The Partisan Divide on Issues

[Classic-Xer]

(01-20-2020, 11:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know what you mean by liberals blaming our troops for what Al Qaeda and Iranian militias were doing.

The so called liberals (blue hippie age boomers/silents) resorted/ regressed to their evil ways of old by demonizing our troops during the Iraq War like they did during the Vietnam War.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-21-2020, 01:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-20-2020, 11:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know what you mean by liberals blaming our troops for what Al Qaeda and Iranian militias were doing.

The so called liberals (blue hippie age boomers/silents) resorted/ regressed to their evil ways of old by demonizing our troops during the Iraq War like they did during the Vietnam War.

I agree they demonized during and just after Vietnam, but they properly went after the administration Republicans for lying about the evidence for the causes of the Iraq war.   As usual. you are lying or ignorant, I am not sure which.

[pbrower2a]

(01-21-2020, 01:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-20-2020, 11:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know what you mean by liberals blaming our troops for what Al Qaeda and Iranian militias were doing.

The so called liberals (blue hippie age boomers/silents) resorted/ regressed to their evil ways of old by demonizing our troops during the Iraq War like they did during the Vietnam War.

What do you mean? Left or Right, Boomers hated Saddam Hussein, a murderous tyrant in the "Nazi-fascist" style. If we were divided about the War in Vietnam, we were not so divided about Saddam Hussein, a serial mass murderer and military adventurer of the worst kind. In the First Gulf War, about the only liberals opposed to the war were strict pacifists. Aside perhaps for them, we practically all saw our returning soldiers as heroes.

In the second, even if we thought Dubya [note well -- Dubya is a Boomer] had lied or bungled his way into the war, few liberals shed any tears about Saddam Hussein being hanged for crimes against humanity. Even if we disliked the war we saw our returning troops more as heroes than as "baby-killers" [unfortunate appelation for Vietnam-war vets who did as they were told to do in a severly-bungled war].

If we liberals demonized anyone, then it was Saddam Hussein -- or as I often called him Satan Hussein -- so that we could avoid confusing him with the far more benign King Hussein of Jordan. On the Left? Most Americans on the Left agreed in 1990 with Mikhail Gorbachev that it was completely acceptable to drive him out of Kuwait... and of course demand that missiles capable of reaching the Soviet Union be destroyed. Surely you forgot that part of the story. Missiles in Iraq were capable of reaching Volgograd as well as Tel Aviv. Shared interests create some strange partnerships in history.

[Eric the Green]

I don't know who knocked veterans of the Vietnam War. I thought they should not have gone, and I thought they should not have gone to Iraq too. But I don't remember any friends or people I knew who put them down. I know there were some people who did after the Vietnam War. But we hippie-age blue boomers and silents who protested the wars wanted to save their lives by bringing them home. And we wanted to stop the killing. War did great damage to many people who fought and were victims of it. And the supposed cause was defective, and not worth killing and deforming millions of people for.

Sure, it would have been nice if the United States could have set up a democracy in South Vietnam. Communism is not so good, although sometimes it can be reformed. But what business did we have to go invade a country half way around the world and set up their government for them by burning women, kids, houses and villages, as Arlo Guthrie put it? It was up to the Vietnamese to fight this out. And there never was any such democracy there to defend.

Much the same issue came up about Iraq. What right did we have to just go invade another country and set up their government for them? Was it our oil that was under their sand? Maybe it will turn out OK. But in the meantime, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, and the demon of the Islamic State was released. Maybe we could have helped them with money and intelligence and supplies once the Iraqi people rose up in the Arab Spring, IF they wanted our help (as the Syrians did, and we failed to provide).

These wars are the archetype of the quagmire. The United States must avoid them in the future if it wants to keep its standing in the world. My country right or wrong, is wrong. If my country is right, it's because it allows its people to decide what is right. To fight for democracy abroad, and destroy it at home in the name of "Americans," is the road to destruction. If saying these things make me a blue hippie un-American, then I'm proud to be one.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-20-2020, 11:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-20-2020, 07:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-20-2020, 12:34 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I am into theories of history.  Turnings.  Civilizations.  Ages.  But then, aren’t we all on this site?

I did see a sort of Republican involvement in the House inquiry.  It was mostly to distract from the main question and slow things down.  It wasn’t to the point or effective.  More pertinent, I saw the short form of the supposed defense.   Trump did nothing impeachable?  We want foreign states interfering with elections?  We want the White Hose not responding to subpoenas for people or documents?  I don’t care if these are crimes or not, I don’t want them.

If there is a comparable standard, can you name a few times the Democrats sought out foreign intervention in US elections?

I do believe in that the Bush 43 administration lied to justify their war in Iraq.  They just changed their story to fit the facts too many times.  They had too many oil and military people in the administration.  I am aware of partisan leanings as to what conspiracy theories one is drawn to believe, but that one isn’t close.

The 17 US intelligence agencies to 0 puts the Russian Collusion thing in the same category.

You don’t believe Trump yelled out in a room full of media to the effect of, “Hey Russia, if you are listening, please…”?

The information behind Obama being born in Kenya was really weak.  Good choice to ignore that one.  I’d like to say I made up my mind when a researcher found a birth announcement in a local Hawaii newspaper, but I had made up my mind long before.  

You might try looking at the evidence?  If evidence exists, it doesn’t fit the conspiracy theory category anymore?

I do suspect a new progressive era is coming.  Demographics.  They need to address problems at intervals.  The cyclical rhythm of politics as major parties stick with what got them in power long after they reach a point of diminishing return.  The need to react to changing technology.  The bad presidents, likely to look really bad in the history books, discrediting the old ideals.  I am too dubious about the 2020 candidates and the likely outcomes not to get my hopes too far up for the near future.  It will come.  If you are into cyclical history, you have to know that it will come.  I just am not all sure when.

On one of my other web sites, I am role playing a Star Trek character.  She is currently raising the Prime Directive.  I find myself echoing some of the stuff I say here.  The Prime Directive warns against trying to change cultures before they are ready to change.  The high technology of the Star Trek universe makes it kinda dumb not to adopt to the new science, even if accepting it does force a change.  There is a kind of balance to walk, between adapting to the available science, and wanting to remain true to yourself.  The balance is in offering the benefits of the new, while respecting the compulsion to keep what is established.  Progressive.  Conservative.  It is very possible to err in either direction.  The problem is that America is diverse enough that some areas have a greater population density, have a greater need to change.  That is a lot of the friction.

Cyclical theory ain't my cup of tea or viewed as being as high in priority compared to you either.  Me, I figured Obama had already proven his citizenship prior to entering the Democratic primary in 2008 against Hilary and therefore him proving it wasn't viewed as necessary. So, I didn't pay much attention to the Birther movement thingy back then. I was often accused of supporting it and believing it too by a bunch of foolish liberals back them. I noticed that you were busy blaming  our troops for doing the nasty stuff that Al Qaeda and the Iranian backed militia's  were largely guilty of  doing back then as well. I don't know who put all that liberal crap in your head back then, I assume that the progressive era of old has to basically collapse  and come to an end before a new progressive era begins. Of coarse, the blue boomers would have to stop clinging to the old progressive system and long held beliefs relating to it for that to have a chance to come to fruition these days.

Cyclical theory is my cup of tea. Of course, astrology is the queen of the science of cycles. It can be denied but never goes away.

