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(12-07-2016, 08:14 AM)Odin Wrote: (12-06-2016, 11:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-06-2016, 04:41 PM)Odin Wrote: A strong government is a necessary protector of the masses against elites wishing to create an outright oligarchy.
Oh come on. GHWBush then GWBush then Jeb? Bill then Hillary then Chelsea? The government was already an outright oligarchy, hereditary no less.
LOL, Bill was born Arkansas white trash, he would have never become president in the first place if the US were a full-blown oligarchy. 
Comparing the Bushes and the Clintons is a moronic comparison.
Given Bill's habits he would actually make a very good hand puppet for the New England establishment. I am pretty sure that his speaking fees were the payoff after the fact.
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken
If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises
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(12-06-2016, 11:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-06-2016, 04:41 PM)Odin Wrote: A strong government is a necessary protector of the masses against elites wishing to create an outright oligarchy.
Oh come on. GHWBush then GWBush then Jeb? Bill then Hillary then Chelsea? The government was already an outright oligarchy, hereditary no less.
That you mention this as a reply to the point that the government protects us from elites, is incredibly short sighted. The government and what it does to protect us is a lot more than who is president. And the policies count rather than if a president is son of a former one (Bush/Bush). The Bush policies furthered the oligarchy; the Clinton's policies would have protected us from it. For sure.
And Hillary did not succeed in creating a husband-wife team, whatever that might mean in terms of an oligarchy (it means nothing). The real issue here you mention is dynasty, not oligarchy. In that regard, keep your eye on Donald Trump and Ivanka.
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(12-06-2016, 05:09 PM)Mikebert Wrote: (12-03-2016, 10:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-03-2016, 08:58 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (12-03-2016, 08:46 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: The religious right and the atheist left would no doubt each love to use government to force their views on each other. However, the gun issue doesn't work the same way, which is why I highlighted it.
On many such issues you can see someone claiming a right to live free, and another trying to prevent an evil using government authority. The right to chose and the right to keep and bear can be seen as rights where one is and ought to be free to choose. Gun deaths and the deaths of the unborn can be seen as evils. If you wish to restrict the conversation to one issue only, sure, go ahead, but I'm not so inclined.
These are but two of many issues separating the rural and urban populations. I would like to nudge things in the direction of freedom and rights, and away from quashing evils when there is sizable and intense disagreement on whether the evil is truly evil or not.
I would think a lot of Libertarians would lean the same way.
(12-03-2016, 08:46 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: ![[Image: 1-libertarian-government-conspiracy.jpg]](https://theruleoffreedom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/1-libertarian-government-conspiracy.jpg)
I would take exception to describing the libertarian conspiracy as 'vast'.
I wouldn't underestimate the size of the r-libertarian coalition that is now taking shape. Think about it. Kinser and Classic, a gay black man and a straight white guy, a Marxist and an American capitalist, a cosmopolitan and a suburbanite, a believer and a non believer united and now perceived/seen as being on the same side. I don't have a problem with Democratic voters being allowed inside the Republican tent. I don't have a problem with people like Kinser being allowed in the Republican tent either. The Republican door swings both ways. The Republican door doesn't lock behind you and force you stay inside. I have more issues with the progressive minded blue base than I've had had with Kinser himself.
Kinser isn't a Marxist anymore. Marxists are extremists, as are their counterparts on the Right like Nazis and White Supremacists. For some reason they seem able to shift from one extreme to another without ever going through the middle. Most folks, like me and I suspect you move from point A to point B by traveling though the terrain in between. He don't just start at one point in one instant and appear at another in the next. But folks like Kinser do.
I bet he's still a Marxist at heart. Kinser doesn't have any interest in the Nazi's and White Supremacists. Come on, a gay black guy isn't going to join forces with them for obvious reasons. I eventually got into it with one of them not so long ago. It wasn't a pretty exchange as usual. Kinser is a much better writer than me.
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12-08-2016, 02:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-08-2016, 02:21 AM by pbrower2a.)
You can trust that rural voters will start turning against Trump and Pence when their precious kids start coming back in body bags from wars that Donald Trump gets into by starting Wars for Profit that don't go well for Americans who do the fighting.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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12-08-2016, 02:25 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-08-2016, 02:25 AM by pbrower2a.)
