11-30-2016, 10:29 AM
(11-30-2016, 08:44 AM)anandrajan Wrote: But, what if the next 1T is a kind of (Hegelian) synthesis of opposite views? Imagine this is 1945 after WW II. OK, perhaps the American left had to be pulled back from embracing communism then but there was broad consensus.
I see enough seeds in the millennials (including my kid) that give me hope: (i) Many hate identity politics (while remaining socially liberal), (ii) they have a strong communitarian ethos and with the road already paved by commercial open source communities they can scale that to all of society, (iii) they are agnostic about foreign policy, therefore seeming more pragmatic than boomers, (iv) they're badly hit by economic inequality but most will not turn to outright socialism. In other words, there are plenty of ways for a good synthesis to occur which is hard for us to see at the present time.
After WWII -- but in which country? Our political system is broken and our culture is depraved. Our educational system has become an anachronism.
We may need a Constitutional Convention just to establish a political system much more difficult to game. Maybe it was only a matter of time before people not only found its faults but also saw nothing wrong in exploiting those faults. If partisan manipulation of districts allows special interests to tailor geographic districts to fit a political agenda, then perhaps a system of proportional representation might stop that.
The Founding Fathers wanted a legislative system as different as possible from the British Parliament as they could get, and they did as well as was possible. But the real problem with the British Parliament was with it being stuffed with the King's reliable flunkies representing the now-infamous rotten boroughs -- legislative districts with few or no people. The British solved that problem by adopting a Census to create nearly-equal boroughs in population.
For good reason, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and (for all its flaws) South Africa did not have the sorts of anti-colonial rebellions that the colonies from the future Maine (then a part of Massachusetts) to Georgia had against the British Crown. The American colonists would have never rebelled against a Westminster-style parliament.
It could be that the solution to stop another Donald Trump (and he will become an anathema fast) is what the Germans did to ensure that they would never have another Hitler.
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.