I'm glad you weren't swept up in the birther movement. There are a lot of conspiracy theories swirling around that attract people both on the right and the left. I think they are all pretty much nonsense. You have to do some research into the actual facts to prove this for yourself, so I did. I believed in some of them, but now I don't. The 9-11 "truth" theory that it was an inside job engineered by Bush is one of these false theories.

I don't know what you mean by liberals blaming our troops for what Al Qaeda and Iranian militias were doing.

The previous progressive era in which blue boomers (and blue silents) were involved certainly collapsed long ago, basically in 1980 with the Reagan takeover. So there's nothing for the blue boomers today to cling to. They seem many of them to have left the fold and joined the Trump movement to make America great again. Those are the old beliefs that have to be left behind, and the new progressive era is already rising, among blue millennials and blues and greens of the other generations who kept the faith and the emerging Gen Zers too.

But without you conservatives, we liberals would have less stimulus to preach and write and argue and research and campaign and get on the ball. Where would we be without you guys to challenge us? It's more interesting to discuss things with people who disagree, and to try to portray the other side from you and correct your errors as we see them. So in that sense, we are indebted to you guys and to Trump and the near-fascist Republicans of today for getting us off our duffs.

I'd say Astrology is primarily your cup of tea these days and cyclical history has taken a back seat to it. Hmmm...I've seen your third rate Gen Xr's and Millenials at work these days. I mean, they're ok for those who are more familiar with liberal politics related to the third world and more accustomed to barely living in third world banana republics.

[Eric the Green]

(01-21-2020, 05:18 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-20-2020, 11:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(01-20-2020, 07:05 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-20-2020, 12:34 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: I am into theories of history.  Turnings.  Civilizations.  Ages.  But then, aren’t we all on this site?

I did see a sort of Republican involvement in the House inquiry.  It was mostly to distract from the main question and slow things down.  It wasn’t to the point or effective.  More pertinent, I saw the short form of the supposed defense.   Trump did nothing impeachable?  We want foreign states interfering with elections?  We want the White Hose not responding to subpoenas for people or documents?  I don’t care if these are crimes or not, I don’t want them.

If there is a comparable standard, can you name a few times the Democrats sought out foreign intervention in US elections?

I do believe in that the Bush 43 administration lied to justify their war in Iraq.  They just changed their story to fit the facts too many times.  They had too many oil and military people in the administration.  I am aware of partisan leanings as to what conspiracy theories one is drawn to believe, but that one isn’t close.

The 17 US intelligence agencies to 0 puts the Russian Collusion thing in the same category.

You don’t believe Trump yelled out in a room full of media to the effect of, “Hey Russia, if you are listening, please…”?

The information behind Obama being born in Kenya was really weak.  Good choice to ignore that one.  I’d like to say I made up my mind when a researcher found a birth announcement in a local Hawaii newspaper, but I had made up my mind long before.  

You might try looking at the evidence?  If evidence exists, it doesn’t fit the conspiracy theory category anymore?

I do suspect a new progressive era is coming.  Demographics.  They need to address problems at intervals.  The cyclical rhythm of politics as major parties stick with what got them in power long after they reach a point of diminishing return.  The need to react to changing technology.  The bad presidents, likely to look really bad in the history books, discrediting the old ideals.  I am too dubious about the 2020 candidates and the likely outcomes not to get my hopes too far up for the near future.  It will come.  If you are into cyclical history, you have to know that it will come.  I just am not all sure when.

On one of my other web sites, I am role playing a Star Trek character.  She is currently raising the Prime Directive.  I find myself echoing some of the stuff I say here.  The Prime Directive warns against trying to change cultures before they are ready to change.  The high technology of the Star Trek universe makes it kinda dumb not to adopt to the new science, even if accepting it does force a change.  There is a kind of balance to walk, between adapting to the available science, and wanting to remain true to yourself.  The balance is in offering the benefits of the new, while respecting the compulsion to keep what is established.  Progressive.  Conservative.  It is very possible to err in either direction.  The problem is that America is diverse enough that some areas have a greater population density, have a greater need to change.  That is a lot of the friction.

Cyclical theory ain't my cup of tea or viewed as being as high in priority compared to you either.  Me, I figured Obama had already proven his citizenship prior to entering the Democratic primary in 2008 against Hilary and therefore him proving it wasn't viewed as necessary. So, I didn't pay much attention to the Birther movement thingy back then. I was often accused of supporting it and believing it too by a bunch of foolish liberals back them. I noticed that you were busy blaming  our troops for doing the nasty stuff that Al Qaeda and the Iranian backed militia's  were largely guilty of  doing back then as well. I don't know who put all that liberal crap in your head back then, I assume that the progressive era of old has to basically collapse  and come to an end before a new progressive era begins. Of coarse, the blue boomers would have to stop clinging to the old progressive system and long held beliefs relating to it for that to have a chance to come to fruition these days.

Cyclical theory is my cup of tea. Of course, astrology is the queen of the science of cycles. It can be denied but never goes away.

I'm glad you weren't swept up in the birther movement. There are a lot of conspiracy theories swirling around that attract people both on the right and the left. I think they are all pretty much nonsense. You have to do some research into the actual facts to prove this for yourself, so I did. I believed in some of them, but now I don't. The 9-11 "truth" theory that it was an inside job engineered by Bush is one of these false theories.

I don't know what you mean by liberals blaming our troops for what Al Qaeda and Iranian militias were doing.

The previous progressive era in which blue boomers (and blue silents) were involved certainly collapsed long ago, basically in 1980 with the Reagan takeover. So there's nothing for the blue boomers today to cling to. They seem many of them to have left the fold and joined the Trump movement to make America great again. Those are the old beliefs that have to be left behind, and the new progressive era is already rising, among blue millennials and blues and greens of the other generations who kept the faith and the emerging Gen Zers too.

But without you conservatives, we liberals would have less stimulus to preach and write and argue and research and campaign and get on the ball. Where would we be without you guys to challenge us? It's more interesting to discuss things with people who disagree, and to try to portray the other side from you and correct your errors as we see them. So in that sense, we are indebted to you guys and to Trump and the near-fascist Republicans of today for getting us off our duffs.

I'd say Astrology is primarily your cup of tea these days and cyclical history has taken a back seat to it. Hmmm...I've seen your third rate Gen Xr's and Millenials at work these days. I mean, they're ok for those who are more familiar with liberal politics related to the third world and more accustomed to barely living in third world banana republics.

Astrology and cycle theories are all connected.

The conservative ideology today is making America a banana republic again.

[pbrower2a]

(01-21-2020, 04:59 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know who knocked veterans of the Vietnam War. I thought they should not have gone, and I thought they should not have gone to Iraq too. But I don't remember any friends or people I knew who put them down. I know there were some people who did after the Vietnam War. But we hippie-age blue boomers and silents who protested the wars wanted to save their lives by bringing them home. And we wanted to stop the killing. War did great damage to many people who fought and were victims of it. And the supposed cause was defective, and not worth killing and deforming millions of people for.

There were some regrettable people who greeted American veterans from the War in Vietnam with the epithet "baby-killer" as if all American soldiers were equivalents of William Calley. I remember seeing people cheer the Vietcong and North Vietnamese Army advancing into Saigon and shouting "Bring the victory home". Multitudes of Vietnamese fled the Communist takeover of the North and then the Communist takeover of the South. I have met some Vietnamese refugees; they are not evil people.  

Quote:Sure, it would have been nice if the United States could have set up a democracy in South Vietnam. Communism is not so good, although sometimes it can be reformed. But what business did we have to go invade a country half way around the world and set up their government for them by burning women, kids, houses and villages, as Arlo Guthrie put it? It was up to the Vietnamese to fight this out. And there never was any such democracy there to defend.

