Presidential election, 2016

[Eric the Green]

Didn't I delete that post? Why discuss a post that I delete? If I delete a post, it's because I decided I shouldn't post it.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-12-2016, 09:16 PM)taramarie Wrote: But it sounds like a clash of ideals over there. Correct if wrong. Left wing politics vs right wing and the ideal way to live/govern.

Correct in that we're locked into a clash of ideals.  It's problematic, though, that we're locked into fixed positions.  An awful lot of us can only see things through specific perspectives and attitudes, which is emphatically not ideal.

(11-12-2016, 09:16 PM)taramarie Wrote: Bingo. Wave to Eric who called me a deplorable and Playwrite who says I wear my progressive streak on my sleeve. I know they will read this. I am trying out a new strategy because yours certainly does not work. I am still very much a progressive person. Just I am suspicious of the way you guys are dealing with it.

Nitpick:  I generally avoid naming other posters specifically in conversations like these.  It just gets the conversation one step closer to personal attack mode.  I'll talk about 'extreme partisans' as a group and let them decide whether the shoe fits or not.

Again, whether various methods work depends on how you keep score.  One can very seldom if ever move an extreme partisan off his bedrock, but you can occasionally make him drop specific arguments or positions.  The latter implies you have made him think, even if he will almost never admit it.  Forcing him to admit it is a futile enough exercise that I seldom try.

(11-12-2016, 09:16 PM)taramarie Wrote: That is why they need to realize listening does not hurt. Stereotypes are not helpful. I do know that with some it will not work. That is their downfall. I feel very sorry for them. This is the reason why I said to pbrower that this will not be solved in his life time. Well aware some just will refuse to give up the stereotype.

Problem is, in some respects listening does hurt.  Extreme partisans are often incapable of reevaluating their world views or values.  To force them to reconsider basics is very hard for them.  It's not physical pain, but it's emotional trauma.  That is why they have defense mechanisms such as vile stereotypes.  When you are right and they are wrong on a fact and ideals level, you become invisible, one of their vile stereotypes suddenly materializes where you were standing, and they will attack the vile stereotype.  The inability to perceive obvious facts is another defense mechanism.  Whenever an extreme partisan starts responding in a childish or abusive fashion, it is quite likely that you have stressed their world view or values to the point where their mind has to change the subject, move the conversation away from where their inflexible way of perceiving things has failed them.

One way to keep score in a political chat room is by personal attacks drawn by facts and ideals.  With many extreme partisans, whenever you draw a personal attack, you have successfully proven their values are flawed, though most will posture and squirm to avoid at all costs admitting it.  They were unable to defend their points of view.  They'll revert to elementary school recess behavior, insults and verbal brawls.  Thus, when someone sends abusive childish stuff at me, I am apt to quietly smirk and repeat variations of the ideals and facts that caused them to loose their cool.

Mean of me, I know, but that's all one can really do.  Pushing someone entirely off his bedrock is extremely rare.

(11-12-2016, 09:16 PM)taramarie Wrote: As I said I have developed a different way to deal with it. Don't you worry I am keeping it in check.

Good luck with that.    Seriously.  I hope it works out.

[Warren Dew]

(11-13-2016, 02:31 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: One can very seldom if ever move an extreme partisan off his bedrock, but you can occasionally make him drop specific arguments or positions.  The latter implies you have made him think, even if he will almost never admit it.

Sometimes.  Other times is just means they've given up on you because you've been unable to rebut their previous arguments.  Sometimes you make a rebuttal that you may think a refutation, but they think an irrelevant tangent.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-12-2016, 11:17 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-12-2016, 08:38 PM)Odin Wrote: The lunatics (Boomers and Xers) are running the asylum...

Do you think when millennials and homelanders "take over" things will be better? I have my doubts. Boomers' own hopes for this in the sixties have been dashed, by the Boomers themselves and the Xers. Things never seem to change in this country; the process of change stopped in 1980 and has not resumed. The USA is sclerotic and shows no sign of changing. I have predicted that this would finally change in the 2020s. Now, it would be a mammoth, wholesale and 180-degree change, as of Tuesday. So, good luck to the USA.

I'd disagree.  If one believes in cyclical history, that certain values tend to fade then return, change is always there.  We've had a long ugly unravelling, a time when selfishness and indulgence trump work, growth and the common good.  It is lingering longer than I ever thought it would.  If Trump goes with another round of borrow and spend trickle down, the unravelling will continue.

But to get a Lincoln or FDR, you might have to endure a Buchanan or Hoover.  Values aren't abandoned until they obviously and spectacularly fail.  This isn't to say that being caught in the middle of an explosion is entirely a good thing.  So, yes, historically, a mammoth wholesale 180 degree change is still possible.  It might be that either the red or blue values must utterly fail before we get a healthy transformation.

There are gentle fourth turnings.  Queen Victoria and Bismarck, conservative leaders who knew they had to give ground to the progressives to avoid an explosion, are the classic examples.  The conservative faction attempting to maintain the old values are not always stubborn and strident enough for a full scale explosion and transformation.  Obama then Hillary might have achieved something similar to a Victoria / Bismarck transformation.  I'm now less inclined to think that likely.  It might have been Bush 43 who got pegged in the Buchanan / Hoover slot.  It seems now that the fourth turning has been pushed back 16 years, that we reset the clock with Trump provisionally in the Buchanan / Hoover slot. 

Or, perhaps, possibly, the Grey Champion slot.  If he really acts like a Washington outsider, if one of his primary goals is to break up the filibuster obstruction mentality and get things done, perhaps he might not be the disaster that his campaign leads many folk to anticipate.  I'm seeing mixed signals on this.  I think we'll have to wait and see.  Talk to me after his 100 days.

[Kinser79]

(11-12-2016, 08:38 PM)Odin Wrote:

(11-12-2016, 04:31 PM)taramarie Wrote: It does amaze me that the older folk on this forum are the ones who are acting like children. The older folk!

The lunatics (Boomers and Xers) are running the asylum...

The Boomers have been running the asylum for a long time, and for the most part they are lunatics. Xers are just now starting to flex their political muscle and a better order will arise from it.

