The Partisan Divide on Issues

[David Horn]

(02-25-2020, 01:18 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-24-2020, 08:18 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: But they have what decided the Tea Party elections of 2010, 2014, and 2016: money that can buy political influence, that can buy mindless propaganda. I would like to see a separation of economic and political power, but note well that for much of American history there was no such separation. Know well: the Right has found ways in which to use Big Government -- as an enforcer and as a means of grafting. Profits from graft are no less attractive than traditional profits that come from gross exploitation as in the Agrarian Age and the early-industrial age.  

That is why I am looking for direct vote network democracy in some form come the next major shake up.  Representative government has the representatives wanting to become elites, and therefore serving the elites well.  As much as the old slave compromises (the Senate, the electoral college, the amendment system) are biased to favor the rural environment, representative government ends up by its nature favoring the elites.

The rich buying more free speech I'm not sure how to stop save by speech becoming so cheap that wealth get no special advantage.

But it is likely not time yet.  The security problem has not been worked out yet.

Just another example of small actions that may finally correct old wrongs.  Fixing the voting process is essential, but fixing the electorate, even moreso.  It doesn't help that an entire generations (two in some places) has grown to adulthood without any mandatory courses in Civics.

We need a representative democracy that is just that: representative.  Here in Virginia, the longtime overrepresented rural faction is livid at the idea that the legislature might vote to transfer the headcount of felons back to the place they lived before they were incarcerated (NOTE: All the prisons were built in the rural areas as jobs programs, so white jailers oversee mostly black inmates).  Now, their black districts will vote for them. Not perfect but better.

[Classic-Xer]

(02-24-2020, 02:50 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(02-24-2020, 02:32 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(02-22-2020, 09:07 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(02-22-2020, 05:44 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Global warming as it was being used and promoted was a hoax which is why...

You know, it must be nice to yell hoax or fake news whenever the science or the facts are against you.  It must be nice to march in lockstep with the racists and the elites, and pretend they are not there.  It must be nice to go with simplistic linear thinking on a forum dedicated to a cycle theory...

I does a job on your credibility, but it must be nice.

What's the point, we are all dead in 12 years according to AOC.

Completely irrelevant. AOC could be wrong -- as wrong as you are aboug global warming.

Yep. AOC could most likely be wrong. Am I wrong about so called global warming and Al Gore making a fortune off it before it was switched to climate change. So, how long will it be before Minnesota becomes more like Missouri? We had a decent winter this year compared to last winter which was much colder.

[David Horn]

(02-25-2020, 04:56 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Yep. AOC could most likely be wrong. Am I wrong about so called global warming and Al Gore making a fortune off it before it was switched to climate change. So, how long will it be before Minnesota becomes more like Missouri? We had a decent winter this year compared to last winter which was much colder.

AGW is about as established a scientific fact as we're likely to see in an earth-science scenario. You might do well to understand what happens when the forests die, because northern forests need the hard cold, and won't get it. Further south, it will be insects and disease. That will come to you too, because trees don't just pull up their roots and move. Think: the American Chestnut, but for the entire forest. That's one of many negatives you AGW deniers seem to ignore.

[pbrower2a]

(02-25-2020, 06:02 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(02-25-2020, 04:56 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Yep. AOC could most likely be wrong. Am I wrong about so called global warming and Al Gore making a fortune off it before it was switched to climate change. So, how long will it be before Minnesota becomes more like Missouri? We had a decent winter this year compared to last winter which was much colder.

AGW is about as established a scientific fact as we're likely to see in an earth-science scenario.  You might do well to understand what happens when the forests die, because northern forests need the hard cold, and won't get it.  Further south, it will be insects and disease.  That will come to you too, because trees don't just pull up their roots and move.  Think: the American Chestnut, but for the entire forest.  That's one of many negatives you AGW deniers seem to ignore.

