Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[Classic-Xer]

(08-23-2016, 03:02 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-22-2016, 06:11 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-22-2016, 05:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Good for you. But looking at those videos of Trump supporters being "vetted," and other videos these last few months of Trump rallies, I'd have to say the stereotype fits for them. Like attracts like, I guess.

Didn't your mother ever teach you the value of not judging a whole book simply by its cover? Do I go with the image you present to me or do I stick with the image of the bulk of them that I know?

One problem is that the images one group of partisans carry around in their head about opposing groups of partisans are often shallow stereotypes, often vile shallow stereotypes.  I have ever so often been told that I am a liberal, that all liberals think alike, therefore they will tell me what I think.  Many conservatives seem to perceive of themselves as greater experts on progressive thought than any progressive, well equipped to correct people on what their beliefs are.

And it works both ways.  Partisans don't seem to believe they need to listen to their opposites, as often they have a fixed notion of what they expect to be said.

What point is there to talk to you if you're not going to listen, if you are going to go by a cockeyed "image of the bulk of them" rather than by what is actually being said?

Not that they other guy won't have a similar reading comprehension problem.

Are you not a partisan? At what point did you stop being viewed as a partisan and stop associating with the same group of partisans? I've seen you try it and then I've seen you resort back to partisanship. What is partisan doing educating me and trying to advise on the negatives/dangers and general foolishness and unproductive results associated with partisanship?

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-23-2016, 01:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Are you not a partisan? At what point did you stop being viewed as a partisan and stop associating with the same group of partisans? I've seen you try it and then I've seen you resort back to partisanship. What is partisan doing educating me and trying to advise on the negatives/dangers and general foolishness and unproductive results associated with partisanship?

I see my values as being primarily scientific (with a strong dash of Newton), secondarily political (with a strong dash of Jefferson), with religion third (with a strong dash of Jesus).  While ideally someone claiming strong scientific values might strive to answer all questions with scientific methods and certitude, in practice some problems aren't suitable for the scientific method.  Thus, I'll reluctantly fall back on more subjective and emotionally laden systems of thought.

Most importantly, my personal value systems suggest that political systems of thought don't appear out of nowhere.  They have an historical base.  They came into existence for a reason, to solve certain problems.  If one takes the effort to use the methods of the soft sciences, one can to some degree come to understand how conflicting partisan world views came to exist and why those with conflicting world views continue cling to them.

But even if one is honestly striving to understand how two conflicting world views came into being and how different folks will intensely cling to different systems, one still ends up forming opinions on which of the systems would produce better results in this particular time and place.  Yes, most often I end up leaning blue.  This particular moment in the cycles seems to call for leaning blue.  Now is not always.  Even as I call to lean blue on some issues, I'll warn of a need to swing back red at another time.  Note that even now I'm not classically blue in all respects.  See the gun policy thread.

But I'll still get as frustrated by Eric's inability to comprehend and lack of interest in comprehending any point of view other than his own as I get with your similar talents.  To say that two competing systems of thought had valid reasons for coming into existence, and that many of these reasons can still seem valid today, is not the same as saying "My system is absolutely right, any system that conflicts with it is absolutely wrong, and any individual who believes in a system that conflicts with mine is stupid, evil, insane, bribed by the Koch brothers, and / or otherwise not a member in good standing in the Community of Man.  So mote it be, now and forever, in Saint Reagan's Name, amen." 

I will not say, as you recently suggested, that it is pointless to listen to the other guys because you have an idea in your head of what they really think.  What you think they think is more important to you than what they think?  And from what you do say about what you think they think, your twisted ideas of the other guys are selected with malice and ill intent.

We do look at things differently.  I'm not sure you can understand or are interested in understanding the difference.  This isn't the first time I've tried to explain it.  As you say, it is not your way to listen.

In the meanwhile, if you state political opinion on a political forum, if you want to wear big boy pants, you've got to deal with what comes back.  

From my perspective, if someone has announced an unwillingness to listen, the situation would seem to call for a larger megaphone.  To some degree I may give in to the temptation.  I'd prefer clarity, however, to volume.

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-23-2016, 02:18 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

Um....  X_4AD?

[Classic-Xer]

(08-23-2016, 01:26 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-23-2016, 12:28 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The Civil War was the result of a political election. World War II was the result of failed diplomacy. The Revolutionary War was a result of a government that did not recognize the rights of Americans. Can history repeat itself, you better believe that it can.

