11-24-2020, 05:03 PM
(11-24-2020, 02:28 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:(11-23-2020, 01:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:Paragraph by paragraph response:(11-21-2020, 11:49 PM)Mickey123 Wrote:(11-19-2020, 05:00 PM)sbarrera Wrote: As for surviving Cold Civil War II, well clearly the key is to be on the winning side. So far in American history the progressive side has won every conflict, and I think it will work out that way this time as well.
That's because you're defining progressive values as the values which won out.
In the early 1900s, progressives were in favor of Prohibition, and opposed to blacks voting. They were in favor of literacy tests to be able to vote. These policies failed over time, and so are no longer defined as being progressive.
It's easy to say you're always on the winning side when you change your beliefs to match whichever side won. Many socialists would have defined themselves as being progressive. If the U.S. had a socialist revolution some time last century, you would say that once again, progressives won the conflict. As this didn't happen, progressives ended up siding with capitalism, with lots of social programs.
Keeping the vote to those that could afford a good education and to whites was never progressive. As it turned out the Marxists were autocratic, against democracy, and could not be progressive no matter how progressive the theory said the ought to be.
My grandfather was abusive towards my grandmother when he was drunk. Before prohibition, males drinking their salary was a traditional response to the worst abuses of capitalism. I can see why a lot of people wanted to try the great experiment. Substance abuse is still a problem, but keeping it to a manageable level seems to have required prohibition for a time. The problem is you can’t totally ban something the public badly wants.
The arrow of progress - equality, human rights, democracy - is real enough. People who pretend that you are being progressive while going against those things are delusional.
P1: Another example is that in the New Deal universal healthcare and to a large extent civil rights were pushed out the back door because it was felt that the whole deal might not pass if too much was included.
The basic "never let the perfect be the enemy of the good". Ask for too much and you may get nothing. On civil rights: consider that the 1930's had something other than the New Deal going on. The KKK was still a reality, and it could have revived easily. It could have developed connections to people in very high places... as in Berchtesgaden.
Quote:P2: in some circles males drinking their salary existed posi-prohibition as well. Theme of many mostly country songs of the time. Great example is Loretta Lynn’s “Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ with Lovin’ On Your Mind”. The is was largely before too many women had the financial and political clout to do something about it. And where your last sentence is concerned, then why is sex work still illegal nearly everywhere? Prohibition of this activity has been every bit the failure that it was with liquor nearly a century ago.
Drunks are lousy lovers. To be sure, there's not much anyone does well while drunk. The only thing that alcohol does to facilitate sex is to take away inhibitions or make someone unable to resist sex. I would want to do sex without being numbed, getting to feel it in full.
Quote:P3: All I can think of here is the recent situation in California, where Prop 22 passed largely because gig workers themselves voted in favor because of fear they would lose the flexibility to make their own schedules if they were made employees.
Some people like the flexibility of gig work. If I can work remote, then maybe I can do a little more regional exploring.
Quote:Add-on: Today is the birthday of one of the most notorious perpetrators of violence against women, Ted Bundy. Might it be a good idea to make this date, November 24, Violence Against Women Awareness Day?
Too close to Thanksgiving. Otherwise a good idea. Any man who beats or abuses a woman isn't much of a man.
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.