The Partisan Divide on Issues

[pbrower2a]

(01-20-2022, 06:21 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-19-2022, 01:47 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-18-2022, 11:24 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-18-2022, 09:45 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(01-18-2022, 04:58 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Neoliberalism is anything but liberal.  It is spent as an ideology and has failed.

So, how far away do you think we are from being able to give Reaganomics last rites?

How close do you think you are to being discarded by America? I'd say that you're within five years of losing every American right and Constitutional protection that you currently have and take for granted today.

That's funny, actually.  Your Liberty or Death cult is getting older by the moment.  Eventually, assuming you guys manage to take full control, your rulers will finally prove that they are only in it for the money ... all the money.  The rest of us will watch as you revenge yourselves by taking to the streets, armed to the teeth, and killing all the innocents you encounter ...  but your leaders will still have the money and the power.

That's funny, I'm about 20 years younger than you and Eric. Your wife is the same age as one of my older sisters (Pointless profanity excised), you've already got one foot in the grave compared to me. So, who has the money and power on the Democratic side these days? It ain't the millions upon millions of people living below you dude. Like I said, it's not like I'm not familiar with those living in exurbia. My parents were exurban like most suburbans at the time. I've been doing business with them for many years.

No relevance except for explaining how your once-idyllic world is no longer so idyllic . Exurbs just beyond the suburban fringe, like Noblesville, Indiana at one time, become suburban and start having traffic jams and a need for huge public investments through taxes. Property values increase, but unless you sell you cannot reap the benefits of such. Borrowing against the market value simply puts you in debt and could lead to foreclosure.

Quote:What's the Democratic political class of worth these days? How much is AOC worth today? So, why do you think AOC was showing off her fancy tax the rich dress and shaking her booty in front of the cameras? Was she doing it to entertain me or doing it for the fame and fortune she's set to receive from the donor/ruling class? What's Omar worth today? What are the Clinton's worth today? What are the Obama's worth today? What is Bernie Sanders worth today? What is Pelosi worth today? What is Maxine Waters worth today? What is Al Sharpton worth today?  Oh, what were they worth before entering office as Democrats or started working for the Left? Any idea? How much are all the people currently doing business with them one way or another  worth today? Any idea?

It is wrong to put a cash valuation on people. Fair remuneration for work is a different matter, and it is worth noting that much of the supposed prosperity of America is the result of people being overworked and underpaid while toiling under harsh management. A huge chunk of income, especially for the more old-fashioned elites of America, is economic rent which results from monopoly or near-monopoly.

Note well that many of your supposedly salt-of-the-earth types live under precarious conditions in their economic lives if they are not themselves broke. Perhaps all it would take for many of them to have some dignity in life would be a union card. Pay union dues, and you get recognition through an entity better able to negotiate terms of employment than such as most people can, (Collective bargaining is usually well worth the cost of union dues). That is a far better deal than a credit card that you load up with debt. For the same sort of work that their parents do, the kids of union families are more likely to complete high school and attend college. They have better medical and dental care. They are less likely to become juvenile delinquents. For many a union apprenticeship is more appropriate than sure failure at an effort to get a college degree.

I'm not going to value a person strictly for having assets. Capitalism rightly rewards people for putting valuable assets to use instead of wasting them. (Note that I have stated many time before I am satisfied that in a good capitalist system, almost all the people who get or stay rich are capitalists, with few exceptions such as stars of entertainment and some spectacularly-successful professionals such as architects, attorneys, engineers, and physicians). Donald Trump is a horrible person despite all his assets. Aristocratic types in central and Balkan Europe before World War II were often the most fervent supporters of Nazi-like organizations or the Nazis themselves, people who despised small-scale Jewish entrepreneurs that those organizations exterminated. That's before I discuss outright mobsters. I've met migrant farm workers who have their heads on straight and push their kids to do well in school and white meth-heads whose kids have to be sent to custody of others when the "Blue Meanies" (the police) bust their parents. Character is everything, Classic X'er. If I must choose character over wealth and even smarts, then I will take character any time. People of good character don't date porn stars while married, don't grab women by their (crotches), and don't mock the handicapped. People of good character do not disseminate Orwellian Newspeak (unless to expose and denounce it, including through mockery, as with "American interests overseas (meaning corporate investments)". The world is a far nicer place when people have legitimate expectation of integrity in business dealings and when sex connects to love instead of to power     over someone helpless enough to be an object of unbridled lust.

Quote:I tell you what, you fix that OBVIOUS problem before you start talking to US, what you see as the  problem with Us and the use of our wealth. You can say what you want about me and Us but you're part of the problem on the Democratic side because you've going along and keeping them in power for your own sake the entire time. I hope they have as much wealth and power as you claim or you're all pretty much (ruined)when the American Revolution aka the next American Civil War starts and the apple cart starts getting rocked and apples start tumbling down all over the place. You're an old  Marxist Revolutionary of sorts. Have you ever messed with an American Revolutionary? Hint: The American Revolutionary isn't going to read you your rights or warn you before they strike/impact you either

You do not have much wealth. You act as if you have nothing more than consumer choice and an income stream to support that. OK, an adequate income stream would be enough to meet my economic needs and to allow me to have some fun on the side (OK, enlightenment -- I prefer museums to casinos and amusement parks). This said, our economy is run by people who see workers as livestock at best and vermin at worst, and that is not a healthy relationship suitable for the preservation of a republican government as our Founding Fathers saw things. We would be far better off if our executive class had more humane values than they show in their managerial style and their fascistic politics. People with great wealth but no conscience create the chains that Marx says that workers have -- and compel the workers to buy those chains.

That the Other Side could fall heavily for Donald Judas Trump demonstrates their ethical pathology. Something is right with our country when it can vote for a man of kindness, caution, and conscience who fully understands the legal precedents and benign traditions that underpin a workable democracy. Something is wrong when our country elects someone devoid of those virtues.

Nobody here is a Marxist revolutionary. This said, the surest way to get a Marxist revolution is to have a political order that serves only the economic elites who exact everything possible from workers and give the working people just enough to barely survive on -- while those elites indulge in sybaritic excess in plain sight as an exercise of their power, and in which the workers have no recourse through politics. Say what you want about the horrors of the Soviet Union, but the old ways of the Russian Empire made such evil possible. Fascism is of course wish-fulfillment for sociopaths who get gain and the satisfaction of their cruelty.

We liberals don't need any revolution. We seek again a return to public policies that encourage human decency and dignity. We certainly don't want the sort of revolution, really a genocidal fantasy, that you suggest.