From my perspective, prior the things going full out 4T military there is a period featuring escalating spirals of rhetoric and violence.  You have precursors such as the Boston Massacre, Bleeding Kansas and the Spanish Civil War.  In theory, the violence can be avoided through various means as you suggest above.  In practice, partisans get so focused in on manifesting their own values and world views that compromise is at best difficult, and is often given 20 20 hindsight viewed as impossible.  As a wise man once put it...

Second Inaugural of Abe Lincoln Wrote:On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war, seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.

I'm much in that place.  I would depreciate war, but recognize that all too often war comes.

Well, if war comes, I feel its safe to assume that we will be on the same side. BTW, I view Keynesian being OK as long as it's not be used incorrectly and no longer being used democratically by Democrats to obtain voters. We don't want another Civil War or American Revolution that results in the division of American wealth. Did cable or the internet as we know it exist before Ronald Reagan?

[Classic-Xer]

(08-23-2016, 02:20 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-23-2016, 01:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Are you not a partisan? At what point did you stop being viewed as a partisan and stop associating with the same group of partisans? I've seen you try it and then I've seen you resort back to partisanship. What is partisan doing educating me and trying to advise on the negatives/dangers and general foolishness and unproductive results associated with partisanship?

I see my values as being primarily scientific (with a strong dash of Newton), secondarily political (with a strong dash of Jefferson), with religion third (with a strong dash of Jesus).  While ideally someone claiming strong scientific values might strive to answer all questions with scientific methods and certitude, in practice some problems aren't suitable for the scientific method.  Thus, I'll reluctantly fall back on more subjective and emotionally laden systems of thought.

Most importantly, my personal value systems suggest that political systems of thought don't appear out of nowhere.  They have an historical base.  They came into existence for a reason, to solve certain problems.  If one takes the effort to use the methods of the soft sciences, one can to some degree come to understand how conflicting partisan world views came to exist and why those with conflicting world views continue cling to them.

But even if one is honestly striving to understand how two conflicting world views came into being and how different folks will intensely cling to different systems, one still ends up forming opinions on which of the systems would produce better results in this particular time and place.  Yes, most often I end up leaning blue.  This particular moment in the cycles seems to call for leaning blue.  Now is not always.  Even as I call to lean blue on some issues, I'll warn of a need to swing back red at another time.  Note that even now I'm not classically blue in all respects.  See the gun policy thread.

But I'll still get as frustrated by Eric's inability to comprehend and lack of interest in comprehending any point of view other than his own as I get with your similar talents.  To say that two competing systems of thought had valid reasons for coming into existence, and that many of these reasons can still seem valid today, is not the same as saying "My system is absolutely right, any system that conflicts with it is absolutely wrong, and any individual who believes in a system that conflicts with mine is stupid, evil, insane, bribed by the Koch brothers, and / or otherwise not a member in good standing in the Community of Man.  So mote it be, now and forever, in Saint Reagan's Name, amen." 

I will not say, as you recently suggested, that it is pointless to listen to the other guys because you have an idea in your head of what they really think.  What you think they think is more important to you than what they think?  And from what you do say about what you think they think, your twisted ideas of the other guys are selected with malice and ill intent.

We do look at things differently.  I'm not sure you can understand or are interested in understanding the difference.  This isn't the first time I've tried to explain it.  As you say, it is not your way to listen.

In the meanwhile, if you state political opinion on a political form, if you want to wear big boy pants, you've got to deal with what comes back.  

From my perspective, if someone has announced an unwillingness to listen, the situation would seem to call for a larger megaphone.  To some degree I may give in to the temptation.  I'd prefer clarity, however, to volume.

How am I supposed to have a conversation with a man who represents scientific values? Do human values jive with scientific values? Are scientific values human in nature and similar to human values or are they more robotic in nature and machine oriented as far as values go? I need some clarity. Also, why do you think this a time when we should be leaning blue economically?

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-23-2016, 03:10 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: BTW, I view Keynesian being OK as long as it's not be used incorrectly and no longer being used democratically by Democrats to obtain voters. We don't want another Civil War or American Revolution that results in the division of American wealth. Did cable or the internet as we know it exist before Ronald Reagan?

Agreed on Keynes.  LBJ's generation of Democrats were far too blatant in using the War on Poverty and civil rights movement as methods of buying or drawing in Negro votes.  How could you blame them though?  The votes were there for the taking?  How could a politician turn away from the like?  The reaction was Nixon's Southern Strategy, an association of entitlement programs with white tax money being spent supporting blacks.  This turned into a rejection of all entitlement programs, and was associated with an exaggeration of how corrupt and inefficient the government is, which became a subtext of the Reagan era unravelling memes.  This knot of race and money is a good size part of the death the GI's notion that problems should be solved and big problems often require large amounts of money in the solving.  The dominance of the New Deal approach to government died in part of the poison of race, and the economy has been spiraling down ever since.  I see the economic and racial elements of the awakening and unraveling policy shifts as significantly intertwined, but it is hard to pin how much as only the most intense racists will talk about their feelings and motivations openly.  It has become too politically incorrect to do so.