My reference to her being possibly wrong is Civic X'er characterizing her (probably wrongly) as saying that we will all be gone in 12 years. Global warming is a different matter. Unlike Donald Trump, who seems to listen to the pseudo-scientific 'wisdom' that emerges from the mouth of "Rash Libel" (anyone still smoking cancerweed products in any form is betting against scientific evidence, which is far worse odds than anything in Vegas). Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez seems to have studied the scientific evidence. 

The only question that anyone legitimately has about AGW is the severity of its consequences. The upside is milder winters. The downside is that Michigan and Minnesota farmers need the winter blizzards to prevent too-early germination of plants and to protect ground water that tender young seedlings need if they are to grow into nice, tall, rich crops of grain. 

I do not need to be an expert on cancer to eschew cancerweed products. The statistical evidence is strong enough for me. I do not have to be a liver specialist to recognize that excessive drinking can mess up my liver and make life terrible. I have known someone who died of cirrhosis of the liver, and it was unpleasant. This man was shown as an example to medical students while he was dying -- and from what I understand, he was heavily mocked. (I remember him talking about his drinking binges by places... "I went to Kansas City, and oh, did I get plastered". It was the same with Chicago, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, and Denver. If I am to visit a giant city I want to remember if for something other than where I got drunk.  I know that riding a motorcycle is a thrill -- but it is too dangerous for my taste. 

As with all economic and political experiments that go awry, AGW will hurt the poorest people of the world -- the people with the least political clout and the least mobility. A policy that starves twenty thousand Bangladeshis or Chinese  is no less evil than mowing down such people with machine-gun fire or with driving such people into gas chambers in which they are compelled to breathe Zyklon-B. Six million people? Then Adolf H. congratulates you from Hell! 

Donald Trump is simply irresponsible, but so are those "deplorable" people who like what he says. As much of my favorite non-fiction reading is philosophy (I probably should have been a philosophy major in college, and then gone on to law school, which I figure is the best application of philosophy) I understand consequences well. I have related global warming to geography, but mostly to food production. Nobody has developed a good technological fix to crop failures and the hunger (and other political and economic distress) that such causes. Maybe Humanity can adapt to shifting zones of climate and cultivation (those are strongly linked) -- but that will take time for soil profiles to develop in nutrient-poor soils that get longer and warmer growing seasons that are now subarctic. Maybe there will be wheat fields around Hudson Bay if the planet warms slowly and perhaps inevitably -- but not fast enough to offset desertification and inundation of current crop-growing areas with changes over fifty years or so.   Three hundred or so? Humanity can cope with some migrations to places with new and desirable opportunities. Fifty years or so? People will die in numbers that make the horrors of the Stalinists, Maoists, Nazis, Atlantic slave trade, and the Mongols look mild.

[Bob Butler 54]

You know, much has been made of the various definitions of socialism.  I believe we will have trouble as long as we try to apply an old world label to a new world philosophy.  It will never fit well, and it was abused by the communists, well known for lying through the state controlled media.

The western variant, the true socialist, favor government working for the people.  Nothing wrong with that.  That leads to a new world definition of socialism.

Quote:We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

[JDG 66]

(11-12-2017, 12:49 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I find it amusing that so-called progressives equate valuing families and being patriotic with Nazism.

@Gabrielle

The Guardian is a commie rag that I wouldn't wipe my ass with for fear of getting some sort of disease.  That being said, there is clear evidence that Soros was and is funding so-called anti-fa groups which are really anarcho-communists.  Problem is anarcho-anything doesn't work.  Even the An-caps eventually must admit that a despotism of some form, often a monarchy, will establish itself.  Human nature is still animalistic and that unlikely to change in the near future.

I've been away from the 4TF for a while, but didn't you used to be a Marxist?

[David Horn]

(03-10-2020, 01:48 PM)JDG 66 Wrote:

(11-12-2017, 12:49 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I find it amusing that so-called progressives equate valuing families and being patriotic with Nazism.

