America these days. I think you guys did a wonderful job screwing yourselves this time around.
Are oligarchs inevitable? Concentration of power, both administrative and economic, seem to go together. Big business demands big government as a corollary, as an enforcer of the terms of contract, as a provider of infrastructure that Big Business needs (the auto industry and the oil industry were not going to build the roads), and as a mitigator of the worst tendencies of Big Business.
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.