Would that we could have been as successful in South Vietnam as in South Korea. To spoof Lincoln Steffens, from what I understand about South Korea I might say, if I ever visited it -- I would love to have done so while my father, a Korean War veteran, was living and I would have told him that I have seen the future and it works. Note well that there was no armistice in Vietnam as there was in Korea. Vietnam, like China, has abandoned Marxist-Leninist economics without abandoning the dictatorship. 

Our leadership thoroughly bungled the War in Vietnam. On the other hand, the government of the Republic of Vietnam was corrupt, insensitive, and incompetent. 

Quote:Much the same issue came up about Iraq. What right did we have to just go invade another country and set up their government for them? Was it our oil that was under their sand? Maybe it will turn out OK. But in the meantime, hundreds of thousands of lives were lost, and the demon of the Islamic State was released. Maybe we could have helped them with money and intelligence and supplies once the Iraqi people rose up in the Arab Spring, IF they wanted our help (as the Syrians did, and we failed to provide).

It was definitely not "our" oil. Maybe things will turn out well in Iraq in the end... well, maybe if Trump ends up with little role in it. 

Quote:These wars are the archetype of the quagmire. The United States must avoid them in the future if it wants to keep its standing in the world. My country right or wrong, is wrong. If my country is right, it's because it allows its people to decide what is right. To fight for democracy abroad, and destroy it at home in the name of "Americans," is the road to destruction. If saying these things make me a blue hippie un-American, then I'm proud to be one.

It could be far worse should America become an Evil Empire. I think of this clip from a History Channel documentary relating Star Wars III in which the Evil Empire supplants the shaky, Weimar-like Republic with a monstrosity. 





The Dark Side is much closer to us than most of us want to believe.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-21-2020, 05:18 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Hmmm...I've seen your third rate Gen Xr's and Millenials at work these days. I mean, they're ok for those who are more familiar with liberal politics related to the third world and more accustomed to barely living in third world banana republics.

I too am disappointed that the Xers and Millennials allowed the export of jobs to the third world.  In hindsight, this contributed significantly to their poverty as compared to those whose youth was spent in the progressive era.  It used to be, during the colonial time, that the country was put first, not the corporations.  The prime manufacturing jobs were kept in the mother countries.  The third world was kept poor by using them a source of raw materials and a market only.  These days, the corporations are first.  The politicians voted to enable the elite rather than the country.  This resulted in the people who came of age in the mother countries during the conservative era not benefiting from the colonial policies.  Thus, relative poverty.

I don’t blame the conservatives entirely.  The Democrats were accepting campaign finance ‘donations’ too.  They too would benefit the elites at the expense of the countries and thus the People.  And yet, in another way it was a good thing too.  The colonial exploitation of the third world had to come to an end.  If the world was to be stabilized, the artificial military and colonial forces that kept the rich countries rich and the poor countries poor had to be minimized.  The structures that kept the gap in place had to be torn down.  Unfortunately, it was done in a way such as it was the elites that pocketed the bulk of the benefit.  The imbalance of wealth actually increased.

If the relative difference between the well off sons of the progressive time as opposed to the sons of the conservative time is to be reversed, it is by lessening the division of wealth, not at the expense of the third world.  Those jobs are gone.  The best we can do is fight the autocratic Neo-capatalist governments that are trying to deny their People the political benefits of the Enlightenment: human rights, contested elections, division of power, etc…

I too find the Xers and Millennials good people.  We can’t all be idealists, struggling for the common good.  The mood had changed.  The emphasis went towards finding a good time and a good job.  After fighting the good fight during the progressive time, it was time for a vacation.  It is just that the vacation should be brought to an end.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-21-2020, 04:46 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-21-2020, 01:35 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-20-2020, 11:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know what you mean by liberals blaming our troops for what Al Qaeda and Iranian militias were doing.

The so called liberals (blue hippie age boomers/silents) resorted/ regressed to their evil ways of old by demonizing our troops during the Iraq War like they did during the Vietnam War.

I agree they demonized during and just after Vietnam, but they properly went after the administration Republicans for lying about the evidence for the causes of the Iraq war.   As usual. you are lying or ignorant, I am not sure which.

You don't remember all the demonizing of American troops that went on back then. You don't remember the amount of liberal posters and liberal supporters who ended up being lost over it back then. I do because I was there taking them to task and openly trashing them (treating them like scumbags) right in front of the eyes of the entire Democratic population that existed at the time. Hint...I don't treat liberal scumbags the same way as I treated the decent Democrats and the decent Democrats sided with me which forced you and others to change their ways. I'm not dreaming or role playing (pretending to be someone other than myself) or playing senseless political games.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-22-2020, 11:32 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You don't remember all the demonizing of American troops that went on back then. You don't remember the amount of liberal posters and liberal supporters who ended up being lost over it back then. I do because I was there taking them to task and openly trashing them (treating them like scumbags) right in front of the eyes of the entire Democratic population that existed at the time. Hint...I don't treat liberal scumbags the same way as I treated the decent Democrats and the decent Democrats sided with me which forced you and others to change their ways. I'm not dreaming or role playing (pretending to be someone other than myself) or playing senseless political games.

Treating people like skumbags does sound like you.  You do seem to enjoy it.  I don’t doubt you could find people you consider scumbags if you looked for them.  I just found more people who were concerned with the administration lying about cause for war.  The destabilization of the Middle East by the conservative administration was problematic.  Bush 43's alliance between military neo cons, oil interests and Evangelicals on top of the unraveling memes was toxic.  That was of far more interest to me that being obsessed with treating people like scumbags.  There were real scumbags to pick on.

As a devout agnostic, I do find it ironic that many conservatives embrace religious thought in America but demonize it it in the Middle East.  It is quite obvious that the Capitalist and Communist systems were exploiting the oil and that anyone for the people would devalue those systems.  They favored the elites rather than the locals.  Sticking with the Agricultural Age autocratic values was the option left, even if they have the same flaw.  If you don’t include the Enlightenment approach such as human rights, checks and balances and real multiple party elections, there is no check on the power of the elites.  I don’t consider Agricultural Age values a good choice in modern times, but what choice do they have?  Well, those who wished more Western values immigrated to the West.  That is a valid choice, but it leaves those sticking with religious old values in charge back in the Middle East.

***

I consider Fantasy Role Play to be another form of fiction and literature.  At center it is a shared daydream.  Most people watch TV, plays, movies and other traditional forms.  I prefer to be more active, to create characters, to effect the plot.  Thus, I watch little TV, see few movies.  Others choose otherwise.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-21-2020, 05:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Astrology and cycle theories are all connected.

The conservative ideology today is making America a banana republic again.

Yes, they both seem to be directly connected to you. Dude, I don't live in a liberal run banana republic like St.Paul or Minneapolis. I live in an American suburb that has no interest in ending up being like either of them. We have to remind the Democratic politicians that they could easily be directly challenged and replaced by any of us if they forget where they live and get to far out of line with our values and start acting more like city liberals than Democrats these days. You see, the greatest threat to them are the private sectors who aren't interested in doing jobs these days. Yes, you run the risk of losing talent to us like you have been doing for years and are seeing the results of these days.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-22-2020, 12:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-22-2020, 11:32 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You don't remember all the demonizing of American troops that went on back then. You don't remember the amount of liberal posters and liberal supporters who ended up being lost over it back then. I do because I was there taking them to task and openly trashing them (treating them like scumbags) right in front of the eyes of the entire Democratic population that existed at the time. Hint...I don't treat liberal scumbags the same way as I treated the decent Democrats and the decent Democrats sided with me which forced you and others to change their ways. I'm not dreaming or role playing (pretending to be someone other than myself) or playing senseless political games.

