Donald Trump: polls of approval and favorability

[Eric the Green]

(01-29-2021, 05:14 PM)mamabug Wrote:

(01-29-2021, 03:12 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I suggest you take a good look at the ideology you are holding onto, and see where you might be willing to let go of some of it for the sake of achieving consensus. 

I will never let go of the ideology that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I will never cease to be a Bill of Rights near-absolutist that sees any infringement upon it as something that should only be allowable under the most extreme circumstances.  I will also never cease to revile those that seek to use the private sphere to abrogate those ideals simply because they are not subject to the limitations we impose on our government.   

If I have to let go of that ideology to achieve consensus, it isn't worth it. Whatever comes out of that 'consensus' simply won't be American, no matter how prettily you dress it up.  That you think 'accepting people who are different from you to live freely in your country' is *still* a left-wing value shows either how disconnected you are from the up and coming generation of progressives or that you are deep in cognitive dissonance.  

Everything else is up for negotiation, but without that fundamental acknowledgement that people who have different opinions than you politically ARE NOT EVIL, I see little hope of a consensus even forming.  

Some people who have different opinions from me are evil. It depends. White supremacists and Nazis are evil. Totalitarian and gangster, genocidal rulers like Stalin, Assad and Putin are evil. Neo-liberals may not be evil, necessarily. It's just that their policies are wrong, and need to be defeated politically. But as I say, some level of compromise with them may be possible, at least once the 4T is over. 4Ts tend to be all-or-nothing, and that's just because of the nature of 4Ts. But something may come out of this 4T that works for enough of the majority that the Crisis lessens. That is what has always happened before.

"I will never let go of the ideology that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" either. These true liberal ideals are necessary. But I am not in favor of the 2nd Amendment, and think it should be repealed. Until then, I favor any regulation on guns that can be achieved, consistent with the consensus of the people. Forced confiscation I view as a last and very limited resort.

But this sentence of yours I don't understand, and might be a part of contemporary libertarian ideology, with which I often disagree: "I will also never cease to revile those that seek to use the private sphere to abrogate those ideals simply because they are not subject to the limitations we impose on our government." The problem we face is that the government is not placing sufficient limitations on the private sphere when it abrogates liberal ideals. You need to consider this if you are going to be part of any consensus.

Quote:

Quote:And, in it's time, in the Wars of the Roses, and in the following Elizabethan era, the way of progress was indeed through the Tudors and then the rule of the King or Queen over the Papists. Then, next time, was the way of partial Parliamentary rule over corrupt absolute rule by kings. Then, it was a new Republic rather than the King of the colonies. Then, it was a union dedicated to freedom rather than one section dedicated to slavery. Then, as still today, it was the rule of the common man over big business, and, maybe also like today, human dignity over racism and world conquest by dictators. But this time, a livable planet also hangs in the balance.

For Russia, the way of progress lay through Stalin. For China, Mao. For Weimar Germany, it was (like it or not) Hitler.  You talk about 'the path of progress' in the events above, but you refuse to acknowledge the amount of injustice and bloodshed it took to get there.  Henry VIII killed more people than his daughter did all to secure power to himself in what was, effectively, an anti-globalist movement.

I ask you again - what happens if all these reactionary elements and kulaks refuse to jump on board with the DNC vision?  What if they keep voting for populists, keep obstructing, keep trying to use every (and let's say peaceful for now) means necessary to make sure their voices are heard and opinions counted?  How much are you willing to violate their civil liberties and unequally apply the law so that they can't live freely in this country?  So that their voices and ability to argue their point is silenced?  And, if it comes to that, how much blood are you willing to see spilled?

The main thing I have been warning against is this.  That those in favor of what they call 'progress' will use their sense of moral certainty to enact otherwise unconscionable violations of civil liberties upon their *political* opponents and justify it all because they are on the side of good.  It is already happening using unaccountable and unelected billionaires as proxies, the danger in a 4T is this becomes normalized through the government and the judicial system as well.

Russia and China do not follow the anglo-american saeculum, and we can't apply our standards to them. They have no democratic or liberal human rights tradition. Stalin achieved industrialization, but overall his reign was not progress, and neither was Mao's. Not in our terms. Hitler was extraordinary regression. The achievement of that 4T for Germany was made by the Allies to defeat him. They were all certainly evil rulers, and I oppose them and those who emulate them, like Putin today. Putin's reign shows how little progress Russia has achieved. You can almost say progress does not happen in that country. He is just the latest of their tsars. Henry VIII was a tyrant, but he was what the country needed, to reign in the dynastic wars and move religion in a more liberal direction, whatever his own motives were. In the long run, the religion he instituted, the Church of England/Episcopal Church, is a fine institution which upholds liberal values.

You asked me again, and I say again; the reactionary elements will be defeated, especially if they rise up violently as they did on Jan.6th. Their "cause" has even less potential than the defeated Confederates. These folks do not vote for populists. James B Weaver, W.J. Bryan and Teddy Roosevelt were populists. FDR and Eleanor, Huey Long (corrupt though he was), Father Townshend, Henry Wallace, Bernie Sanders; these are populists. Not those stupid, ignorant rioters. Not Trump supporters. I have not supported violating their democratic rights, and if anything, they get favored treatment in every way by the current system.

IF you are claiming that Trump won the election and that it was rigged, then you are undemocratic and are allied with the mob. You certainly must let go of that idea, if you hold it. If you are not claiming this, I don't understand the reason for your statement. You seem unwilling to accept that the majority may decree laws and policies with which you disagree. I am probably the same way. So, the battle is joined, and I hope for it to be a political battle, not a violent one that violates human rights. I consider the Trump side to be the one that wants to institute an authoritarian regime that violates the human rights that you say you believe in, and which I uphold as well.

All conspiracy theories today, whether they appeal to the left, right, center, libertarians, or statists, are looney and wrong and dangerous to one degree or another. I have no idea what you mean by using un-elected billionaires as proxies. It is the Trump, Republican side that defends the pretensions and privileges of billionaires, and has installed Courts to defend them. Libertarian economics enables and defends billionaires like the Koch Brothers (Charles even ran for vice-president on the Libertarian ticket). It is today's genuine populists like Sanders, Warren and AOC, and Rachel Maddow, who challenge them. I don't understand how today's conservatives can so twist things into their opposite. But you manage.

But thanks for your posts being more rational than those of the right-wing Classic Xer or the left-wing Einzige, or our libertarian spammer.