(12-07-2016, 08:44 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-06-2016, 05:09 PM)Mikebert Wrote: (12-03-2016, 10:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-03-2016, 08:58 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: (12-03-2016, 08:46 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: The religious right and the atheist left would no doubt each love to use government to force their views on each other. However, the gun issue doesn't work the same way, which is why I highlighted it.
On many such issues you can see someone claiming a right to live free, and another trying to prevent an evil using government authority. The right to chose and the right to keep and bear can be seen as rights where one is and ought to be free to choose. Gun deaths and the deaths of the unborn can be seen as evils. If you wish to restrict the conversation to one issue only, sure, go ahead, but I'm not so inclined.
These are but two of many issues separating the rural and urban populations. I would like to nudge things in the direction of freedom and rights, and away from quashing evils when there is sizable and intense disagreement on whether the evil is truly evil or not.
I would think a lot of Libertarians would lean the same way.
(12-03-2016, 08:46 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:
I would take exception to describing the libertarian conspiracy as 'vast'.
I wouldn't underestimate the size of the r-libertarian coalition that is now taking shape. Think about it. Kinser and Classic, a gay black man and a straight white guy, a Marxist and an American capitalist, a cosmopolitan and a suburbanite, a believer and a non believer united and now perceived/seen as being on the same side. I don't have a problem with Democratic voters being allowed inside the Republican tent. I don't have a problem with people like Kinser being allowed in the Republican tent either. The Republican door swings both ways. The Republican door doesn't lock behind you and force you stay inside. I have more issues with the progressive minded blue base than I've had had with Kinser himself.
Kinser isn't a Marxist anymore. Marxists are extremists, as are their counterparts on the Right like Nazis and White Supremacists. For some reason they seem able to shift from one extreme to another without ever going through the middle. Most folks, like me and I suspect you move from point A to point B by traveling though the terrain in between. He don't just start at one point in one instant and appear at another in the next. But folks like Kinser do.
I bet he's still a Marxist at heart. Kinser doesn't have any interest in the Nazi's and White Supremacists. Come on, a gay black guy isn't going to join forces with them for obvious reasons. I eventually got into it with one of them not so long ago. It wasn't a pretty exchange as usual. Kinser is a much better writer than me.
Even I agree with you on Kinser except that I see no heart in him. I think he supports Donald Trump because he will make America so corrupt, inequitable, and otherwise miserable that it will be ripe for a Socialist insurrection of his choosing. He may see Donald Trump as America's equivalent of Fulgencio Batista.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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12-08-2016, 07:53 AM
(This post was last modified: 12-08-2016, 07:55 AM by Odin.)
Something I've noticed is that even in this election the parts of the rural Midwest Colin Woodard have as part of Yankeedom are significantly less Republican than other rural areas. Given that the Democrats have replaced the Republicans as the "Yankee" party that I expect that as older, more socially conservative voters begin to die that rural Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan will become more Democratic. Hell, Even Obama did very well in rural Wisconsin (he won almost every country in 2008) and Clinton's failure there was because she was such a terrible, tone-deaf candidate. Ironic given that Wisconsin is the birthplace of the Republican Party.
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
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(12-07-2016, 08:14 AM)Odin Wrote: (12-06-2016, 11:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-06-2016, 04:41 PM)Odin Wrote: A strong government is a necessary protector of the masses against elites wishing to create an outright oligarchy.
Oh come on. GHWBush then GWBush then Jeb? Bill then Hillary then Chelsea? The government was already an outright oligarchy, hereditary no less.
LOL, Bill was born Arkansas white trash, he would have never become president in the first place if the US were a full-blown oligarchy.
I'm not saying we were already an oligarchy in 1992; that was a long time ago. We are now, though.
Putting government in charge of protecting the people from the economic elites is definitely a fox guarding the hen house situation.
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(12-06-2016, 11:28 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: So apparently the solution is to give all power to the Master Class?
Economic elites have rarely never proved trustworthy with unrestrained power.
Fixed that for you.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(12-06-2016, 11:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-06-2016, 04:41 PM)Odin Wrote: A strong government is a necessary protector of the masses against elites wishing to create an outright oligarchy.