This election cycle, Black Lives Matter and economic inequality seem like two almost separate themes and issues.  Dig into the history a bit and one finds they are not entirely unrelated.  As with the gun issue, you can't understand where we are now without knowing the history of how we got here.  The politics of race underlies a lot of issues that really ought to be treated independently at this point.

[Classic-Xer]

(08-23-2016, 03:23 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(08-23-2016, 02:26 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-23-2016, 02:18 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

Um....  X_4AD?

Those are my sentiments about Red - Blue bickering. Classic is one of our Red bickerers.

Who's the red bickerer? I'm not the former Red bickerer who is now aligned with the Blue bickerers. Ah, that be you big guy.

[Ragnarök_62]

(08-23-2016, 04:49 PM)taramarie Wrote: Ugh tribalism. Americans tell me not all are like that. I hope for America's sake that is true.

Ah, Rags found something on the interwebs which shall enlighten tara

http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-culture-of-meanness/

web site Wrote:One of the most striking things about much of American culture is the simple meanness of it. The cruelty.
Most of this seems to come down to three feelings:

• My life sucks. I have to work a terrible job I hate in order to survive. I have to bow and scrape and do shit I don’t want to do. You should have to as well.
  
• Anyone who doesn’t make it must not be willing to suffer as I do, therefore anyone who doesn’t make it deserves to be homeless, go without food, and so on.
  
• Anybody who is against us needs to be hurt and humiliated, because that’s how I see my superiors deal with people who go against them.
  

“Life is shit, therefore your life should be shit.”
“What you’ve got is what you deserve.”
There is also a culture of punching down, as commenter Lisa has observed. America has a high-violence, high-bullying society. As Lisa noted you can have a high-violence society in which it is considered unacceptable to attack the weak (doing so is viewed as cowardice), but that’s not the case in America.
In American culture, the weak are the preferred target. Failure is punishable by homelessness, suffering, and death.  Sick people sure don’t deserve proper pain medication. Poor people are poor because they “don’t add value.” If you’re poor, you definitely shouldn’t have good healthcare, because if you don’t have money, you don’t deserve money, and that’s because you’re a waste of space.
This appears to be a result of something simple: At every stage of American life, it’s a zero or negative sum game, and who gets ahead is decided by authority figures. Need to get into a good university? You need good grades from adults, you need to have done the right extra-curricular activities, you need references from adults.
On the job, only a few people will be promoted, and the competition is fierce. But worse, in many fields, people are often let go, and the competition to avoid getting fired or laid off is severe.
Who decides? Your boss. You’d better get down on your knees and do whatever your boss wants, because if you’re fired or let go you may never work again, and if you do hang on at a bottom-wage job, well, your life will suck.
When dealing with police, the constant American attitude is OBEY. If you don’t obey, then whatever the police do to you is justified. The police are like bosses in a way. One cop can ruin your life, even if you aren’t killed, beaten, or raped by them. A criminal record means you will never have a good job again.
OBEY.  ACQUIESCE.
On your knees, citizen.

[pbrower2a]

Quote:The entire process makes America a far more unpleasant place to live or visit than is necessary. The structure of dominance, meanness and cruelty is palpable to the visitor, and distressing; even as it warps the best inhabitant.

It creates a culture of oppressors and victims. Something for which one is not at fault, like being born into a disadvantaged group or poor... or having a handicap ridiculed or denied instead of accommodated, makes one a permanent victim. This of course feeds into economic exploitation (because, as good social-darwinists all recognize, exploitation is the engine of maximal progress), so the elites tell people to quit whining. So be a loser but just quit whining about your plight and the world will less challenge mass conscience.

Quote:I find myself without a real conclusion. Obviously (I hope), this is BAD. Obviously it should change. But it’s hard to change something that people have taken and turned into a moral imperative: Be mean to the weak and poor, who deserve their fates. Kick down, kiss up, because a failure to pucker up can have you thrown out of the charmed circle, and obviously higher-ups want to see you acting like them, imitation being the most sincere form of flattery.

