Bipartisan Senate group proposes ‘no fly, no buy’ gun measure

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-21-2018, 04:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Bob, if you were able to stop clinging to your interpretation/understanding of Strauss and Howe's theory and quit assuming the outcome will be the same as it was in the past 4T and quit ignoring the advancements we have made since then and the lessons we have learned since then. The Reagan values have taken hold and are staying for good. The progressive values of old are being or have largely rejected and the progressives aren't responding well to its rejection these days. In my opinion, the Obama election represented it's last dying gasp. How many blue voters believed they hit the jack pot? How many American voters found out they didn't matter as much to the blues? How many voted to save their home that was being foreclose and ended up loosing it? How many American voters voted for jobs and ended up being jobless for years or forced to work a few jobs to make up for the job loss? You better get familiar with them because that's who is going to be showing up in large numbers to support Trump and advance the continuation of his policies who are more likely to vote Republican than they were a decade ago. The small blue wave turned purple like I said it would be not so along ago.

Well, to start with, I do not center my views entirely on S&H, and am among the first to point out where the new age will have different patterns than the Industrial Age that S&H centered on.  Computers, nukes and renewable energy will do that.  If one assumes the old pattern, you will be in error.  This can be seen if you look objectively, but the patterns you find can be confirmed by analysis.  You note that wars between major powers stopped about as nukes were developed, and think what nukes can do to the elites source of wealth.  They can reduce the wealth to ashes, which makes the elites very much inclined to discourage major wars.

I also find a scientific world view superior to a political one in many ways.  It is hard to let go of the politics, entirely.  I am a Whig.  I am a fan of the enlightenment, one who would push the ideals of equality, democracy and human rights.  I lean heavily blue.  That shapes my more scientific world view.  But I am not your great-grandfather's Whig.  If the conditions have changed, you'd hope the political world views would change with them.  Often they don't.  An extremist will indeed cling to his perspective as the world moves on.  It is hard to keep up to date.

Conservatives and progressives often crash into each other.  The conservative often benefits from the existing situation, and thus it seems to make sense.   The progressive sees problems, and wishes to change the existing situation to solve said problems.  I believe that if you don't address a problem, it will get worse until you do commit to solving it.  Thus, the blues may have an advantage.  If you wait long enough, the problems will definitely have to be solved.  Until the problems are put in the past - like ruling nobility, kings, slaves, and wars between major powers - you get worse and worse.  This seems to be the ruling dynamic between red and blue.  The question is whether things have changed that much.  What new dynamic has changed the established dynamic.

Among the things that must change in blue eyes are division of wealth, prejudice, global warming, reusable energy and pollution.  The need for change is not clear on all issues, but they seem to get clearer with time.  I see no reason to change the basic Whig perspective.  There are always those who cling to the past, who worry only about their time, or cling to a certain political way of looking at things.  Still, such people have faded away in the past.

While the above applies mostly to the domestic situation, we have to look also at the international.  In some ways, the democracies have an advantage.  The influence of the people can force a culture to change, to better adapt, to defeat the tendency of the elites to monopolize wealth.  There is a way short of violence to change.  In other ways, the still autocratic cultures of today may have the advantage.  The people under an autocratic culture have less power, fewer rights, are usually poorer, and in general can be better exploited.  The elites are ready to move jobs to autocratic nations to better exploit poorer people.

In a way, this is good.  If a rising tide lifts all boats, these are some of the boats that need to be raised.

In a way, this is bad.  Representative democracy has a bad flaw, namely representatives.  Once elected the representatives are effectively elites, and thus will do the elite's bidding, not the people's.  This flaw could be solved by computer network direct vote democracy.  The correct rules, enough attention, enough security, could make the government serve the people again.  Yet, striving for direct vote democracy is (surprise!) on neither the red, blue or elite agenda.  Thus, we are doomed to fail, there will be at least one more S&H cycle where the problem will rise to the lead.

Anyway, I do not see myself as locked tightly into one political perspective.  I do see the blue learning lessons from Reagan and unraveling politics.  I for one would not get overconfident during a time like the 50s, 60s, and 70s, the new style political awakening, a time of change.  Progressives have to expect reactionaries.  They have to fight their own corruption and inefficiency.  Have they leaned?  Likely not enough.