Who else would like politics to be humdrum?

[Eric the Green]

(02-15-2022, 02:09 PM)JasonBlack Wrote:

(02-15-2022, 12:43 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump was a dick in his policies; his twitter remarks mean nothing by comparison..... You seem to be a free-market conservative, a stance with which I disagree.

some of this is getting a little buzzword-y, I'll break down a few of my thoughts on these topics
1) Even as a capitalist, Reagan was honestly kind of a cunt.  Less so because he cut taxes (they were ridiculous, I'm glad he did), and more because he intentionally spread the AIDS epidemic because he wanted the gay people to die and pushed illegal drugs into the streets so he could have an excuse to arrest more inner city blacks.
2) As a conservative, I like the basic idea of environmentalism. The idea of "you have the responsibility to fix/pay for something you damaged" is a concept I can understand readily. What I hate about environmentalism is the culture of misanthropy that so often comes along with it. How all they do is try to guilt trip humans for being so "materialistic", even for basic shit like having to drive to work (you know...so they can eat and pay bills), using electricity to run the refrigerator and/or watch TV after a stressful day of work. There are also a lot of intellectually dishonest claims made about it, but I won't go into those because that's not really the point (ie, I'm not a climate change denier).
3) The majority of the reason I hate the welfare state isn't because "capitalism" or "it gives money to lazy people", but, as Thomas Sowell put it "the black family unit survived 300 years of slavery only to be destroyed in a single generation by the welfare state". Families are much more functional when they have to actually work together and aren't completely dependent on government.  
4) No one ever explains what they mean by racism. Does it exist? Yes, I've seen at least a few examples, but generally people either provide no evidence, or provide claims which are bloody ridiculous hasty deductions that often contradict each other (mundane example: I heard being called "racist" for not wanting to see Black Panther, and other people being called "racist" for seeing it on opening night because they should have left that time for the black people to see it). It's the ultimate "boy who cried wolf" of the modern age, where the examples of actual racism slip through the cracks because people's attention is so readily diverted to fake examples or they've just tuned it out entirely due to compassion fatigue or rhetoric that never matches their observations. 

2) Unwise excesses and unfair attacks on people exist in all social movements, I suppose. Since I don't think correcting pollution and climate change can mostly be put on individuals, I don't blame people for commuting especially when housing prices for living close to work are so high (I live in CA). Using electricity is not a bad thing at all, although conservation is wise. The real need is to require the CEOs to change their products (e.g. stop mining and selling fossil fuels and switch to renewable energy as soon as possible).
3) the notion that welfare creates dependency is so exaggerated beyond the facts that it is merely a conservative slogan to create opposition to needed social programs. It's nice to work together, but these days work pays too little or jobs are often too scarce because of neoliberalism.
4) Your comments are understandable about racism, but it seems clear that it exists, that it's systemic, and that it's still very abusive in ways that really hurt (the enormous wealth gaps, the degradation of communities, the racial profiling by police and institutions, etc.

Quote:

Quote:Nah, we don't need Patriarchy anymore. Women are much wiser rulers, as we can see in history..... Charlton Heston was an excellent example of bad patriarchy, waving his stupid gun around and shouting "from my cold dead hands!" What a creep he was! And a very bad actor too.

I'd like to see more evidence for that. There are a few examples like Elizabeth I, but overall, I think that claim is unsubstantiated. 
but...yes, he shouted "from my cold dead hands" to people who wanted to take his guns. Being willing to fight for your freedom is...the essence of what being an American is, and when that essence is under attack, we should be up in arms about it. In a crisis in particular, you need fighters, people who thrive on the necessary conflict that is required to bring back peace. Women who are up to and desirous of this task are few and far between. 

Not only Elizabeth I, but Elizabeth II, Victoria, Queen Anne; the best rulers well above the average for the male English kings, and many other recent examples like Golda Meir, Angela Merkel, Teresa May, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia.....

