Who Can Beat Trump?

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-24-2018, 02:57 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You can call me a Republican voter because that's what I am and what I have been for a long time. You can call me rich because that's what I am compared to PB, a typical member of the blue working class or a low end blue voter surviving off government subsidies. As far us ( the two of us), we are equals whether you like it or not. As you know, I have no love for the Democrats and I place no value on the Democratic party of today whatsoever. Some day, if you happen to live long enough, you will find out how accurate my view of things are pertaining the blues, the blue system, its opportunistic  use of multiple values pertaining to multiple groups of people and the future of blue America as a whole.

I see a period of the past some call the Agricultural Age.  It featured slaves, kings and serfs.  War was cost effective.  Weapons were weak enough that the strong could prey on the weak and the system flourished.  The S&H crises of the Industrial Age in Western Civilization each ended one aspect of the Agricultural Age values.  Some can pretend that this is an accident.  The victors write the histories.  There is no arrow of progress.  Noting happened of note.  I do not believe it.  With the printing press, steam power, democracy, human rights and chemical weapons the Agricultural Age became obsolete.

Now this is not to say all conservatives favor slavery and kings.  Some battles have been fought, won and are in the past.  However, in any given crisis, there are conservatives who benefit from the status quo who resist change, who resist anything good happening for anyone else.  They justify it.  They will say that things like kings or slavery existed and are the cornerstone of all civilization.  They will say that changing what has always been will lead to disaster.

But whenever I see anything political that feels like racism, sexism and privilege I see the remnants of the Agricultural Age.  I am an enemy of the Agricultural Age.

Now that doesn't mean one must oppose everything conservative.  One can see where parts of the country respect independence, others strong communities.  Some see the good that comes from members of the primary community being armed, of good guys having the edge over bad guys, while others seek arms prohibition.  There are many things to be respected from conservative thinking.

But...

A new age is coming.  They haven't agreed on a name yet, on what is important.  Some have called it the Information Age.  Some post scarcity.  At any rate, the computer, nuclear weapons and renewable energy are changing things.  Global Warming will someday have to be addressed fully.  We will have to take care of waste.  Nuclear war would no longer be cost effective.  War has never been moral.  Working everybody hard will no longer be as necessary with the increase in productivity.

Conservatives seem ready to ignore these problems, to let them build, to say if the existing culture was good enough in the recent past, perfection has been reached and there is no need to address changes.

These problems can be put off in my time.  These problems can be ignored by the older generations, but will come to a head in some living people's lifetimes.  Given the slowness of change in human cultures, I am unwilling to wait.  Global Warming in particular is a problem.  The symptoms will not hit conservatives over the head hard enough until it is too late.

This makes me progressive.  This does not make me a good little Democrat.  My perspective is too long for that.  I look back to the Agricultural Age, and forward to what comes next.  Most Democrats are fighting today's issues with a narrower time window.  Most do not see the need for upheaval as much as I do, but they are much much closer.

So whenever I see a group that is looking to hoard resources from other groups, I see remnants of Agricultural Age thinking.  This is something to be fought.  That is pure selfishness.  That seems to have too strong a place in the Republican agenda.   It is easy to see that kings and slaves are wrong.  It is harder to see that one's own values, the issues of the current turning, are just as wrong, that the arrow of progress is real and relevant.  What one is fighting for may be viewed very much as evil by people of the new values.  What is traditional today is no longer acceptable tomorrow.

This hardly means the Democrats are right on every issue, or that conservatives are automatically wrong.  However, I am more often with the progressives.