Treating people like skumbags does sound like you.  You do seem to enjoy it.  I don’t doubt you could find people you consider scumbags if you looked for them.  I just found more people who were concerned with the administration lying about cause for war.  The destabilization of the Middle East by the conservative administration was problematic.  Bush 43's alliance between military neo cons, oil interests and Evangelicals on top of the unraveling memes was toxic.  That was of far more interest to me that being obsessed with treating people like scumbags.  There were real scumbags to pick on.

As a devout agnostic, I do find it ironic that many conservatives embrace religious thought in America but demonize it it in the Middle East.  It is quite obvious that the Capitalist and Communist systems were exploiting the oil and that anyone for the people would devalue those systems.  They favored the elites rather than the locals.  Sticking with the Agricultural Age autocratic values was the option left, even if they have the same flaw.  If you don’t include the Enlightenment approach such as human rights, checks and balances and real multiple party elections, there is no check on the power of the elites.  I don’t consider Agricultural Age values a good choice in modern times, but what choice do they have?  Well, those who wished more Western values immigrated to the West.  That is a valid choice, but it leaves those sticking with religious old values in charge back in the Middle East.

***

I consider Fantasy Role Play to be another form of fiction and literature.  At center it is a shared daydream.  Most people watch TV, plays, movies and other traditional forms.  I prefer to be more active, to create characters, to effect the plot.  Thus, I watch little TV, see few movies.  Others choose otherwise.

As I recall, we weren't fighting over the cause during the war. We were fighting over what was going on with our troops during the war and what was true and false related to them and their conduct. I was fighting with you about lying to me about the conduct and motives of American sons and daughter, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers who were over there that you didn't know at the time. Yes, I treated you the same as any other liberal scumbag who was into doing it at the time. You were a big boy who making his own decisions and expressing his beliefs and views of our troops at the time right. Now, you can lie to your own and lie to yourself but lying to me could be self damaging and even self damning at times. I've already proved this.

Hint....American conservatives/liberals aren't into state sponsored religious persecution or into banning peoples religious freedom like the old world that their ancestors left. So, chew on that. Does an American liberal really give a shit if Omar is black and happens to be a Muslim these days. Does Omar understand that classical liberalism teaches that neither of them matter or serve as a shield to protect her or her religious beliefs or racist beliefs from good old fashioned American criticism or preventing her from getting into trouble with American law enforcement officials these days.

[pbrower2a]

(01-22-2020, 02:06 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-22-2020, 12:37 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-22-2020, 11:32 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You don't remember all the demonizing of American troops that went on back then. You don't remember the amount of liberal posters and liberal supporters who ended up being lost over it back then. I do because I was there taking them to task and openly trashing them (treating them like scumbags) right in front of the eyes of the entire Democratic population that existed at the time. Hint...I don't treat liberal scumbags the same way as I treated the decent Democrats and the decent Democrats sided with me which forced you and others to change their ways. I'm not dreaming or role playing (pretending to be someone other than myself) or playing senseless political games.

Treating people like skumbags does sound like you.  You do seem to enjoy it.  I don’t doubt you could find people you consider scumbags if you looked for them.  I just found more people who were concerned with the administration lying about cause for war.  The destabilization of the Middle East by the conservative administration was problematic.  Bush 43's alliance between military neo cons, oil interests and Evangelicals on top of the unraveling memes was toxic.  That was of far more interest to me that being obsessed with treating people like scumbags.  There were real scumbags to pick on.

As a devout agnostic, I do find it ironic that many conservatives embrace religious thought in America but demonize it it in the Middle East.  It is quite obvious that the Capitalist and Communist systems were exploiting the oil and that anyone for the people would devalue those systems.  They favored the elites rather than the locals.  Sticking with the Agricultural Age autocratic values was the option left, even if they have the same flaw.  If you don’t include the Enlightenment approach such as human rights, checks and balances and real multiple party elections, there is no check on the power of the elites.  I don’t consider Agricultural Age values a good choice in modern times, but what choice do they have?  Well, those who wished more Western values immigrated to the West.  That is a valid choice, but it leaves those sticking with religious old values in charge back in the Middle East.

***

I consider Fantasy Role Play to be another form of fiction and literature.  At center it is a shared daydream.  Most people watch TV, plays, movies and other traditional forms.  I prefer to be more active, to create characters, to effect the plot.  Thus, I watch little TV, see few movies.  Others choose otherwise.

As I recall, we weren't fighting over the cause during the war. We were fighting over what was going on with our troops during the war and what was true and false related to them and  their conduct. I was fighting with you about lying to me about the conduct and motives of American sons and daughter, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers who were over there that you didn't know at the time. Yes, I treated you the same as any other liberal scumbag who was into doing it at the time. You were a big boy who making his own decisions and expressing his beliefs and views of our troops  at the time right. Now, you can lie to your own and lie to yourself but lying to me could be self damaging and even self damning at times. I've already proved this.

The problem was usually the top leadership making ethical lapses. The American soldier in the battlefield normally behaves honorably. 

Quote:Hint....American conservatives/liberals aren't into state sponsored  religious persecution or into  banning peoples religious freedom like the old world that their ancestors left. So, chew on that.  Does an American liberal really give a shit if Omar is black and happens to be  a Muslim these days. Does Omar understand that classical liberalism teaches that neither of them matter or serve as a shield to protect her or her religious beliefs or racist beliefs  from good old fashioned American criticism or preventing her from getting into trouble with American law enforcement officials these days.

If one is a Muslim in dissent with non-Muslim leaders who commit crimes against Muslims or with some amoral, nominally-Muslim leader (let us say Satan Hussein) then the religious liberty in America that fosters actions consistent with conscience for Christians and Jews is as suitable for allowing the exercise of an Islamic conscience. Devout Islam is well within the range of beliefs consistent with America. Nobody says that the murderous Islamofascism of al-Qaeda was consistent with America; indeed the 9/11 plotters knew well enough to avoid Dearborn, Michigan (the city with the highest percentage of Muslims in America, and a place to be avoided... if one is a pimp, pusher, prostitute, sexual pervert, drunken brawler, or reeling drunk. This said, many Christians and Jews happen to like Dearborn for what it is in contrast to the sewer that is southwest Detroit.  Did I tell you the difference between Michigan Avenue (US 12) in Detroit and Dearborn? The Detroit side has lots of sexually-oriented businesses and liquor stores, not to mention the horrid people unwelcome in family-friendly Dearborn.  Better the mosque than the whore-house. American Muslims are straight-laced people on the whole, and that makes them tolerable despite their differences to people who may find their religion incomprehensible or absurd. Most of us understand pimps, pushers, prostitutes, perverts, brawlers, and reeling drunks all too well and warn our children to avoid them.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-22-2020, 02:06 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As I recall, we weren't fighting over the cause during the war. We were fighting over what was going on with our troops during the war and what was true and false related to them and  their conduct. I was fighting with you about lying to me about the conduct and motives of American sons and daughter, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers who were over there that you didn't know at the time. Yes, I treated you the same as any other liberal scumbag who was into doing it at the time. You were a big boy who making his own decisions and expressing his beliefs and views of our troops  at the time right. Now, you can lie to your own and lie to yourself but lying to me could be self damaging and even self damning at times. I've already proved this.