We should take more guns away from more of these cold dead hands. Guns are not needed, unless you really are part of a well-regulated militia defending our national/state freedom from attack. Otherwise, guns merely cause unnecessary deaths. They do not guarantee our freedom in any way, otherwise. Men may be better at fighting, but women do it too, and fighting is not the only need in a society seeking progress as well as safety from attack-- which is far from the only defining value in life. Women are better community builders, better at listening and nourishing people, and more empathetic, and those skills are as valuable as more-aggressive skills, if not more so now. The USA has fought few if any wars that really needed to be fought. Arguably, World War II, but that was the inevitable outcome of World War I and its resentments, which was a totally unnecessary war. Most wars are merely fights over who shall be the ruler; it is largely an anarchronism. I am not a pacifist anymore, because there still are just as many brutal and aggressive tyrants in the world as in other times, but that means we need more revolutions, as well as truly defensive actions; not more wars where one ruler tries to take over the territory of another.

Quote:Boomers have a very different memory of what was, for the other generations during that time, often the best period of their lives ("The High" is generally remembered fondly for a reason). Women reported much higher levels of happiness during this era, probably because they strongly dislike their current existence where they're expected to live exactly the same lifestyle as a man in spite of 1/17 the levels of testosterone and being markedly higher on both trait neuroticism and trait agreeableness 

I did not remember the "High" fondly. It was a time when only certain people were admired and the rest unfairly bullied, exiled and insulted. No, it is not fondly remembered by many. Women disliked being mere housewives and locked into such a meaningless and servile occupation. If some resent having to work nowadays, that was because neoliberalism came in with Reagan and forced many to give up any income advancement or accept decline in their family wages, forcing both parents to work for economic reasons.

Quote:

Quote:And Gen X should get over its resentment of boomers, largely misplaced, and start contributing their role as managers and servers as we restart progress in the 2020s.

In order for that to happen, boomers need to quit speaking in terms of abstract platitudes and start caring more about results than moral crusades. It's one thing to get over something that has already happened to you, it's another to ask someone to get over something which is currently happening. Gen X are not all as selfish as you think they are. Sure, they want privacy, they want to have a higher standard of living, but they're also the generation most invested in childcare and generally willing to make a lot of sacrifices for people they care about. Why are Gen X and Millennials so much more "externally focused" than boomers? ...because most of us have been poor. You have to be externally focused when you want to feed yourself. You have to be externally focused when systems that were supposed to work aren't reliable and you need to do it yourself. If you're constantly railing against the system because you don't like concepts like materialism, selfishness, etc, you never get around to focusing on the real world, focusing on the less sexy, often mundane task of actually building the systems to bring about what you want.

Serving as "managers and servers" is precisely what Gen X are already doing for the most part, and largely, they get ignored for it, or worse, seen as "too materialistic" in spite of doing the work which is most needed as both boomers and millennials go on about "calling", "consciousness" and other words that help them maintain a feeling of specialness (again, I say this as a millennial, it's kind of our Achilles heel as a generation).

I think critics of boomers focus on our moral platitudes or narcissism because that is an easier target than criticizing those who still advocate the policies that we still need and have been denied for all these years since the Boomer youth era; policies that promote opportunity instead of oligarchy, peace instead of unnecessary or imperialistic militarism, climate justice and green lifestyles and business instead of climate breakdown and pollution, fair justice instead of racial profiling, gun control instead of gun obsession.....The reason younger generations are poor now is precisely because Boomer policies were not enacted; instead we got free-market economics that taxes the middle class instead of the wealthy, that allows business to pay poor wages and pollute our environment, that sent our economy overseas or reduced it to machines without compensation, that destroyed needed social programs that protect us from the greedy capricious behavior of the brutal bosses who care nothing about anything except their own wealth. And those younger people who still subscribe to neoliberal tax revolts and neoliberalism and instead blame boomer culture are just perpetuating their own lousy conditions.

And being an idealist, I want to bring about a society in which the arts and spirituality and philosophy are valued. Creative people are indeed special and unique in that way; unless they are so, they are merely copycats. Creativity is the highest value. Indeed, material goals should be distributed fairly so poverty is not so widespread, and doing the work you are called to do and is needed even if not "special" is fine with me, but money is just a means to an end, as we have lost sight of the end. The highest end as the old philosophers said is God, however you conceive the meaning of the word. But it does not mean mammon, or selfishness. It does not mean a society dominated by a wealthy class that wants more for themselves and less for everybody else, and is empowered to get it by tempting anti-tax and anti-government propaganda that calls them the "job creaters" and blames welfare recipients, immigrants and ethnic groups for the troubles which the wealthy themselves have created.

