Who are you voting for in 2016 pt. II

[Kinser79]

(08-04-2016, 11:14 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: First, I always read S&H as very conservative for a pair of folk who came up with a theory of how transforming change occurs.  They always insisted that their theory is non-partisan, that it didn’t favor or justify the theories or principles of either party.  I disagree with that.

I would say that you should be right in disagreeing with their insistence that their theory is non-partisan, unless of course they mean that their theory could be applied by any partisan. The fact is that all humans have a bias of one sort or an other. And I would agree with you that S&H are socially conservative, which in the US means that they would as a consequence be Classical Liberals.

The notion that conservatism means Guilded Age Capitalism and liberal means socialist is an out growth of the New Deal and is transitory (though for the people living in this saeculum it seems pretty much permanent). I would argue that in the grand arc of history the US does not really have a conservative party but rather two liberal parties, one Jeffersonian the other Federalist. It is unfortunate that the current Federalist party has moved so far to the left as to openly embrace the destruction of the American culture. It will not end well for them, cultural authoritarianism is in direct opposition to our national character, and always has been.

Quote:  I always thought a 4T would address the gravest problems of any given era, and in most crises in the Anglo-American series, this meant that the establishment elites lost power, wealth and influence to progressives who wished to force change.

When old elites fall a new elite takes their place. At present I cannot detect a new elite as those who would be most likely to be considered the new elite have taken places along side the current elite and are unlikely to break with that as they love their indentured servants. H1B visa anyone?

As such the only solution to the most agregious tumors on the bodypolitic can only be addressed through protectionism, nativism and isolationism.

Quote:To that extent, yes, a crisis generally gives the Establishment a black eye.

Bob, you obviously have never lived in the South. The antebellum establishment was crushed there. The same was true for Japan and Germany. After 1789 anyone suggesting rejoining the British Crown was run out of the country into Canada...if they were lucky and I guarantee you that anyone suggesting a return to the policies of Coolidge in the 1950s would have been laughed at--at least.

The 4T destroys the old establishment and creates a new one. It may be possible that in a Mega-Unraveling that this need not happen, but that only sets up a saculum of one crisis after another resulting in Revolution. The French and Russian revolutions being prime examples.

Quote:The problem is in correctly identifying the gravest problems, seeing who is trying to solve them, and who represents the Establishment that wants to continue to hold power and profit by leaving the problem unsolved.

At present the gravest problems are a result of welfare stateism, over regulation, labor importation and cultural dilution. HRC represents, nay personifies the establishment propping up those problems. And there are no indications that she is likely to be a renegade like Gorbachev who will try to engineer a softer collapse. After all she's running as Obama's third term, a term of band aid here, patch there never addressing the crumbling foundation. Assuming she gets in, and survives more than a few months we can expect things to get extremely bad.

Quote:As an heir of sort to the Whigs, I have a shortcut arrow of progress that helps me distinguish between Establishment and Progressive.  The arrow points towards human rights, equality and democracy.  In this particular crisis, we’ve got income inequality and an biased legal system that leans hard on certain minorities.  In just about any crisis, the wealthy have too much influence over the politicians, and this one is no different.

I largely agree with you here. However, the solutions are not censorship (IE PC Culture), Lawlessness and Terrorism (BLM and etc), and more regulations and regulatory agencies prone toward regulatory capture.

Quote:<snip..babbling> </snip>
Thus, from my perspective, income inequality is the gravest problem, and Robber Barons are the elite whose power
and wealth must be diminished.

Income inequality is largely the result of New Deal regulations gone bad (everything has an expiration date after all), largely due to inept tinkering largely done by Silents. The problem with your theory is that the Robber Barons that currently exist, all exist in China. You are attempting to impose industrial solutions on a deindustrialized economy. It simply won't work.

Rather we should see why there is that income inequality, accept that some people will earn more than others (either they are more productive, smarter, or whatever--and yes that includes that they just may have more capital than others) and to address this in a way that is most equitable to everyone. I have a feeling that cutting out a large portion of the regulatory cruft will go a long way. Also simplifying and streamlining those regulations and making changing them far more difficult will allow for a degree of certainty necessary for people to invest competently. Unless of course you like bubble economies.

On the cultural front we should reformulate family court to be more equitable toward men, end the welfare cliff (a huge reason why people on welfare have difficulty getting off--the costs in child care and so on are greater than the wages they could earn). Part of this would be helped tremendously by limiting immigration to allow for the assimilation of the foreign born that are here and the natural rise of wages due to labor shortages.

I certainly don't have all the answers here, neither does Trump, but I know for a fact who doesn't have any answers to these problems.


 

Quote:Your father is the living embodiment, the walking talking platonic ideal manifestation, of the idea of Robber Baron.  He has spent his life amassing great personal wealth with no regard to the common man.  I see no reason to expect him to change.  His economic plan features tax breaks for the Robber Barons.  His solution is to increase the economic inequality.

Actually his tax plan also provides the greatest tax break toward working people as well. A great deal of that lost revenue on production will be made up for in tariffs which are a tax on consumption. In order to be wealthy a country needs to import raw materials and export finished goods. Countries that do the opposite look like Zimbabwe.