What I remember from the old days…

Back on September 12, 2001, Bush 43 put out his plan.  He was going to respond militarily.  He was not going to look at the underlying causes for the conflict, the reasons why the incident took place.  Just hearing that much, I predicted on the T4T site of the time that he was going to fail.   I hadn’t figured out the strategy yet.  It was too soon.  He likely did not have a firm strategy yet.  But I predicted he was going to fail.

Months later, the pentagon had a theory.  You need a certain ratio to succeed in an insurgent war of occupation, a sort of necessity for changing a culture by force.  Bush 43 thought his culture obviously superior, and denied the ratio of troops.  He also remembered his father’s failure, and was trying not to raise taxes, and thus he was fighting a limited war with limited forces.  Thus, he denied the pentagon call for more troops.

Two incidents come to mind.  In one, a sniper fired at American troops from a village.  The Americans called in artillery fire on the village.  Another time a wedding was being held.  The locals celebrated by firing their weapons in the air.  The Americans again responded with artillery fire.

Much later, the Americans switched strategy.  As in Vietnam, they had been counting victory by the body count.  The switched to winning hearts and minds.  They segregated Sunni and Shite, defended both, and the bad guys became those who left their enclaves to attack their opposites.  It seemed a worthy switch in tactics.  It was too late, and they hadn’t enough boots on the ground, and they had made enemies using artillery on too many people.

There is, I suppose, a difference between criticizing a theory, and demonizing the leader who does not believe in the correct theory.  I am a theorizer.  You are a demonizer.  I suppose if you are a people person, not a theorizer, it is possible to mistake criticism of the theory for demonizing of the person.  But I am a theorizer.  I’m into facts, reason, objective truth.

I do not so much blame the troops as the leaders for using bad theories, bad tactics.  That is just the way I approach things.  It takes all types.  I just happen to be a INTP.  This may be why my posts include a theory on why I hold my opinion, why your posts feature demonization of individuals.  Your posts are pretty much fact, reason and truth free.  Imagination and lies are sufficient to demonize.  If you demonize enough, make the other guy look thoroughly bad, it would seem from a people person’s perspective you might have done your job.

I am more into perspective that if you are running on a bad theory, you are going to fail spectacularly.

Thus we remember the long ago time different.  I still hold by the theories of the time.  The big mistake was I believed Vietnam had proven ‘cut and run’ was a better approach that ‘stay the course’.  Bush 43’s war seemed to show ‘stay the course’ could work if you used the correct tactics from the beginning and were willing to pay the costs in gold, iron and blood.  It seemed that the USA was not so willing.  We have been very reluctant to commit boots on the ground since.

This may be in part a difference between Agricultural Age autocratic thinking and Industrial Age scientific.  From my perspective, it is necessary to get the theory right.  From your perspective, you stick to your beliefs, dogma, tribe and demonization.  Thus, we are to a great degree talking past one another.  Your imaginative creativity just wings around without meaning a lot.

[pbrower2a]

(01-22-2020, 11:06 PM)Bob Butler 54 (in blue) Wrote:

(01-22-2020, 02:06 PM)Classic-Xer (in green) Wrote: As I recall, we weren't fighting over the cause during the war. We were fighting over what was going on with our troops during the war and what was true and false related to them and  their conduct. I was fighting with you about lying to me about the conduct and motives of American sons and daughter, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers who were over there that you didn't know at the time. Yes, I treated you the same as any other liberal scumbag who was into doing it at the time. You were a big boy who making his own decisions and expressing his beliefs and views of our troops  at the time right. Now, you can lie to your own and lie to yourself but lying to me could be self damaging and even self damning at times. I've already proved this.

What I remember from the old days…

Back on September 12, 2001, Bush 43 put out his plan.  He was going to respond militarily.  He was not going to look at the underlying causes for the conflict, the reasons why the incident took place.  Just hearing that much, I predicted on the T4T site of the time that he was going to fail.   I hadn’t figured out the strategy yet.  It was too soon.  He likely did not have a firm strategy yet.  But I predicted he was going to fail.

Months later, the Pentagon had a theory.  You need a certain ratio to succeed in an insurgent war of occupation, a sort of necessity for changing a culture by force.  Bush 43 thought his culture obviously superior, and denied the ratio of troops.  He also remembered his father’s failure, and was trying not to raise taxes, and thus he was fighting a limited war with limited forces.  Thus, he denied the pentagon call for more troops.

Two incidents come to mind.  In one, a sniper fired at American troops from a village.  The Americans called in artillery fire on the village.  Another time a wedding was being held.  The locals celebrated by firing their weapons in the air.  The Americans again responded with artillery fire.

Much later, the Americans switched strategy.  As in Vietnam, they had been counting victory by the body count.  The switched to winning hearts and minds.  They segregated Sunni and Shite, defended both, and the bad guys became those who left their enclaves to attack their opposites.  It seemed a worthy switch in tactics.  It was too late, and they hadn’t enough boots on the ground, and they had made enemies using artillery on too many people.

On September 11, 2001 my first thought was of the Pearl Harbor attack. I figured that I (fourteen years and one week away from being born at the time of the Pearl Harbor Attack) was just as disgusted as people who had any awareness of the Pearl Harbor attack at the time. I expected those people still around who had memories of the Pearl Harbor attack (there were obviously still millions) to be similarly disgusted. They were.  But one of those affronts to America happened in a Crisis Era and one did not -- as shown by the reality that there were many people who Remember(ed) Pearl Harbor in 2001.  An event that would shake America into the behavior that one expects in a Crisis is unlikely to precipitate similar behavior when people who still remember the last Crisis are still around. Those who Remember(ed) Pearl Harbor may have had the confidence to believe that Americans would respond in much the same way as they did in 1941, mobilizing the populace, cutting back on personal indulgence, and regimenting the economy.

FDR did not tell Americans to go shopping and do travel for its own sake. Dubya did. People making astronomical amounts of money as film, pop music, and sports stars did not swarm before cameras to enlist as soldiers and sailors. The only prominent person to do so was the unfortunate Pat Tillman. There was no equivalent of Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, or Hank Greenberg putting their careers on hold as baseball sluggers to become soldiers. No equivalent of Jimmy Stewart, then arguably the greatest male film star risking it all to wage war against the Axis (while sending a tenth of his $21-a-month military pay to his agent). There was no Glenn Miller Orchestra heading off to the military theater. Americans went shopping and took Sunday drives as they always did. Above all, the President supported as his "Opportunity Economy" a speculative boom in real estate whose implosion would itself create the economic cause of the current Crisis, much in contrast to the cessation of luxury construction promptly after the Pearl Harbor attack.    

Quote:There is, I suppose, a difference between criticizing a theory, and demonizing the leader who does not believe in the correct theory.  I am a theorizer.  You (Classic X'er) are a demonizer.  I suppose if you are a people person, not a theorizer, it is possible to mistake criticism of the theory for demonizing of the person.  But I am a theorizer.  I’m into facts, reason, objective truth.

I do not so much blame the troops as the leaders for using bad theories, bad tactics.  That is just the way I approach things.  It takes all types.  I just happen to be a INTP.  This may be why my posts include a theory on why I hold my opinion, why your posts feature demonization of individuals.  Your posts are pretty much fact, reason and truth free.  Imagination and lies are sufficient to demonize.  If you demonize enough, make the other guy look thoroughly bad, it would seem from a people person’s perspective you might have done your job.

