I'll append a few current politics comments at-bottom, especially about the just-culminated and hilariously shameful beginning of the latest U.S. Congress and the Kevin McCarthy Speakership. But overall, this post is about an aspect of Democracy that (alas) is far too misunderstood, even by the myriad citizens who benefit from it.
== What actually is modern ‘democracy’? ==
Knowing that their aging and ill-educated cult is in demographic collapse, the Foxites are now frantically railing against Democracy itself (along with science and every fact-using profession), equating Democratic government with Mob Rule.
"We are a republic, not a democracy!" they shout, while defending gerrymandering and other cheats to rob voting power from 'easily-manipulated' urban populations in favor of 'Real America.' (Meaning rural/red counties, of course.*)
The latest meme in support of this agitprop campaign is a purported quote from Thomas Jefferson:
"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."
As Snopes reveals, not only is this 'quotation' nowhere remotely attributable to Jefferson, it runs diametrically opposite to the philosophy of the 3rd president, who called for Athenian styles of democracy, rather than a Federalist style Republic.
(Elsewhere I go into several other supposed quote-aphorisms that are flat-out lies, used to diss our Enlightenment Experiment. On the other hand, in emocracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville appraised the versions of active democratic assembly that he saw and pproved mightily.)
Of course, those pressing this purportedly Jeffersonian meme against democracy are also ignoramus-ingrates, yowling at the very same experiment that gave them everything. Moreover, even if Jefferson had said that, it would have nothing to do with us!
Because we do NOT have 'majority rule,' in the USA!
== Not Majority Rule ==
Rather, by design, we have a somewhat more grownup and subtle form of democracy called Minority Veto.
Yes, this often means that progress is slowed, until this kind of negotiated consensus can take form incrementally. Take a famous example - LBJ's Civil Rights Bill of 1964. (Watch the great Bryan Cranston film "All The Way"!)
In 1964, with the JFK assassination still resonating, Johnson finally had the coalition he needed in order to pass a bill... but just barely! In order to get something before the mood passed, squeaking through an immediate banning of segregation in services and accommodations and public places - by itself the greatest advance of American freedom since the Civil War - LBJ had to strip out the provisions dealing with Voting Rights.
Naturally and understandably, activists howled over the omission! MLK himself had to step up and calm them down, just enough to keep the coalition together. Whereupon, with a subsequent landslide in the general election, in their pockets, LBJ/Humphrey et. al. were then able to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act! (A law that Republican judges and fanatics are now subjecting to full-pressed assault.)
That maneuver was a classic example of what I described above. A one-year delay that was morally indefensible was also essential, in order to get what a majority of the public by then wanted: incremental progress to fight a century of far worse betrayals.
Likewise, LBJ was able to get NASA fully funded, winning over southern senators by putting most NASA centers in southern states.
Likewise, folks nowadays seem to forget that Bill Clinton's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy re gays in the military was a huge step forward from the situation that preceded it. An incremental step that quickly accustomed military folk and reduced objector vehemence, setting the stage (very soon, in fact) for later complete abolition of another horrific injustice.
It's a list that could go on and on, including the vital Pelosi bills of 2021 and 2022, that entailed so many compromises to keep aboard both Joe Manchin and Bernie Sanders... though the results were inarguably great for a nation whose decision making and problem-solving processes (called "politics") had been deliberately sabotaged by the other party, for 20+ years.
== Our enemies notice this, even if you don't ==
Is Minority Veto actually functioning, right now?
OF COURSE NOT!
At present, the Mad Right that has hijacked U.S. conservatism uses their "49%" minorities - sometimes 51% majorities but far more often 40% or less - to prevent absolutely anything from happening in the public interest. Not without herculean feats, like those Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden achieved in 2021 and 2022, over the tightly disciplined uniform resistance of a GOP schooled under the Hastert Rule to never negotiate. Never compromise.
(Think I am exaggerating? Subtract the Supply Side tax grifts for oligarchy and howls of negativity toward Obamacare and the IRS, and what actual assertive legislation can you recall being on the GOP agenda, in this century? While you are at it, look up Dennis Hastert, whom the GOP made head of their party and House Speaker, sealing the never negotiate rule. Look up his bio all the way to the end.)
The destruction of politics as an art of consensus building in the USA is the core objective of the oligarchic worldwide putsch. Having lost the popular vote in all but two national elections across the last 35 years, and with Democratic policies vastly more popular among citizens, the Republican tactic under Minority Veto is to emphasize the second factor in that crucial calculus of Minority Veto -- size times vehemence -- in order to block any action by the majority, indeed, any assertive political action at all.
Vehemence has been stoked to a degree that amounts to Phase 8 of the American Civil War.
The key point to take away from all of this is that the enemies of constitutional democracy - one that is about constantly adjusting and negotiating improvements - are inveighing against the last best hope of humankind, compared to 99.9% of grinding human history.
When Peter Thiel says "I no longer believe democracy is compatible with freedom," what he means is that neither are compatible with the oligarchy's planned return to 6000 years of feudalism.
== And the relentless return of traitors ==
Amid the roil of modern politics, someone has to point at the unusual perspective. For example, I am less fixated on clowns like Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene, who are surface shills for deeper sicknesses.
Want a more worrisome symptom? Here's more utter hypocrisy from the Very Worst American. George Will often blathers some things that are obviously good/true, in order to build sly credibility for his endlessly creative and brilliantly parsed incantations in support of treason.
Meanwhile... wasn't that 15 ballot torment of Kevin McCarthy fun? Pundits discuss McCarthy's long list of concessions-to-radicals, in order to squeak into Speaker with a minority of members' votes. Concessions like theatrical Hunter Biden 'investigations' and putting jibberers on the Rules Committee. Plus at least 5 'contract' promises to slash spending and balance budgets.
One problem. Despite blowhard spews, Republicans have never - across 40 years - been as fiscally responsible as Democrats. Ever, even once. They do have one huge budget cut in mind. (Well more, if they succeed in cutting aid to beleaguered Ukraine.) No, it's not repealing Obamacare; that goal is never mentioned now that the ACA is hugely popular and effective.
No, the aim is to eviscerate the IRS which got full funding last year, after decades sabotaged by the GOP on behalf of oligarchs, whose Cayman Island grift accounts will now get scrutiny.
So, if the IRS finds scandalous crimes that include GOP pols, might that shred McCarthy's coalition? Get some nutters jettisoned? Get others to finally find their nerve to make that Goldwater Party of decent conservatism?
Hey, I am a science fiction author. But clearly, I also do fantasy.
159 comments:
We remain hopeful for the future, while being actively wary of what's being sent over the horizon by the Oligarchs of Earth at our various respective nations. For myself, I wonder about the next "innovation" to be sent against Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland, Jagmeet Singh, et al., seeing as the Convoy Siege last winter stalled out in such ugly fashion.
Catherine McKenney's personal bravery during that crisis, and their ongoing attention to city governance across the board outside of that should have earned them the chain of mayoral office. Alas, not to be!
Which is why DeSantis must be prevented from becoming potus. He’s a confederate Michael Corleone—who’d appoint someone like Tom Hagen as AG.
Alan: that would be a horrific outcome, given what I've already seen of DeSantis' conduct as governor of Florida!
Dr Brin in the main post:
As Snopes reveals, not only is this 'quotation' nowhere remotely attributable to Jefferson, it runs diametrically opposite to the philosophy of the 3rd president, who called for Athenian styles of democracy, rather than a Federalist style Republic.
I'm curious as to why the Federalist Society took that name for itself when they claim (even when mistaken) Jefferson as an avatar, and he was an anti-Federalist.
Alan Brooks:
He’s [DeSantis] a confederate Michael Corleone—who’d appoint someone like Tom Hagen as AG.
But Tom Hagen wasn't a wartime consiglieri.
Only in our degraded age is majority rule equated with a tyranny of 50% plus one over the other half. When I was growing up, "majority rule" meant "When most of the people want something, the government responds." In legalese, "most of the people" has to include a bare majority, but that's a boundary condition, not the normal path.
Of course, today's Republicans pervert the term even more. They pretend that "majority rule" means that only white Christians get to decide everything, since that clade is "the majority". The fact that their in-group will soon cease to be a numerical majority in this country explains why they are so against the very concept of "majority rule". Under their deformed application of majority rule, they will soon have no power at all.
The impending default via debt-ceiling crisis is at least being noticed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/us/politics/speaker-election-debt-limit-republicans.html
...
Economists, Wall Street analysts and political observers are warning that the concessions he made to fiscal conservatives could make it very difficult for Mr. McCarthy to muster the votes to raise the debt limit — or even put such a measure to a vote. That could prevent Congress from doing the basic tasks of keeping the government open, paying the country’s bills and avoiding default on America’s trillions of dollars in debt.
...
Raising the limit was once routine but has become increasingly difficult over the past few decades, with Republicans using the cap as a cudgel to force spending reductions. Their leverage stems from the potential damage to the economy if the limit is not increased.
...
The paragraph above betrays the Republicans' lack of concern over irreputable damage to the country's governing ability and reputation, and even to the stability that their richest donors value most. Potential damage to the economy is a "cudgel" that they can hold over Democrats' heads. They don't perceive their killing the hostage as a suicidal move.
...
“Is he willing to shut the government down rather than raise the debt ceiling?” Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who was one of 20 Republicans to initially vote against Mr. McCarthy on the House floor, recently told reporters. “That’s a non-negotiable item.”
Mr. McCarthy appeared to agree to those demands, pledging to allow open debate on spending bills and to not raise the debt limit without major cuts — including efforts to reduce spending on so-called mandatory programs, which include Social Security and Medicare — in a deal that brought many holdouts, including Mr. Norman, into his camp.
...
Mr, Norman shows a notable lack of understanding of what the debt limit is. The danger is not that the government shuts down. It is that the US defaults on payments owed because the treasury isn't allowed to procure the cash to make those payments. It's a permanent blow to our reputation as a stable investment.
“Their specific ask of balancing the budget in 10 years is just totally unrealistic. It would take $11 trillion in savings,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget in Washington, which has long pushed lawmakers to reduce future deficits through spending cuts and tax increases.
And finally, haven't we seen this movie before--in 2001 or so? When the deficit actually does get too low, establishment types like Alan Greenspan panic over the possibility of a budget surplus, and talk lawmakers and presidents into doing things like cutting taxes and starting wars in order to insure that a deficit always exists. So why do we even have discussions about a balanced budget any more? It seems like the Republicans' own biggest donors don't want such a thing.
Or maybe the question is, why the heck do Wall St and big business still support today's Republicans?