@Gabrielle

The Guardian is a commie rag that I wouldn't wipe my ass with for fear of getting some sort of disease.  That being said, there is clear evidence that Soros was and is funding so-called anti-fa groups which are really anarcho-communists.  Problem is anarcho-anything doesn't work.  Even the An-caps eventually must admit that a despotism of some form, often a monarchy, will establish itself.  Human nature is still animalistic and that unlikely to change in the near future.

I've been away from the 4TF for a while, but didn't you used to be a Marxist?

Now he's a Fascist. Go figure.  He likes those autocrats.  If not Stain, then Mussolini will have to do

[Bob Butler 54]

(03-10-2020, 02:46 PM)David Horn Wrote: Now he's a Fascist. Go figure.  He likes those autocrats.  If not Stain, then Mussolini will have to do

I always figured the communists and fascists were closer to each other than they were to the west.  Both communism and fascism were autocratic systems, not examples of government helping the people, while they might pretend.

The jump is not all that far.

[pbrower2a]

There were neo-Nazis joining ISIS. Before that, many of the discredited Ba'athists of the secular fascistic regime of Saddam Hussein found a home in ISIS.

As Eric Hoofer put it in his The True Believer,

Quote: the opposite of a raging fascist is not a raging Communist. The opposite of a raging fascist is a sober liberal.

Consider this: as the Commies took over Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Romania after World War II they needed people to do the dirty work of beating opponents. Fascist thugs who had recently belonged to the Arrow Cross, Ustase, and Iron Cross needed only show that they would do as told and that the Commies would pay them amply for work well done. Of course those fascists would have to accept Marxist ideology. Before that plenty of wayward left-wing extremists went fascist. Doriot in France and Pavolini in Italy had been Commies. There were plenty of "roast-beef fascists -- brown on the outside and red (Commie) on the inside" such as the Strasser brothers in Germany, one of whom was murdered on the Night of the Long Knives and one of whim took flight wisely. Laval, Quisling, Goebbels, Mussolini, and D C Stephenson (the dangerous leader of the Indiana KKK in the 1920's*) had all been socialists.

Fanatics  may seem like the most vehement of believers, but they almost never act upon any high moral principles.  Angry and violent, they need only find someone  willing to patronize their inherent brutality, and then they are happy.  

*The 1915 Klan had many of the characteristics of European fascism before Mussolini established his Fascist Party. That's a reminder in case anyone wants to say that Americans do not have their own True Believers.

[David Horn]

(03-10-2020, 03:10 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(03-10-2020, 02:46 PM)David Horn Wrote: Now he's a Fascist. Go figure.  He likes those autocrats.  If not Stain, then Mussolini will have to do

I always figured the communists and fascists were closer to each other than they were to the west.  Both communism and fascism were autocratic systems, not examples of government helping the people, while they might pretend.

The jump is not all that far.

I agree in full.  I see that as an orthogonal anarchy <--> totalitarian axis.  People are either drawn to strong leaders or they aren't, and no one's stronger than an absolute autocrat.

[JDG 66]

(03-10-2020, 02:46 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-10-2020, 01:48 PM)JDG 66 Wrote:

(11-12-2017, 12:49 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I find it amusing that so-called progressives equate valuing families and being patriotic with Nazism.

@Gabrielle

The Guardian is a commie rag that I wouldn't wipe my ass with for fear of getting some sort of disease.  That being said, there is clear evidence that Soros was and is funding so-called anti-fa groups which are really anarcho-communists.  Problem is anarcho-anything doesn't work.  Even the An-caps eventually must admit that a despotism of some form, often a monarchy, will establish itself.  Human nature is still animalistic and that unlikely to change in the near future.

I've been away from the 4TF for a while, but didn't you used to be a Marxist?

Now he's a Fascist. Go figure.  He likes those autocrats.  If not Stain, then Mussolini will have to do

Ha ha.