Some times, your rationality is far stronger than mine. I may have more political passion. I hope that I save my demonization for thoroughly-bad varmints, examples of which History offers plenty of examples. I also recognize that incompetence can be just as devastating as malign intent. Ideally a society puts people into fit roles for their abilities and does not push people into roles for which they are unsuited just because they are wondrously adept at bureaucratic pandering or political demagoguery and incompetent at all else. 

Gilbert and Sullivan had this as satire of someone whose preparation would have been inadequate for the Royal Navy in 1914 or 1939 -- but H.M.S. Pinafore comes from a relatively peaceful time between European powers. 





Kissing up to the bosses, polishing the brass fittings, and "shining those shoes so carefully" are poor preparation for being the leader of the Queen's Navy.    

Quote:I am more into perspective that if you are running on a bad theory, you are going to fail spectacularly. 


Thus we remember the long ago time different.  I still hold by the theories of the time.  The big mistake was I believed Vietnam had proven ‘cut and run’ was a better approach that ‘stay the course’.  Bush 43’s war seemed to show ‘stay the course’ could work if you used the correct tactics from the beginning and were willing to pay the costs in gold, iron and blood.  It seemed that the USA was not so willing.  We have been very reluctant to commit boots on the ground since.

If you are going to have a war, then do it right, or else prepare to cut losses and leave. FDR had an open-ended idea of how much defeating the Axis powers could cost, much as Lincoln had an open-ended idea of how much the Civil War would cost. With such preparation one has a chance of winning in an apocalypse Lincoln and FDR are two of the three most admired of Presidents despite costly wars in either men or in material cost. 

Lyndon Johnson failed in the Vietnam War because he was unwilling to commit to an adequate number of casualties -- perhaps because America was clearly not in the mood for such. He left the unpleasant task of cutting and running to Richard Nixon. Dubya bungled the Second Gulf War due to his reliance upon  people more likely to suck up to him than to tell the unvarnished truth. Rather than adapt (and both Lincoln and FDR changed their overall strategies as needed), Bush simply committed to more of the same even if such were ineffective -- and he left the unpleasant task of cutting and running to Obama.     

Quote:(you) to Classic X'er --
This may be in part a difference between Agricultural Age autocratic thinking and Industrial Age scientific.  From my perspective, it is necessary to get the theory right.  From your perspective, you stick to your beliefs, dogma, tribe and demonization.  Thus, we are to a great degree talking past one another.  Your imaginative creativity just wings around without meaning a lot.

For the definitive city-slicker, Donald Trump has been highly adept at appealing to people whose minds are still in the Agricultural Age. Note well; Donald Trump also appeals effectively to people who cannot imagine that the world can continue running as if the Age of Industrial Scarcity is still here. In the Age of Industrial Scarcity people can still do well economically by meeting needs of basic goods and making others' lives better with more stuff. Most of us have more of a problem of surfeit than of sufficiency with 'stuff'. Should we experience hard times we can simply put off buying the latest gadgets and being little the worse for wear for lacking them. (We still need fuel, food, housing space, and medical care, but most of us can do perfectly well without the latest 'generation' of television, computer, or smart phone. But after the Age of Industrial Scarcity, more profits come from monopolization, ruin of competition, annihilation of opportunity in places 'left behind' (Baltimore, Hartford, Rochester, Camden, Gary, Detroit, Cleveland, Memphis, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Fresno) to compel people to move to high-rent places just to have a chance to work. People have been earning bigger profits of a world becoming nastier, and less for making the world more innovative and creative -- let alone more effective in serving people. 

Donald Trump is above all else a landlord, and his idea of prosperity is that people pay more rent. Ask a tenant whether paying more in real terms for effectively the same studio apartment is prosperity, and you might be lucky to avoid profanity. Property rents have soared in those few parts of America seeming to do well. He is not alone. He is perhaps the final expression of neoliberal economics, the idea that the measure of economic success is that the Right People get what they want no matter what the cost is to others. 

I have yet to figure what those Right People are except to know who is doing well while making life miserable for far more of us. When those Right People express their bloated claims of superiority to which we must all defer I feel visceral offense. I understand that state troopers dread the tongue-lashings that they get when they pull over an expensive car whose driver does extreme speed, the driver then giving a lecture on how his taxes pay the trooper's salary... much in contrast to some migrant farm laborer in the same state. OK, the migrant farm worker may be scared that the trooper will report him to "la Migra (INS)"... (I am not in law enforcement, but I would make clear that I would not report an illegal alien that I stopped for a traffic offense to La Migra unless the car were stolen or the driver were intoxicated or on or in possession of drugs; I would tell the rich person that the difference between someone hitting a tree at 100 mph in a late-model Mercedes and a decrepit Ford Escort is the expense of the funeral). We may need to return to some fundamentals of capitalist doctrine, among others:

1. In a healthy capitalist society, capitalists are the only people who get rich (with some exceptions for successful professionals, entertainers, and creative people)
2. The highest rewards in capitalism go to those who do best for Humanity through innovation and service -- that is, making life better for people not capitalists
3. Small business needs breaks, as it is pure entrepreneurialism 
4. Easy money merits high taxes and hard-gotten income deserves light taxes
5. Capitalism must work for non-capitalists, as not everyone can be a capitalist -- and many must not be capitalists!
6. Basic human needs get met before egregious excess
7. Decentralization of the economy (so that one can do about as well in Hartford as in Boston or in Fresno as in San Jose) is essential to social justice.
8. Profits off human suffering, especially off monopolization, are unconscionable. 


Neoliberalism is good at turning profits and generating executive compensation, but horrible at creating opportunity -- let alone social justice. As for the end of industrial scarcity... a wholesome capitalist order has more chance of making things to well than does a sick one like what we now have.

[Eric the Green]

(01-22-2020, 12:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-21-2020, 05:21 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Astrology and cycle theories are all connected.

The conservative ideology today is making America a banana republic again.

Yes, they both seem to be directly  connected to you. Dude, I don't live in a liberal run banana republic like St.Paul or Minneapolis. I live in an American suburb that has no interest in ending up being like either of them. We have to remind the Democratic politicians that they could easily be directly challenged and replaced by any of us if they forget where they live and get to far out of line with our values and start acting more like city liberals than Democrats these days. You see, the greatest threat to them are the private sectors who aren't interested in doing jobs these days. Yes, you run the risk of losing talent to us like you have been doing for years and are seeing the results of these days.

You live in the banana republic. St. Paul/Minneapolisis is a metropolous. The democrats know how to run a republic; the Republicans only know how to turn it into a banana republic, whose prosperity is only reserved for a few owners. 

Your Republican policies reduce taxes on the wealthy and eliminate their responsibility to the republic in order to increase their profits. Your side (Trump) takes away regulations on industry so that it can pollute the water, and then claims this is stimulating the economy. The American Banana Republic is being created by this trickle-down economics scheme. But wealth does not trickle down. Your scheme only results in the rich getting richer. They buy out other companies, concentrate wealth and power, fire workers, buy the government, send jobs overseas, replace jobs with robots, cause depressions with speculation, destroy public schools so that young people have less opportunity, destroy our health and our environment, and seek immigrants to come and take over the high paying jobs while shutting out those who are not competitive with Americans.

Trickle down economics appeals to you guys because you hate people of color coming into our country. You think blacks and browns are lazy and take your tax money, and that Democrats depend on them for their positions in government. But the brown kitty cats are out of the bag. There are lots more hispanics in our country now, and they are turning the southwest blue because they resent what Trump does to their fellow hispanics: treat honest people seeking opportunity in America like animals, starving them, putting them in cages and taking them off the street like nazis and putting them in jail. Once Arizona and then Texas turns blue, your game will be up for good.