Someone please mark the tape:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/07/us/politics/mccarthy-speaker-rules-house.html
Mr. McCarthy insisted his caucus would still be able to get things done.
“Don’t judge us on how we start, watch how we finish, and I think by having the disruption now really built the trust with one another and learned how to work together,” he told reporters, adding that he was “1,000 percent” confident that he would hold the speaker job for a two-year term.
The concessions to the "Freedom" Caucus - who are likely about as interested in any real freedom for the American people as the "Freedom" Convoy organizers who set up the Ottawa Siege of Feb. 2022 were re: Canadian freedoms - are meant to make "killing the hostage" re: the debt limit inevitable. Am I wrong in reaching this conclusion, Larry?
I’m curious as to why the Federalist Society took that name for itself when they claim (even when mistaken) Jefferson as an avatar, and he was an anti-Federalist.
It’s Newspeak, just like Reagan’s “New Federalism.”
@Dwight Williams,
The "Freedom" in "Freedom Caucus" means their freedom to run roughshod over the freedoms of anyone else.
And no, you are not wrong. Well, not entirely wrong. I'm not exactly clear whether the point is to default on the debt, or to use that threat to force Democrats and President Biden to accept draconian cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and government regulations in exchange for not defaulting.
Either way, their willingness to shoot the hostage is essential to the threat.
LH it’s much worse. They assume urbanites are sub human and should not have a say that’s individually equal to Real Americans. But the true agenda is for the plantation lords to get all say.
Alas that NYT article shows how stupid pundits are for going along with the narrative that GOPper budget cutting means balancing budgets, when they NEVER balance them. And no dem or pundit is smart enough to point that out.
Example: “Their specific ask of balancing the budget in 10 years is just totally unrealistic. It would take $11 trillion in savings,” What a travesty of inane dumbitude. Deficits will already be going down if the IRS is allowed to do its job. Then retract more supply side tricks the GOP passed as soon as Bill Clinton’s veto pen no longer held them back, letting them turn surpluses into arterial tsunamis of red ink.
I honestly don't understand why some GOP types want to screw with the possibility of default. Their money comes from rich people who will be impacted by a bond market meltdown. If US Treasuries become illiquid the whole world will freeze up for a while and then there would be no end to the deficits we'd face when interest demands on future issues matched the newly perceived risks. A full default (telling bond holders they will never see a penny) wouldn't fix that.
I doubt there are many rich people who fail to understand how illiquid positions are worse than losses. They'd have to force their lackeys to change direction away from that cliff or wind up (possibly) with nothing
Oligarchs and Aristocrats want us to borrow money at a predictable interest rate. They want us to remain hooked on them for that because we all become financially motivated to make those the safest bets in the market. Safe for them!
This flirtation with default makes no sense.
Alfred,
playing with economic disruption is part of the strategy of the far right to create enough societal chaos to justify violent regime changes or crackdowns.
Alfred Differ: I honestly don't understand
That mindset, in a nutshell, is our greatest advantage. I salute you sir.
"Thoroughly conscious ignorance is the prelude to every real advance in science."
- James Clerk Maxwell
PS I personally suspect the answers lie deep within Dorian Gray portraits. Putting the psycho in psychohistory since 10,000 BC.
Dr Brin:
Deficits will already be going down if the IRS is allowed to do its job. Then retract more supply side tricks the GOP passed as soon as Bill Clinton’s veto pen no longer held them back, letting them turn surpluses into arterial tsunamis of red ink.
It's become obvious even to the most obtuse by now* that the right-wing crazies never actually cared about deficits. "The country has to live within its means," is a bumper sticker slogan which sounds virtuous on its surface, but disguises the goal to stop promoting the general welfare.
And Alan Greenspan made it clear that a balanced budget (let alone a surplus) is something that cannot be tolerated.
Alfred Differ:
I honestly don't understand why some GOP types want to screw with the possibility of default.
...
If US Treasuries become illiquid the whole world will freeze up for a while and then there would be no end to the deficits we'd face when interest demands on future issues matched the newly perceived risks.
MSNBC was asking Michael Steele--the former and now disillusioned RNC chair--this very question. More along the lines of why Wall St. and the wealthy continue to support a Republican Party who threatens default. His take was that they just don't believe it would come to that. That the threat of default is being used to extort concessions, but that it wouldn't be allowed to actually happen.
Steele wasn't saying that he believed the above; just explaining how the wealthy sleep at night alongside their support for Republicans.
Their [Republican lawmakers' ] money comes from rich people who will be impacted by a bond market meltdown.
...
I doubt there are many rich people who fail to understand how illiquid positions are worse than losses. They'd have to force their lackeys to change direction away from that cliff or wind up (possibly) with nothing.
As recently as Ted Cruz's game of chicken, I expected that "forcing their lackeys to change direction" was inevitable. But now, I'm afraid that the corporate masters have lost control of their monsters. We're in "Do you still think you can control them?" territory now, and the Freedom Caucasians don't feel beholden to the wealthy, but to the rabid white grievance/resentment mob. Sticking it to the wealthy might be a goal now--or if not an actual goal, then an acceptable enough consequence to make the terrorist threat credible.
* "Which should be obvious even to the most obtuse by now," is a line from an episode of Batman where the villainous Minstrel--an electronic genius extorting the Gotham City Stock Exchange--announces in a fit of anger that they're moving to "Plan High-C". One of his minions questions, "Plan High-C? That could bring the whole world down around us!" The villain's response: "So what? It's their world!" Seems eerily prescient right now.
PS I personally suspect the answers lie deep within Dorian Gray portraits. Putting the psycho in psychohistory since 10,000 BC.
"scidata has gone bye-bye, Egon? What have you got?"
"I'm sorry, Venkman. I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought."
I use 'Dorian Gray portraits' as shorthand for the turpitude, nihilism, and guilt that can drive people to the burn it all down solution. Economic, demographic, and rational actor analysis may be entirely too clever, because Occam.
The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.
Thomas Jefferson
In GQP terms, "balancing the budget" = "shrinking the government to fit my tax cut plan". Spot check - which high gov't official told his president "deficits don't matter"?
In an ideal conservative* world, the middle and lower classes would bear the entire burden of funding any government deemed necessary (i.e., the military). There are plenty of historical examples of corrupt governments run on such a model.
*no longer means what we thought it meant, apparently
Pappenheimer
P.S. Alfred, I have heard people argue that we need to balance the budget and start using gold instead of a 'fiat currency' in order to stop economic catastrophe in the future. When I point out that this would cause economic catastrophe NOW, they consider this an acceptable loss. I do agree that there aren't nearly enough mid-size Italian automobiles to have a system of exchange based on them.
Pappenheimer
P.S. to be fair, the people I've heard say this were not rich.
Pappenheimer:
which high gov't official told his president "deficits don't matter"?
That would be Dick Cheney. And the longer quote was something like, "Ronald Reagan showed us that deficits don't matter." Of course, he meant that deficits don't matter when Republicans are the ones doing the spending. They matter as an excuse to constrain spending by Democrats.
conservative* ...
*no longer means what we thought it meant, apparently
That term has been hard to parse for quite some time now. When Poppy Bush put Dan Quayle on his ticket in 1988, I remember the papers saying that to shore up his support in the Republican Party, Bush was required to have a "conservative" for a running mate. I also remember thinking, "Bush himself isn't a conservative?"
All Republicans at least run on fiscal conservatism, but to be considered a true "conservative", one must apparently stand for bullying and punching down. For all their other faults, neither President Bush president those credentials.
That was supposed to read:
For all their other faults, neither President Bush had those credentials.
A post remarkable for multiple reversals & inconsistencies.
Last I heard, Thomas Jefferson was (1) a slave owner, (2) a white supremacist, (3) a state's rights advocate, (4) a serial rapist, (5) a majority rule populist and (6) a genocider of Native Americans who deserves neither respect nor praise nor statues nor representation on US currency.
Are US democrats & progressives suddenly copacetic with Jeffersonian-type Democracy now that they believe that they represent the undisputed US political majority?
Is this also why this newly dominant progressive majority is suddenly OPPOSED to the constitutionally-enshrined Minority Veto principle?
It appears that minority opposition to majority rule is only treason when the other side does it.
Best
Loc,
1. I am not sure I understand your logic here. Do you think that no-one besides yourself is capable of separating a man's conduct from his ideals? I'm fully aware that Marcus Aurelius owned slaves and was an autocrat (actually THE autocrat of his time and place), but that does not make his Meditations not worth reading. Statues of Columbus are coming down, too - do you have a problem with that?
2. "...newly dominant progressive majority..." - Please point out this magnificent beast for me.
Pappenheimer
Pappenheimer:
Do you think that no-one besides yourself is capable of separating a man's conduct from his ideals?
loc believes that all progressives are in lockstep with everything the most radical leftists assert. So for him, a liberal not cancelling Jefferson (or Washington) for having owned slaves is hypocrisy.
I'm curious how the laws regarding the "debt ceiling" are actually worded. My understanding of the concept is that it was first implemented when the US was entering World War One. And it wasn't meant a ceiling on Congressional spending, but to give the president free reign to spend on the war without Congress having to bother approving each individual expenditure. In effect, they approved a credit line up to which the president had pre-approval to spend on the war.
Doesn't hitting the debt limit then mean that Congress once again has to approve individual expenditures? And isn't that exactly what they do when they pass a budget that requires borrowing? I don't understand how the debt ceiling is construed to constrain Congress when it wasn't even meant as a constraint on the president--more like a limit on a newfound freedom.
American constitutional wranglings mystify me. Wouldn't a few sane Republicans simply cross the floor thus making this all moot instead of following the Dorian Grays over the cliff? Especially if they feel betrayed and homeless?
scidata:
Wouldn't a few sane Republicans simply cross the floor thus making this all moot instead of following the Dorian Grays over the cliff?
It depends what McCarthy gave up in order to be elected Speaker. If the crazies have too much power over the House agenda, they could conceivably prevent an increase in the debt ceiling from coming to the House floor for a vote. The same way Republicans in the Senate didn't vote to deny Merrick Garland a seat on the supreme court--they just refused to do the job of bringing his confirmation to a vote at all.
Scidata, one has 'expected ' a critical mass of Republicans to stand up for Goldwater conservatism and cry "enough!" and form at least a strong caucus and even better a new party. Of course that's political suicide under First Plurality wins election systems, but a growing number of locales are putting in Preferential (rank choice) Balloting, which could (in theory) liberate voters from the repugnant emphasis on radicalizing primaries. That and hammering gerrymandering could help a lot.