Quote:

Quote:I have my doubts about your diagnosis. I am not sure what training you have in mind, and why men should get it and not women. I don't see any diminution of respect for athletics in our society, for example. On the contrary, it is too highly venerated, and those who study are still considered nerds, although perhaps less so than decades ago. If you doubt masculinity is highly valued, perhaps you didn't watch the national obsession on TV this Sunday? And look at the characters involved?

Frankly, the Superbowl is a bunch of tribal nonsense. I can understand it's appeal from the standpoint of creating some level of social cohesion, but it has taught men that masculinity is about screaming and drama, rather than quiet strength and exercising authority over your domain. Imo, sports are primarily games for boys, and men should be focused more on industry and raising strong, well-educated children.

Why should exercizing authority be respected, admired or aspired to? We need democracy, not authority.

I still am not clear on what training to be masculine should consist of, in your opinion.

I doubt those who train for our athletic obsessions are just doing screaming or drama. It takes strength, discipline, energy and talent. Of course, this exists in both men and women, but football is ultra-masculine and is more than just tribal but shows masculinity is valued. Over-valued in fact.

Well-educated children does not result from the neoliberal, Republican denigration of education as elitist. It results mostly from a well-supported public education system, not home schooling.

Quote:

Quote:What we have been uninstructed to do in the last 40-50 years is have any sense of civic responsibility beyond your respect for just having some stuff and being left alone. We don't even have civic classes in schools anymore. Is it any wonder that young people don't get the government they want, when they never learned how to vote and be involved and participate in citizens' government to deal with real issues? This is the real breakdown that has happened, and it is the direct result of the tax revolt and neoliberal Reaganomics and the excessive veneration for "free enterprise" which is really slavery to bosses. The owners of our society are not interested in a well-informed and well-educated citizenry; it's against their interests.

first part: yes
second part: no. keep in mind there is only one period of history where taxes have been that high, and that most periods of greater civic participation throughout human history occurred under conditions of much lower taxes

no, disagree. The best periods are when the wealthy are expected to contribute their fair share.

[Eric the Green]

Responding again to these words from JasonBlack: "Serving as "managers and servers" is precisely what Gen X are already doing for the most part, and largely, they get ignored for it, or worse, seen as "too materialistic" in spite of doing the work which is most needed as both boomers and millennials go on about "calling", "consciousness" and other words that help them maintain a feeling of specialness (again, I say this as a millennial, it's kind of our Achilles heel as a generation)."

The discussion of boomers as narcissists if they value specialness is interesting. Personally I don't know two many boomers who fit this description. I do know some, including myself. These days, since the 3T, I have noticed more arrogance and protectiveness of position and authority among those boomers I know. Many of them may have strong opinions and ideals. But I don't know too many who consider themselves special because they have a unique creative contribution to share. The prejudice of our society against such ideas and approaches to life is too strong to resist even by boomers. That has always been the case even in strongly boomer-influenced periods like the recent 2T and 3T.

In my work I often helped people to discover what it is, maybe several pursuits, that only they can do. That can be called a "calling." Everyone has something that if they don't share it or express it, it won't be done. This is especially true of people who have a spiritual or artistic talent to offer. Being true of everyone, this is not a narcissist approach, as if people are superior who have a feeling of specialness or a calling to higher consciousness or special vocation. Everyone potentially does. Not just a few talented Boomers. I assume people need this to feel truly fulfilled. And it requires a full, creative, adventurous, sensitive life, and maybe even a sexy one. I assume that all our lives are improved if we gain higher consciousness through spiritual pursuits and inward seeking, as well as by slowing down to appreciate the wonder of nature and the spirit in all beings and the one spirit in all.

The fact that a spiritual path takes you beyond just yourself and connects you with all, may require some work dedicated to "self improvement" in this way, but the result is stronger connection with others, the world, the higher power, the mystic awareness, and greater compassion and willingness to help. Such pursuits may be misunderstood by those forced or directed by "ambition" to keep noses to grindstones and pencils devoted to endless paperwork and financial gambling and bossing people or obeying bosses. But nevertheless it can hardly be said to be narcissist.