This will last until America faces the sort of calamity that brings down economic elites -- like a war that goes catastrophically wrong or an economic calamity on the scale of the Great Depression. Think of what happened in Germany at the end of the last Crisis Era: the conservative military establishments of the US and Great Britain came to trust German blue-collar workers who got the second-worst shaft in Germany over all other surviving Germans. There just weren't many Jews left. So the victors shore up the labor unions while purging commerce, management, the civil service down to the letter carriers, and academia down to kindergarten teachers.

So how do we rediscover some civil community without some calamity? Such will not be a top-down decision, especially when the economic elites and their political retainers are themselves vicious people. They have fostered the culture of meanness because it enhances and enforces their profits. But should that meanness result in wars for profit we become the Evil Empire against which the rest of the world turns. Should it lead to destructive economics that completely separate toil from reward, then we could have an economic meltdown or a proletarian uprising. (Maybe there will be enough libertarian influence in such a revolution to lead to a revolution like that of the French Revolution of 1789 than like the Russian Revolution of 1917. But that, folks, is wishful thinking).

Assuming that the elites do not turn early and decisively to terror as they did in Germany in 1933 or Chile in 1973, which is a huge assumption, one can easily predict who would be the first to be executed. Those deemed culpable. There will be plenty of accusers.

 

Quote:It’s all very depressing, all very unnecessary, and all very much in the interests of the people who run your society.  Meanness in the chattel means they can rarely get together to challenge the masters, because they hate each other more than they hate the masters.

Blame, blame blame -- of course the people that the elites deem safe to blame. The innocent.

Quote:Kindness is a revolutionary act.

It is also wise.

[Classic-Xer]

(08-23-2016, 05:34 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(08-23-2016, 04:41 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-23-2016, 03:23 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(08-23-2016, 02:26 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-23-2016, 02:18 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

Um....  X_4AD?

Those are my sentiments about Red - Blue bickering. Classic is one of our Red bickerers.

Who's the red bickerer? I'm not the former Red bickerer who is now aligned with the Blue bickerers. Ah, that be you big guy.

If you fail to see the difference between people like me and Butler '54, versus, say, Eric, there is no hope for you.

Should the difference between the Hillary supporters really matter to me at this point?

[Eric the Green]

(08-23-2016, 05:34 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: If you fail to see the difference between people like me and Butler '54, versus, say, Eric, there is no hope for you.

But there is hope for you, big guy, as long as you drift in our direction

Bob's comments that I can't see the other side's point of view on things is absurd, of course. If anything, I can see the points of view on the other sides of mine, way better than the "other side" sees them. I'm quite well informed and aware of these other views, and of why people hold them.

But Bob will go on denying this, because he can't see people who have views who differ from their own, as possibly knowing something that he doesn't know. Whoever he disagrees with, is probably "blind" or "partisan," in his opinion.

I'm sorry to say that, though, since we agree on a number of things.

Those who are on the blue side, in general, are on the blue side because they are more well-informed, and more concerned. That may seem partisan and blind to say, but I honestly think it's the truth. That's not to deny, of course, that there are those who benefit from the views and policies of both sides.

But I don't care whether someone is "partisan" or "one-sided" as I and Classic Xer supposedly are, or not. Myself, I think it's often the right thing to be "partisan." Taking sides is often the only way anything gets done, even if compromise is also frequently needed in affairs of state and legislation. There is certainly no reason not to be "partisan," if one side happens to be right and the other side wrong.

Being in the middle of the political spectrum, is a relative thing. In America, to be in the "middle" today is to be on the right wing. The middle at any time is just the middle of current opinion within any particular nation or group. And being in the middle does not mean you are right, in the other definition of "right." To paraphrase that other Barry, moderation is not necessarily justice. But if moderate is where you honestly are, what you honestly think, that's your duty and your right to be in the middle. But you don't have to put down others who are not in the middle, or call them blind and values-locked, as Bob does. It's just different opinions, and all have a right to their voice, and at least a modicum of respect, if we can manage it.

I do agree, though, that people (especially on the right) are stuck in ideologies today. Contrary to what Bob says, I don't consider myself locked. But I am always likely to be a progressive. That's just who and what I am. I have Uranus rising, you know, and Sun conjunct Neptune. It's in my DNA. However you want to phrase it. That doesn't stop me these days from verging to the right (toward Hillary in fact) a bit on foreign policy from my Green and Libertarian friends, or even being a fiscal moderate on occasion, or from respecting and even being a part of "free enterprise."

So if you are stuck in an ideology, I only hope that you can recognize your ideology, what you believe, and how it affects your opinions on things. Self-knowledge is the start of wisdom.

