09-13-2018, 08:06 AM
(09-12-2018, 10:52 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(09-09-2018, 11:32 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: A society that needs to rely on private guns to feel safe, is not the beneficiary of progress, but a victim of regression. The USA is the only developed society with this obsession. The second amendment is a relic of a time when slave rebellions had to be quashed in order to keep the South in the Union, when guns were muskets, and when armies, national guards and police as regular forces did not exist. Progress would be to remove it. Absent that, I will recognize such progress as Americans are willing to accept, given our traditions, fears and obsessions, on the gun issue, and on all the social issues.
I do see Classic Xer as typical of the Trump base; perhaps even a bit more reasonable at times. That said, I recognize what Obama says, that the blues have to seek to appeal to everyone, and name-calling does not work. I may indulge in it, but I would not consider it a good campaign tactic for a politician or a political activist. Everyone has the potential, if not the likelihood, of recognizing what is right and what is truly beneficial for themselves, and that what benefits society as a whole benefits themselves also.
The red base feeds in, as Classic Xer does in this quote above, to the notion that corporations and big business is good for America, because the benefits trickle down and jobs are created. Sometimes that's true, but today, often it is not. Blues recognize that wealth is power, and too much of both is now concentrated in what we call the 1%. Trickle down does not trickle; "job creaters" replace jobs with machines now, and hog all the benefits. Big business cannot be trusted and must be regulated, and such is not "socialism," even though such is denounced by the reds, when in reality it is restraint on the tyranny of the powerful that prey on the rest of us.
The slogans of big government and freedom used by the reds are the exact opposite of the truth, used to fool the people. Prejudice and scapegoating has been used to great effect to create the Trump base and the GOP ideology. Red voters, as we call them today, are just people who have been fooled. So, there is no equality between the red and blue perspectives. There may be grains of truth on both sides, but the red side as it exists today has become unacceptable as a ruling principle for our society, and the sooner everyone realizes this, the sooner we can make progress again after 40 long years of nothing but regression and stalemate.
Unfortunately, the blues seem to have big mouths and only half a brain. How have I been fooled? I've worked for over thirty years and I have a lot to show for it. You're right, we aren't equals and our views and our perspectives reflect the inequality that exists between us and those who are able to identify or relate with us.
Big mouth and only half a brain? That sounds like... Donald Trump.
I honor your work ethic. Your politics are horrible.
I have had a bad back all my life, and if I had had a better one I might have been more effective at raw labor, with which if one uses one's mind becomes very skilled labor that pays well. A healthy society fosters and rewards competence. I have no problem with welfare-to-work so long as it leads people into better lives while getting them off the dole. Cheap labor usually shows why it is cheap... and low wages encourage gold-bricking.
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.