The average Joe, the harassed commuter, the dedicated parents and the working stiffs are not put down by those unfolding their calling; we all need to engage in maintaining ourselves and doing our part in the work to be done-- in a society that is intentionally organized to deprive people of a greater life. People living less lives than they could be living are not to blame for the conditions imposed on them, and they have the right and duty to live in the way they need to live. Talking about the specialness of each person does not imply insulting or looking down on people who choose the normal lifestyles that help keep society and families going. The hipsters may look down on the squares as uncool conformists, and the squares may think the hipsters are deviant fools. But that doesn't have to govern how people really feel about their own lives and their value to one another.

Older millennials have often been raised and coached to be "special" and "entitled" as well by boomer parents. But they tend not to be as focused on individual creativity as some prophets and idealists are. The difference in generations in this regard may be small. But as a rule civic generations see their "specialness" more as being part of a team or organization that advances society. They thrive on the feeling of being involved in a society moving forward. JFK was the spokesman for this feeling among the GI "greatest generation," being one of the first prophets of generational consciousness when in his inaugural address he said "the torch has been passed to a new generation." He saw the experience of the war as creating a feeling of solidarity and collegial togetherness that could be continued and applied to the more civilian post-war pursuits such as those he mentioned in the speech, as well as in "defending freedom." So, do some millennials have something of this same spirit, as they march for climate action, gun control, justice, higher wages, and voting rights?

And Boomers too felt some of this same collegeal spirit dedicated to such causes too during the 1960s and 70s, inspired by JFK and other civic prophets, adaptive artist "dreamers" and fellow prophetic and hip boomers for a while. Some, of course, still do, and we don't think of this as being narcissist or even special.

[JasonBlack]

off topic but

(02-10-2022, 12:52 AM)JasonBlack Wrote: From what I've gleaned so far of your other posts, you seem like someone I would hold some pretty different views on, but I share your sentiments here wholeheartedly. When politics is "humdrum", people are free to just be....left the ___ alone and focus on their own lives, their own meaning and their own mission. Unfortunately, times us crisis force everyone to think about politics more than is ideal.

In spite of our differences, we appear to have a shared sense that checks and balances are one of the most (if not the most) important aspects of a functioning free society. When a special interest group can swoop in and change everything by force, that's just about the worse possible scenario for anyone, left or right, who holds basically liberal views on things.

....jfc this reads as so much more rude than what was in my mind when I wrote it. Fortunately he seemed to take it in stride. Kudos for that.

[Eric the Green]

We are really suffering today because of the long reign of neoliberalism. This word stands for policies of allowing the market to set policy; free-market conservatism and libertarian economics. It means trickle-down economics; giving all the breaks to the rich because they are "job creaters" and hoping the benefits trickle-down. These policies were largely instituted in the USA by Ronald Reagan and his Republican Party. It has some antecedents in previous laissez-faire, social darwinian, robber baron policies that dominated the USA before progressivism and the New Deal, not to mention the earlier overt institution of slavery in which people were property. Now what we have is a society in which property is the only value, and this amounts to much the same thing.

In the midst of related but sometimes diversionary debates over identity and civil rights issues, the fundamental issue of neoliberalism can get forgotten. Our current Supreme Court was given to us by the "Culture War", which essentially was waged during the Third Turning that received that title from S&H. In the battle for public opinion, the left or cultural freedom and rights largely won, but the culture warriors did not give up, and Mitch McConnell and the Electoral College has left us with a Supreme Court and many legislators dedicated to the culture war.

But those dedicated to the Culture War on the Right are also tied and bound largely to neoliberalism too. You could say all culture warriors are neoliberals, even though all neoliberals are not necessarily Culture Warriors. Essentially the Culture Warriors want to overturn the 1960s, whereas the neoliberals want to overturn the 1960s but also the 1930s. Neoliberalism favors the wealthy, and they are likely to be from the "race" or ethnic group or sexual identity group that is already privileged. To favor neoliberalism is thus to disenfranchise less-fortunate groups in our society. And this also means the great group called the middle class also declines and shrinks as a new feudalism takes over; one just like the previous Medieval and mercantile one but without the cultural values it provided; a feudalism of owners and wealthy corporate people who have no cultural interests or values at all and could care less.