But SO much depends on whether the GOP is truly (as I suspect) a morass of blackmailed puppets many of them ensnared by the orgies Madison Cawthorne called-out. If so, there's no limit to the discipline that McC can impose, despite his weakness on paper.
I do not understand why no media have called him "the 1st Speaker since ___ who was opposed by a majority of elected representatives."
"That's not a Democracy, it's a Republic!!"
"That's not a car, it's a Camaro!!"
I still don't see the difference between those two statements....
Dr Brin:
I do not understand why no media have called him "the 1st Speaker since ___ who was opposed by a majority of elected representatives."
He also lost the "popular vote" 13 times. If the Speaker was elected by plurality--the candidate with the most votes--instead of needing a majority of the entire House, Hakeem Jeffries would have won.
Lead Dreamer:
I still don't see the difference between those two statements....
You and me both.
I would have preferred to see Rep. Jeffries victorious.
Okay. If I add up what a few of you said, then I should interpret GOP types threatening default as 'the crazy man' with a gun to his head shouting that he's crazy enough to pull the trigger... so we have to give him what he wants.
I guess that makes some sense since some of these guys also shoot up our schools before turning the weapon on themselves.
------
Well... I have no mercy for fools who would drive us into default. I rather like a functioning market. I've already seen what happened when a backwater currency went illiquid (Russian Ruble in the late 90's) and the impact that had on me, so I won't tolerate someone doing that to the USD.
Alfred,
Exactly.
Blazing Saddles flashback, brought to you by the common clay of the New West...
You know..
Pappenheimer
Every time the rhetoric is the same. Democrats are Heavenly Angels sent by a socialist, liberal God that want to save the weak and oppressed without any self-interest. Republicans are Evil, Demonic monsters that eat babies (even if the Democrats are the abortists), worship Capitalist Satan and want to turn the world into Hell itself.
I expected more from a reasonably good Science Fiction author.
Camargo
If it was fiction then I agree its a bit unbelievable
Unfortunately its actually happening - the Republicans ARE are Evil, Demonic monsters that SHOOT babies
Alfred Differ:
I should interpret GOP types threatening default as 'the crazy man' with a gun to his head shouting that he's crazy enough to pull the trigger... so we have to give him what he wants.
More like a crazy man waving around a bomb big enough to take the whole building out. Yes, to make the threat credible, he'd have to be willing to die too, but it's not just himself he's holding hostage.
I guess that makes some sense since some of these guys also shoot up our schools before turning the weapon on themselves.
See?
Well... I have no mercy for fools who would drive us into default. I rather like a functioning market. I've already seen what happened when a backwater currency went illiquid (Russian Ruble in the late 90's) and the impact that had on me, so I won't tolerate someone doing that to the USD.
"It's not a question of 'letting', Mister."
@CarMar-A-Lago,
I was going to try to explain the difference between "perfect angels" and someone who is simply willing to play by the rules vs someone who cheats as often as breathing. But on second thought, "you" are at best sealioning us, and more likely a Republican troll or a Russian bot (pardon the redundancy).
So, have a nice day, and Slava Ukraini!
duncan cairncross:
Unfortunately its actually happening - the Republicans ARE are Evil, Demonic monsters that SHOOT babies
For a long while now, Republican strategy seems to be to act in such an egregious fashion that anyone who simply describes accurately what they say and do is seen to be too impolite to credit.
Recall how calling someone a traitor was made into a way worse crime than the treason itself.
That's exactly my point, Pappy.
Logic's got nothing to do with it, as any reasonable individual is capable of separating a man's conduct from his ideals, but the progressive left has long since abandoned all pretence to logic & reason.
Take their word for it, not mine:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/18/nyregion/thomas-jefferson-statue-ny-city-council.html
https://www.opb.org/news/article/thomas-jefferson-statue-pulled-down-portland-jefferson-high/
You know the type...
Faux liberals who take great delight in the casual racism of Blazing Saddles but scream 'white supremacy' every time some conservative references a Founding Father or 'Ma Constitution'.
They're indistinguishable from those fake pro-democracy advocates who promote Preferential (and/or Rank Choice) Balloting, despite (or, perhaps, because of) those frequent 'tallying errors' that they can invoke to nullify the democratic process as they chose to do only recently.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Alameda-County-admits-tallying-error-in-17682520.php
The narrative is their narrative and their narrative is their god.
Best
"Casual racism of Blazing Saddles"?!?!?!?
Only a genuinely racist mind could fail to see the satire and point of that movie. You are the death of all humor.
If you people wouldn't quote locumranch, I'd have an easier time ghosting him.
Camargo please back up your assertions with cash wager stakes. Not a single one of the accusations you made against me is even remotely true, Yes, I get that you were being sarcastic… the lame excuse of someone unable to marshal refutations against the actual, actual things that I said.
A grownup does something entirely different…called “paraphrasing.” He/she begins with:
“Correct me if I am mistaken, but you appear to be saying that ___ … and if that IS what you are saying, then I believe you are asserting a falsehood, refuted by…”
Example:
Correct me if I am mistaken, but YOU (Carmago) appear to be saying (among other things) that Republicans are the ones defending flat-fair, competitive and creative market enterprise from socialists who would spend the US government into oblivion and destroy markets.
Am I right in that attempted paraphrasing? Because if so, I believe you are asserting a disprovable falsehood. And I invite you to have your atty contact me when you have escrowed major wager stakes over your assertion.
If I did NOT paraphrase you correctly, then I stand ready, as an adult, to see your correction. But blatantly, I DID rephrase something you believe.
Here’s the deal. Are you remotely capable of recognizing and understanding what I just did? Could you (if your life depended on it) restate the Paraphrase Challenge in your own words?
Locum, one test of Blazing Saddles is whether the races and ethnicities involved – except nazis – find it hilarious. Shall we wager over how black folks poll about it?
BET NOW re the supposed voting machine ‘tallying errors”! Not one of you maniacs who yowl about such things has ever stepped up to pursue it with money on the line. Not since the “cyber ninjas” of Arizona lost every nickel they bet on a major audit. In fact, now that the entire nation finally uses paper ballots, ANY suspicious precinct can be hand audited to check on the machines. (Formerly, a suspicious number of REPUBLICAN districts refused paper ballots! I wonder why…)
You are SO behind the times. All the smart Foxite yammerers have turned from the voting machines to screaming about mail ballots. And in not a single case have those shown even high 2-figure examples of flaws there, either.
Your dissing of Preferential Balloting is pure nuttery on a Palin scale.
Larry,
Re: Loc
Sorry about that. I just get irate when someone tells me what my political positions have to be. Molly Ivins had a comment about this in one of her articles - in the vein of "you're a liberal, so you must advocate replacing all police firearms with squirt guns..."
Also, re: Cam-cam, isn't God socialist AND liberal? Is there money in heaven? are there social strata?
Pappenheimer
What would the Currency of Heaven - the Divine Shekel - be backed by? A prayer stockpile? Angel feathers?
Pappenheimer, suddenly considering a very Swiftian short story
Larry,
More like a crazy man waving around a bomb big enough to take the whole building out.
Ah. The North Korea Defense.
Or M.A.D.
Ah well. I better write some stop-loss orders.
From overseas, one has the impression that the picture has escaped, and has locked Dorian Gray in the basement.
"Also, re: Cam-cam, isn't God socialist AND liberal? Is there money in heaven? are there social strata?"
To be fair. I am no big fan of "Kingsoms" as you know.
"Ah. The North Korea Defense."
I remain boggled JoBee has not already said:
"From now on, any action taken by the NK regime will be assumed to be with permission and support by the puppeteer-sponsor Great Power next door. And any violence or damages committed by that puppet will be seen as violence by that Great Power."
On the topic of the post...
This isn't a Democracy, but if anyone tries to take democracy from us they'll have to fight me.
---
Also in all sincerity, I don't mind the Speaker being stripped of some of their historical powers by feisty Representatives. I don't like omnipotent Speakers.
However, I'm quite sure I won't like what Gaetz and friends have in mind when they use their power. No surprise there.
The power I wanted to devolve to individual House members is for each of them to get a peremptory subpoena per year - or per session - to compell anyone to appear before a subcommittee for 2 hours of compulsory testimony.
That one act would permanently change the House so that no party could ever again shut down at least a baseline of investigation.
Sure, many members would use theirs to grandstand or preen for their district, or to hound political enemies. And some time would be wasted... for half a dozen subcommittee members for a couple of hourse at a time. So?
It would rapidly become a jealously guarded privilege and ensure never again would the minority be muzzled. If that minority are jerks... so?
If that minority are the good guys, it could save us.
The snark is no longer just for Trump...
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2023/Items/Jan09-3.html
...
Passing laws is pointless because any law that could make it through the Republican-controlled House will not make it through the Senate. Nevertheless, the House may pass some bills for show, like one banning abortion nationwide starting 60 minutes prior to conception or one forbidding the teaching of critical race theory in pre-schools.
...
If Kevin McCarthy allows the sane Republicans to work with the Democrats on bills that the Senate might accept, the MAGA 20 crew will call for a vote to vacate the chair. And that's assuming he has made it to the fall.
...
By summer, the government's authority to issue more debt will run out and the debt limit will need to be raised, The whole idea is crazy, since if Congress really wishes to reduce the debt it should either cut spending, increase taxes, or both. Instead it is trying to repeal mathematics.
...
Donald Trump used to refer to Kevin McCarthy as "My Kevin," as though he were referring to a dog. Which, to be honest, is not far from the truth.
...
Ok, still some Trump. :)
Back over the summer, I saw a sign at a local school which said something to the effect of, "It is illegal for any dog or cat to be on these grounds." My literary mind thought that was very awkward wording, as it didn't seem directed at the entities who could be held liable for the illegality--the pet owner. And the dog isn't going to care whether what he's doing is deemed illegal (the cat couldn't care less about anything). If the statute itself was worded in such a manner, it would be a complete paper tiger with no method of addressing the illegality in question other than mentioning the fact of the illegality.
That gets me thinking, could the debt ceiling be handled like that? What if the treasury issues debt that "it is illegal" for it to do? Could anything more be done to stop it than a statute would prevent a stray cat from trespassing on school grounds? "'It is illegal'? Ok, so now what?"
For that matter, "it is (also) illegal" for the government not to pay its debts.
This article about Florida's Governor Ron DeSantis, presumptive Republican Presidential candidate is truly frightening.
https://open.substack.com/pub/donmoynihan/p/the-desantis-attack-on-campus-speech?r=supg9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
He is using all the tools of government, law budgets and fund and coercion to silence all dissenting speech and education, suppressing the free flow of information and only allowing the conservative viewpoint to be taught.