[Bob Butler 54]

(01-24-2020, 12:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trickle down economics appeals to you guys because you hate people of color coming into our country. You think blacks and browns are lazy and take your tax money, and that Democrats depend on them for their positions in government. But the brown kitty cats are out of the bag. There are lots more hispanics in our country now, and they are turning the southwest blue because they resent what Trump does to their fellow hispanics: treat honest people seeking opportunity in America like animals, starving them, putting them in cages and taking them off the street like nazis and putting them in jail. Once Arizona and then Texas turns blue, your game will be up for good.

I wouldn't say Classic pushes the racist element of conservative thought, but it does clearly exist. It does form part of the small government - low taxes - low domestic services aspect of conservative policy that so much hurt the generations that came of age in the unraveling and 'crisis' times. (The crisis is in quotes as the issues involved, the Iraq war and the Great Recession, did not cause a regeneracy.) Some people hate, therefore they made America not so great to hurt those they hated. They just hit a lot of people, not just minorities. They chose a wide angle weapon.

[David Horn]

(01-24-2020, 01:09 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(01-24-2020, 12:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trickle down economics appeals to you guys because you hate people of color coming into our country. You think blacks and browns are lazy and take your tax money, and that Democrats depend on them for their positions in government. But the brown kitty cats are out of the bag. There are lots more hispanics in our country now, and they are turning the southwest blue because they resent what Trump does to their fellow hispanics: treat honest people seeking opportunity in America like animals, starving them, putting them in cages and taking them off the street like nazis and putting them in jail. Once Arizona and then Texas turns blue, your game will be up for good.

I wouldn't say Classic pushes the racist element of conservative thought, but it does clearly exist.  It does form part of the small government - low taxes - low domestic services aspect of conservative policy that so much hurt the generations that came of age in the unraveling and 'crisis' times.  (The crisis is in quotes as the issues involved, the Iraq war and the Great Recession, did not cause a regeneracy.)  Some people hate, therefore they made America not so great to hurt those they hated.  They just hit a lot of people, not just minorities.  They chose a wide angle weapon.

Let's look out a few months or years, and see how this model of oppress-the-oppressed works in a recession.  One's coming at some point, so being prepared is wise.  Oddly, this can play both ways at once.  Some will blame others and double down on the hate.  Others will spin around and join the other team.  This second group got Trump elected, and how many and how motivated they are on the next swing will determine the 1T that follows this muddled 4T.

[pbrower2a]

(01-22-2020, 12:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: ... I don't live in a liberal run banana republic like St.Paul or Minneapolis. I live in an American suburb that has no interest in ending up being like either of them. We have to remind the Democratic politicians that they could easily be directly challenged and replaced by any of us if they forget where they live and get to far out of line with our values and start acting more like city liberals than Democrats these days. You see, the greatest threat to them are the private sectors who aren't interested in doing jobs these days. Yes, you run the risk of losing talent to us like you have been doing for years and are seeing the results of these days.

Minneapolis-St. Paul sounds like one of the most livable urban areas in America. I saw a measure of social conditions by state, and Minnesota was toward the top. I looked at statewide credit ratings for residents, and Minnesota was near the top (and I used credit ratings as measures of people coping with economic reality. People more often end up in trouble with credit because of inability to meet taxes, medical bills, utility costs, and the like than because they eat out too much or splurge on vacations and wardrobes. I suggested that if one graduated from the University of Southern Illinois and got a chance to sign a local contract to be a schoolteacher in Mississippi (not surprisingly toward the bottom on economic and social reality) or Minnesota but dreaded Minnesota winters -- accept the winters because the district in which one teaches is more likely to have the means (local tax revenues) with which to supply a school and pay an adequate salary. The greater Twin Cities are a big part of the population of Minnesota, so they figure big. Michigan would do similarly well in its social metrics as Minnesota if it had the Twin Cities instead of the dump that is Detroit.

One thing that I have noticed about Suburbia: it may have begun with some very rural characteristics, but it has become increasingly urban. The older suburbs, mostly forming just after the Second World War, were designed with infrastructure such as sewers and streets suited for surviving the original owners (largely returning GI veterans). The expected life of such infrastructure is over, so you can draw your own conclusions of what sort of costs will arise in replacing such infrastructure. If you want to see what happens when a community is unable to replace or renovate such infrastructure, then look at Detroit as the wave of a very bleak urban future. Yuck!

The tiny suburban houses -- 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 1-car garage -- from the late 1940's are much out of vogue; many of those have been demolished with large apartment complexes replacing them. Big apartment complexes generate more traffic than the inefficient little bungalows that used to be there, so that creates traffic jams that require widening of once-quiet, verdant, narrow streets.  And where do people in those apartment complexes shop? You guessed it -- big box stores. Populations of many suburbs are becoming more ethnically and economically diverse -- just as in the cities that they used to be distinct from.  

...Sometimes I think myself a dinosaur because I tolerate obsolete technology (I was that way even in good times) because it is still serviceable. The little mathematical exercise of subtracting my age from my birth-year gives a time in the 1890's -- the horse-and-buggy era. But I can see indelible, irreversible trends, one of which is that Suburbia is becoming legitimately urban -- and the suburban politics of such a place as Orange County, California will never again be what they were in the 1970's... again. So it is with Will County, Illinois; Westchester County, New York; Bucks County, Pennsylvania; Eaton County, Michigan; or Montgomery County, Maryland.  St. Louis County, Missouri (not to be confused with the dump that is the city of St. Louis, Misery) is becoming an urban dump in its own right. Is that progress? The Vietnamese-Americans and Mexican-Americans taking over Orange County, California in economics and politics see their presence as progress for themselves. That's nothing to judge. 

The tendency is in earlier stages in such places as Cobb County, Georgia; Hamilton County, Indiana; Collin County, Texas; Livingston County, Michigan... and  I would guess Dakota, Carver, Anoka, and Washington Counties in Minnesota. As Suburbia becomes urban it needs bus lines to get those apartment dwellers who live "twelve-in-one-room in A-may-ree-kah" (reference to West Side Story) on the minimum wage to their jobs, wider roads and more parks that require the demolition of housing to accommodate, big expenditures on expanding school buildings and hospitals, let alone rehabilitating or building new sewers and power lines. Such is not deterioration of your world; it is simply change beyond our ability to stop or really judge. Suburbia simply is losing its old rural characteristics and becoming urban -- even in politics. You can run from the tendency of urban characteristics in Suburbia and even hide by going to isolated rural areas that people are leaving out of economic despair as the jobs vanish. If the economic order necessitates very badly-paid people with shaky employment, then you will need welfare.

You cannot escape some inevitable and irreversible trends. You adapt or you suffer. What is inevitable and irreversible is that America is becoming less stereotypical in its ethnic mix, that the population is increasing as a whole, and that additions to cultural life will accrete to what we already have (after some culling of junk). The finely-tuned brain can create marvels of great value out of a small amount of material investment, and such could be what makes America tolerable when it has 400 million people. America has a tendency to reject ethical and intellectual failure in politics, especially the broken promises, corruption, and anti-intellectualism of someone so awful as Trump. You may loathe Obama (even if not out of racism), but I happen to like political figures who eschew demagoguery, avoid corruption, treat victims of misfortune not their cause with kindness, prefer education and rational processes to gut feelings, recognize the validity of tradition as a stopgap when things go bad, and see integrity as a tool instead of an impediment. Donald Trump may have said that countries ruled by black people inevitably become $#!+holes even if they are America...