(11-12-2016, 08:49 PM)Odin Wrote:

(11-12-2016, 03:44 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I garuntee that if a black woman was locking out a white male room mate and posted about it on line no one would have said anything about racism.  The simple fact of the matter is that all the authoritarianism is coming from one side of the divide these days.  I've said before that the SJWs are the neo-puritans.  That is exactly what they act like.  This of course leaves the right free to scoop up all the cultural libertarians, which is the norm for Americans.

As for more militancy from the SJW types, I hope they increase it.  Their protests, rioting and tantrum throwing are proving to one and all that voting in Trump was the right course of action.  

As for Eric-the-ignoramus' predictions, he has a habit of being consistently wrong (probably because he's clueless) so take what he says, assume the opposite happens and you'll be safe 90% of the time.

I know a bunch of working class Trump supporters and not a single one is angry about "SJWs", and I doubt any of them have even heard of the term. You Alt-Righters are the mirror image of the "SJWs", obsessed with identity issues that are mostly meaningless to blue collar heartland folk whose main concern is jobs. They voted for Trump because they are desperate and Trump promised them their jobs back. It's all BS of course, automation means that those jobs aren't coming back, but desperate people are easy prey for demagogues.

I guess I should consider myself honored to like Milo have someone trying to crown me Queen of the Alt-Right. I'm a Civic Nationalist Odin, which is a political trend in the US that has deep roots, as does the Cultural Libertarianism and Classical Liberalism that informs that Civic Nationalism.

That being said, the Alt-Right does have some very important things to say. Primarily that identity > culture > politics. And Diversity + Proximity = war. Both are more or less in accord with the nature humans have as we can understand it.

As for automation, it has happened before, it has been happening since the Black Death swept through Europe. The goal is not to bring back old jobs--many of them are gone, never to return much like a buggy whip industry that isn't anything more than a boutique specialist craft. What we can do, however, is create economic incentives to create new jobs here in the US. Part of that is by sane trade policy, the rest is economic incentive.

Further since at least part of the economic mess we are in is due to aggregate demand, there is an other method for increasing it besides spending on sorely needed infrastructure. That method is lowering the supply of labor. If the supply of labor, particularly unskilled labor is supressed the price for it must as a consequence rise.

Finally, while the benefits of free trade intra-nationally are apparent, the benefits of inter-national free trade are dubious at best.

[Kinser79]

(11-13-2016, 03:02 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-12-2016, 11:17 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(11-12-2016, 08:38 PM)Odin Wrote: The lunatics (Boomers and Xers) are running the asylum...

Do you think when millennials and homelanders "take over" things will be better? I have my doubts. Boomers' own hopes for this in the sixties have been dashed, by the Boomers themselves and the Xers. Things never seem to change in this country; the process of change stopped in 1980 and has not resumed. The USA is sclerotic and shows no sign of changing. I have predicted that this would finally change in the 2020s. Now, it would be a mammoth, wholesale and 180-degree change, as of Tuesday. So, good luck to the USA.

I'd disagree.  If one believes in cyclical history, that certain values tend to fade then return, change is always there.  We've had a long ugly unravelling, a time when selfishness and indulgence trump work, growth and the common good.  It is lingering longer than I ever thought it would.  If Trump goes with another round of borrow and spend trickle down, the unravelling will continue.

But to get a Lincoln or FDR, you might have to endure a Buchanan or Hoover.  Values aren't abandoned until they obviously and spectacularly fail.  This isn't to say that being caught in the middle of an explosion is entirely a good thing.  So, yes, historically, a mammoth wholesale 180 degree change is still possible.  It might be that either the red or blue values must utterly fail before we get a healthy transformation.

There are gentle fourth turnings.  Queen Victoria and Bismarck, conservative leaders who knew they had to give ground to the progressives to avoid an explosion, are the classic examples.  The conservative faction attempting to maintain the old values are not always stubborn and strident enough for a full scale explosion and transformation.  Obama then Hillary might have achieved something similar to a Victoria / Bismarck transformation.  I'm now less inclined to think that likely.  It might have been Bush 43 who got pegged in the Buchanan / Hoover slot.  It seems now that the fourth turning has been pushed back 16 years, that we reset the clock with Trump provisionally in the Buchanan / Hoover slot. 

Or, perhaps, possibly, the Grey Champion slot.  If he really acts like a Washington outsider, if one of his primary goals is to break up the filibuster obstruction mentality and get things done, perhaps he might not be the disaster that his campaign leads many folk to anticipate.  I'm seeing mixed signals on this.  I think we'll have to wait and see.  Talk to me after his 100 days.

Bob, I know I've said this previously. But have you ever stopped to consider that whomever is the "progressive" side becomes is whomever wins the 4T? Think on this for a second, it has to do with logic rather than values.

Let us suppose for a second that History is Written By the Victors. Let us also suppose for just a second that there is a tendency toward what I call Whig History (the idea that all history is a march of progress to some end goal of some sort--it isn't true of course but it is a common perception) being written.

Is it not then conceivable that whatever side wins the 4T is the "progressive side". It is my view that both sides of a 4T or a 2T for that matter cannot have the labels "progressive" and "regressive" applied to them until after the fact.

To complicate matters this time around we have a group of leftist-radicals who are calling themselves progressive, but whose actions are inherently regressive.

[pbrower2a]

Can he be the Grey Champion? Not as a divisive reactinary.

He is going to get his way, as the Republican Party tries to bring back the alleged greatness of the Gilded Age. But we all know the faults of that reactionary model of politicians under the thumb of Big Business or of racist big landowners.   But in the Gilded Age there was some freedom due to the political conflict between the different Master Classes of Northern industrialists and Southern agrarians. Southern agrarians made their alliance with northern industrial workers and small farmers while northern industrialists aligned with southern blacks. This time the corporate elites and the big landowners are very much in political lockstep and anyone not already rich will get the shaft -- hard. Both have a  great distance between themselves and non0elites that they see as livestock at best and vermin at worst.

We shall see whether the Trump Administration is a time of bounty of people other than economic elites. I expect much social unrest as the Republican Party imposes unequal sacrifices upon Americans. If you think that Black Lives Matters is abrasive and radical now, wait until the police get carte blanche for brutality against political protesters whom the government will define as disloyal. 

