07-21-2017, 09:07 AM
(07-21-2017, 02:00 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:PBR Wrote:2006 was also an off-year election, and it signaled at the least an abortive Regeneracy that would culminate in the first two years of the Obama Administration
No. The 2006 was a normal rejection of an unpopular president (W) and his particular brand. A brand that the current Administration is having to deal with in Senate leadership. Since I know you don't read conservative media, I won't go into it because simply put it is beyond your rational. Like Eric you've got a tenuous, at best, contact with reality, so I'm not going to lower myself to engaging in a battle of wits with an unarmed person.Quote:The media of Movement Conservatism are at best slick renditions of awful beliefs, devoid of wit and offering the same old stale solutions (promote the enrichment and indulgence of elites).
Yes, Dubya is unpopular and the cycle of history seemed to be moving away from tolerance for the degenerate behavior (bad politics, bad business, and bad culture tolerated solely for their profitability) . The Ri9ght proved in 2010 that nothing matters in American politics except the will of the economic elites and the gullibility of enough of the masses. In the end -- Donald trump, a man who represents everything wrong in America, even to the point of acting like a king in an absolute, elective monarchy.
Quote:Quote:Young Artist generations are conformist -- not conservative. They will conform to the political and economic realities of the time in which they live, and will follow along with the endorsement of successes and rejections of failure. As has happened in some nations in their Crises, one 'wave of the future' can lose all credibility very fast.
Indeed that has already happened. The SJW/Millie wing of the Left was considered to be the wave of the future. They have made themselves into a joke and have been rejected. Young Artists can conform in opposition to things they oppose just as much as they can conform to things they support. We are dealing with humans after all, not mere machines. Most humans, at least the non-prophet ones anyway, seem to have the ability to think for themselves and take up those roles and positions which benefit them the most.
...and the corporatist Right, believers in the outmoded, vile ideology that comes from the most rapacious peole in the order deciding that the rest of Humanity has no role except to suffer in This World on behalf of elites in return for rewards in Heaven available only to those who accept plutocracy at its worst?
If the Silent and Progressives are any indication, then we will see them go from a feather-my-nest mode of behavior to finding meaning in life, aligning themselves first with a Civic generation (GI) or one that ends up in a Civic role (the Gilded) only to find younger Idealists (Missionaries and then Boomers) as fresh breezes of intellectual freedom. Then rather late they try to cadge together some attempt at making the best of all possible worlds.
I see a leader like Donald Trump as the sort who makes a rebellion a certainty for anyone who has a conscience and an intellect.His messaging is empty, banal, and limited. He is in no way an innovative thinker. His economic ideology is to make sure that the Right People get what they want and keep getting more no matter what that engenders. His managerial style is despotic.
His Presidency acts more like a royal court than like the Brain Trust of FDR.
Quote:Quote:Besides, the meaning of 'conservatism' could change dramatically. The black, Asian, and Hispanic middle classes seem very conservative in cultural values, and their ways (if successful) could redefine what constitutes conservatism in America.
Indeed. Many would call me a conservative now, but there is very little of the status quo I wish to preserve being a civic nationalist. Also there isn't a "Hispanic" middle class as "Hispanic" is not a race. A white man from Spain is as Hispanic as a black guy from Cuba as is a Mestizo from Mexico. As such I'm going to take your use of the term "hispanic" to mean Latino which designates Mestizos from Latin America specifically.
"Hispanic" is more about culture than about race. Hispanics can include stereotypical white people (Spain is a European country), First Peoples (Mexican-Americans who look like the people depicted in Aztec reliefs, blacks, and every possible admixture. Hispanic populations can assimilate people not of Hispanic origin.
Quote:Quote:It is the Right that has established the polarization of American political life on 'cultural' identity.
So it is the Right which has all the gay activists, the tranny activists, BLM, La Raza, and so forth? Are you sure you want to go that route?
Even if one wanted to say that the right did start it, there is the HISTORICAL FACT that in 1860 no Republican owned a slave, and in 1930 no Republican supported segregation. I strongly recommend watching Dinesh D'Souza's documentaries.