We really suffer from 40 years of neoliberalism today. The power of public institutions and a government dedicated to creating communities in which people benefit, get educated, connect with each other and enjoy life, are disappearing. Public ownership is denigrated. The power of money and property continue to push out small businesses and cultural facilities in favor of those few who can pay high rents to big landowners. Thus in my County I learned today than an iconic amusement park, Great America, is going to have its land sold for 313 Million dollars to some owner who will close the park. No doubt, in wealthy Silicon Valley the big oligarchs, developers and real estate tycoons see big bucks in erecting expensive housing condos and commercial office buildings on this site, which will no longer be dedicated for any purpose other than to make more money for its owners and high-income tenants. What is likely to be built on the land is stuff like insurance companies, real estate offices, big banks, financial service offices, computer companies, etc. and some expensive housing; businesses that have no cultural or community value at all and only are there because they make money for a few wealthy people.

If we had responsible social-democratic-green government, it would not permit this. The government would take over this property, by eminent domain if necessary, and make this amusement park a public park and a possession of a city, county or state. The people would own it collectively. But no, under neoliberalism, "individualism" is all that counts. The market is to decide these things, and the magic of the market will create prosperity for all. After 41 years of this nonsense, any sane country would call BS-- especially in a liberal state like California. But the price of property has become so high here, and the force of money so powerful, that stores, businesses and cultural operations that have some value to the people can't afford the rent or the title to the property.

Do I want politics to be humdrum? No, I want it to be exciting, and the excitement comes (rarely, these days) when we have leaders who call BS on trickle-down economics and seek as much as possible reform and progress toward what we call now a green new deal.

For more info:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/a...ge-monbiot
https://youtu.be/jOuzABjrAo4
https://youtu.be/scok7hEexCk
https://youtu.be/KW5FRuMkQ6g
https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/thi...liberalism
https://youtu.be/1BgGCu5N--I
https://youtu.be/z5CCRI1vdwE

[David Horn]

After sharing a week with a radical and reactionary SCOTUS -- leading us to God knows where, a little boredom would be welcome.  Unfortunately, that is a luxury not on offer, as they say.  The line is now drawn: tyranny or not!  Just getting back to where we were (a none too delightful place in itself) will take some heavy lifting.  The push beyond that will take more time and effort than we seem willing to expend.

We Americans -- especially those of us on the left -- are not good at patience, and others in the mushy center are unwilling to suffer for one second to avoid much worse suffering next year or the year after that.  This is coming to a head, and we're not ready.  I'm not sure we know how to get there either. Please, prove me wrong.

[Eric the Green]

(06-28-2022, 01:14 PM)David Horn Wrote: After sharing a week with a radical and reactionary SCOTUS -- leading us to God knows where, a little boredom would be welcome.  Unfortunately, that is a luxury not on offer, as they say.  The line is now drawn: tyranny or not!  Just getting back to where we were (a none too delightful place in itself) will take some heavy lifting.  The push beyond that will take more time and effort than we seem willing to expend.

We Americans -- especially those of us on the left -- are not good at patience, and others in the mushy center are unwilling to suffer for one second to avoid much worse suffering next year or the year after that.  This is coming to a head, and we're not ready.  I'm not sure we know how to get there either. Please, prove me wrong.

I can show the astrological indicators of a reform decade, FWIW, but that would not prove that we will live up to them. So far, we aren't. That is not unusual in the first years of the other reform decades in history, about 29 years apart going back through modern times from the 2020s. But the poor temperament and ignorance level of Americans today is still staggering. We are definitely not ready. We will be forced into a maelstrom in the next few years. Will we swim through it or not, I can't say.

[Eric the Green]

We have a USA Supreme Court, almost half of a gerrymandered House of Representatives (maybe a majority soon), a majority of gerrymandered state legislatures, and at least half of a Senate, and possibly a president again in 2025, whose expressed goal is not only to limit diversity and progress, but actually to re-establish a "MAGA" binary white-male supremacy society dominated by the wealthy class and enforced by citizens carrying weapons of war.

Our destiny, indicated by the planets I believe, is to move in exactly the reverse direction of this soon. Which trend or status will actually prevail? It is up to we the people.