I see America likely to splinter into tribalism under someone who can fault minorities for failure to support him in the election. They may be right to be scared of a vindictive demagogue. (How is tribalism to be part of any restoration of American greatness?) 

I have yet to see how foreign policy will change. Should President Trump become a partner in crime with the expansionism of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, then we can expect many current allies of America in NATO to become hostile. The European part of NATO, which American politicians from Truman to Obama have aided in developing military and economic power, could see the Trump-era America as dangerous as the Soviet Union ever was. The European part of NATO can survive without us. The old German-French, German-Polish, German-Czech, Polish-Ukrainian, Anglo-Turkish, Greco-Turkish, and Hungarian-Romanian enmities are no more. Break NATO into the United States and the rest of NATO, and America suddenly finds itself facing a military and economic superpower potentially more lethal than the Soviet Union. To be sure, NATO has never been an aggressive alliance, but defensive alliances on the attack can be extremely dangerous to an enemy. Should the European part of NATO become hostile to Trump's America, it is easy to see what countries of the America could become partners. A hint: Brazil has a big military-industrial complex.

I can imagine a fascistic America becoming a focus of hatred in a democratic Japan.  In view of how Thug Japan went from victory to victory against the USA in World War II before the Battle of Midway, Japan is not a country that a wise American would want to make into an enemy. Against a fascistic America that might make life unpleasant for the Japanese-American minority Japan would be a dangerous and natural enemy. The United States and Japan can smooth over their great cultural differences when both are democratic. But in view of pretensions of cultural superiority of each over each other, but when one is ruled by fascist thugs and the other is democratic, then watch the ICBMs fly. Japan has an excellent scientific community and the potential for getting itself out of a long depression with military rearmament.

The Second American-Japanese War could end with Japan carving out a puppet state on the West Coast, annexing Guam and Alaska, and setting up an independent state (restoring the Hawaiian monarchy?) in Hawaii.

 Indonesia is predominately Muslim, so beware of a large country with few rifts. India has the largest Muslim population in the world, and in a time of hostility between the American government and Islam, Hindus in India are going to take the side of Islam against the USA in the name of national unity. Those are all democracies. Democracies might not like war and might not start them, but they have an unsettling habit of winning against the aggressors in the end and winning the peace by behaving themselves as occupiers.

European part of NATO? Brazil? Japan? Indonesia? India? I wouldn't want to tangle with any one of them.

Then there is China. Then there is the Muslim part of North Africa and southwestern Asia. I think we can see all sorts of new menaces that America could face as America abandons democracy.

Presidents from Reagan to Obama have gotten away with or followed much the same foreign policy. Donald Trump will break with that. Such scared me more than anything else. In campaigning for Hillary Clinton I was effectively defending the foreign policy of Ronald Reagan. Kissing up to Putin? Pardon me if I vomit.

Donald Trump and the semi-fascist Republican Party (the closest analogy that I see is to the Falange of Francisco Franco) will make American nostalgic for better times very fast. Sure, there will be plenty of work -- in fact there will be so much work that we will get tired of it, perhaps because employers will demand more work, much of it as unpaid overtime exacted under threat, for enhancing the power and indulgence of the Master Class. That's how fascism solves the problem of unemployment -- outlawing leisure and mandating that people find work if they are not to be carted off to labor camps.

People are going to get nostalgic for Barack Obama very quickly.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-13-2016, 09:04 AM)Kinser79 Wrote: Bob, I know I've said this previously.  But have you ever stopped to consider that whomever is the "progressive" side becomes is whomever wins the 4T?  Think on this for a second, it has to do with logic rather than values.

Let us suppose for a second that History is Written By the Victors.  Let us also suppose for just a second that there is a tendency toward what I call Whig History (the idea that all history is a march of progress to some end goal of some sort--it isn't true of course but it is a common perception) being written.

Is it not then conceivable that whatever side wins the 4T is the "progressive side".  It is my view that both sides of a 4T or a 2T for that matter cannot have the labels "progressive" and "regressive" applied to them until after the fact.  

To complicate matters this time around we have a group of leftist-radicals who are calling themselves progressive, but whose actions are inherently regressive.

Yes, I know I have replied previously, and I don't like to repeat myself too too often, but one more time. I'd suggest that extreme partisans have selective memory when ideas that conflict with their values are presented, so I fully expect to repeat myself again someday.

I do have an 'arrow of progress' which pretty well matches classic Whig values. Yes, just about everyone struggling for power will try to label their values and schemes as progressive, but it is possible to have a notion of where progress truly lies.

I favor human rights, equality, democracy and more even distribution of wealth. In any given S&H crisis, I anticipate a conservative faction attempting to uphold the old values, and with it the political and economic systems that grant the elite ruling class political power and wealth. The progressive faction will have cultural and economic reasons to overturn the old. Generally, by the time the 4T rolls around, problems with the old ways of doing things are blatant and obvious. Often the progressive faction is lead by a new group of elites who wish to diminish or take over from the old elites.

Thus, tax and spend liberalism featured massive taxes on the ruling elites and produced as comfortable an existence for the working classes as has ever existed. Reagan's Borrow and spend trickle down redistributed wealth back to the elite ruling robber baron class, and created an anemic economy that has many dissatisfied who are aware of what went on during the tax and spend era. This would suggest that the New Dealers were true progressives, while the unraveling era Republicans have not been.

Similarly, equal pay for equal work triggers the 'equality' aspect. I would label that as progressive.

Similarly, equal treatment in marriage for all gender combinations triggers both equality aspect and human rights.

Republicans are traditionally the party of the Robber Barons. While the Democrats have recently sucked deep at the nipple of Citizens United, they still seem less beholden to the elite ruling class than the Republicans. This is not a question of black and white, though, not at this point. It is a question of two shades of very dark grey.

Freeing slaves would count as progressive on the equality and human rights front.

Weakening the power of the kings and nobility would count on the equality front, and usually on the human rights front as well.