[pbrower2a]

(03-16-2020, 02:59 PM)JDG 66 Wrote:

(03-10-2020, 02:46 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(03-10-2020, 01:48 PM)JDG 66 Wrote:

(11-12-2017, 12:49 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: I find it amusing that so-called progressives equate valuing families and being patriotic with Nazism.

@Gabrielle

The Guardian is a commie rag that I wouldn't wipe my ass with for fear of getting some sort of disease.  That being said, there is clear evidence that Soros was and is funding so-called anti-fa groups which are really anarcho-communists.  Problem is anarcho-anything doesn't work.  Even the An-caps eventually must admit that a despotism of some form, often a monarchy, will establish itself.  Human nature is still animalistic and that unlikely to change in the near future.

I've been away from the 4TF for a while, but didn't you used to be a Marxist?

Now he's a Fascist. Go figure.  He likes those autocrats.  If not Stain, then Mussolini will have to do

Ha ha.

In America, Donald Trump suffices -- so far. He has been a loud supporter of Donald Trump.

[Bob Butler 54]

Hmm.  About the time the coronavirus exploded, this thread seems to have died too.  Classic seems to have vanished from the forums.  He is not here to defend the ignoring of science by crying hoax or fake news, the inability to solve problems in the name of low taxes and small government.  Why not?  Save money by firing the people who prepare for pandemics?  With global warming and bridge infrastructure being slow problems that can seem prudent to ignore by elderly leaders, the virus is a much faster acting problem. It brought things to a head.

In many ways the virus seems designed to wake up a self oriented populace to focus on the country rather than themselves.  The only answer, other than dropping dead, is for big government to throw lots of money at the problem while telling the populace how to respond.  The alternative is to watch grandma drop dead.

Is there anyone ready to speak up now for the Red pattern in it’s extreme?  I am not saying LBJ’s Great Society didn’t take things too far.  We were really into throwing lots of money at big problems in those days.  Even the G.I. generation needed a selfish do nothing break.

But is anyone left who thinks the break’s time isn’t at an end?  What do Classic’s ‘Americans’ become in the face of a real threat?

[pbrower2a]

Maybe nothing can so mitigate partisan politics as shared danger that makes the political divide more about survival than about identity.

[David Horn]

(04-03-2020, 06:51 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Hmm.  About the time the coronavirus exploded, this thread seems to have died too.  Classic seems to have vanished from the forums.  He is not here to defend the ignoring of science by crying hoax or fake news, the inability to solve problems in the name of low taxes and small government.  Why not?  Save money by firing the people who prepare for pandemics?  With global warming and bridge infrastructure being slow problems that can seem prudent to ignore by elderly leaders, the virus is a much faster acting problem.  It brought things to a head.

In many ways the virus seems designed to wake up a self oriented populace to focus on the country rather than themselves.  The only answer, other than dropping dead, is for big government to throw lots of money at the problem while telling the populace how to respond.  The alternative is to watch grandma drop dead.

Is there anyone ready to speak up now for the Red pattern in it’s extreme?  I am not saying LBJ’s Great Society didn’t take things too far.  We were really into throwing lots of money at big problems in those days.  Even the G.I. generation needed a selfish do nothing break.

But is anyone left who thinks the break’s time isn’t at an end?  What do Classic’s ‘Americans’ become in the face of a real threat?

Unfortunately, we look to leadership (insert your name of choice) to, you know, lead!  Trump is leading us on a lemming march to hell, and Biden is camped out at home recommending small things for dire times.  Bernie is out of the game. It's sad that the only voice crying for action isn't viable.  Anything I missed here?

[pbrower2a]

(04-04-2020, 08:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-03-2020, 06:51 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Hmm.  About the time the coronavirus exploded, this thread seems to have died too.  Classic seems to have vanished from the forums.  He is not here to defend the ignoring of science by crying hoax or fake news, the inability to solve problems in the name of low taxes and small government.  Why not?  Save money by firing the people who prepare for pandemics?  With global warming and bridge infrastructure being slow problems that can seem prudent to ignore by elderly leaders, the virus is a much faster acting problem.  It brought things to a head.