[pbrower2a]

Planets or not, the Trump Presidency has gone from disaster to disgrace. The Congressional hearings have established that he treated the basic decencies that all Presidents have clung to, even if Warren G. Harding, necessary for the survival of our Constitutional system, Democrats have been wise to let Republicans be the star of this show, letting those who got cold feet about a conspiracy about which they got cold feet but dared not expose. We can see Donald Trump as a personally violent man who scared the Hell out of fellow Republicans.

The Skowronek cycle suggests that Donald Trump is the last Presidential cycle as the end of the line for a paradigm that began forty to fifty years earlier with a President who forced major changes of public assumptions. Policies that succeeded at first face diminishing returns over a few decades until they prove ineffectual even with a wise and honorable President (Carter was the end of the line for New Deal politics that began with FDR), let alone someone who exemplifies all that is wrong with a tendency from the outset (Reagan appealed to greed, selfishness, disdain for learning, and contempt for the poor, traits that Reagan could modulate as necessary but Trump took to their predictable conclusion). Carter and Trump were positioned to be 'disjunctive' Presidents who have little clue that they have committed to political failure.

It is easy to attribute everything wrong during the 45th Presidency to the personality of Donald Trump. He is a vindictive, corrupt, cruel, and violent man devoid of erudition, imagination, caution, and scruples. It is easy to see an antithesis in Barack Obama. Surely you have seen my Obama-Eisenhower overlay map which, I think, says much. The political orientation of the states generally stayed much the same between .between 1952 and 2012 or became much the same. The obvious difference is that Obama fared badly in rural areas in which Ike won big. I am satisfied that a conservative with Obama's political virtues if not the same partisan agenda will be a fine President.

1T's are repudiation of 3T fads and 4T fanaticism. Both came to the fore under Trump. The "Screw you!" rhetoric of Howard Jarvis (behind the infamous Proposition 13 in California) became the pervasive theme of Donald Trump. If one did not support him with votes and campaign funds, then one was completely irrelevant in the political debate. Such people are to be hurt and not served.

We can all blame political polarization, but even so a President like Obama could give the Other Side some aid when it needed it. An area that didn't vote for him in the previous election was going to get generous aid after an outbreak of tornadoes because such is the character of Obama. Trump? Just imagine what would happen if The Big One hit California.

We are all in the same leaky boat. We dare not hold people in distress from natural disasters (indeed, how a President responds to natural disasters is one of the most critical tests of his character and ability) in contempt if they happen to be on the wrong side of the Red-Blue divide.

[pbrower2a]

The most telling sign of how healthy a social order is that it responds to calamities appropriately. Preserving the status quo by resisting all change neglects the one sure cause of ruinous change: rottenness built into the system that first prevents any effort to reform the rot out of existence and ultimately the crippling of that society so that it can be dissolved from without. The Roman Empire is a prime example, at least in the West; it became an increasingly rigid order that kept spending more on imperial pomp while importing luxuries for its elites; meanwhile it became more oppressive to landless toilers on the elites of the giant estates In the latter decades, Roman armor and weaponry failed to keep pace with that of the barbarians. The Roman order failed because the farm laborers had no stake in preserving the system, and in the end Odoacer chose to dissolve the Empire. Pensioning off Romulus Augustulus without establishing himself as Emperor (King of Italy would be all that was possible) or setting up a puppet Emperor.

I look at the mischief that three highly-politicized, ideological nominees can do to the US Supreme Court. With the sort of thinking that nullifies the concept of stare decisis that establishes legal certainty, we may need to adopt a new legal basis of establishing basic rights. America got away with English common law as the unwritten assumptions of law that established basic rights that needed not be enumerated in the Constitution. This could include something so basic as the right to travel, let alone the assumption of a right to privacy.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. -- Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

In the last century, the conservative norm was that the federal government was to avoid centralizing power by taking away the un-enumerated rights. Such a view protected Big Business, a cornerstone of American conservatism, from facing regulation and any power of organized labor to having the right to monopolistic and predatory practices. The Right used to oppose the centralization of authority; now it supports such centralization oif power if such can enforce its will. Basic human rights can disappear in favor of corporate power, and the assault on the right to abortion could be but the first. Maybe slavery cannot be restored, but a powerful State can legalize contracts that peonize anyone in a desperate situation -- and damn the children of peonage into similar subjection.