The Dixiecrat Democrats left the Democratic Party for the Republican Party (which in the 1960s was a joke in most of the South) and turned the Republican Party in the South into the vehicle of defense of white privilege as blacks started taking over the Democratic Party. The Dixiecrat reactionaries turned a regionally-minor party into their party. The Dixiecrats did not changed; they simply took over an institution and expanded its relevance.
Dinesh D'Souza is a crank.
Quote:Quote:I consider white people in the Mountain South generally about as oppressed as blacks were in big Northern cities in the 1960s.
Those white people would disagree with you. And I also have news for you, the 1960s were over 50 years ago. We have to deal with oppression, if there is any, that exists today. To do otherwise will only devolve into a continuous whirlwind of racial rent seeking--which is precisely what the Leftist Oppression Olympics actually is.
Self-inflicted harm. Gross under-investment in public health, education, and infrastructure -- that will get bad results no matter what the ethnic heritage. When the coal-mining industry dominated the local economy there were plenty of well-paying jobs, and the Democratic politicians in West Virginia could operate a bare-bones government with low taxes and few services,. Once those jobs vanished, all that remained was people who had to leave to improve their lives. Guess what is left!
,
Quote:Quote:Statistically one is better off as 'black' in Maryland than being 'white' in West Virginia.
Statistically speaking one is better of being black in the US than they are being black in Zimbabwe. The only thing you've noted is that Maryland has a higher per capita GDP than West Virginia.
Which would you rather be? Middle-class blacks still face racism, but that is much more benign than having bad teeth, being overweight, and being grossly under-educated. But I am not the problem. I have a knack for sizing people up for intelligence and learning very quickly. All that I need do is listen for certain cues. Grammar and diction are obvious for a non-native speaker of English. So is a choice of topics of discussion, which allows me to assess the intelligence of people who have rudimentary understanding of English. There are people who can get more out of K-12 education than out of K-12 and a bachelor's degree, as is shown by some NFL stars who got through four years of college in snap courses despite marginal literacy.
Quote:Quote:But northern blacks resisted oppression and often escaped it through genuine achievement; statistically
No most northern blacks did not resist "oppression". What they did is they got jobs, back when this country still had a rational economy and made things, and worked hard and saved their money and got ahead.
Quote:white people in the Mountain South have been hurting themselves with under-education and opiate use.
Addiction is a medial concern, this is exactly the same as blaming someone with polio for being paralyzed. In the main the roots of opiate addiction in states like Kentucky and West Virginia (both places I've been, and I know you haven't been--because I leave my house and you don't leave yours) is related to the over prescription of those drugs to manage pain to those who worked in the coal industry.
The simple fact of the matter is addiction to opiates can happen to anyone. Of course this is coming from someone who actively avoids using pharmaceuticals (though I regularly use marijuana medicinally--cannabutter (marijuana infused butter), nothing like it).
U-N-I-O-N-S. Strong, militant, welfare-oriented unions ensured that someone who did a labor job for a giant employer could not be underpaid just for being black. Now that unions are practically dead, we have economic elites who treat everyone not among them very badly.
.........
By the way -- I was in Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina in April. Key attractions were Mammoth Cave and Great Smoky Mountains National Park. I intend to go to the Great Smokies this summer to see the total eclipse of the sun. in a place of spectacular beauty. I'm taking the dog so that I can see how it reacts. I've never seen any writing about how dogs react. I will even fashion some eye protection for him.
You do not know this, but I really enjoy traveling... I have been as far north as Tahquamenon Falls and Pictured Rocks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Both are spectacular -- this winter!
I missed paying any visits to the tourist traps along US 441 through Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, but I did stop at the original Kentucky Fried Chicken -- OK, greasy food and my aging stomach do not get along well anymore, but Colonel Sanders was quite a character. I got some interesting photos of his shrewd business enterprise of the 1930s. One can learn as much from that as one can from a course in business administration. I also stopped at the artist center in Berea.
The Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina was a disappointment, largely because the focus of the local economy is gambling. Teepees are for Plains Indians and gullible tourists; the Cherokee are not Plains Indians.
But yes, rural eastern Kentucky is poor, and the I-75 corridor looks to be a little richer because of the tourist trade. I noticed plenty of ads for treatment of opiate abuse and for disability lawyers.
OK, so I am not 'genuine' because I missed out on Dollywood.
I'm getting a passport so that I can visit a free country. Canada.
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.