Quote:Hillary, meanwhile, had not been a politician until after her husband left the White House.  She had been a lobbyist and activist on the behalf of women, children, minorities and the ill.  She has spent her life pushing for equality, trying to benefit the People who have been trodden on worst.

Where were you in the 1990s? I clearly remember them repeating over and over that they were a two-for-one deal.

Quote:The two people have spent their lives pushing very different causes.  For one whose arrow of progress points at equality, human rights and democracy, my choice is absurdly clear.

They have I will admit. While HRC has talked about helping people become more wealthy, Trump actually did it by actually hiring people.

Quote:Then there is Trump’s endorsement of leaders like Putin and Saddam Hussain who tried and are trying to make the Agricultural Age style of intimidating tyrant continue to work in the modern age.

Both are leaders in completely different civilizations with different civilizational values. Say what you like about Putin, but Russia is looking fairly good these days, even when one leaves Leningrad and Moscow. This last spring I went to see a friend of mine over there (an American who teaches English and lives in Western Siberia of all places). Crime was way down, drug addiction and alcoholism was way down (though it is still a problem, Siberia is pretty depressing anyway) and over all the people there are doing much better than they were under the USSR not to mention Yeltsin when even Moscovites were starving. And Russia always feeds Moscow if everyone else starves...always. It is in their history over and over.

As for Saddam Hussein, let me say this. Under him there was no ISIS, there was no Al Qeda (or however they are spelling it these days) and so on and so forth in Iraq. Was the regime brutal? Yes. But their civilization is not our civilization and we cannot transplant ours into their soil. Civilizations are the result of generations of work and can't be transposed with just education, or at the point of a gun. Trump understands that, Hillary does not.

Quote:While I’ve often suggested that Cynic Hero’s desire to restore autocratic strong man Agricultural Age values is pretty much unique to him, very un-American, Trump in some ways does match Cynic’s ideal of going back to the old way of doing things.  Trump isn’t often explicit in saying such, for good reason, but he gives hints of it from time to time.

CH's "restorationism" is unique to him and not relevant to Trump. Or to anyone else for that matter. Where you see hints of Trump "going back" to something like this so-called restorationism, I see rather Trump inculcating and elucidating a vision that traditionally American. So traditional as to have been prescribed by George Washington himself in his farewell address (seriously you should read it sometime--the BF covers it in his HS history course even though that is discouraged these days, not that he cares). That vision includes the following things: Protection for native industry, control of the borders, and rejection of entangling alliances (IE forming alliances for our national benefit and on our terms).

Quote:Issues aside, your father does not play well with others.  If he is frustrated in any way, he will throw a tantrum, demonize the other person, and throw about insults.  It doesn’t matter who he is dealing with…  women, minorities, the disabled, reporters, fire marshals, gold star mothers, Republican authorities, even Democrats on occasion, get given the same sort of treatment.  I have no reason to expect this will change should he get elected and have to work with foreign leaders, who are already quite alarmed at having to deal with him.  Issues and philosophy aside, he just doesn’t have the temperament to work with human beings he can’t just fire should they disagree with him.  His personality alone would disqualify him as a candidate in my eyes, even if he did have a history of working for the benefit of others.

First that is an unsubstantiated Democrat talking point. But if you want to incorporate that into your subjective view of reality so be it.

Second, if you don't like Trump you are under no obligation to vote for him. We are a republic with democratic institutions after all.

Third, I really don't care what foreign leaders think. They have a fiduciary obligation to look out for the best interests of their states/nation-states. Likewise our President has a fiduciary obligation to look out for the best interests of America and Americans. If the French or the Chinese, or the Mexicans or whomever else doesn't like that..then tough titty said the kitty.

A huge part of the problems this country faces now is that for too long the US President has cared more about upholding alliances which long ago outlived their usefulness (NATO) or sought to rack up brownie points with foreign states at the expense of American workers (NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP and etc). Since I have no indication at all that HRC has substantially changed her positions that made her unacceptable to me in 08 she remains unacceptable to me in 16 and thus you have me supporting Trump at the moment.

Regardless of whether he wins or loses I'm convinced he will fundamentally alter the GOP. I could be wrong on this of course, but experience informs me that when my gut and my brain are in agreement on something it most likely is the way those two organs agree upon.

Quote:Anyway, my primary thrust is that too much power and wealth is often placed in the hands of an elite class.  In any given crisis, the abusive behavior of the elite class must be reduced.  In recent history, this elite class is the Robber Barons.  No single crisis will totally end the power of elitism, or even destroy a specific elite class.  Some issues will be resolved, but the answers are never complete.  The battles of one crisis are never fully over.

In a way I actually agree with you. However, I think that you're misdirected. You are looking to fight WWI in France in 1940. This 4T is fundamentally different from the last one, just like that one was fundamentally different from the one before, and so on.

If it is any consolation, my mother agrees with most of your points. It leads me to believe that a great many Boomers and Older Xers haven't realized that the world has moved on from 1992.

As Milo has said before, in order to be dissident, mischievous, to be punk rock these days; one must be a conservative. I of course would quibble on the conservative part as I consider myself to be a classical liberal anymore which is conservative only in the sense that we want to conserve the very best things of our civilization, why, because those things are what is important.