It weas only a matter of time before a ruthless and unprincipled demagogue would appeal to mass resentments of straight, white, anti-feminist Protestants who see non-whites, non-Christians who see people not white, Christian, straight, or beholden to male white heterosexuality pass them by economically -- while promising to restore corporate power as existed no later than the pre-New Deal Era, if not the Gilded Age. In return for damning those not straight, white, male, and Christian to subjection and salving the hurt feelings of such people, Big Government would grant giant corporations the easy profits from crony capitalism with no constraints upon monopoly and the subjection of workers. In South Africa it was called Apartheid.

All sorts of mischief are possible when three of the Justices of the Supreme Court basically get crib notes from a shadowy organization that dictates what the decisions are to be. Maybe we find that the traditional protections of English common law that needed no enumeration in any Constitution or any civil code are no longer certain if the judiciary runs amok.

We may be obliged to go to something more like the continental codes inspired by Napoleon Bonaparte just to protect human rights that we assumed existed. We may need even to adopt a new Constitution that honors those rights that we used to assume and protects vulnerable people

So look at a country that ended the Second World War with practically all institutions in disgrace for a reversion to despotism, the complete destruction of civil rights and the sanctity of property, and a calamitous war that forced the dissolution of the national entity. The Grundgesetz of the German Federal Republic enumerated such rights as academic freedom/ We have at most vague phrases as "general welfare", but what constitutes the "general welfare" means very different things to shareholders (maximal profits) executives (maximal compensation) and workers (a living wage that productivity can support).

The Grundgesetz came into force in the German Federal Republic with the consent of the three Western occupying powers with the objective of preventing any restoration of anything resembling you-know-what. It includes a total ban on the criminal syndicate that ruled Germany between 1933 and 1945... I'm not sure that we need a ban on any Nazi-like Party or the KKK.

Obviously, Donald Trump is not Hitler; he is more like King George III. It is with knowledge of George III that the fledgling United States of America that the Founding Fathers established a Constitution in 1789. The Founding Fathers assumed that the populace would be wise enough to refrain from voting for callow demagogues like Donald Trump because Christian values permeated American life and because wise people would well know when to not infringe upon rights that people assumed existed. Nobody predicted the rise of great enterprises capable of corrupting the political process as now happens in America. Nobody predicted that religion could become so fanatical as to destroy civil liberties at its discretion when such civil liberties violate some standard of Holiness.

Did we really need to establish such basic rights as the right to travel, to contradict the demands of those wielding economic power, to protect the environment, to ensure sexual freedom were necessary inclusions in the Constitution? For forty-four Presidents (Grover Cleveland is President #22 and #24) such was unnecessary. We needed no Constitutional amendment to establish same-sex rights. The Supreme Court took its time, and President Barack Obama (yes, conservatives -- you may dislike his agenda but you must recognize that he handled the powers of the President as well as can be done).

Donald Trump has given us a taste of how a President can mess things up badly when the Congress of the time acquiesces because a bare majority is effectively bought and paid for. As with George III, so it must be with Donald Trump; the Bill of Rights worked to specifically prohibit the abuses as power as George III committed. As it is we have plenty of people who would be Adolf Hitler or Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seeking power.

As for abortion rights -- I am satisfied that abortion be safe, legal, and rare, much like amputations.

[Anthony '58]

The precise road to a return to humdrum politics would be the implementation of a neo-Malthusian economic agenda that would be welcomed by a huge slice of the right because immigration would be essentially cut off, and would be welcomed by a huge slice of the left because the resulting perpetual tightness of the labor market would cause wages to soar, with unions regaining the immense power they had in the last 1T.

Japan is living proof of how awesomely this combination works: It gives that country both a high degree of cultural homogeneity and a high degree of economic equality - and the latter without any kvetching about "socialism."

This would be the greatest gift that Gen Xers can bestow upon America.

[pbrower2a]

(08-31-2022, 01:34 PM)Anthony Wrote: The precise road to a return to humdrum politics would be the implementation of a neo-Malthusian economic agenda that would be welcomed by a huge slice of the right because immigration would be essentially cut off, and would be welcomed by a huge slice of the left because the resulting perpetual tightness of the labor market would cause wages to soar, with unions regaining the immense power they had in the last 1T.

