02-26-2018, 11:42 AM
(02-25-2018, 04:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(02-25-2018, 10:16 AM)David Horn Wrote: I don't think the culture of the late 18th century and red culture today resemble each other at all. The only link: red culture idealizes: "the Founders" in a way that makes them unrecognizably rigid and absolutist. The red overlay is closer to a nihilistic version of libertarianism. They celebrate "freedom", as long as it's THEIR freedom: guns, yes; prayer, yes; abortion, no (actually, hell no), and patriotism as they define it ... and only as they define it. I live deep in Red America. I have friends that hold these views. They feel free to tell me how I should think, but act hurt and angry if their values are questioned even a little. It's your value-lock problem on steroids.
And let's understand: this is not an issue of "both sides do it", even though both sides rally to their respective flags. This is "We're right and you are evil" compared to "We don't agree".
But we are headed to another 1T, an inherently conservative time. But before current conservatives of the National Rifle Association and a Republican Party that seems to have an agenda reminiscent of the John Birch Society get excited about the impending new conservative era -- it won't be their style of conservatism. The conservatism will be forged in the darkest and most decisive years of the Crisis Era, and it will most likely be a rejection of much that is offered with the label conservative. It will be more parallel to the conservatism of Dwight Eisenhower (preserve and defend the New Deal from radicalism and foreign menaces) than of people who want a New Feudalism.
It will be for law and order, such being seen as necessary for economic stability and growth as well as the protection of civil liberties. It will treat legal precedent and diplomatic protocol as virtues more important than the political fad of the day. It will put thrift above immediate self-gratification. It will see education far more useful for getting economic results than will be superstition and ignorance in achieving some transitory advantage for politicians. It will confirm same-sex marriage and homosexuality as unworthy of challenge (so long as such is between consenting adults) but crack down on sexual harassment and messing with children. It might tolerate marijuana but crack down harshly upon opiates and meth. In view of the success of America's non-Christian and non-white model minorities despite difficult times for many white Christians in the economy it will promote entrepreneurialism and formal education, the former for creating the necessary wealth and the latter in part to make Americans less amenable to demagogues (I expect Donald Trump to be one of the most widely-reviled figures in America for decades.
Of course I expect a crackdown on people seen as dangerous, disloyal radicals.
If it is parallel to Eisenhower, it will have substance more resembling what Obama sought. Consider that what the New Deal types wanted was something resembling the 1950s... and by the late 1930s America was already showing portents of what the 1950s (or at least the late 1940s) would look like. I take note of a recent poll of historians (paradoxically those students of the past are the best predictors of the future) in which the liberals already saw Obama among the top ten Presidents, and even the conservatives saw him 14th.
Surely you have seen my favorite map, the one comparing elections involving Eisenhower and Obama... right?
Most likely, I won't see the entire 1T, but it's not likely to be similar to the last one. It may more closely resemble the one prior, and be dominated by moneyed interests. Then again, the chaos Presidency of DJT could trigger a transformation I hadn't expected even two years ago, and the next 1T could be truly transformational. In any case, technology will march on, and whether it gets used for good or ill will dictate the following 2T and 4T.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.