[Eric the Green]

(08-23-2016, 01:27 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Are you not a partisan? At what point did you stop being viewed as a partisan and stop associating with the same group of partisans? I've seen you try it and then I've seen you resort back to partisanship. What is partisan doing educating me and trying to advise on the negatives/dangers and general foolishness and unproductive results associated with partisanship?

Seems like a good question for Bob. It seems like he wants to convince you, that he would seem less partisan to you if you were both transported back to the year 1980.

I'm not real sure if he actually held those opinions in 1980, that he attributes to himself as holding in 1980.

[pbrower2a]

(08-23-2016, 12:28 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-23-2016, 06:46 AM)Mikebert Wrote: Bob, here is an example of a paradigm issue and one of values issue to illustrate the difference I see. I would also say I am using the word paradigm in the sense Thomas Kuhn popularized, as a model, theory, or worldview.  Are you familiar with the Structures of Scientific Revolutions?  it's a very famous work from more than half a century ago.  It bought the word into common use.

Paradigm: There are two fundamantal ways to view tyhe process of economic growth.  The neoclassical approach is that investment leads to increased worker productivity which leads to GDP growth.  The Keynesian approach is that (increased) demand leaders to GDP growth which leads to investment.  One can call the first "supply-side" and the latter "demand-side".

In principle this is an empirical question and can be resolved using the methods of science.  The facts are consistent with both models, however. Since no profits are made unless output is sold, demand and GDP rise in tandem. And it is an historical fact that rising GDP is highly correlated with rising capital over time.  So, scientifically, there is no clearcut correct answer.

Now folks who believe the supply-side model would favor removing impediments to investment as the means to improve the economy. Therefore they support cutting taxes on the rich (the investor class), reducing regulations (impediments to productive investment) and in general reducing the scales of economic distorations that can lead to malinvestment (shrinking the size of government). 

Conversely, demand-siders favor stimulating demand by (1) putting money into the hands of people who you know will spend it (jobs programs for the poor & working class) (2) actiively encouraging the development of new leadering sectors that create new categories of demand (industrial policy).

As you probably already have have seen, most folks in the first category fall into the red side while those in the second the blue.  This issue should, in principle, be resolvable using facts and logic by the methods of science.  It is not a values issue.

Values: There is a law currently being debated in California that would remove the religious exemption to anti-discrimination law.  This issue is certain Christian schools do not hire people who are not Christians or who do not adhere to a Christian lifestyle  (also not hired would be people actively committing serious sins like gay sex, although celebate gays would be welcome).  Whether or not this law should be passed is not is not a scientific question.  It cannot be resolved by appeals to facts and logic.  It is a values issue.  Such issues are resolved by force, either politically (e.g. elections/legislation, the courts) or through violence (e.g. US Civil War, ISIS).

The Civil War was the result of a political election. World War II was the result of failed diplomacy. The Revolutionary War was a result of a government that did not recognize the rights of Americans. Can history repeat itself, you better believe that it can.

At least get your history right!

The American colonists accepted their subject relationship to the British Crown so long as the Crown largely left the People of the Colonies to seeking and implementing their own policies on local matters. It's when George III started clamping down on the Colonies that the American Revolution became inevitable. It's when conservatives with integrity (like John Adams) turn against a corrupt or despotic leadership that the revolution is certain.

......

The political election of 1860 was the consequence of political realities. Northerners lost their tolerance for the demand of slave-owners to be enforcers of the will of slave masters contrary to well-established values in the North, and voted for the Presidential nominee most likely to contest the power of the planters who had shown what they really believed in in Bloody Kansas. Abolitionist sentiment was strong Up North, and if the planters had tried to use the centralized government to enforce their way, then it might have been the North that would secede.

I have my theory on what Abraham Lincoln was considering: the British model of emancipation would have done the job. Masters would have been obliged to emancipate slaves in return for compensation (likely in government bonds). The British emancipated slaves throughout the British Empire with practically no violence. It took time and expense -- but no Civil War.

......

The Second World War, at least in Europe, was the consequence of some of the most successful diplomacy ever -- the demonic Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact that allowed Hitler and Stalin to carve up central Europe into spheres of influence... and in view of what the Nazis and Soviets did, the Hell that was Nazi Germany and the Hell that was Stalin's Soviet Union. Hitler was not confident of his ability to subjugate Poland without such a collaboration; indeed, the Poles formed a ruthless and desperate defense of their country that collapsed when the Soviet Union stabbed Poland in the back. Both Parties met their terms. Hitler would give refuge only to Germans fleeing the Baltic countries, both Stalin and Hitler would obliterate Poland, and neither would interfere in each others' murders. Stalin would even send raw materials to Hitlerland for use in military equipment against the western "plutocracies" of France and Britain. Hitler eventually broke the arrangement, which was not a diplomatic failure but just another crime.