Guess what? Plenty of conservatives are beginning to recognize that Obama was a good President except perhaps for being a bit too 'liberal'.

[Classic-Xer]

(01-24-2020, 11:23 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-22-2020, 12:49 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: ... I don't live in a liberal run banana republic like St.Paul or Minneapolis. I live in an American suburb that has no interest in ending up being like either of them. We have to remind the Democratic politicians that they could easily be directly challenged and replaced by any of us if they forget where they live and get to far out of line with our values and start acting more like city liberals than Democrats these days. You see, the greatest threat to them are the private sectors who aren't interested in doing jobs these days. Yes, you run the risk of losing talent to us like you have been doing for years and are seeing the results of these days.

Minneapolis-St. Paul sounds like one of the most livable urban areas in America. I saw a measure of social conditions by state, and Minnesota was toward the top. I looked at statewide credit ratings for residents, and Minnesota was near the top (and I used credit ratings as measures of people coping with economic reality. People more often end up in trouble with credit because of inability to meet taxes, medical bills, utility costs, and the like than because they eat out too much or splurge on vacations and wardrobes. I suggested that if one graduated from the University of Southern Illinois and got a chance to sign a local contract to be a schoolteacher in Mississippi (not surprisingly toward the bottom on economic and social reality) or Minnesota but dreaded Minnesota winters -- accept the winters because the district in which one teaches is more likely to have the means (local tax revenues) with which to supply a school and pay an adequate salary. The greater Twin Cities are a big part of the population of Minnesota, so they figure big. Michigan would do similarly well in its social metrics as Minnesota if it had the Twin Cities instead of the dump that is Detroit.

One thing that I have noticed about Suburbia: it may have begun with some very rural characteristics, but it has become increasingly urban. The older suburbs, mostly forming just after the Second World War, were designed with infrastructure such as sewers and streets suited for surviving the original owners (largely returning GI veterans). The expected life of such infrastructure is over, so you can draw your own conclusions of what sort of costs will arise in replacing such infrastructure. If you want to see what happens when a community is unable to replace or renovate such infrastructure, then look at Detroit as the wave of a very bleak urban future. Yuck!

The tiny suburban houses -- 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, 1-car garage -- from the late 1940's are much out of vogue; many of those have been demolished with large apartment complexes replacing them. Big apartment complexes generate more traffic than the inefficient little bungalows that used to be there, so that creates traffic jams that require widening of once-quiet, verdant, narrow streets.  And where do people in those apartment complexes shop? You guessed it -- big box stores. Populations of many suburbs are becoming more ethnically and economically diverse -- just as in the cities that they used to be distinct from.  

...Sometimes I think myself a dinosaur because I tolerate obsolete technology (I was that way even in good times) because it is still serviceable. The little mathematical exercise of subtracting my age from my birth-year gives a time in the 1890's -- the horse-and-buggy era. But I can see indelible, irreversible trends, one of which is that Suburbia is becoming legitimately urban -- and the suburban politics of such a place as Orange County, California will never again be what they were in the 1970's... again. So it is with Will County, Illinois; Westchester County, New York; Bucks County, Pennsylvania; Eaton County, Michigan; or Montgomery County, Maryland.  St. Louis County, Missouri (not to be confused with the dump that is the city of St. Louis, Misery) is becoming an urban dump in its own right. Is that progress? The Vietnamese-Americans and Mexican-Americans taking over Orange County, California in economics and politics see their presence as progress for themselves. That's nothing to judge. 

The tendency is in earlier stages in such places as Cobb County, Georgia; Hamilton County, Indiana; Collin County, Texas; Livingston County, Michigan... and  I would guess Dakota, Carver, Anoka, and Washington Counties in Minnesota. As Suburbia becomes urban it needs bus lines to get those apartment dwellers who live "twelve-in-one-room in A-may-ree-kah" (reference to West Side Story) on the minimum wage to their jobs, wider roads and more parks that require the demolition of housing to accommodate, big expenditures on expanding school buildings and hospitals, let alone rehabilitating or building new sewers and power lines. Such is not deterioration of your world; it is simply change beyond our ability to stop or really judge. Suburbia simply is losing its old rural characteristics and becoming urban -- even in politics. You can run from the tendency of urban characteristics in Suburbia and even hide by going to isolated rural areas that people are leaving out of economic despair as the jobs vanish. If the economic order necessitates very badly-paid people with shaky employment, then you will need welfare.

You cannot escape some inevitable and irreversible trends. You adapt or you suffer. What is inevitable and irreversible is that America is becoming less stereotypical in its ethnic mix, that the population is increasing as a whole, and that additions to cultural life will accrete to what we already have (after some culling of junk). The finely-tuned brain can create marvels of great value out of a small amount of material investment, and such could be what makes America tolerable when it has 400 million people. America has a tendency to reject ethical and intellectual failure in politics, especially the broken promises, corruption, and anti-intellectualism of someone so awful as Trump. You may loathe Obama (even if not out of racism), but I happen to like political figures who eschew demagoguery, avoid corruption, treat victims of misfortune not their cause with kindness, prefer education and rational processes to gut feelings, recognize the validity of tradition as a stopgap when things go bad, and see integrity as a tool instead of an impediment. Donald Trump may have said that countries ruled by black people inevitably become $#!+holes even if they are America...

Guess what? Plenty of conservatives are beginning to recognize that Obama was a good President except perhaps for being a bit too 'liberal'.

The suburbs are pretty nice but in the cities you don't want to venture/stray to far outside the safe zones or touristy or wealthier areas. My cousin lives in Minneapolis about 12 blocks away from the hood in a cool old house. Her basement windows are barred. She has a high tech security system and her picket yard fence has spear tips. She's fortunate, she has a heavily armed police outpost/fort a few blocks away from the home. I was told by locals, I could enter the hood ( BTW, the hood is no longer just black these days) with little concerns about my life or physical well being because the hood understands the necessity of heat and electricity and other basic necessities (public utilities) associated with professional tradesmen. However, petty theft and robbery was not completely off limits so you had to take precautions like completely securing your vehicle and hiding anything of significant personal value prior to leaving the vehicle. In other words, you lock your wallet in your vehicle too. Back in the day, my old boss refused to accept paying bribes to ex union related officials associated with St. Paul's Inspections Department like his father and uncles had done for many years which made doing business in St. Paul and other affiliated suburbs much easier and less troublesome. Yes, I am familiar with how quid pro quo systems work and familiar with the negative impacts when they're commonly used and allowed by urban minded Democrats. 

Obama was to permissive, to coddled and to into coddling and to uncaring and indecisive and to into himself, his beliefs and what he wanted done and wanted accomplished and hang his hat on than doing his job as an American president or to liberal as we say. His wife, well, she's different than him and probably understands America a lot better than him too. She's old school and she probably came from an old school working class neighborhood that happened to be be black. Like I say, this is boiling down to a major issue/ dispute between the differences between the classes of two cultures mainly modern day liberal culture vs good old American culture. I understand this, do you understand this? I understood that 15 years ago, did you understand that 15 years ago? Like I've said, liberal culture better prepare itself for the education it's going to receive for the next decade or so as it continues to clash and finds itself at odds with good old American values and core American principles.
You weren't here when liberal culture found itself at odds with a strong person who represented good old right leaning main stream American culture and a strong person who represented good old right leaning American Evangelical rural culture and a strong female poster from good old American main stream Democratic culture.