Particularly troublesome is the conversion of the Florida New College into a quasi-Hillsdale University.
"...was his appointment of Chris Rufo, the activist who has led an attack on public education in America by creating moral panics around Critical Race Theory and grooming, to be one of the trustees of Florida’s New College. New College reportedly has a left-leaning student body, but DeSantis wants to make it more like Hillsdale, an explicitly ideological private college, according to his staff. Hillsdale has previously advised DeSantis on revising K-12 curriculum, playing a leading role in blocking math and civic textbooks for use for imagined violations of state law like critical race theory.
"In addition to Rufo, the new board will include a professor of Hillsdale and former leader at the Heritage Foundation, and a fellow of the far-right Claremont Institute. “Turning New College into a Florida version of Hillsdale would amount to flipping it upside down, a wholesale reinvention akin to a hostile takeover” according to local reporter. "
I've known of the Rufo appointment for a day or three. It is, flat out, appalling and quite probably murderous in its intent. "Hostile takeover" does not begin to describe the kind of atrocity in progress here.
AAAnnnddd this (DeSantis) is the guy the GQP wants to save them from Trump. I wish I could say, "policies like these will alienate independents" but if you're still an independent after the last 6 years, my estimation of your cognitive capabilities has...lessened*. Does there have to be an actual Reichstag fire? When does "lower taxes for me" lose out to "keep a democracy?**"
Been rereading one of Hitler's biographies and this is what is confusing me - we are in nowhere near as bad a shape as a country as Germany was in the 1930's. From whence comes the impetus to fascism lite / actual fascism? I don't think we are MORE racist than we were, but the book bannings, the CRT craze, the "put a gator-filled moat along the southern border" seem to indicate otherwise.
*as the man sang, "Which side are you on?"
**Weimar Republic say "After it's too late."
Pappenheimer
Pappenheimer:
From whence comes the impetus to fascism lite / actual fascism?
I think right-wing media have a lot to do with it. You and I most likely have a hard time understanding the thought processes of those who watch FOX and OAN regularly. Tucker Carlson in particular (Rush Limbaugh before him) seems geared toward making his viewers believe that the world is out to get them.
Anyone remember the very old Simpsons episode in which Homer calls up a friend and says, "Remember that time I paid back that loan? Well, now I need you to do a favor for me."
I'm reminded of that whenever Republicans in Congress talk about how if Democrats want to keep the government functioning or prevent a default on our debt, they have to give Republicans something in return. As if basic governance is something Republicans care nothing about themselves, and are only willing to give as a favor to Democrats in return for a quid pro quo.
Off topic, but someone's planning ahead WRT climate change:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/9/2146224/-China-pressures-Argentina-to-build-a-naval-base-that-provides-easy-access-to-Antarctica-s-bounty
Pappenheimer
Dr Brin,
Regarding the US Federal Debt Limit, I would have thought an asymmetric solution would be to mandate it as a percentage of GDP with a (fairly low) reducing factor. Then the only time it would come up as an issue would be when this percentage had to be increased again, rather than the annual drama over the nominal amount.
I'm not from or in the US, so there may be legal issues I'm missing here.
What you're missing is the debt limit is entirely a pantomime farce.
The spending has ALREADY BEEN APPROVED, in the budget from the previous year. If Congress didn't want to spend the money, they can either NOT pass the spending in a bill, or pass a new bill removing the spending.
Why don't they do this?
Because the posturing pandering phonies don't want to be seen *doing* that - they just want to pretend like they've made principled decisions.
Get it? The "debt" is simply to pay for what they've already chosen to do.
That's how it's been for a long time, now imagine the future with added chaos monkeys.
Larry H & Pappenheimer,
Any attempt to understand the rise of fascism in our time has to look beyond the USA, since this is a global phenomenon. That means that there is a pretty serious chance that what we are seeing is, at least in part, a function of demographics - that is, the conjuncture of high population with scalar stress. While it is true that population growth is slowing, it may prove to be too little too late. Then we have the Internet as a multiplier of scalar stress effects.
As far as ghosting scrotumranch, it won't do much as long as the moderator sees him in the same light Putin sees Trump: as a useful idiot.
Lena:
Any attempt to understand the rise of fascism in our time has to look beyond the USA, since this is a global phenomenon.
Good point.
As far as ghosting scrotumranch, it won't do much as long as the moderator sees him in the same light Putin sees Trump: as a useful idiot.
I'm not interested in having him banned. I just don't want to waste time reading him.
I like the peremptory subpoena, but I'd like to add a tiny twist. Whenever it is used... the C-SPAN cameras can point anywhere.
I LIKED being able to see activity on the floor of the House leading up to the Speaker vote.
I LIKED seeing them have their kids sitting with them as witnesses.
I LIKED seeing the gallery in use.
---
I'd like to see more of that, but won't hold my breath since it is voted upon as part of the rules package.
Good stuff Alfred.
The rise of world fascism is about oligarchy and oligarch idiots who (again) 'think they can control them."
In EXISTENCE I tried to portray what the 'trillies" or trillionaires would do if they were ACTUALLY as smart as their hired flatterers tell them they are. And if they had any sense of what tumbrels might roll, if they push New Feudalism too far.
In that light, no piece of Pelosi legislation compares in importance to the full funding (for 10 years in advance) of the IRS, to upgrade computers & software and service... and send agents after the giga cheaters. It absolutely refutes the cynical idiots who jerk off to the refrain of "the parties are just the same!"
No, they are not. Nothing proves the dems overall sincerity more than that one action, which will certainly inconvenience their own billionaires... but could prove lethal to the lords of the Mad Right.
Likewise, the 'debt ceiling' is nutso stuff. What matters functionally is the deficit, which no Republican ever mentions anymore because dems are always - always - more fiscally prudent about debt.
Blogger Lena said...
The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.
Thomas Jefferson
From monticello.org: (specifically, https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/end-democracy-spurious-quotation/#:~:text=Quotation%3A%20%22The%20end%20of%20democracy,of%20Thomas%20Jefferson%3A%20Digital%20Edition)
Status: This exact quotation has not been found in the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It may be a mistaken amalgamation of the author's comments in the above 1994 reference with a real Jefferson quotation. Jefferson wrote in 1825 to William Branch Giles of "vast accession of strength from their younger recruits, who having nothing in them of the feelings or principles of ’76 now look to a single and splendid government of an Aristocracy, founded on banking institutions and monied in corporations under the guise and cloak of their favored branches of manufactures commerce and navigation, riding and ruling over the plundered ploughman and beggared yeomanry.
(Oh, and I would use blockquote> if I though it would work /blockquote>
The trouble with concentrating on the "Deficit" is that it ignores the fact that its the "speed" of the money that is important to the economy
You could have an economy with a massive deficit which is also bad for the economy because there is a lot of SLOW money being injected
Or an economy with a very low or zero deficit which makes the economy BOOM
The "deficit" treats money the same but things like Tax Cuts are slow money while infrastructure spending is FAST money
You could massively INCREASE taxes - and increase spending by a fraction of that amount and simultaneously fix the deficit AND boost the economy
Duce DeSantis.
@Locumretch,
liberals did not start America’s largest war: the Confederacy fired artillery at Fort Sumter. And long before that, they tried to take over millions of acres of western lands—and require the North to return fugitive slaves.
Such matters today because Confederate flags are still in abundance in Dixie; which is sheer masochism. The South suffered greatly during the war, so celebrating the Confederacy in any way is sick.
As for you, you lack a sense of proportion.
Lena redux:
Any attempt to understand the rise of fascism in our time has to look beyond the USA, since this is a global phenomenon.
In fairness, Rupert Murdoch is also a global phenomenon.
The global scope and scale is being noticed. By many people. One such person is Erica Ifill, a journalist currently based in Ottawa who has my respect and attention:
https://twitter.com/wickdchiq/status/1612304272577773569
Dr Brin:
In that light, no piece of Pelosi legislation compares in importance to the full funding (for 10 years in advance) of the IRS, to upgrade computers & software and service... and send agents after the giga cheaters. It absolutely refutes the cynical idiots who jerk off to the refrain of "the parties are just the same!"
As does the whole blackmail-over-the-debt-ceiling thing, which began with Newt Gingrich. Only one party is interested in doing the job of governing, while the other party extracts concessions in return for letting the job of governing be done. They might as well misquote Homer Simpson:
"Remember that time I didn't shut down the government or let the nation's credit rating suffer a default? Well, now I need you to do a favor for me."
What matters functionally is the deficit, which no Republican ever mentions anymore because dems are always - always - more fiscally prudent about debt.
They only ever mentioned it when they could use the issue to constrain Democratic spending. When they are in power, they don't blink an eye switching from "Deficits are the greatest threat to our country and our grandchildren," to "Ronald Reagan showed us that deficits don't matter." Orwell had that pegged.
If they don't mention deficits any more, it's because they overplayed their hand. As recently as 2010, they were able to get Democrats to agree to draconian spending cuts by waving the deficit around again, after ignoring it under Bush/Cheney. But the way they switched back to ignoring it again under Trump was way too blatant. The idea that Republicans care about deficit spending is now a joke that everybody is in on.
And never forget that President Clinton (and yes, the Republican Congress) did erase the deficit in the late 90s, and we were close to turning the national debt into a surplus. Republicans like Alan Greenspan panicked at the very notion, and made sure it didn't happen.
Rightists enjoy bring cornballs— that is my experience.
@Alan Brooks,
Rightists see "punching down" as hilarious comedy. Other than that, they have no sense of humor or irony.
Being seen Punching Down is Status - "Look how powerful I am, able to punch the peons"
The humor is self-preservation... The ever-present "I wuz only foolin" of the entrapped bully.
Re: punching down...Leading members of the current House of Representatives have made it plain they intend to slash SS and Medicare, using the debt ceiling as a weapon.
Huh - it looks like "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" was probably not said by Marie Antoinette, who does appear to have been a patron of charities. Indeed, the Internet contains more things than cat pictures and pron. However, Rousseau did attribute the phrase to an unnamed 'great princess'.
'More contemptuous of the poor than Marie Antoinette' is not a great look for the would-be monarchists of today's America.
Pappenheimer
LeadDreamer:
Being seen Punching Down is Status - "Look how powerful I am, able to punch the peons"
It's not funny though, except to themselves. I don't deny that right-wingers know how to jockey for status. Just that it doesn't fall under "humor".