In many ways the virus seems designed to wake up a self oriented populace to focus on the country rather than themselves.  The only answer, other than dropping dead, is for big government to throw lots of money at the problem while telling the populace how to respond.  The alternative is to watch grandma drop dead.

Is there anyone ready to speak up now for the Red pattern in it’s extreme?  I am not saying LBJ’s Great Society didn’t take things too far.  We were really into throwing lots of money at big problems in those days.  Even the G.I. generation needed a selfish do nothing break.

But is anyone left who thinks the break’s time isn’t at an end?  What do Classic’s ‘Americans’ become in the face of a real threat?

Unfortunately, we look to leadership (insert your name of choice) to, you know, lead!  Trump is leading us on a lemming march to hell, and Biden is camped out at home recommending small things for dire times.  Bernie is out of the game. It's sad that the only voice crying for action isn't viable.  Anything I missed here?

Events can force the right choices. First, catastrophe discredits bad leaders -- the corrupt and incompetent. Second, institutional failures (usually happening as businesses with outmoded ways of doing business) go under. Visiting a teller at the bank? Probably unnecessary if one has an ATM card and gets direct deposit. It could be that physical currency has become a relic. Brick-and-mortar stores for books, video, and recorded music? Amazon is more efficient than such entities as Blockbuster Video, Sam Goody, Borders Books, and Tower Records. People under economic stress cannot buy on impulse that was necessary for making profitable retailing of their old wares. Casual-dining restaurants that offer mediocre fare no better than what one can zap in a microwave oven or cook on a grill? 



Bye, bye, Big Boy! (As I told someone as the local eatery folded, "Oh, you haven't eaten there recently? You haven't missed anything!)

Things will get back to normal -- with some twists. Businesses that went from thriving to struggling to moribund because their methods of operation went obsolete will die. People will be back on the road again (mobility is part of our character). Stores will reopen after COVID-19 is no longer a menace. People will insist on having several months of savings again instead of being in debt and at risk of another shutdown of big sectors of the economy. We could have our voting going 100% postal. I expect aircraft manufactures to retrofit ventilation systems to kill viruses and bacteria (I understand that copper is about as lethal to viruses and bacteria as cyanide is to us). We may see much the same with HVAC units.

We will also have major reforms of the system, and practices that got us into this mess will die. 

Are we over-responding to COVID-19? We didn't respond fast enough, and we responded unevenly. But with different leadership from the execrable President and his flunkies, we will fare better the next time. We will close the beaches rather than let "Jaws" devour swimmers and boaters. Money was everything in the 3T, but it might not be so much so now.

...as for people like Classic X'er -- I frankly hope that they stay busy with well-paid work and come to the realization that Donald Trump was an unmitigated disaster as a political leader.

[Bob Butler 54]

(04-05-2020, 06:36 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: ...as for people like Classic X'er -- I frankly hope that they stay busy with well-paid work and come to the realization that Donald Trump was an unmitigated disaster as a political leader.

The so so businesses, at least they created jobs.  In a world more and more automated, more people are excluded from the current method of dispersion of wealth.  I would avoid Big Boy too, but they were a cog in the culture.  Keeping it so each person gives or get so many hours of labor over their working life times, and by that I am looking at the New Deal’s traditional 40 hour work week and retirement at age of 65, will have to be looked at again.

One part of it is that the virus has given lots of time to think on Trump’s quality, or lack thereof.  Too many people are apt to die and the economy still be locked up as a result of his delayed action.  I know that the timing was not quite right, but the Republican senators should have convicted him while they had the chance.