While Marx intended to build a system that favored the worker, what actually developed was a new elite ruling class, the communist party. There were no checks at all on the power of the elite ruling class. While the rhetoric of marxism included progressive ideas in abstract, in practice the communists were not progressive at all by my particular definition. Human rights, democracy and equality did not appear on their radar. If human rights, democracy and equality in any way diminished their strangle hold on wealth and power, then trample on the People they would.

Of course, I am not Noah Webster or Humpty Dumpty. I cannot dictate how other people use the word 'progressive'. That's how I use it, though.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-12-2016, 09:16 PM)taramarie Wrote: As I said I have developed a different way to deal with it. Don't you worry I am keeping it in check.

While one can admire New Zealand's political and cultural stability, the ground beneath your feet isn't always so stable. Are you OK?

[radind]

An alternative point of view.

Quote:http://shoutfreedom.blogspot.com/2016/11...ds_11.html

… "I want to address a few of the accusations we Trump voters keep hearing over, and over... and over. It’s time to dispel the myths and false narratives perpetuated by the media.”…

[Anthony '58]

(11-12-2016, 11:26 PM)Webmaster Wrote: If you aren't listening to another poster or have them on your ignore list it would bet better to do it without announcing it.

But enforcement of the rules around here is scandalously lax - and decidedly not even-handed.

This is why you have lost rdbldr '59 and ASB '65 (from the old forum) and are about this close to losing me (I was '58 Flat on the old forum).

[Dan '82]

[Webmaster]

(11-13-2016, 03:35 PM)Anthony 58 Wrote:

(11-12-2016, 11:26 PM)Webmaster Wrote: If you aren't listening to another poster or have them on your ignore list it would bet better to do it without announcing it.

But enforcement of the rules around here is scandalously lax - and decidedly not even-handed.

This is why you have lost rdbldr '59 and ASB '65 (from the old forum) and are about this close to losing me (I was '58 Flat on the old forum).

I don't believe that either of them ever registered here; I've tried to issue reminders whenever the tone is getting out of control.

[Kinser79]

(11-13-2016, 10:36 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Yes, I know I have replied previously, and I don't like to repeat myself too too often, but one more time. I'd suggest that extreme partisans have selective memory when ideas that conflict with their values are presented, so I fully expect to repeat myself again someday.

I imagine that both of us will repeat ourselves several times a day on this forum. For some it seems to me that they are locked into their world view and are unwilling to even attempt to look at any issue from more than one angle.

Quote:I do have an 'arrow of progress' which pretty well matches classic Whig values. Yes, just about everyone struggling for power will try to label their values and schemes as progressive, but it is possible to have a notion of where progress truly lies.

I don't necessarily disagree. I will say however that the notion of what is and is not progress is relative.

Quote:I favor human rights, equality, democracy and more even distribution of wealth.

I too favor human rights and democracy. Equality however is a pipe dream. Different people have different needs, different desires, and different abilities. Everyone's outcomes will be different. Let us suppose I give two men 100,000 dollars. One of these men is very frugal but is lazy, the other is less risk averse but is willing work hard to grow his investment in say a food truck. The former may be able through pinching pennies and spending wisely to live fairly comfortably off that money for several years but at the end of it he still is broke. The other may take a very big risk in buying the truck, buying food and driving it from place to place making meals and selling them at a modest profit. Should the economy do poorly or he has a bad product he will end up broke, but should he have a good product and the economy not do exceptionally poorly he would be able to even save money. Thus we see from this small example that equality does not exist. At most you can have equality before the law--wherein the laws apply equally to all, but that is as far as human equality is acheivable.

Because of my arguments concerning equality a more even distribution of income is neither wanted nor necessary. Rather instead, I would desire a more even distribution of opportunity. It is my view that wherein it is possible to expand opportunities for everyone to pursue their own goals, at their own pace under their own power.

As such I'd say that my inicators of progress are Human Rights, Democracy and Liberty. I've read an interesting book lately. I must admit though that it is hardly a new book. Radicalism and its Stupidities by H. Strickland Constable

https://books.google.com/books?id=lQdDAQ...e&q&f=true

Quote: In any given S&H crisis, I anticipate a conservative faction attempting to uphold the old values, and with it the political and economic systems that grant the elite ruling class political power and wealth. The progressive faction will have cultural and economic reasons to overturn the old. Generally, by the time the 4T rolls around, problems with the old ways of doing things are blatant and obvious. Often the progressive faction is lead by a new group of elites who wish to diminish or take over from the old elites.

Thus, tax and spend liberalism featured massive taxes on the ruling elites and produced as comfortable an existence for the working classes as has ever existed. Reagan's Borrow and spend trickle down redistributed wealth back to the elite ruling robber baron class, and created an anemic economy that has many dissatisfied who are aware of what went on during the tax and spend era. This would suggest that the New Dealers were true progressives, while the unraveling era Republicans have not been.

By and large I think we mostly agree here. Where we differ is on seeing who is the actual conservative here and who is just the mouth piece of the Establishment. Given that the Establishment Politicans cannot stand Trump but seem to love Clinton it should be easy to deduce which is which unless one is stuck on labels. Personally myself I could care less if someone has an R or a D behind their name. I kind of view the political parties the same way as I view a dispute of the merits of the Crips over the Bloods.

It is for this reason why I can vote for Sanders in the primary and Trump in the general. Red vs Blue is meaningless to me, and well anyone who isn't a "extreme partisan". Or perhaps to put it as my Boyfriend does "I didn't leave the Democrats, the Democrats left me."

Quote:Similarly, equal pay for equal work triggers the 'equality' aspect. I would label that as progressive.

The wage gap is a myth. Men and women who work the same job, with the same competancy for the same hours get paid the same. Wherein earnings differences occur between men and women is in relation to their choices. Women typically take lower paid positions, and work in lower paid fields generally, take more time off work and work less overtime. Men often make the opposite choices but perhaps I should let this dangerous faggot explain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSRQc251jzM

Quote:Similarly, equal treatment in marriage for all gender combinations triggers both equality aspect and human rights.

First there are only two genders: Male and Female. Thus there are only three possible combinations. Personally I don't care if gays and lesbians get married, but, I wish that they wouldn't. The very best things about being gay lie in the more licentious aspects of it. As such I oppose the domestication of homos everywhere.