And, I subscribe to the opposite view. "I am able to punch up and get away with it," demonstrates power. Anyone can punch down. A better demonstration of status is to forego the opportunity to punch down, even though you could do so if you chose. "I'm secure enough in my status that I don't need to pick unfair fights to prove it."
Larry Hart:
nobody said they were *right* about power - just their shared *perception* of power.
nobody said they were *right* about humor - just their shared *perception* of humor.
and re: humor: even more, they don't care if it's actually funny - just that they can use it as an excuse.
Do not assume *anything* about them is sincere.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/opinion/mccarthy-speaker-maga-republicans.html
Conservative opposition to social insurance goes back to the New Deal itself, with figures like the previous president Herbert Hoover denouncing Franklin Roosevelt’s policies as “socialism” that would place the nation on a “march to Moscow.” And of course, successive Republican Congresses have, since the 2010 Tea Party wave, tried to pass or force gigantic cuts to federal social spending, with the debt ceiling as their preferred hostage.
The difference being that today, the conservatives are the ones on a march to Moscow.
Lurker Below,
Thanks for the clarification. That's what I get for not taking the time to verify. The real quote, however, is too long for your average FacePalm fascist to parse. Bum deal!
PSB
“The "deficit" treats money the same but things like Tax Cuts are slow money while infrastructure spending is FAST money”
Exactly. Supply Side was supposed to ‘stimulate’ by building factories funded by full pockets of the rich… who instead used nearly all of the tax grift for rent-seeking ‘slow’ investments, as Adam Smith described. This CAN cool down a hyper inflation episode. But generally hurts all and builds feudalism.
Roughly-equal Keynesian stimuli by dems generally accomplishes the goals of getting people to work, re-inshoring US manufacturing, fixing infrastructure and eliminating child poverty… at the cost of heating inflation.
Dems do all that while (estimating) decreased deficits by retracting some supply side but mostly finding and unleashing the IRS
“and re: humor: even more, they don't care if it's actually funny - just that they can use it as an excuse.”
Carumba have you ever tuned into the Fox attempt at a late night comedy/variety show to compete with Colbert & the Jimmies? GUTFELD! It’s called.
Ai Carumba. Colbert is funny and sometimes a bit nasty. Gutfeld is 100% nasty with guests who laugh as if it’s funny.
Dr Brin:
Gutfeld is 100% nasty with guests who laugh as if it’s funny.
Remember Rush Limbaugh making fun of Michael J Fox's disability? Or Trump imitating a reporter's stutter? They really do find humor in hurting those weaker than themselves.
Let’s not be too hard on people like Locusroach: we need allies, or at least frenemies (rather than outright enemies.)
It’s not their fault; it is their nature to make asinine references—as in ‘Blazing Saddles’ yesterday. They take anomalies and magnify them out of proportion.
Actually, we always cringe a little at Colbert's use of personal appearance humor. At best kind of a cheap shot. Except Turtle McConnell... and Mar-a-Lardo. And the so-hittable faces of Cruz and Gaetz. And... well... a few more.
But still, it's a bad habit.
Alan B, Loc has made clear his spite twoard every aspect of the Enlightenment Experiment.
oh, lately I have taken on an aggressive 'ministry' that seems just the right scale. A very talented and utterly MAGA editorial cartoonist named Antonio Branca spews daily lie-toons for an audience that's small enough that my drive-bys get noticed. I am not polite. and that confuses hypno'd folks who are used to libs taking a 'high ground.' But above all I taunt over their all out war on facts.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonio-f-branco-43531514/
https://www.facebook.com/afbranco
Alan Brooks:
Let’s not be too hard on people like Locusroach: we need allies, or at least frenemies
You have a funny way of encouraging that. :)
it is their nature to make asinine references—as in ‘Blazing Saddles’ yesterday.
To be fair, in my role as translator droid, I wouldn't think that loc actually finds Blazing Saddles intolerably racist. He thinks that we are hypocrites for not finding it so.
Dr Brin:
Except Turtle McConnell... and Mar-a-Lardo. And the so-hittable faces of Cruz and Gaetz. And... well... a few more.
The first issue of Captain America in the 1940s had Cap punching Hitler in the jaw. And the US wasn't even in the war yet.
David Brin says that "one test of Blazing Saddles is whether the races and ethnicities involved – except nazis – find it hilarious".
This is a partially false statement, as there's literally nothing in this casually racist western genre parody that a genuine nazi would find offensive.
It's true that this film mocks blacks, rural whites, jews, minorities, WW1 era germans & Hollywood homosexuals in a hilarious fashion, but there's only 2 nazi-related jokes in the whole thing, the first being a sight gag about Nazi soldiers waiting in line to sign up as villains & the second being a one liner about a commissary Hitler dreading his upcoming 'bunker scene'.
I give this film High Marks (sic) for humor & I thank Larry_H for referencing it frequently.
Alan_B blames the Civil War on the Confederacy and says that the "liberals did not start America’s largest war".
This is also a partially false statement, as 'the liberals' in this particular case were the Southern Democrats & Secessionists of the Confederacy who rebelled against an oppressive cabal of conservative Whigs, Know-Nothings & religious fundamentalists who unified under the 'Black Republican' banner.
https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-democratic-party.html
Most Democrats were now also either Confederates or varying degrees of southern sympathizers.
But, by far, the most fascinating thing about the real & unvarnished political history of the first US Civil War is not the self-evident role reversal between ye olde Reps (federalists) & Dems (liberals) and their modern variants, but the striking parallels in regard to IMMIGRATION then & now:
To whit, During the war the (Secessionist) Democratic Party did survive in the North because of its strength in the cities, especially among the working class and immigrant groups like the Irish, who often felt they had no real stake in supporting the Republicans’ war against the South.
It therefore appears that our current crop of Democrat Party federalists have out-smarted themselves when they decided to import millions & millions of new immigrants who have no real stake in supporting federalism, defeating secessionism or (even) defending what the Dems now call 'democracy'.
It's hilarious how history repeats itself.
Best
Ah, loc, the ignorance is sublime.
"Nothing a Nazi would find offensive" is entirely the point. If you can't (or won't) see that there's literally no point to your existence.
“You have a funny way of encouraging that”
I don’t dislike him at all; am not even writing that he is mistaken: we are addressing his matters of opinion.
However he is not convincing regarding economics, sociology, politics, psychology, religious studies. At any rate, a guy that smart must be having a bit of fun baiting us—so I don’t feel excessive guilt in calling him Locustroach or Locoraunch.
He is not the sort to hide under the bed clutching his teddy bear if he’s challenged.
Say, loc...
Did you think Brooks including "Springtime for Hitler" in The Producers was in *praise* of Nazis?
Do you even understand what ridicule is?
About Locobranch
Blazing Saddles - WAS a "racist film" in that it was a film about racists
A film showing them as bloody idiots!
“This is also a partially false statement, as 'the liberals' in this particular case were the Southern Democrats & Secessionists of the Confederacy who rebelled against an oppressive cabal of conservative Whigs, Know-Nothings & religious fundamentalists who unified under the 'Black Republican' banner.”
Drooling -fizzing jabbering insanity. The South had owned and operated the federal government for 30 years – using it to raid northern states with gangs of irregular cavalry - then the plantation lords went berserk when they lost that power in 1860. There are no overlaps between your crazy assertion and any point of contact with reality.
It IS true that enemies of the west found a weapon in creating floods of refugees that poured into Europe and hurt the liberal alliances, causing ‘populist’ right wing govts in Hungary and other places.
Re blazing saddles… it is the overall message of tolerance & coexistence that Nazis would find offensive,
locumranch, (Larry can skip this)
...as 'the liberals' in this particular case were the Southern Democrats & Secessionists of the Confederacy who rebelled against an oppressive cabal of conservative Whigs, Know-Nothings & religious fundamentalists who unified under the 'Black Republican' banner.
Very simplistic.
Almost everyone in every state was a liberal of some stripe. The exceptions were pretty rare. Plantation owners were less so. Native Indians could be here or there. Abolitionists were less so in their own way (being more progressive than liberal). The Whigs split into pieces over a fundamental disagreement wrapping around slavery and devolved into an embarrassment erased by the new Republican party.
Even today, many conservatives are classically liberal. The differences between us are mostly about where we get too upset to maintain a liberal detachment.
De Tocqueville described us all rather well when he pointed out our strong passion for living our philosophy and dispassion for reading and pontification about it. Paraphrasing a bit... we are all liberal barbarians to a high degree and quite willing to fight with each other over minutia or cooperate to move the unmovable. We can argue about whether everyone should own a gun and then turn around and send people to the Moon.
And lest we forget... cooperate with everyone in The West to eradicate Small Pox from the face of the Earth.
Turn it around, Lead_D. I know ridicule well which is the why I'm giving you the chance to implicate yourself.
Your words are silly; your morality is artless & naive; and you appear to understand nothing of the nature of good & evil.
We all laugh at the self-deprecating humor of Mel Brooks for the very same reason.
It is a Cognitive Dissonance Reduction Strategy -- a psychological defense mechanism -- designed to dissipate painful and unwanted thoughts & feelings.
We laugh because, deep down, we are scared shitless. We know that evil is implacable, intolerant and unoffendable. We know that evil only respects force. We also know that our eventual failure, death, destruction & humiliation are likewise unavoidable.
And, so some of us choose to laugh, in response to tragedy, in order to keep from crying, allowing hilarity to ensue.
See 'Gallows Humor'.
Best
_____
You quibble, Alfred, and you ignore my reference (1), reposted below. You also equivocate by claiming that the Abolitionists were 'progressive' (which makes them somewhat 'liberal', you propose). Yeah, right, about as 'liberal' as the Temperance Union, the Prohibitionists & any other Autocrat. Try rereading Eric Frank Russell's 'The Great Explosion' to refresh your liberal sensibilities. And, above all, MYOB.
(1) https://www.essentialcivilwarcurriculum.com/the-democratic-party.html
Off topic, but interesting:
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/expanding-brain-literally
Science imitating art?
Also off topic, also interesting:
https://www.statnews.com/2023/01/11/air-pollution-neurology-alzheimers-parkinsons-environmental-health/
Resilience in cort5ical tissues delays manifestation of symptoms... so what sort of wrench might long COVID throw into the works?
Locustwretch could make a far-fetched case that the Confederacy was liberal in attempting, and failing, to spread out into the vast western territories.
But such was more akin to being radical conservative or just plain radical. Rebels without a defined Cause.
Making the Wild West even wilder with unending confederate versus abolitionist skirmishes in millions of acres of territory. Which does sound pretty radical.
The age of telegraphy opened with the words, "What Hath God Wrought?"