Pearl Harbor was not a consequence of diplomatic failure. By late 1941 the USA had but one way to avoid war with Japan -- to become complicit in Japanese aggression. That was not going to happen. America was becoming increasingly hostile to Japan's chief ally. It was only a matter of time before the USA got into war with Nazi Germany.

[Eric the Green]

A Closer Look takes on both candidates.

[pbrower2a]

(08-24-2016, 12:50 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Sadly, there is this whole WW2 denialist camp. In a way, there has been one since the 1930s - it started with the America Firsters. The typical tin foil theory goes something like this:

'We didn't need to get involved in WW2, doing so was doing the bidding of the grand Atlanticist cabal with no borders (e.g. Wall Street, Fleet Street and the Jews who "run" them). We should have let Hitler do his thing over there. Meanwhile, we ought to have embraced selective elements of Nazism without losing our democracy, most especially, doubling down on America Firstism, and, "rightfully" considering the Jews as suspect and perhaps Anti-American enemies. After all, everyone knows it was the Jews who created Marxist-Leninist Communism. Dividing up the world between an America First US (with our Monrovian sphere of the Americas) and the Axis, would have led to 1000 years of peace and prosperity.'

Sick stuff, I know. But as there were true believers mid last Century, there are also true believers now.

It's manifestly obvious that the Nazis did not know how to create human happiness -- only destroy it. Slaves cannot be happy except when diverted from such a reality. The brutality of Nazi economics even without the horrors of the Holocaust establish the need to have destroyed Nazism.

I once saw a Nazi tract that cited Churchill, of all people, on the horrors of "Jewish Communism". I cannot deny the horrors of Stalinism, but I can notice that what Churchill found wrong with "Jewish Communism" wasn't that the Jews were expressing their Jewish "spirit" or "race" -- but that instead that the "Jewish Communists" weren't Jewish enough, and that their return to Judaism would solve all that was wrong with them. Churchill had no problem with the devout Jew.

Dividing the world with the Nazis? Stalin did that in 1939, and look what that got him in less than two years -- his regime in mortal peril because it had only one nearly-licked ally. So why could Americans have trusted the Nazis? All that I saw in Nazi leadership was lying sociopaths, people who at best belong in prison preying upon each other instead of upon the rest of humanity.

Junk thought is nothing new. It always has its temptation. So as a gentile you have a dispute with a Jewish landlord? Maybe it is tempting to raise the right arm at a 45-degree angle and shout a Nazi slogan.  It's also horribly wrong. Maybe you are living in a place that you can't afford and might as well consider moving to another apartment -- or doing what my brother did, going from the paradise of the San Francisco Bay Area to grim, dreary, joyless, mindless (but cheap-to-live-in) rural Michigan, where "culture" means your music and video collection, or whatever happens to be on cable TV. Books? Worthless if you don't find anyone willing to talk about them. Economic distress isn't easy to deal with; it requires compromises of one's dreams just to put food on the table. Find that the person among whom twenty other applicants who got the job is black? Would you be any happier if one of your white competitors for the job got it? The problem is that there are so few job openings, and so many jobs too small for your spirit. If you don't like such work, then maybe you ought to consider starting a business that requires 70 hours of work a week and offers no guarantee -- instead of working 40 hours a week where you have the certainty of poverty. Don't like being in hock to loan sharks? Then maybe you need a union card instead of a credit card. America was a better place in many respects when working people were more likely to have a union card than a credit card. But no -- have faith in right-wing pols who seek to promote growth through economic exploitation.

America is in many respects a nastier place than it used to be, mostly because the economic elites have debased their morals for maximal profit. The secret for getting ahead in most non-menial roles in life is to be a bad person who does not get caught -- someone who cons people or enforces the terms of exploitative contracts. The people who really rule us care more for their luxuries than for Humanity as a whole, and all that keeps them from doing the worst to Humanity as a whole is fear of retribution.

The raw deal is a bad deal, more immediately for the person who gets the raw part -- and in the end, the person who profiteers early from the raw deal. If I were to give a lecture on economics on one topic it would be the theory of the deal. One can trade trash for trash, but that gets nobody nowhere. Fleece deals that hurt one of the participants leave the person fleeced with no further options. Trades of quality for quality: so long as people can make or do something of quality one can have a healthy series of exchanges that create real prosperity. I could even throw in the concept that there is no such thing as a free lunch into the lecture because the free lunch involves a sort of fleece.

[Eric the Green]

One of Trump's previous pivots.