Quote:Republicans are traditionally the party of the Robber Barons. While the Democrats have recently sucked deep at the nipple of Citizens United, they still seem less beholden to the elite ruling class than the Republicans. This is not a question of black and white, though, not at this point. It is a question of two shades of very dark grey.

So the GOP has traditionally been beholden to a class that no longer exists. However, if we have a new elite of internet moguls and such then those are overwhelmingly Democratic. Lincoln described the two parties and how they function in the US as being like two drunken men in a brawl. eventually they end up through that brawl wearing each other's coat.

[pbrower2a]

I have put some egregious offenders on Ignore and said so on the old Forum. This is with racist, religiously-bigoted, insane, and abusive posters. I have yet to do so here. The Webmaster is more stringent about who can post.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: For some it seems to me that they are locked into their world view and are unwilling to even attempt to look at any issue from more than one angle.

Really?  Ya think?  

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I will say however that the notion of what is and is not progress is relative.

Do you mean subjective?  That some will think one thing important, others another?  If so, sure.  It seems you do not care if a capitalist class that controls the means of production is collecting extreme amounts of wealth and power to the point that you are now in denial that this class even exists.  I disagree.  Marx described the problem very well, even if his solutions didn't account for human nature.

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I too favor human rights and democracy.  Equality however is a pipe dream.  Different people have different needs, different desires, and different abilities.  Everyone's outcomes will be different.  Let us suppose I give two men 100,000 dollars.  One of these men is very frugal but is lazy, the other is less risk averse but is willing work hard to grow his investment in say a food truck.  The former may be able through pinching pennies and spending wisely to live fairly comfortably off that money for several years but at the end of it he still is broke.  The other may take a very big risk in buying the truck, buying food and driving it from place to place making meals and selling them at a modest profit.  Should the economy do poorly or he has a bad product he will end up broke, but should he have a good product and the economy not do exceptionally poorly he would be able to even save money.  Thus we see from this small example that equality does not exist.  At most you can have equality before the law--wherein the laws apply equally to all, but that is as far as human equality is acheivable.

Because of my arguments concerning equality a more even distribution of income is neither wanted nor necessary.  Rather instead, I would desire a more even distribution of opportunity.  It is my view that wherein it is possible to expand opportunities for everyone to pursue their own goals, at their own pace under their own power.

Have you ever been a member of the working class, or sympathized with their needs?  I assure you, quite a lot of people need and want a more even distribution of wealth.

This isn't to say that the janitor is going to have equal pay to the engineer any time soon, or that the dedicated competent workers shouldn't have opportunity to advance ahead of those less so.  Still, in different eras, there are different ways of getting ahead, different forms of inequality that some perceive of as unreasonable.  Being the eldest son of the King was a good thing in the old days.  Being a slave was a bad thing.  These days, having enough funds to invest, enough to be a member of the capitalist elite class, should be the next inequality to be examined.  No, I'm not looking for a revolution, but borrow and spend trickle down gives the capitalist elite ruling class an excessive advantage.

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Bob Butler Wrote: In any given S&H crisis, I anticipate a conservative faction attempting to uphold the old values, and with it the political and economic systems that grant the elite ruling class political power and wealth.  The progressive faction will have cultural and economic reasons to overturn the old.  Generally, by the time the 4T rolls around, problems with the old ways of doing things are blatant and obvious.  Often the progressive faction is lead by a new group of elites who wish to diminish or take over from the old elites.

Thus, tax and spend liberalism featured massive taxes on the ruling elites and produced as comfortable an existence for the working classes as has ever existed.  Reagan's Borrow and spend trickle down redistributed wealth back to the elite ruling robber baron class, and created an anemic economy that has many dissatisfied who are aware of what went on during the tax and spend era.  This would suggest that the New Dealers were true progressives, while the unraveling era Republicans have not been.

By and large I think we mostly agree here.  Where we differ is on seeing who is the actual conservative here and who is just the mouth piece of the Establishment.  Given that the Establishment Politicans cannot stand Trump but seem to love Clinton it should be easy to deduce which is which unless one is stuck on labels.  Personally myself I could care less if someone has an R or a D behind their name.  I kind of view the political parties the same way as I view a dispute of the merits of the Crips over the Bloods.

It is for this reason why I can vote for Sanders in the primary and Trump in the general.  Red vs Blue is meaningless to me, and well anyone who isn't a "extreme partisan".  Or perhaps to put it as my Boyfriend does "I didn't leave the Democrats, the Democrats left me."

I'd rather use the arrow of progress on issues rather than individuals.

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The wage gap is a myth.

Well, no.  This is one of the places where we live in different realities.  Your politics does blind you, can render you unable to perceive the real world.  I'm not interested in trying to remove your blinders at this point, though.

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Bob Butler Wrote:Republicans are traditionally the party of the Robber Barons.  While the Democrats have recently sucked deep at the nipple of Citizens United, they still seem less beholden to the elite ruling class than the Republicans.  This is not a question of black and white, though, not at this point.  It is a question of two shades of very dark grey.

So the GOP has traditionally been beholden to a class that no longer exists.  However, if we have a new elite of internet moguls and such then those are overwhelmingly Democratic.  Lincoln described the two parties and how they function in the US as being like two drunken men in a brawl.  eventually they end up through that brawl wearing each other's coat.

Of course the new elite align with the progressive party.  The system is generally rigged to favor the old elite.  The new elite want to make changes such that the new technology can better thrive.

Still, the internet robber barons use the same methods of manipulating wealth and political power as the other owners of the means of production.  They own stocks, collect dividends, give money to politicians, etc...  They don't need to change the way the game is rigged.  They can use the existing system just fine.  In older times, the robber barons acted to end the special prerogatives of the king and nobles and to end slavery.  In those times the system was rigged in ways that favored the old elites but which were not important to an industrialist.  In the case of the computer robber barons, they see no major need to change the system as the system works just fine for them.

There is much truth in Lincoln's metaphor.  His own party originated in freeing slaves, but became the party of the Southern Strategy.  Before WW II they favored isolationism, but when Mao took over China and the Democrats didn't want to join a land war in Asia, the GOP became the militarist party.  Before Reagan they were truly economically conservative, not trusting Keynes' stimulus theory, pushing consistently for more or less balanced budgets.  After Reagan, they became deficit growing advocates of borrow and spend stimulus in good times and bad.  It's not just the Republicans.  The Democrats often flip whenever the Republicans Flop.