The age of planetary AI may open with the words, "foldGPT, find a cure for cancer."
Emphasis on 'open'.
Oligarchs will be just as hobbled by the second as confederates were by the first.
As to genetic research and the COVID pandemic: yes, this is also off-topic, and yet not, seeing how the world's fascists have been working to leverage the Pandemic in service to their criminal goals. If this research can undermine that project, we need to protect it.
https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroprotective-covid-vaccine-22208/
Others notice too. Above all else, Republican voters care about white Christian grievance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/opinion/republicans-kevin-mccarthy-house.html
...
The problem isn’t that Republicans don’t win legislative victories. It’s that legislative victories can’t answer the party’s underlying discontent, which is less about government policy than about American culture. Democrats worry about voting rights, gun control, climate change and abortion — enormous challenges, but ones that congressional leaders can at least try to address. What Republicans fear, above all, is social and demographic changes that leave white Christian men feeling disempowered, a complex set of forces that Republicans often lump together as “wokeness.”
Weird how the people who prefer Putin to democracy can claim title to "people who love America" :
Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona, who had voted against the last two Republican speakers before initially opposing Mr. McCarthy as well, claimed last year that the United States was imperiled by Democrats who “hate America, they hate people who love America, and they hate the religion and the descendants of the people who built America.” That’s not the kind of problem a Republican speaker can fix.
Awfully revealing what values "conservatives prize" if fairness, inclusion, and tolerance are hostile to those values:
Conservatives often quote an aphorism by the right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart: “Politics is downstream from culture.” The point is that passing laws and winning elections don’t ultimately matter if your opponents control the entertainment Americans consume and the values they learn in school. And for many conservatives, it’s self-evident that the big shifts in American culture — fewer Americans identifying as Christian, more Americans seeing gender as fluid, a growing focus in universities and corporations on diversity, equity and inclusion — are creating a society hostile to the values that conservatives prize.
I don’t say Loco-retch is Wrong, it is that he is unconvincing. Perhaps he has something to impart, yet he appears inchoate outside of his physician’s orientation.
He could take the tack of writing how progress at this time might offer only marginal gain: living to age say (near-future prospect) 85-90, rather than three score ten. But after years, it is still unclear what it is he is getting at.
I don’t postulate that life can be better—only more exciting and interesting. For many. And there is expanded longevity. For many. Plus the long-term future, which as a layman I’m not going to tackle.
——
What would be unfair would be for him to claim “you don’t know me, so don’t speculate about me.”
Someone blogs as a contrarian, and doesn’t expect others to speculate about them?
Dwight, the world's fascists are always up for using misfortune to further their ends.
Does this make the debt ceiling crisis null and void?
Section IV of the Fourteenth Amendment (emphasis mine) :
The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.
L conveniently ignores the fundamental of Eric Frank Russell's 'The Great Explosion'.
MYOB only works when class is relatively flat and elites can't cheat.
Utter hypocrisy to say folks should shout MYOB at the feudal gods L serves and want to tower above.
I only read the short story "And Then There Were None", will have to put the novel on my list. It's explicitly noted in the story that the Gand's lack of a codified system depends on gross economic surpluses.
Also I wished he'd spent more time describing Norton's Pink Heaven, a planet based around humoring the whims of Emperor Norton (stolen, of course, from California history). Obviously, even the historical Norton had some kind of psychic ability.
Of course, a lot of SF back then assumed that extremely Earthlike worlds were a dime a dozen. We now know that even Earth wasn't very "earthlike" for most of its existence.
Pappenheimer, labor me vocat
I'm glad to see at least a few people here using the F-word regarding America's Republican Party. I have read quite a few books about fascism in the past year, and pretty much everything the Republicans stand for comes straight from the Mussolini/Hitler/Franco playbooks, and pretty much have since Nixon.
BTW, Dr. Brin, I sent you a list of those books, maybe a week ago? I don't know if you got it. Either you're busy (quite believable) or my email address for you is out of date (also quite believable, as I haven't been here in years).
Larry H, I don't feel a need to outcast scrotumranch, either. It's not very consistent with democratic ideals. However, whether an intellectual bully or an old-fashioned troglodyte, bullies hate being ignored. Dr. Brin must find him useful, though, since he keeps responding to the guy's deranged rants.
Why does this thing keep calling me "Lena"? That's my wife's English name, but I'm not using her computer.
PSB
Locumranch,
I've read your reference now. I don't have much to beef about when it comes to the history. I could quibble, but I don't really care to try.
What I'll point out is that the use of the party names over such long baselines (by those who read the resource) ignores the point that the author actually made. Parties are not static structures. I think you are smart enough to know this, though, so I'll just point at some of the people who are ideologically near to you who don't. The current GOP is not the party of Lincoln. It's not even of Reagan who the people of California knew rather well.
There might be a few people in the modern GOP who would have been northern Whigs from long ago, but they are allied with people we knew as Dixiecrats who left the Democrats in the 70's. Though the House Speaker currently hails from California (amazing! since CA GOP reps are an endangered species), the strength of the GOP comes from an alliance of mountainous, central, and southern blocs. That southern bloc used to ally with Democrats since all the way back to what your source describes… but no more.
———
You want to paint the Temperance Union as autocrats and I don't buy it. Progressives? Yes. They were willing to use the powers of government to make this a more perfect union. Didn't work as they planned, but a lot of MYOB'ers were willing to let them try. That willingness evaporated when crime syndicates provided what the people wanted and law enforcement became arbitrary. The danger corruption creates isn't that people get away with crimes. It's that RICH people get away with crimes by changing the willingness of LE to act against them. That makes a mockery of the Rule Of Law (ROL) and we don't care how pleasant a Progressive's vision seems to be when it endangers ROL. Equality before the Law requires ROL. Without that equality, we'd need our guns to do exactly what modern militia cosplayers think must be done.
———
De Tocqueville pointed out that we are a nation of liberals where the reactionaries are almost as rare as hen's teeth. However, we find ways to argue with each other in the absence of Liberalism's traditional foe. "You aren't liberal enough!" is roughly how these arguments translate… though we don't use 'liberal' the same way anymore.
Meh. I'm still a registered Libertarian, but I'm sick to death of this stupid argument. "You aren't (fill in the blank) enough!" is the cry of those who want party schism more than they want to perfect our union. It's a waste of my f*$&^ng time of which I have less and less of now… and I'm noticing it. "Bah!" I say. "Go sit in the corner with the other losers." I say to them. MYOB while I go about the effort of convincing people to compromise to get at least a part of what we all want.
-Best
PSB,
Are you the PSB from a few years ago? The one who recommended Sapolsky's book?
Either way, the book I think most relevant to American trends with respect to GOP governance is Hayek's "Road to Serfdom". We are well into some of the later chapters now.
Alfred,
Yep, that's me. I haven't read Hayek yet, and my to read list is so long I doubt I will in this lifetime. I did see a quote from him in which he claimed that all forms of collectivism are evil, never mind that every family, every church, every corporation, is a collective, indeed, every living human being who is not a sociopath is part of multiple collectives. That did not encourage me to read him. I have a much more recent book you might want to peruse. "American Rule: How a Nation Conquered the World but Failed its People" by Jared Yates Sexton, 2020.
It's very tempting to play whack-a-troll every time loco roach comes along and spews his Nazi propaganda, but I still think it would be better to ignore him. He uses this place to hone his arguments against humanity.
PSB
PSB,
That quote is likely unfair to Hayek, but I won't try to convince you. His primary argument was about our hubris when we think we know what's best for people we don't know... and can't.
I'm much more inclined to thank you for recommending Sapolsky. He changed my view on a number of things. I keep his book nearby and occasionally read parts if only for the dark humor he uses. 8)
PSB welcome back!
Hayek spoke for maximizing the number and fraction of knowing, skilled, confidently fearless competitors. I agree with that.
His incompetence came topmost from failing to see that 90% of liberal 'programs' serve to increase that reservoir, and are thus justifiable in libertarian terms. "Government" CAN cloy! but failure to see that flar-fair-open competition has never blossomed better than in enlightenment transparently accountable semi-paternalistic liberal states is just plain dumb...
... almost as dumb as the LIBERALS who fail to ever make that argument and point it out.
@PSB you may not be using your wife's computer, but may still be using her Google account, hence 'Lena'
@PSB as Lena,
Welcome back. If you are Paul S-B, it's been years.
Dr. Brin must find him useful, though, since he keeps responding to the guy's deranged rants.
Remember when I used to engage regularly and you and everyone else including our host admonished me to just ignore him? Times have changed.
Why does this thing keep calling me "Lena"? That's my wife's English name, but I'm not using her computer.
You're logged into Google as her.
Alfred Differ:
I'm sick to death of this stupid argument. "You aren't (fill in the blank) enough!" is the cry of those who want party schism more than they want to perfect our union.
That argument is the deranged love child of Master Race theory and the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. "Only fill-in-the-blanks have/deserve any say in the matter", and the definition of fill-in-the-blank becomes ever more restrictive.
An important effort is to point out scientific wins like mRNA vaccines, huge ROI of spaceflight, sustainable energy, and this good news about the ozone hole:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22686105/future-of-life-ozone-hole-environmental-crisis-united-nations-cfcs
Hello folks,
Regarding Hayek and those idiot liberals who fail to make useful points, I find that when we settle into a comfortable relationship with any one philosopher, we easily apply the Law of the Hammer all over our thinking, and forget that no matter how much we may relate to any one person's thought, it is still just one person, and no one person is right about everything. The Democrat establishment is in love with their own set of philosophers and has failed to grow because of that. And it's all the more reason to not join any of our political parties. If America worked like most democracies and had half a dozen viable parties in play, I might think about it.
Alfred wrote: The current GOP is not the party of Lincoln. It's not even of Reagan who the people of California knew rather well.
It seems to have become a common tactic among the trumptard crowd to point out that Lincoln freed the slaves and Democrats formed the KKK, and completely ignore how things have changed since then. The Republican Party stopped caring about African Americans by the reign of Rutherford B. Hayes, when they fell into the cult of the über rich, and the Democratic Party shed its Dixiecrats over a period of several decades. Nixon's Southern Strategy only completed the transformation that had already been under way. They know these changes have happened, but think that they can persuade others to join their cult by denying their bigotry and accusing the Democrats of it. I'm sure there are people out there who fall for it, or they would give up on the tactic. If you ever wonder what Republicans are doing, just listen to what they accuse Democrats of. They don't have the imagination to come up with any better lies than that. I'm sure that somewhere in Texas there's a pizzeria that actually does have a basement.