Oh come on. GHWBush then GWBush then Jeb? Bill then Hillary then Chelsea? The government was already an outright oligarchy, hereditary no less.
Democracy can't guarantee us that stupidity won't happen, but it makes it possible to avoid it. Without it, plutocrats and oligarchs have free reign. Since power abhors a vacuum, and you are recommending just that, then you must be OK with the plutocrats and oligarchs.
FWIW, we tried Feudalism, and it didn't work all that well for the 99.9%.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(12-08-2016, 02:21 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: You can trust that rural voters will start turning against Trump and Pence when their precious kids start coming back in body bags from wars that Donald Trump gets into by starting Wars for Profit that don't go well for Americans who do the fighting.
No, they might rebel against economic depravation, but dying in wars is a patriotic thing that plays well in the hinterlands. A depression, especially a really bad one, will get results.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(12-08-2016, 09:10 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-07-2016, 08:14 AM)Odin Wrote: (12-06-2016, 11:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-06-2016, 04:41 PM)Odin Wrote: A strong government is a necessary protector of the masses against elites wishing to create an outright oligarchy.
Oh come on. GHWBush then GWBush then Jeb? Bill then Hillary then Chelsea? The government was already an outright oligarchy, hereditary no less.
LOL, Bill was born Arkansas white trash, he would have never become president in the first place if the US were a full-blown oligarchy.
I'm not saying we were already an oligarchy in 1992; that was a long time ago. We are now, though.
Putting government in charge of protecting the people from the economic elites is definitely a fox guarding the hen house situation.
If you look at the 19th century, the ruling class and the owner class were bosom buddies and allies to the core. Neither party bucked the moneyed elites then, and it doesn't happen now either. The recent swing toward the oligarchic model started, arguably, under Nixon, when the tool of the elites, Evangelical Christianity, was brought into the GOP. That's also the start of the Southern Strategy, were the antebellum South still survived in spirit. Once both parties started running Sun Belt candidates, the model was complete.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
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(12-08-2016, 09:10 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-07-2016, 08:14 AM)Odin Wrote: (12-06-2016, 11:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-06-2016, 04:41 PM)Odin Wrote: A strong government is a necessary protector of the masses against elites wishing to create an outright oligarchy.
Oh come on. GHWBush then GWBush then Jeb? Bill then Hillary then Chelsea? The government was already an outright oligarchy, hereditary no less.
LOL, Bill was born Arkansas white trash, he would have never become president in the first place if the US were a full-blown oligarchy.
I'm not saying we were already an oligarchy in 1992; that was a long time ago. We are now, though.
Putting government in charge of protecting the people from the economic elites is definitely a fox guarding the hen house situation.
Yes.. We no longer have a representative democracy. Gerrymandering has made a mockery of the idea that the People be represented, as shown by an election in which the Democrats won a majority of the total vote for Congressional offices and the Republicans maintained a decisive majority of the House. Most of our Congressional Representatives take their instructions from lobbyists responsible only to their paymasters and largely neglect their constituents who don't agree with the lobbyists.
There were about ten countries of which I would rather be a citizen at the start of the year and about forty now.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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(12-08-2016, 09:10 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-07-2016, 08:14 AM)Odin Wrote: (12-06-2016, 11:09 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: (12-06-2016, 04:41 PM)Odin Wrote: A strong government is a necessary protector of the masses against elites wishing to create an outright oligarchy.
Oh come on. GHWBush then GWBush then Jeb? Bill then Hillary then Chelsea? The government was already an outright oligarchy, hereditary no less.
LOL, Bill was born Arkansas white trash, he would have never become president in the first place if the US were a full-blown oligarchy.
I'm not saying we were already an oligarchy in 1992; that was a long time ago. We are now, though.
Putting government in charge of protecting the people from the economic elites is definitely a fox guarding the hen house situation.
Yes it is, but only because too many people vote the way you do.
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(12-08-2016, 02:11 PM)David Horn Wrote: (12-06-2016, 11:28 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: So apparently the solution is to give all power to the Master Class?
Economic elites have rarely never proved trustworthy with unrestrained power.
Fixed that for you.