Are thousands of murders an impeachable offense?  I suppose without snap elections impeachment has to be a bigger step than the parliamentary system’s vote of no confidence, but still…

[David Horn]

(04-05-2020, 01:14 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: … Are thousands of murders an impeachable offense?  I suppose without snap elections impeachment has to be a bigger step than the parliamentary system’s vote of no confidence, but still…

This is a point that will be looked-at, I think. No, it can't really be murder, which requires malice and forethought. We can certainly show the latter, but it's hard to show malice, even though this guy has no conscience of any kind. I doubt he cares about the dead at all -- one way or the other. He sees this in terms of personal threat to him.

But I would go with negligent homicide. That's fully provable. The best-guess of deaths that meet the definition is in the thousands, at least.

[pbrower2a]

(04-05-2020, 01:14 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-05-2020, 06:36 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: ...as for people like Classic X'er -- I frankly hope that they stay busy with well-paid work and come to the realization that Donald Trump was an unmitigated disaster as a political leader.

The so so businesses, at least they created jobs.  In a world more and more automated, more people are excluded from the current method of dispersion of wealth.  I would avoid Big Boy too, but they were a cog in the culture.  Keeping it so each person gives or get so many hours of labor over their working life times, and by that I am looking at the New Deal’s traditional 40 hour work week and retirement at age of 65, will have to be looked at again.

One part of it is that the virus has given lots of time to think on Trump’s quality, or lack thereof.  Too many people are apt to die and the economy still be locked up as a result of his delayed action.  I know that the timing was not quite right, but the Republican senators should have convicted him while they had the chance.

Are thousands of murders an impeachable offense?  I suppose without snap elections impeachment has to be a bigger step than the parliamentary system’s vote of no confidence, but still…

If we can produce in 30 hours a week what we used to produce in 40, then ten hours a week are either exploitation or waste. Waste includes pointless meetings and rituals. Exploitation means that the economic elites are getting the fruit of productivity gains and workers are getting nothing out of them. Waste or exploitation -- neither is desirable.

[pbrower2a]

(04-05-2020, 01:14 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(04-05-2020, 06:36 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: ...as for people like Classic X'er -- I frankly hope that they stay busy with well-paid work and come to the realization that Donald Trump was an unmitigated disaster as a political leader.

The so so businesses, at least they created jobs.  In a world more and more automated, more people are excluded from the current method of dispersion of wealth.  I would avoid Big Boy too, but they were a cog in the culture.  Keeping it so each person gives or get so many hours of labor over their working life times, and by that I am looking at the New Deal’s traditional 40 hour work week and retirement at age of 65, will have to be looked at again.

Were a cog, as were the superfluous, overbuilt railroads. Near where I live many rail lines have been literally dismantled. If something has no economic viability it will die. That you would have avoided Big Boy indicates your choice to eat something else somewhere else. If one speaks of a restaurant chain, then the rationale for it is that it does what one cannot do efficiently or adequately.

The short-order cook will need to become more skilled just to hold a job. Such is a price of progress.  

Quote:One part of it is that the virus has given lots of time to think on Trump’s quality, or lack thereof.  Too many people are apt to die and the economy still be locked up as a result of his delayed action.  I know that the timing was not quite right, but the Republican senators should have convicted him while they had the chance.

All but one current Republican Senator has the rap of enabling the criminal malfeasance of this President. What they let him get away with they cannot stop when it gets worse. We have six months left before the election, plenty of time for grossly-criminal malfeasance. Know well that mere incompetence, laziness, or offense are not grounds for impeachment. Impeachment is not the equivalent of a parliamentary vote of no confidence.

The timing was poor, but the Democrats had to impeach the President promptly for trying to intimidate the President of Ukraine.

Quote:Are thousands of murders an impeachable offense?  I suppose without snap elections impeachment has to be a bigger step than the parliamentary system’s vote of no confidence, but still…

War crimes and criminal violations of human rights would both be impeachable. Such qualify as "high crimes". Of course the sort of regime that does such is usually exempt from legal judgment until overthrown in a coup, utter defeat, or a successful revolution. We are not there in either sense.