PSB
I tried logging out and logging back in, but it still says I'm my wife.
Alfred,
I'm glad you found the Sapolsky book enlightening. I had that moment of enlightenment back in 2000 with a different book that broached many of the same subjects, but it's outdated now, so probably not worth your time. Given what I wrote about relying too much on any one philosopher, I will recommend another neuroscientist for you. I first read Dr. Helen Fisher in 2001, and her work was interesting but at the time not entirely earth-shaking. Since then, however, she wrote a book in which she devised a temperament inventory that I have found to be remarkably useful. the name of the book will come across wrong, I'm sure, because it sounds like it should be some run-of-the-mill book of dating advice. It's called "Why Him, Why Her?" I suspect you're not very interested in the mating game at your age, but it is well worth understanding the genetic components of personality. You might check her website first. https://helenfisher.com/personality/
As to the Jared Sexton book, it's not too long, and it is a goldmine of information. It's not a polemic against the Republican Party - it aires dirty laundry on both sides of our political fence.
PSB
It’s ludicrous to say that “Demonrats [their epithet for Democrats] were the Confederates. 160 years ago?
Only thing that bothered me about Local-wench was his writing that ‘Blazing Saddles’ is racist. He couldn’t be serious—only a dope would say it with a straight face.
Like saying Robert Shaw was actually eaten by a shark in ‘Jaws’.
At 12:09 even they ave the gas shutoff valve imagery. Veritable Sorokin hit.
PSB:
I tried logging out and logging back in, but it still says I'm my wife.
Time to admit it might be right? :)
Larry H,
Time to admit it might be right? :)
Umm...
I get all sorts of hell when I tell the fascists on FacePalm that gender and sex are not the same thing. Gender is largely arbitrary, and differs from culture to culture. Then someone reports my comments as pornography and I get suspended for a month.
PSB:
It seems to have become a common tactic among the trumptard crowd to point out that Lincoln freed the slaves and Democrats formed the KKK, and completely ignore how things have changed since then.
Republicans now lay claim to Martin Luther King too, as if the only thing he ever said was not to judge people by the color of their skin. King was actually saying that he had a dream that his children (i.e., black children) might some day not be judged by the color of their skin. He wasn't--as the GQPers assert--saying you can't talk about racism because that involves talking about race.
If you ever wonder what Republicans are doing, just listen to what they accuse Democrats of.
I get to quote Batman villain The Minstrel twice in one week:
"Which should be obvious, even to the most obtuse by now."
* * *
Alan Brooks:
Only thing that bothered me about Local-wench was his writing that ‘Blazing Saddles’ is racist. He couldn’t be serious—only a dope would say it with a straight face.
I hate to be the one saying, "You don't get locumranch's point," but you don;t.
He was not condemning Blazing Saddles as racist.
He was saying that woke liberals have gone so far off into the weeds that we would condemn Blazing Saddles as racist if we applied our woke standards consistently. And therefore, the fact that we don't mind that movie's racism proves that we are hypocrites.
The fallacy being that most liberals, including all of the ones I'm aware of here, have never subscribed to the shriekingly crazy things that give our side a bad name on Twitter.
For instance, I don't subscribe to the idea that math and science are white supremacist impositions on the rest of humanity. I don't assert that there are no such things as men and women. I don't want statues of George Washington torn down because he was a slaveowner. So it is not hypocritical of me to fail to call for the cancellation of anyone else who espouses those ideas.
PSB redux:
but it still says I'm my wife.
"I'm Brian, and so's my wife!"
It's the internet, we have no way of confirming PSB isn't his wife. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Pappenheimer
P.S. "Gender is largely arbitrary, and differs from culture to culture. " Having been to Bugis Street in Singapore, can confirm.
Larry H, always look on the bright side of life!
And yes, all of scrotumranch's assertions are nothing but straw men, and always have been. I have never heard a Republican describe Democrats with anything like accuracy, because they immediately jump to these wild exaggerations. It's very similar to what psychiatrists call "secondary associations" which are typical in dementia and LSD use. I'm sure that the hyper sensitized amygdalae and insulae account for a lot of this.
Pappenheimer, thanks for the confirmation.
Lorraine, to what extent do you think Russia's natural gas antics will move Europe further into renewables, vs. moving backwards into coal use? Russia might just be shooting itself in the foot.
PSB:
Russia might just be shooting itself in the foot.
They do that just to show how much tougher they are than us wimps. "What? I've got another one."
Chalk it up to dedovshchina I guess
Any of you know that hilariously horrible video showing a future when a woman is immersed in augmented reality games while on a bus and in the supermarket?
LH,
Now I get it. But still, conservatives always—Always—insist that we shouldn’t judge the past by today’s lights. ‘Blazing Saddles’ was released a half century ago.
As Scrotumraunch is conservative (or at least Right-of-center) he ought to give Wokes a pass for being hypocrites by not condemning Blazing Saddles as racist. It was before Woke existed; it was grandfathered-in!
@Alan Brooks,
That's exactly the point. The caricature is that liberals don't grandfather anything in. We supposedly all want to cancel George Washington and Mark Twain and Christopher Columbus, not to mention anyone who appeared in blackface or made an off-color reference to gays 50 years ago. "So by liberal standards, you should be cancelling Blazing Saddles too."
The right-wingers up here in Canada keep invoking the Trudeau-as-Aladdin pix for the same "reasons", Larry. "No, he doesn't get to be seen as having grown up/learned to do better/etc. because he's the Enemy, dammit! If we can't overthrow him with our Convoys, we'll keep hammering him with THIS!"
I'm Brin and so's my wife.
--
Alan, please don't use that nickname for locum.
---
Failure of the far left ever to take CONTEXT into account is a symptom that sactimony drug highs have substituted for sincere effort to achieve pragmatic, incremental progress, along a spectrum that our ancestors move forward and according to which WE (including those lefties) will be deemed thave been barbarians.
"which should be obvious even to the most obtuse by now..."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/11/opinion/republicans-investigation-committee.html
...
As part of their [ Republicans' ] quest to punish the agencies attempting to hold them accountable, the party of law and order plans to go after federal law enforcement. This is how you know that the support for the Blue Lives Matter movement was a charade. They simply wanted to shield officers who disproportionately killed Black people.
For them, law enforcement has always been a tool for the control and restraint of the “other.” When law enforcement attempted to control and restrain them, they cried foul. How dare the Justice Department equally apply the law! That wasn’t the plan. That wasn’t the design.
...
You’re right, David; from now on, he is “Lotusbranch”,
and I hold out an olive branch to him.
Russia and "psychic warfare": Stupid AND scary, at the same time. Though, indeed, the "satanism" and mind-control aspects have a lot of currency on the US mad-right.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/01/03/russia-western-psychic-attacks-mystics-astrology-putin-ukraine/
Alan,
Whether Loc is right of center or not, I don't imagine him* declaring a party preference. I suspect more of a "Popular Front" detached from a "People's Front of Judea" situation.
*assumption only. Could be PSB's wife.
Referencing the main question of the post, functional democracies have to be able to address, or at least allay, the concerns of their minority-opinion population, or their histories will be punctuated by schism and civil war. Frank Herbert suggested a Bureau of Sabotage dedicated to slowing down government action after a decision is made; I wonder if he got the idea from the incident in Athens where an angry voting populace decreed the genocide of an Aegean island after it revolted and was subdued by an Athenian fleet and army, but then reconsidered - the trireme dispatched with countermanding orders managed to overhaul the ship carrying the death order.
Pappenheimer
PSB,
…regarding Law of the Hammer as it relates to an over focus on one philosopher…
I'm mostly with you on that. I draw a line at people misunderstanding a scholar, though, when the conclusion they draw is diametrically opposed to what that scholar is known to have claimed.
Consider Adam Smith and the folks who argue that his 'invisible hand' argument is about God sorting things out according to some plan. They obviously haven't read Smith directly. Then there are the fools who think he advocated for tooth-and-claw competition in the markets. They haven't read Smith either. Both groups have likely read people who misunderstand what little of Smith they've read while rationalizing their prior beliefs with that smidgeon of comprehension.
Hayek lived long enough to see how Keynesians mangled what Keynes actually believed. He wanted nothing to do with people who thought they were Hayekians and asked them not to associate his name to their partial understandings. There's a story about Hayek's reaction to Thatcher using his name in a political setting and it doesn't paint a pretty picture for Thatcher.
Anyway… the main beef US liberals have with Hayek is he was an Austrian liberal. Vienna Style. Liberty trumps Democracy because it's obvious Hayek had a dim view of non-independent decision makers. Most of us are not independent enough to be making critical decisions regarding the liberty of others because we derive incomes from those who would benefit from swaying us. The CEO clade has more than a little influence over a broad swath of the US voting public, right? Hmm.
———
The Republican Party stopped caring about African Americans by the reign of …
I'm not convinced they did before that either. Many Abolitionists did what they did because of their Christian principles. That's not the same belief as advocated by the old-school Levelers from the English Civil War era. Ending slavery and Equality of Opportunity aren't the same.
I find it useful to remember that the Abolitionists wanted something very particular for their vital support of the North in the war. They wanted a constitutional amendment declaring the US a Christian nation. They didn't get it, but the Secretary of the Treasury threw them a bone by including "In God We Trust" on new coin designs.
———
I seem to recall that you were a teacher, so you have a good case for posting under any other name you like. My wife teaches special ed (autism) for a nearby elementary school district, so I get the need for distance between real life and online life. If your wife doesn't mind, I'm sure we can sort out the connection. 8)
Referencing the main post, all men are not created equal—because for starters, not all are men [some are PSB’s wife], but we’ve been dedicated to the Proposition since 1776. And why mess with it?
Btw, I think as Lotusbranch does, and dislike change possibly more than he does; yet fully accept the dislocation. As visiting the dentist isn’t liked albeit is accepted into one’s life. Probably very few Enjoy change, however they adapt in some manner. I might be mis-reading Lotusbranch...don’t know him, don’t know his name.
Had a good friend who disappeared, he may have died. Kindly, from a kindly rural family; they ran a horse ranch. He was very well-liked but harbored strict fundamentalist views thoroughly inculcated by his parents, though he graduated from a secular university with a degree in IT.
This is all to say that in the very unlikely event he would have been inclined to blog at such as CB, he would’ve been dismissed as a nut. Yet in face-to-face interactions, he was universally admired.
Perhaps Lotus is a pussycat?:
all hiss and no scratch?