But the constant is that the Republicans have always been the party of the capitalist owners of the means of production.  There aren't enough robber barons to win elections.  They have to push policies that seem to favor the working people.  The generic center of this is saying what is good for business is good for everybody.  "What's good for General Motors is good for America."  Still, yes, if isolationism is popular, they'll be isolationists.  If military strength is popular, they will be militants.  If fundamentalist religion is popular, they'll become holier than thou.  They're (expletive deleted) politicians, after all.  The Democrats will do the same thing, seeking minority votes, union votes, etc...

But the GOP has always been the party of the robber barons.  Well, these days, to a far too great degree, in this time of Citizen's United, both parties are feeding off big money.  I see this as a significant problem.  You seem to be denying that the problem exists?

We've got the best government that money can buy.

[Kinser79]

(11-13-2016, 09:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: For some it seems to me that they are locked into their world view and are unwilling to even attempt to look at any issue from more than one angle.

Really?  Ya think?  

Yes I do think. It also includes you to some extent. However, unlike many here you recognize values lock where it exists.

Quote:

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I will say however that the notion of what is and is not progress is relative.

Do you mean subjective?  That some will think one thing important, others another?  If so, sure.  It seems you do not care if a capitalist class that controls the means of production is collecting extreme amounts of wealth and power to the point that you are now in denial that this class even exists.  I disagree.  Marx described the problem very well, even if his solutions didn't account for human nature.

Whether it is relative or subjective is a matter of semantics. Semantics I'm not willing to argue over.

As to a capitalist class, it not only exists but it also controls the means of production and yes it does accumulate wealth. That is what capitalists do. Marx did describe the problems of his day very well but those material conditions are no longer present. Even so, human nature being what it is, the best possible system is one in which every man has the liberty to exploit whatever opportunity may come his way. That system does not exist in this country largely thanks to the "New Deal" and an abundance of governmental regulation. That system is of course capitalism. Which is the worse economic system possible, besides all the others that have been tried.

Of course if you believe in history traveling on a more or less cylical nature, then you can plainly see that the solutions to the last 4T cause the next 4T.

Quote:

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I too favor human rights and democracy.  Equality however is a pipe dream.  Different people have different needs, different desires, and different abilities.  Everyone's outcomes will be different.  Let us suppose I give two men 100,000 dollars.  One of these men is very frugal but is lazy, the other is less risk averse but is willing work hard to grow his investment in say a food truck.  The former may be able through pinching pennies and spending wisely to live fairly comfortably off that money for several years but at the end of it he still is broke.  The other may take a very big risk in buying the truck, buying food and driving it from place to place making meals and selling them at a modest profit.  Should the economy do poorly or he has a bad product he will end up broke, but should he have a good product and the economy not do exceptionally poorly he would be able to even save money.  Thus we see from this small example that equality does not exist.  At most you can have equality before the law--wherein the laws apply equally to all, but that is as far as human equality is acheivable.

Because of my arguments concerning equality a more even distribution of income is neither wanted nor necessary.  Rather instead, I would desire a more even distribution of opportunity.  It is my view that wherein it is possible to expand opportunities for everyone to pursue their own goals, at their own pace under their own power.

Have you ever been a member of the working class, or sympathized with their needs?  I assure you, quite a lot of people need and want a more even distribution of wealth.

I am a member of the working class now. I do not, however, think redistributing wealth through governmental action is prudent. We've tried that and it simply doesn't work--perhaps we should try a different approach and allow those with skill and talent to exploit what opportunities come their way to the best of their ability. The rough and tumble of the market can make the poor rich and the rich poor.

Quote:This isn't to say that the janitor is going to have equal pay to the engineer any time soon, or that the dedicated competent workers shouldn't have opportunity to advance ahead of those less so.  Still, in different eras, there are different ways of getting ahead, different forms of inequality that some perceive of as unreasonable.  Being the eldest son of the King was a good thing in the old days.  Being a slave was a bad thing.  These days, having enough funds to invest, enough to be a member of the capitalist elite class, should be the next inequality to be examined.  No, I'm not looking for a revolution, but borrow and spend trickle down gives the capitalist elite ruling class an excessive advantage.

Borrow and spend economics (AKA Reaganomics) is a dead end as is tax and spend. Now what I'm about to say here is probably going to rile up playdude but I expect that. The problem with borrow and spend, and tax and spend, fall under two different categories, first the fact that the amount of capital in a given society at a given time is finite. That doesn't mean that the amount of capital cannot increase or decrease over time--it can and does. Second, the ultimate source of that capital, the capital used for borrow and spend or tax and spend political machinations ultimately comes from the savings of the society at large.

In the case of borrowing and taxing the state is taking capital that could be put to work elsewhere and using it it for whatever. I will grant that not all spending is equal. A tax cut for the extremely wealthy (and I mean on their take home income, low corporate and capital gains taxes push money into investment and re-investment given a higher personal income tax rate) is a poor way to spend that capital. The same would be true of a tax cut for the poor. Or welfare. Or subsidies for insurance.

Spending that same capital on public infrastructure, either new construction or refurbishing existing infrastructure, while not glamorous has a rate of return much much higher than a mere tax cut or a welfare check.

Quote:

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Bob Butler Wrote: In any given S&H crisis, I anticipate a conservative faction attempting to uphold the old values, and with it the political and economic systems that grant the elite ruling class political power and wealth.  The progressive faction will have cultural and economic reasons to overturn the old.  Generally, by the time the 4T rolls around, problems with the old ways of doing things are blatant and obvious.  Often the progressive faction is lead by a new group of elites who wish to diminish or take over from the old elites.

Thus, tax and spend liberalism featured massive taxes on the ruling elites and produced as comfortable an existence for the working classes as has ever existed.  Reagan's Borrow and spend trickle down redistributed wealth back to the elite ruling robber baron class, and created an anemic economy that has many dissatisfied who are aware of what went on during the tax and spend era.  This would suggest that the New Dealers were true progressives, while the unraveling era Republicans have not been.