[Bob Butler 54]

A brief insert on the US entry into World War II.  In 1940, US Naval Intelligence thought it prudent for the US to get involved in World War II, but FDR had made promises not to get involved.  Thus, it was considered expedient to provoke Japan into an overt act such as the Pearl Harbor strike.  This would allow entry into the war without losing FDR political capitol and getting the firm backing of the US People.  Naval Intelligence proposed eight steps that might be taken to provoke Japan.

It was never proven that FDR saw the McCollum Memo and there were denials that the US was deliberately seeking entry in the war, but all eight steps recommended to provoke war were taken shortly after the memo was written and the intended result, the Pearl Harbor raid, did occur.

Coincidence?  I don't think so.  The Wiki article on the McCollum Memo includes...

Wiki Wrote:The Eight-Action plan
The McCollum memo contained an eight-part plan to counter rising Japanese power over East Asia:

A. Make an arrangement with Britain for the use of British bases in the Pacific, particularly Singapore
B. Make an arrangement with the Netherlands for the use of base facilities and acquisition of supplies in the Dutch East Indies
C. Give all possible aid to the Chinese government of Chiang-Kai-Shek
D. Send a division of long range heavy cruisers to the Orient, Philippines, or Singapore
E. Send two divisions of submarines to the Orient
F. Keep the main strength of the U.S. fleet now in the Pacific[,] in the vicinity of the Hawaiian Islands
G. Insist that the Dutch refuse to grant Japanese demands for undue economic concessions, particularly oil
H. Completely embargo all U.S. trade with Japan, in collaboration with a similar embargo imposed by the British Empire

Likewise, in an analytical reading - using the structure and process model from Power and Interdependence, Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, 1977, p.18, should the U.S. fully implemented (which it did) all eight-actions-plan as outlined, and should Japan sense its increase vulnerabilities, then “it may use military force to attempt to redress that situation as Japan did in 1941; ...”[7] In a historical perspective, a more open (absence of prearranged agenda) reading of McCollum memo (Arthur H. McCollum), with a strong foreign pressure (at the time, and traditionally as a young nation, the general U.S. public sentiment was not to get involved in foreign wars) from its allies, would suggest that the United States administration needed a Pearl Harbour like attack at home to ... the war that was happening in Europe.

Note, I still have my picture of FDR up as my avatar.  Secretly provoking war isn't the sort of thing one wants to do, but it may easily be considered necessary in this case.  Today Hitler is a boogie men a lot of us will use to spice up our forum entries.  What should a leader have done to make sure he was stopped?  No smoking gun has been found and I doubt one ever will, but I suspect the McCollum note's influence was real.  I wouldn't want such a stunt pulled again, but definitely would respect FDR's decision to provoke if the decision was indeed made by him.

It certainly adds extra poignancy to the reports of a grieving FDR slumping at his desk after the reports of the attack came in.  By some coincidence, the carriers just happened to be at sea.  It was thought that aircraft couldn't do that much damage to battleships.

One of my favorite accounts of the war is Edward Stafford's The Big E, which follows the carrier USS Enterprise through the war.  Lots of real action from later in the war, of course.  The Enterprise got just about every battle star available in the Pacific.  Of interest, for some reason, most unusually, the carrier was on full war footing when she sailed from Pearl just before the attack, sending armed aircraft on full patrols as the ship sailed out of harm's way.

Lots of inconclusive evidence of funny stuff going one, quite capable of convincing folk who want to be convinced.

[Eric the Green]

Hillary Clinton's Press Secretary Brian Fallon on Wednesday tweeted that one of the Clinton Foundation's donors was GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Trump had called for an investigation into donations to the Clinton Foundation, claiming it sold access and political favors. "I say shut it down," Trump said in a statement Monday.

An editorial by Caleb Howe for Red State said that Trump is calling for the Foundation to be investigated after he said in January he donated to politicians in order for them to carry out his wishes.

In January, the Washington Examiner reported that Trump said, "I've got to give to them, because when I want something, I get it. When I call, they kiss my [expletive]." Trump said about his then-opponents for the Republican presidential nomination, "I was looking at the ones I'm running against. I've contributed to most of them — can you believe it?"

Howe said in his Red State article that the situation should be investigated and everyone who participated should be denounced. "One of the candidates for President is demanding the other be condemned and investigated criminally for participation in a mutual transaction between the two of them."

The situation is endemic of the current election cycle, Howe added. "It really is an absurd situation. Very 2016."

Howe also noted that Trump said he believed Clinton should get the "benefit of the doubt" when it comes to millions of foreign dollars the Clinton Foundation received.