Larry H,
As far as showing how tough they are, I am halfway through listening to a book called "Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present" by Ruth Ben-Ghiat (oh look, a Joo!) and just heard her chapter on Virility. It's entirely typical of fascists to believe in a positively troglodyte exaggeration of "traditional" gender roles, and use their supposed masculinity as an argument for their virtuosity. Mussolini, apparently, was bopping an average of four women per day in office, and like Putin, liked to pose shirtless for the camera. In his case he posed that way threshing grain, to show how rural he was at heart (the corruption of cities and purity of rural people being another fascist trope). And the women who Mussolini took advantage of often had very unpleasant fates.
I'm quite convinced that toxic masculinity is the real heart of the fascist mindset, and that is just as true of conservative women as men. Remember that racism is only as old as the concept of race itself, which only appeared in the 16th Century. Misogyny goes all the way back to the origins of human civilization.
That also feeds into my latest moniker for our resident pseudo-intellectual fascist troll.
PSB
Pappenheimer,
If anyone here was PSB's wife, you would be able to tell. After over 30 years in America, it is still clear that English is still her third language.
PSB
BTW - You're right about that trireme. It was the city of Miletos on the Island of Lesbos that was scheduled for genocide, and the ambassador paid that crew a whole lot extra for the service. Actually, if I remember correctly, the ship carrying the death order had arrived a few hours earlier, but the Athenian commander at Miletos was not too enthusiastic about carrying out the order and had not yet begun executions.
PSB:
Mussolini, apparently, was bopping an average of four women per day in office, and like Putin, liked to pose shirtless for the camera. In his case he posed that way threshing grain, to show how rural he was at heart
I wish Putin would pose shirtless while frying bacon on the stovetop.
Alan Brooks,
I'm pretty sure that the "all men are created equal" line was in reference to citizenship and the law, not to any inherent abilities. For that to have been the idea, Mr. Jefferson would have to be suggesting that humans are all clones of one another, and idea that probably didn't even exist at the time. This is one of the stupider arguments that conservatives like to use against America. Conservatives tend to be extremely judgmental people with very rigid notions of hierarchy. That's part of why they fall for fascist strongmen so easily, and so angrily perform their mental gymnastics to justify their fascist beliefs and insist that they are the true patriots.
As far as our resident pseudo-intellectual fascist troll goes, it's quite common for people to hide their true feelings in public but become vile bridge lurkers in the anonymous spaces of the internet. How do you think sociopaths pass themselves off as normal for years and years?
PSB
PSB,
The one thing I shall never forget about Mussolini is that (according to Albright's book on fascism) the magnificent white stallion he liked to ride in parades was named Frou-Frou. I'd recommend the book for a decent overview from someone personally affected by fascism's rise - her family fled Central Europe in 1938, when she was a year old. She was pretty clear about where she thought we are heading today. And yes, Jewish (at least at the time).
Pappenheimer
Alfred,
As far as people misunderstanding one person's thought, then becoming crusaders for their misunderstanding, I think that is more the rule than the exception. Remember Sturgeon's Law? 94% of everything is crap. In any area there are a handful of true inventors and innovators, while poor imitators are legion. On top of that, although humans are social animals par excellence, they are not telepathic, and are only capable of understanding anyone and anything within their own, individual contexts. If I fit into any -ism, I would have to call myself a radical Me-ist (which is in no way related to Moism), because I am not and can never be anyone else but me, and can only approximate anyone else's ideas.
Having said that, I can still heap damnation on Milton Friedman himself, whatever his Chicago School followers did, because he personally advised the murderous dictator Augusto Pinochet (who Reagan openly praised). I can't do that for Marx, because he only wrote. Other people twisted his (largely wrong) ideas for their own political ambitions. We should be damning Stalin, Mao, Ceausescu (I can never remember how to spell that guy's name), and others who flew his flag then did the opposite of what he advised.
On Lincoln and the Abolitionists, none of them were anything other than products of their own time. Lincoln made speeches in which he said he really doesn't care about slavery, he cared about preserving the Union, and he would do it with or without slavery. His plan was to ship all the former slaves to Liberia because he did not think that different "races" could possibly coexist in the same country.
PSB
Pappenheimer,
I got her book on CD from the library a few months back and listened to it. Yes, it's a good one, and completely anathema to the right wing, because she heaps as much damnation on "communist" dictators as fascists. Anyone familiar with the 20th Century knows that communists and fascists fought each other, and a key feature of fascism was to call everyone they don't like "communist" - which is exactly what Republicans do.
I looked up Umberto Eco's 14 characteristics of Fascism and went through them one by one. Eco said that you only need any one of the 14 to build a fascist regime around. The Republican Party espouses all 14. I've made that point many times on FacePalm only to be called a damn commie by the Trumptards.
PSB
Lincoln's Liberia plan foundered when he started talking to people like Douglass, and when he realized that the South couldn't be eased back into the Union by conciliation. (Only Winfield Scott, a Virginian, stated from the start that it would take years, an economic blockade, and hundreds of thousands of men). Early in the war some of his generals (Butler started this) pointed out that you could cripple the South's already fragile economy by offering freedom to its enslaved workers if they walked away. It startles me how much the Southern aristocrats swallowed their own stercus and expected their slaves to stay loyal. Yes, Abolition was a tool to Lincoln rather than a cause, but don't read too much into speeches trying to convince southerners to return to the Union. His personal opinion of slavery is on record, too, and unlike today's GQP, he could change his mind. And did.
Pappenheimer
PSB,
Jefferson might have been more cagey than we imagine. Though he surely didn’t think of humans as clones of each other, in 1776 people did think differently. Some deists thought God did not intervene in human affairs; certain deists thought the Lord did—Washington purportedly did. Thus, although men were born with different abilities, via miracles one could be ‘equal’ to another.
Certainly, 246 yrs ago there many who thought all were born spiritually equal. Jefferson was very clever: I surmise that he was hedging when he wrote all are created equal. Big Tent.
He was pleasing the all can be equal through divine intervention believers; the all are spiritually equal at birth crowd; and the all-are-not-equal-but-let’s-sign-this-goldurned-Declaration-and-get-it-over-with faction. Very many to this day believe in miracles. I just don’t like to assume that people way back when thunk the way people think today.
——
As for Lotusbranch: I don’t know what to think; but my friend was similar, though mystical. He shared Lotus’ quite prevalent belief that every problem we solve leads to other problems. He erupted in anger when his mysticism was challenged—but otherwise was as gentle as the Lamb Hisself. At any rate, as Lotusbranch won’t reveal much about himself, it is not unfair to presume he is as you depict.
Alan Brooks:
Certainly, 246 yrs ago there many who thought all were born spiritually equal. Jefferson was very clever: I surmise that he was hedging when he wrote all are created equal. Big Tent.
Don't overlook the key word in the phrase "...all men are created equal." They're equal (more or less) at the moment of birth. That does not preclude advantages or disadvantage accruing afterwards. But this is in stark contrast to aristocratic thinking--that a royal or noble baby is born with rights, titles, privileges denied to others.
Jefferson didn't use words carelessly.
It seems to me that 1776 leaders adopted much of the Scottish Enlightenment. The real difference is that the Scots actually believed it.
L conveniently ignores the fundamental of Eric Frank Russell's 'The Great Explosion'. MYOB only works when class is relatively flat and elites can't cheat.
Historically speaking, the most vehement anti-Nazis have always been old school Marxist-Communists who disguised their elite autocratic aspirations behind endless shouting for classlessness, equality & justice, as still practiced by the Southern California & East Coast intellectual elite since the 1930s.
It's a hoary old binary, the allegation that one must be either a conservative Nazi or a Communist progressive, and it's a tactic much abused by a Left which declares that 'Everyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi (or Fascist)', a slander which puts me in the good company of a similarly defamed Robert Heinlein.
And, so, with the return of Lena Riefenstahl, aka Paul_SB, the flibbertigibbet & the living embodiment of Sturgeon's Law, I will be silent -- at risk of being thought a fool & villein -- in order to allow others to speak their minds freely & remove all doubt, until later.
Namaste
Duuuuuuh. Only L believes his hoary binary. The most anti-stalinist force in the world was the US labor movement / AFL-CIO. Step up like a man and bet $$$ over that.
Leninists were typical male harem-getherers and murder-tyrants under the guise of an ideology that pretended equality. So? Your cult leaped to adore the SAME MEN when they simply changed symbols and chants back to feudal ones. duuuuuuuuuh
PSB,
Remember Sturgeon's Law?
Heh. Yah. I can't quite agree with you, but only because I'm not sure if it is 94% or 84%. I don't know where to draw a good line distinguishing pearls from pig crap.
I've met true inventors. I've also met inventors who couldn't create original stuff if their lives depended on it, but COULD improve on what true inventors create. Since the vast majority of value derived from innovations is captured by neither type, I'm inclined (mostly) to stay out of their way. I've helped a few of each too, but ego is the common character trait. Put a few of us in the same room and it gets hard to breathe. 8)
———
Thatcher did indeed try to leverage Hayek, but he didn't bite at the hook and had already moved out of economics into political philosophy. Almost no one can accurately state his later arguments, but that happens to a lot of philosophers. What also happens to academics who make a career change late in life toward philosophy is a rejection by the community of philosophers. They obviously found Hayek mostly irrelevant by the 1970's… and he knew it. Happened to Gödel too, though he came from a different direction.
For our sake, though, the Road to Serfdom book isn't about his economic or philosophical views. It's about a slippery path communities of well intentioned people take. He was trying to persuade the British not to do some of what they were likely to do after WWII because it was on that same path that led Germany to disaster. Americans saw his comments as references to Soviets, but didn't want to think about our own steps along a similar path. Anyway, one of the later chapters has an embarrassingly accurate description of guys like Trump.
scidata,
If I recall right, de Tocqueville said we lived the liberalism of the Scots, but didn't like to read about it or be told much of anything regarding it by academics.
The Scots were more introspective about it all.
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It's worth remembering that early immigration to the colonies came in waves. The fleeing aristocrats and their friends booted during the English Civil War wound up largely in the South while dissenters from other eras would up in the North. Border folks (both sides of the border between Scotland and England) wound up pretty much anywhere the previous waves didn't kick them out. That means Pennsylvania and Appalachia.
What 'we' believed and how 'we' acted was as mixed as you might expect from descendents of people who often fought and killed each other. Well... the Quakers weren't exactly murdering their neighbors, but most of the others did.
Likewise waves of Germans - a lot of Hessian troops stayed on in PA... and those enslaved by neighboring tribes in Africa, the strongest were sent to those damned ships. And then Irish... then jews and Poles... and then...
onward
onward
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