09-17-2018, 07:10 AM
(09-17-2018, 01:49 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(09-16-2018, 11:03 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:Why do blues always believe that we need a government approach vs passing a simple tax cut that accomplishes the same thing?(09-16-2018, 07:37 AM)David Horn Wrote:(09-15-2018, 09:45 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:(09-15-2018, 09:59 AM)David Horn Wrote: Yes, there are racists of all races, and dissing Christians is pretty easy, given their own proclivities. This is why we are moving to the extremes. We are seeking safety in numbers, by allying with those who love what we love and hate what we hate. It's intellectually dishonest, but pretty much what's happening.
I would watch the above. I am beginning to see the conservatives and autocratic folk as clinging tightly to what Kinser calls a tribe, and rejecting the idea that all men, all tribes, should be equal. What you can do to make things better for people like you would be fine by those values.
I am dubious.
It's the autocrat playbook:Trump is playing this song on heavy rotation. The only question: when, if ever, does it just get old? If the answer is 'never', then we are in serious danger of open violence, with Trump standing, arms folded, and nodding to the crowd. Trump may lead a minority, but so did George Washington. There is no inherent strength I numbers in the difference in intensity is too great.
- Find a disaffected group and claim them as your own
- Be certain that the word gets out that you and only you can be their champion
- Expect fealty as your due, since you are 'sacrificing for them'
- Rinse and repeat.
Now here is the counter-play:
This is the FDR way of doing things. Let the violence be shovel against earth, brick against mortar, and hammer upon nail. It solves some problems -- maybe not all, but enough. Maybe slowly, but it can organize people who have been milling about without purpose.
- Find disaffected groups and and tell them that they can hope only for incremental change, most of it the result of their personal efforts
- Be certain that the word gets out that such is all that can work
- Stick to it, and laud the results when they happen. Give credit to those who do the work.
- Rinse and repeat.
We might need some CCC and WPA programs to get some people -- the people that the American economy forgot. Maybe some of them will need remedial education. Fine. Let them have it.
Nobody needs make wild promises, but we can solve some problems that we neglected in the 3T.
One must admit: the demagogue who wins power is the one who makes the wildest promises. Once in, he has power without responsibility. Donald Trump is the classic demagogue, and it is astonishing that someone like he could win enough votes in America.
What Donald Trump and the GOP leadership 'give' is huge tax cuts followed by a huge tax increase in the form of tariffs, essentially sales taxes upon imports. What Trump gave to the Master Class he took back from everyone else.
If taxes were high enough to preclude private investment in plant and equipment, then tax cuts would in themselves foster such private investment. That was not the problem in the 1920s or the Double-Zero decade, when taxes were low and economic inequality was high, and much of the investment went into speculative activities that soured when the speculative activity ran out of suckers. In the late 1920s and in the first half of the Double-Zero decade, investment was going to an inordinate degree into real estate bubbles.
Government has a role in a democratic society for facilitating useful investments that private industry could never do well or equitably. An example is K-12 education. I know, I know --- manor lords and slave-owning planters did train their serfs and slaves ... to be serfs and slaves. We all benefit from mass literacy and competence with arithmetic. Who would pay -- except us all? Civics? The problem is that what might be good for us all (an electorate that can reject demagogues like Hugo Chavez or Donald Trump) is hard to link to any personal gain. We generally think democracy a good thing, as non-democracies almost invariably treat the masses badly. But if you are to rely upon employers to do the education for limited purposes -- serfs and slaves do not vote and must never be allowed to vote if they are to remain serfs and slaves.
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.