12-12-2021, 11:08 PM
(12-12-2021, 07:38 AM)Anthony Wrote: We installed (or maintained) a lot of right-wing dictators during the Cold War, including some utterly reprehensible characters like the "chomo" Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, and the apartheidists in Rhodesia and South Africa, in whose comparison the Thieu regime in South Vietnam totally paled, on the theory of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
When one deals with the Devil, one must expect to be burned.
Quote:And the term "neoliberalism" needs to be retired, on the grounds of the confusion it causes - at least in the United States anyway. A far more concise alternative would be neoclassical liberalism, since it seeks to re-create the policies advocated by Adam Smith, in more-or-less unvarnished form (furthermore, as Michael Lind so correctly pointed out in Up From Conservatism: Why the Right is Wrong for America, what distinguishes neoliberals from conservatives is their respective stances on social and "moral" issues, just like what distinguishes left-liberals from national liberals - like present company! - is their respective stances on economic issues).
Neoliberal is to liberal what democratic centralism is to democratic, or for that matter what national socialism was to socialism. We might as well recognize neoliberalism as plutocracy with no 'social' conservatism unless as part of some sleazy compromise in a power-grab with people who are illiberal on sexual freedom and cultural diversity.
I can't say what word I can use to describe someone like me who recognizes the validity of traditions that fit only one culture. I have a high regard for many Asian-American cultures, but I could never be part of one of them.
Quote:So far as Joe Manchin goes: How can he possibly behave any differently from the way he does, representing as he does a state that Donald Trump won by 39 points in 2020?
In a way West Virginia was long a great place to be a do-nothing Democrat, as when the United Mine Workers Union dominated the electorate and ensured that one could ignore education, roads, and public health when the coal mines offered plenty of well-paying jobs that needed little education, miners did not need to make long commutes, and a huge majority of people got excellent health care (of course if one worked in a coal mine one needed that) due to a strong union. Now that the coal seams are spent, Republicans can offer the same substandard education (all the better for making people amenable to FoX Propaganda Channel), bad roads (coal miners didn't need to commute, and good roads would get one out of West Virginia), and poor public health (let 'em eat opioid drugs).
Quote:And I guess that the House would have no input on the Washington D.C./Puerto Rico question - plus Hawaii can be given a third congressional district (and fifth electoral vote) by adding such Pacific territories as American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands to it (the Virgin Islands can also be made part of the state of Puerto Rico - but it is doubtful that doing so would increase the number of House seats/or electoral votes accruing to Puerto Rico, due to the small populations of the three islands).
I'd authorize those small populated districts one Representative each but no Senators -- and one electoral vote each.
Quote:But the most useful reform of all for the House is to divide the population of each state by the population of the least populous state (currently Wyoming) to determine how many House seats each state gets, rounding off the result to the nearest full seat. This would result in California having 69 House seats, instead of the 52 it will have starting with 2020 election. This, together with the one seat to which Washington D.C. would be entitled, Puerto Rico's six (with or without the Virgin Islands), and Hawaii's third seat (as above), that's 443 House seats (up from the present 435) right there - and in addition to California adding 17 seats, Texas, Florida, New York, etc. would get multiple additional seats as well, and so on down the line. We might even end up with a House consisting of exactly 500 seats - the UK, with one-fifth our population, has 650 seats in its House of Commons; and many key constituencies, such as Staten Island, would henceforth have stand-alone seats in the House (New York's 11th Congressional District encompasses, in addition to all of Staten Island, portions of the southwesternmost tier of neighborhoods in Brooklyn).
It makes sense, so it is a sure failure in politics. Does anyone believe that American politics is now a rational process? Much of it depends upon bamboozling people or ensuring that people can't get what they need. Example: you can use a 1990 road map to get around the San Francisco Bay Area very well because the last major highway built (other than a reconstruction of the earthquake-demolished Cypress Street Viaduct in Oakland) was California 85 around the west and south of San Jose. There have been some toll roads built in Orange and San Diego Counties, but that is about it south of the San Gabriel Mountains. OK, California finally built a freeway to replace an infamous intersection that can be a 30-minute ordeal in a desert at California 58 (which might eventually be an extension of Interstate 40 about 100 years after a freeway was planned to replace the overall road when it was US 466 back in 1947. The political realities radicalize Californians n the Left but ensure that the leftists elected prove ineffective.
Quote:And with the enhanced clout given to states like California and New York in the Electoral College, there would be no need to abolish the EC - at least for the time being.
The tiny states in population go favorable representation on the assumption that gigantic Virginia would overpower Rhode Island in politics... now the privilege ensures that low-population states get more than their share of federal funding.
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.