By and large I think we mostly agree here.  Where we differ is on seeing who is the actual conservative here and who is just the mouth piece of the Establishment.  Given that the Establishment Politicans cannot stand Trump but seem to love Clinton it should be easy to deduce which is which unless one is stuck on labels.  Personally myself I could care less if someone has an R or a D behind their name.  I kind of view the political parties the same way as I view a dispute of the merits of the Crips over the Bloods.

It is for this reason why I can vote for Sanders in the primary and Trump in the general.  Red vs Blue is meaningless to me, and well anyone who isn't a "extreme partisan".  Or perhaps to put it as my Boyfriend does "I didn't leave the Democrats, the Democrats left me."

I'd rather use the arrow of progress on issues rather than individuals.

Well if you're interested in Issues I suggest you read what Daddy has said about them and compare him to what say John F. Kennedy said about similar issues. Or even compare him to FDR, or Lincoln. I didn't name him the GC out of thin air.

Quote:

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: The wage gap is a myth.

Well, no.  This is one of the places where we live in different realities.  Your politics does blind you, can render you unable to perceive the real world.  I'm not interested in trying to remove your blinders at this point, though.

Yes, it is a myth. Since we agree that we live in a mostly-capitalist society now, and since we agree that it is the class interests of those capitalists to maximize profits, it therefore holds that if said capitalist could get away with paying women 75 or 80 or however many cents on the dollar a man earns then the obvious solution would be fire all then men and hire only women.

Any other explanation simply doesn't stand up to Occam's Razor.

On the other hand, if we hold that men and women are different, and because of those differences they make different choices, then it should be self-evident that any differentials in income between men and women are the result of them making different choices.

Quote:

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

Bob Butler Wrote:Republicans are traditionally the party of the Robber Barons.  While the Democrats have recently sucked deep at the nipple of Citizens United, they still seem less beholden to the elite ruling class than the Republicans.  This is not a question of black and white, though, not at this point.  It is a question of two shades of very dark grey.

So the GOP has traditionally been beholden to a class that no longer exists.  However, if we have a new elite of internet moguls and such then those are overwhelmingly Democratic.  Lincoln described the two parties and how they function in the US as being like two drunken men in a brawl.  eventually they end up through that brawl wearing each other's coat.

Of course the new elite align with the progressive party.  The system is generally rigged to favor the old elite.  The new elite want to make changes such that the new technology can better thrive.

You're making the assumption here that the Democratic Party is the progressive party this time around--the evidence for which is non-existent. Let us suppose that the new elite wants to make changes so that their new technology can thrive--would it not therefore be a conflict of interest then for them to support a presidential candidate who has called for censorship of that new technology. I'm speaking of course of the internet, and HRC openly calling for the shut down of Alex Jones, Breitbart, et al.

I would argue that New Elites are the same as Old Elites, they want control. They don't care if they destroy their own technology in the process of getting that control.

Quote:Still, the internet robber barons use the same methods of manipulating wealth and political power as the other owners of the means of production.  They own stocks, collect dividends, give money to politicians, etc...  They don't need to change the way the game is rigged.  They can use the existing system just fine.  In older times, the robber barons acted to end the special prerogatives of the king and nobles and to end slavery.  In those times the system was rigged in ways that favored the old elites but which were not important to an industrialist.  In the case of the computer robber barons, they see no major need to change the system as the system works just fine for them.

By this line of argument I would contend that the so-called new elites are not a new elite at all but simply a New Money version of the old elite.

<snip partisan 'history' lesson>

Quote:We've got the best government that money can buy.

We do. That is why I'm convinced that those who run on other people's money are bought. Which is why people are so shocked with Daddy's victory. He didn't win the election the way people think elections are won. Ann Colter wrote a book about it. I've listened to the audio book. She explained exactly how and why Trump won the election. And how he was able to do it on time, under budget and with mostly his own money. (He also had a lot of small contributes--of which I was one, and more than a few sales of MAGA swag.)

The take away though is this. Instead of spending millions on ads like HRC did, it was far more effective to use social media, word of mouth, and of course free press coverage. There is no such thing as bad publicity.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-el...SKBN1341JR

[Warren Dew]

(11-13-2016, 10:11 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: In the case of borrowing and taxing the state is taking capital that could be put to work elsewhere and using it it for whatever.  I will grant that not all spending is equal.  A tax cut for the extremely wealthy (and I mean on their take home income, low corporate and capital gains taxes push money into investment and re-investment given a higher personal income tax rate) is a poor way to spend that capital.  The same would be true of a tax cut for the poor.  Or welfare.  Or subsidies for insurance.

Spending that same capital on public infrastructure, either new construction or refurbishing existing infrastructure, while not glamorous has a rate of return much much higher than a mere tax cut or a welfare check.

I agree with much of what you have to say, but I have to disagree on this.  The problem is that government spending is often extremely inefficient, because the government has no profit motive.  Refurbishing failing infrastructure may be done efficiently, but any extra money allocated is still spent, but almost entirely on gold plating or patronage.

Massachusetts is a good example of this.  When Obama passed his infrastructure spending bill, we had a Democrat governor and got more than our share of the money.  Lots of it was spent on unproductive things, like moving curbs in or out by a couple of feet in various places.  Yes, new curbing was involved, but the old curbing was also granite and in fine shape.

There were also bridges and interchanges that needed fixing, but the work was interminable; for six years the return on the investment was negative as traffic lanes remained closed to permit the "work".

Then we got a Republican governor, and the projects that had taken six years to fail to complete all started getting completed in a matter of months.  It's quite clear that they could have been completed with a tenth the money, and the extra money was just spent on unproductive patronage employment.

Tax cuts that would encourage investment in private infrastructure would be far more efficient, if you really wanted infrastructure.

Personally I think there is also, currently, a lot of excess capacity due to lack of consumption, so I think tax cuts for wage earners to boost consumption would also make sense at present.  As the following graph indicates, taking up the slack in the economy - which granted, might involve more than just tax cuts - would make everyone about 10% better off.



But even if you don't believe in keynesian deficits, massive government spending on infrastructure is not the way to go.