Nice repair job there 
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(12-08-2016, 07:30 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: (12-08-2016, 02:11 PM)David Horn Wrote: (12-06-2016, 11:28 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: So apparently the solution is to give all power to the Master Class?
Economic elites have rarely never proved trustworthy with unrestrained power.
Fixed that for you.
Nice repair job there
Accepted correction. I tend to understate so that I can avoid making undue generalizations.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
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Boomer intellectuals: Xers and millies are tired of the Human Rights tyranny.
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I thought that this article might be of interest to posters and readers of this forum.
Quote:Who were the rural Americans that were instrumental in creating the current political reality? Joining a chorus of conversations on this topic comes the Census Bureau, bearing fresh data that helps paint a clearer, more nuanced picture of this famously aggrieved segment of the American population.
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The article seems to demonstrate, contrary to its intention, that the physical facts are less important in shaping the great divide than cultural and social attitudes.
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(12-08-2016, 07:53 AM)Odin Wrote: Something I've noticed is that even in this election the parts of the rural Midwest Colin Woodard have as part of Yankeedom are significantly less Republican than other rural areas. Given that the Democrats have replaced the Republicans as the "Yankee" party that I expect that as older, more socially conservative voters begin to die that rural Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan will become more Democratic. Hell, Even Obama did very well in rural Wisconsin (he won almost every country in 2008) and Clinton's failure there was because she was such a terrible, tone-deaf candidate. Ironic given that Wisconsin is the birthplace of the Republican Party.
According to the exit polls the age gape is smaller in the upper midwest than the rest of the country; In Minnesota Trump won 18-24 year while losing voters over 65. http://edition.cnn.com/election/results/.../president
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(12-08-2016, 02:25 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: (12-07-2016, 08:44 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-06-2016, 05:09 PM)Mikebert Wrote: (12-03-2016, 10:17 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: (12-03-2016, 08:58 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: On many such issues you can see someone claiming a right to live free, and another trying to prevent an evil using government authority. The right to chose and the right to keep and bear can be seen as rights where one is and ought to be free to choose. Gun deaths and the deaths of the unborn can be seen as evils. If you wish to restrict the conversation to one issue only, sure, go ahead, but I'm not so inclined.
These are but two of many issues separating the rural and urban populations. I would like to nudge things in the direction of freedom and rights, and away from quashing evils when there is sizable and intense disagreement on whether the evil is truly evil or not.
I would think a lot of Libertarians would lean the same way.
I would take exception to describing the libertarian conspiracy as 'vast'.
I wouldn't underestimate the size of the r-libertarian coalition that is now taking shape. Think about it. Kinser and Classic, a gay black man and a straight white guy, a Marxist and an American capitalist, a cosmopolitan and a suburbanite, a believer and a non believer united and now perceived/seen as being on the same side. I don't have a problem with Democratic voters being allowed inside the Republican tent. I don't have a problem with people like Kinser being allowed in the Republican tent either. The Republican door swings both ways. The Republican door doesn't lock behind you and force you stay inside. I have more issues with the progressive minded blue base than I've had had with Kinser himself.
Kinser isn't a Marxist anymore. Marxists are extremists, as are their counterparts on the Right like Nazis and White Supremacists. For some reason they seem able to shift from one extreme to another without ever going through the middle. Most folks, like me and I suspect you move from point A to point B by traveling though the terrain in between. He don't just start at one point in one instant and appear at another in the next. But folks like Kinser do.
I bet he's still a Marxist at heart. Kinser doesn't have any interest in the Nazi's and White Supremacists. Come on, a gay black guy isn't going to join forces with them for obvious reasons. I eventually got into it with one of them not so long ago. It wasn't a pretty exchange as usual. Kinser is a much better writer than me.
Even I agree with you on Kinser except that I see no heart in him. I think he supports Donald Trump because he will make America so corrupt, inequitable, and otherwise miserable that it will be ripe for a Socialist insurrection of his choosing. He may see Donald Trump as America's equivalent of Fulgencio Batista.
Kinser knows America isn't going to change (adopt/convert Marxist socialism) without a major fight. He's got a heart. If he didn't have a heart, he wouldn't have chosen to become a father or chosen to enter into a more committed long term relationship with his boyfriend. As a father and a husband, I was clearly able to see there's a heart in him.
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