There will be immigration even for mating. Some white men can get an erection only in the presence of Asian women. So go to Manila and get a wife who will at least be part of Western civilization and be exotic only in appearance if women 'like that' are rare where that is. Some people will be alienated with their culture alone and emigrate. 

Quote:Japan is living proof of how awesomely this combination works: It gives that country both a high degree of cultural homogeneity and a high degree of economic equality - and the latter without any kvetching about "socialism."

So is Denmark. So is Finland, although Finland has a fiendishly-difficult language.

Quote:This would be the greatest gift that Gen Xers can bestow upon America.

So far the greatest gift that Generation X has bestowed upon America is a President who has shown a largely-conservative view of how to live and how to harmonize human desires with reality without sharing the plutocracy, superstition, hierarchy, and pessimism associated with much of contemporary conservatism. I do not know what books Obama has read, but it is far more likely that Barack Obama is more familiar with Edmund Burke than is Donald Trump. If I were to connect any philosopher to Donald Trump it would be the odious mystic Aleister Crowley, whose aphorism 

"Do what thou wilt"

better describes Donald Trump's conduct and lack of sustainable values than any other philosophy. 

The Mature Reactive recognizes that ideals can create more problems than they solve. After All, Man is more capable of creating Hell on Earth than some utopian paradise. Some realities never change, and such is the inherent conservatism in the Mature Reactive. Who better exemplifies a conservative lifestyle than Barack Obama? Obama seems to be the sort of person that I would not want to encounter as a judge, prosecutor, or chief of police if I were a mobster, fraudster, spouse-beater, drug trafficker, or garden-variety crook. Obama went another political direction, but he seems like a "do the crime and do the time" sort. His family life is exactly what one would expect from a 1950's sitcom except for being black. That exception says more about how American life has changed for the better for blacks who were generally not yet recognized as part of the cultural and political mainstream. 

If the overall community misses out on the Grey Champion, the Mature Reactive is the second-best.  Obama support is closer to the demographics of Eisenhower voters than to those of any Democratic President before him. He did not get the farm-and-ranch vote or the Mormon vote as did Ike, but he did very well with well-educated people. Relative to the time, merely having a high-school diploma was above average when Eisenhower was President and any college education was truly elite. Ike did better with high-school graduates than did Stevenson, and wiped out Stevenson with the college-educated. Having a high-school diploma and nothing else is now below average, and Obama held his own with people with any college education and wiped out McCain and Romney with the college-educated. 

Trump may have said that he loves low-information (which corresponds in generally to the ill-educated), but if I have my choice, I am going with the well informed who are less likely to change their vote on some trifle. Send someone to me with a MAGA hat in an effort to turn me and I am more likely to turn that person than that person is to turn me. 

Obama recognizes tradition as a fallback when the avant-garde fails (which it usually does). What differs with Obama from the old sort of conservative is that he does not define as "his" tradition only. He recognizes law and order and the rule of law as essential to even the most basic of civil liberties. His sexual behavior is arch-conservative in contrast to what Trump does. He recognizes loyalty to nation as something to be assumed. He recognizes the need for a hierarchy of competence and achievement. He supports rational thought and rejects angry, demagogic populism. He knows well that core reality does not change even if knowledge of it can be discovered or more refined. He considers sobriety and modesty honorable and necessary. he is in no way utopian

Most of what Obama seems to believe is boilerplate conservatism, if with a needful tweak here or there, as most of us recognize it. I was able to get conservatives of the 'devout' and 'pro-business' types to accept my militant support for LGBT rights by convincing them that homophobic violence is neither 'pro-family' nor good for business. I was not going to convince someone who wanted to do serious bodily harm to me for real or imagined homosexuality with such a trite ditty as "gay is OK, but it isn't my way". I simply ran from the scene. Was I a coward? Apparently the Armed Forces tell soldiers to run away from personal violence and not fight back, so maybe self-preservation is not so cowardly as it seems. (Today if I were at the scene of homophobic violence I would call 911 on a cell phone, just as I do if I see a drunk driver). 

Generational history runs in cycles, and time is running out for the Boom Generation to have a Grey Champion of the likes of Beaconsfield, Lincoln, Juarez, Churchill, Blum, FDR, Mannerheim, or Adenauer. Maybe the danger of a Trump-like figure is fading. The Grey Champion needs the Mature Reactive at the least as administrators and enforcers.