Fighting The Fourth Reich

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-30-2017, 08:16 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(08-30-2017, 04:31 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I'm coming to see wealth inequality as indication of the the country still has a reserve.  If we ever really decide to do anything, a means exists to do it.  I care far more about there being a minimum floor for things like food, shelter and medical care than the few wanting to build uber yachts.    However, with the economy frequently being optimized for Wall Street and Easy Street, you have to hope you can release Main Street when the time comes.

If we assume that by Main Street, what you mean is your average work-a-day American person of the proletariat then the best way to insure that they have a minimum standard of living is to ensure that they have jobs to provide that for them.  Welfare has never lifted anyone out of poverty, it maintains them there.  As such we have to use two different large policy direction.

First is to structure international trade to promote Americans making things and buying things made in America.  Bringing money in and keeping the money here circulating, in other words.

Second to limit the import of new labor.  Importing low wage unskilled labor depresses wages for the lower income/skill groups, blacks in particular.  Importing lower wage skilled labor depresses domestically educated citizens.  As I've said on the old forum before there isn't a shortage of STEM field graduates in this country, rather there is a shortage of them willing to accept 30K/year (cause they have student loans to pay off among other things).

Adopting the second policy position will cause a gradual rise in pay through labor constriction, it also helps developing countries as they won't suffer brain drain as badly.

I can sympathize with much of that.  For example, ideally, unless the recipient is permanently disabled, welfare should be viewed as a last chance to dial in and not a permanent way of life.  I agree there are too many colleges, too many degrees, but good luck getting rid of hope.  People at least pretend to want to be dealt in.

But a few good ideas won't change the need for a basic change in balance.  The uneven wealth distribution and who is creating it is obvious.

(08-30-2017, 08:16 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(08-30-2017, 04:31 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: In the same way, much of the alt right just wants to be uncivil to certain minority groups.

There is no evidence that this is the case.

Wearing a swatstica and waving a battle flag doesn't count?  If you look you can find alt-right folk who almost plausibly hide their prejudice, but it's far easier to find prejudiced haters if you care to look.  They want attention.  I suspect you like that side of the alt right as little as I like what's recently become the alt left.  That doesn't mean one should close one's eyes and pretend not to see.
 

(08-30-2017, 08:16 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(08-30-2017, 04:31 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I personally have no sympathy with that.  There has been since Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr's time a legal concept that negative rights to not protect the ability to harm others.  Thus, you don't have a right to cry 'fire' in a crowded theory, and your right to swing you fist around ends where my nose begins.  Old old principles.  This very simple concept seems to be missed by many on the alt right.  If they are systematically denying members of a certain subculture access, if they thank being cruel is harmless fun protected by the Constitution, they just aren't aware of where negative rights end.

Ultimately it doesn't matter.  If the Left wins there won't be any free speech at all.  I like Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. am convinced the only limitations on free speech should be slander, libel and incitement (to riot or to violence or panic).  Apart from that free speech is sacrosanct.  Any attempt to restrict it past those common sense limitations is distinctly anti-American.

I will go further, if there are in fact positive rights in the Bill of Rights as it seems the ACA has opened the door for then I would say that it applies to the First and Second amendments just as much as any dubious right to health care.  As such I demand that YouTube and etc provide me with a channel to spout off my nonsense, and that the federal government buy me an AR-15 (cause you can't have too many).  I think the laundry room is still lacking a gun

I personally don't see hidden positive rights in the old Constitution.  Freedom from Want was a justification to make war.  The UDHR was a UN treaty we signed.  It is binding perhaps, but who is running around enforcing it?  The ACA may strive for similar principles, but it isn't structured as a bill of rights.  If we are to share risks and costs, it will be because the modern people wish to do so.

But as long as there are areas of US culture that are reserved to a specific culture, gender or race, I don't see affirmative action going away.  That counts as harm under law, as much as you dislike it.  And while modern Nazi and Confederates aren't actively lynching and putting folks in gas chambers, the hatred is still there, and a few folk hate as much as they can get away with.  I'll throw a few on the alt left in with the traditional folk.  I see hateful violent behavior as worth getting rid of.