[Bob Butler 54]

(11-13-2016, 10:11 PM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(11-13-2016, 09:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: For some it seems to me that they are locked into their world view and are unwilling to even attempt to look at any issue from more than one angle.

Really?  Ya think?  

Yes I do think.  It also includes you to some extent.  However, unlike many here you recognize values lock where it exists.

Quote:

(11-13-2016, 04:58 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I will say however that the notion of what is and is not progress is relative.

Do you mean subjective?  That some will think one thing important, others another?  If so, sure.  It seems you do not care if a capitalist class that controls the means of production is collecting extreme amounts of wealth and power to the point that you are now in denial that this class even exists.  I disagree.  Marx described the problem very well, even if his solutions didn't account for human nature.

Whether it is relative or subjective is a matter of semantics.  Semantics I'm not willing to argue over.

I'm not interested in arguing over semantics either, but I'd kind of like to understand what you're saying.  Your original quote made no sense to me.

(11-13-2016, 10:11 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: As to a capitalist class, it not only exists but it also controls the means of production and yes it does accumulate wealth.  That is what capitalists do.  Marx did describe the problems of his day very well but those material conditions are no longer present.  Even so, human nature being what it is, the best possible system is one in which every man has the liberty to exploit whatever opportunity may come his way.  That system does not exist in this country largely thanks to the "New Deal" and an abundance of governmental regulation.  That system is of course capitalism.  Which is the worse economic system possible, besides all the others that have been tried.

I've been trying to work out a simple political forum friendly system for talking about economics.  Might as well give it a shake.  It starts by partitioning the economy into sectors.  I'm using semi familiar labels with a common theme:  Main Street, Wall Street, Easy Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.  Of these, Easy Street and Wall street are so tied together that I won't spend a lot of time differentiating between the two.

Then there are the three ways (feel free to include others) that government action might effect the interactions between the sectors.  Supply Side assumes Wall Street and Easy Street do not have the funds to invest in growth and makes such funds available through tax policy.  Demand Side (such as the infrastructure projects you mentioned) assumes creating working class jobs will improve what's going on on Main Street.  Deficit Spending might be used to gather funds for either Demand or Supply side stimulus, but it shifts problems to later rather than solving them.  Every dime spent servicing the debt is a dime that can't be spent on stimulus.  Also, the interest on the debt is a hidden transfer from Penn Ave to Wall Street.

Tax and spend liberalism and borrow and spend trickle down are two particular configurations of the above.  They are not the only possible such configurations.  I can agree that Tax and Spend as practiced by LBJ and trickle down as practiced by Bush 43 are dead or ought to be dead, though I'm concerned that your father has promised borrow and spend on steroids.

Observations...

Main Street is the goose that lays the golden eggs.  If Main Street is doing well, the other streets can and will successfully leech off of them and do quite well, thank you.  The problems come with too much leeching and an anemic goose.

Dividends do as much or more to redistribute wealth as any government policy.  They move funds from Main Street through Wall Street to Easy Street.  The amount of dividends so shifted is to a great degree controlled by Easy Street.  In short, the capitalist owners of the means of production are in their greed strangling the golden egg laying goose.

Currently, wealth inequality is as large as it has been since the Gilded Age, interest rates are low, and there are no real problems floating a new stock in order to leverage new technology and create new jobs.  Thus, there is absolutely no need for Supply Side stimulus.

Currently the debt is high as a portion of the economy, as high as it has been since the immediate aftermath of World War II.  This is not a proper time for increasing the debt.  I'd very much like to start buying it down.

I'm inclined to agree with you that a some amount of infrastructure investment and other demand side stuff should be considered now.

Neither supply side, demand side or deficit control should be considered alone or as fixed policies.  You have to look at the current state of the economy and use all tools available.  We shouldn't be looking for a year when everything was cool and try the policies that were in place then.  We should look at what the problems are today and what tools are available to fix them.

While I can agree that enough has changed since LBJ's and Bush 43's time that precisely duplicating their tax and spend and trickle down economies and policies is or should be impossible.  This does not mean that the basic relationships between the various economic segments have changed or are apt to go away.  Easy Street -- the capitalist class that owns the means of production -- has too much control over how money flows from Main Street to Easy Street.  Things have changed even more since Marx's time, but that's the core of what he was concerned about, and the problem is anything but solved.

If government acting according to the will of the People isn't the agency to check the excessive influence of Easy Street, what is?  In abstract, the government getting out of Main Street's way and allowing them to do their thing is fine, but someone or something has to check Easy Street's leeching out of Main Street.  Until you can suggest viable means to do this other than government tax policy and regulation, that's where we're going to have to go.

But by all means, suggest another way.  Laissez Faire isn't it.  Unfettered capitalism was a disaster in the Gilded Age.  If you don't believe me, read your Marx.  The Reagan Bush Bush attempts to move back in that direction resulted in disastrous economic problems.  I fear your father is going to repeat their mistake of putting Easy Street above Main Street.

Anyway, that's where I'm at.  I might come back to address some of your other points, but it's getting late...

[Galen]

(11-13-2016, 11:45 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(11-13-2016, 10:11 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: In the case of borrowing and taxing the state is taking capital that could be put to work elsewhere and using it it for whatever.  I will grant that not all spending is equal.  A tax cut for the extremely wealthy (and I mean on their take home income, low corporate and capital gains taxes push money into investment and re-investment given a higher personal income tax rate) is a poor way to spend that capital.  The same would be true of a tax cut for the poor.  Or welfare.  Or subsidies for insurance.

Spending that same capital on public infrastructure, either new construction or refurbishing existing infrastructure, while not glamorous has a rate of return much much higher than a mere tax cut or a welfare check.

But even if you don't believe in keynesian deficits, massive government spending on infrastructure is not the way to go.

This is pretty much what happened in the Great Depression.  Obozo did much the same thing that Hoover and FDR did and got the same results.  Not surprising when you think about it and this is perfectly in line with Hayek's business cycle theory.  If Trump is smart he will do what Harding did and I expect that he will get similar results which were a short nasty recession followed by real growth in the economy.

Let people keep and spend their money and the aggregate demand problem, along with some others, will fix themselves.