Breaking News at Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/Clinton-...z4IHtAChji

[Eric the Green]

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-23-2016, 03:44 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: How am I supposed to have a conversation with a man who represents scientific values? Do human values jive with scientific values? Are scientific values human in nature and similar to human values or are they more robotic in nature and machine oriented as far as values go? I need some clarity.

Hmm…  Do I really need to explain my concept of a scientific world view?  Really?  Well, maybe I do.  I’ve lived with it for so long as part of my way of looking at things that I find it hard to think others might not see things that way.

From a scientific perspective, one learns by observing the world.  The ancients stared at the stars and the planets in the night sky long and hard until they became able to predict with accuracy exactly where and when such tiny little lights would be found.  One wants to refine one’s observations until one can come up with predictive equations.  Some honored truths might be abbreviated F=MA and E=Mc^2.  Observations ought to be repeatable if they are to be taken seriously.  One can never absolutely prove a theory or equation, there is always a possibility that a new situation or experiment might invalidate any theory or analysis.  There are rituals such as observe, theorize, predict, confirm, publish.  The process of learning through observing has become highly ritualized.

A religious world view is more apt to derive its basic truths from holy texts or the words of holy men.  You can start a religious world view with the Ten Commandments or the entire Bible.  There are, of course, lots of other similar options.  The emphasis is on supernatural sources of moral truths, with ritual and hierarchy often following.  This is too short a summary and religions are too diverse for a brief description to apply well to all of them, but hopefully you can distinguish the difference between scientific and religious approaches to understanding and manipulating the world.

A political world view might also start with a handful of key principles, with Jefferson’s self evident truths being a familiar example.  While there are definite moral principles there, and God does get invoked on occasion, political world views draw one into day by day policy decisions and the practical bureaucracy involved in governing a town, county, state or country.  We’ve been comparing and contrasting the red and blue political systems forever.  Marx has his own systems of premises and procedures, as might the Greens and Libertarians some day.  Again, vague, but hopefully enough to compare and contrast with scientific and religious world views.  It hopefully shouldn’t be hard to distinguish between how physicists, priests and legislators pursue different forms of knowledge and action and shape the world in different ways using different tools.

In the United States, perhaps in most of the world at this point, many folk involve themselves in all three ways of learning about and manipulating the world.  If one uses technology, and who doesn’t these days, one has to be familiar with at least some basics of how technology works.  This suggests some acknowledgement of the fruits and methods of science.  Similarly, many folk go to church, and many people belong to political parties.  Thus it is almost always absurdly simplistic to speak as if any individual has a world view entirely dedicated to one approach, entirely devoid of the others.

In theory, you could have a one approach culture.  In theory a pure Marxist society does away entirely with religion, and politics becomes a science.  In Theory, one might develop a pure no tech theocracy where the church is the government, wholly dictated by holy writ.  In practice, one generally has to juggle the three perspectives.

In theory, all three approaches can stand independent and equal.  If one is presented with a question, it is convenient and simplest if one can decide which of the three approaches to knowledge is applicable to the question.  If one is trying to start a reluctant car, one puts on one’s science hat.  If one is teaching a child to become a aware prudent social creature, perhaps one puts on one’s religious hat.  If one is trying to prevent those (expletive deleted) from building a 700 foot tall windmill across the street, perhaps one puts on a political hat.

Sometimes things refuse to separate cleanly.  At what age does a fetus become sentient?  At what time does God grant a fetus a soul?  Does one take seriously the XIVth Amendment which says one becomes a citizen when one is born?   Never mind that some of these question are hard to answer, which question ought to be relevant?

They can be juggled in many ways.  The example I often use is the fundamentalist whose understanding of holy writ conflicts with the theory of evolution.  If his dedication to religion is close to the core of his being, many fundamentalists find it necessary to declare that the science of evolution must somehow be false.  Carbon dating doesn’t work as the scientists say it does.  Maybe there is a conspiracy theory out there.  Anyway, if the holy book is right, the scientists have to be wrong.

I try to put science ahead of politics ahead of religion.  If a political system says supply side stimulus is good, that one should always take from the poor to give to the rich, and I see economic failures when the theory is put into practice, I would learn from observing the world rather than cling to political speeches and theories claiming how wonderful supply side is.  On the other hand, some buy very much into politicians and politics, will follow sets of political principles rigidly, and avoid looking at how poorly the political promises and predictions match what occurs on the streets.

This is just one more convoluted way of categorizing how different people look at the world differently.

(08-23-2016, 03:44 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Also, why do you think this a time when we should be leaning blue economically?

Another note...