My ten part series on a Newer Deal for Americans and the world offered 35+ proposals for the Democrats to include in their electioneering agenda, at least a dozen of which could be enacted even while Trump remains in the Oval Office, and others he might veto at tremendous political cost to himself and to his party.
Some of you might deem these proposals -- listed all together in Part 3 and broken down in detail, in parts 4-10 -- as giving short-shrift to many of the top items wished-for by the U.S. liberal-and-moderate majority, and that's true! Relegating things like monopoly-breakup and housing to the end, along with protecting women's sovereignty over their own bodies...
...not because these are unimportant! But because it will take a lot of political process and negotiation capital to get them. And - as we learned from the failures of Clinton and Obama to legislate... and the successes of Biden/Pelosi/Sanders - you gain that kind of political capital by passing the more-easily passable things first!
Anyway, negotiating with the undead zombie that is today's Republican Party, whose top levels are utterly foreign suborned and likely blackmailed, is - by their own choice under the Dennis Hastert Rule - completely forbidden.
We'll have to fix Democracy's structure first! Shatter that subornation and lure decent, honorable, grownup conservatives back to the bargaining table, before anything lke 'negotiation' can ever return to American public life.
See a pathway to accomplish all of that here.
== I've tried this before ==
Then, in 2019, I did it again! This time in a whole nonfiction book! POLEMICAL JUDO: Memes for Our Political Knife-fight: A Brazen Guide for Sane Americans To Bypass Trench Warfare And Win Our Life or Death Struggle for Civilization.
Much more extensive, Polemical Judo included detailed methods for getting around John Roberts's rationalizations to support gerrymandering, for example. And why folks should overcome their reflexive rejection of blackmail's likely role in the DC quagmire, when it's been the core method used by Russian security services, since the era of the czars.
I was pleased to see that in 2021, the Democratic Party leadership under Biden-Pelosi-Schumer-Sanders-Warren chose not to repeat the Clinton/Obama mistakes and pressed hard to pass a series of excellent bills in that miracle year... though they addressed not a single one of the structural flaws that I had discussed in my book... nor any of the weaknesses that Donald Trump later exploited, in his current all-out attack upon the American Experiment.
Okay, I've now tried again, in 2025-2026, with the Newer Deal list. And I expect the same response. Crickets from Democrats, many of whom are smart, decent, honest, modernist grownups who want the American Experiment to thrive and move forward, continuing its mostly (not entirely) beneficent leadership of the world. Alas, they all share the same mania.
"If it's not invented here, then don't bother."
Still, I'm a completist. So let let me indulge my wish fantasies one more time! What follows - cribbed from Polemical Judo - is a wish-list of minor or lesser items that never made it into the Newer Deal list. And yet, they are still pertinent!
Indeed, if you'll just pass a couple of them, you will build your political capital, instead of frittering it away.
== My Newer Deal Crackpot Addenda! ==
Let's start with...
Minor but significant stuff.
First a few items that’d be worthwhile, even if not huge or sexy.
– At some point when gas prices are low, take an advantage of an opportunity to switch from a cents-per-gallon tax to a percentage tax.
– Every other major country has replaced its currency by now, with important positive effects for honest taxpayers. The rationalizations offered by opponents – who claim the greenback is forever special, different, and sacred – are getting ridiculous and awfully long in the tooth. Just think of all the drug lords and Mafiosi who would be discomfited. And the American greenback is now way too easily counterfeited and filthy.[2]
– Tell all Americans to update their computer security packages, because a bill is about to refine data tort law, making responsibility similar to public health codes. If you neglect hygiene and your device becomes a hijacked ‘botnet” source of harm to others, then you’ll share in paying the civil damages that result. Oh, yeah. That actually is one of the Newer Deal items, already.
-- Folks occasionally talk about invoking the Constitution’s 25th Amendment, which sets up procedures to neutralize an incapacitated president. But most dismiss the notion, because no matter how off the rails Donald Trump tumbles, he stocked his cabinet this round with utter 'loyalists' who give whole new meaning to that word. (I believe he ensures that loyalty in a special, mobster way; but no one seems to want to ponder that.) Alas those who shrug off the 25th, thinking that only the cabinet may invoke it, are too lazy to actually read the amendment, which allows a route to entirely bypass the cabinet.
I know that at least one prominent Democrat did read the 25th, way back in 2019 during Trump's first term. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) - among the smartest House members - proposed a bill to create the Oversight Commission on Presidential Capacity to fill a role that is actually outlined (or at least sketched-in) by the 25th. Raskin wanted to provide a specific ‘body’ comprised of 10 physicians, psychiatrists and retired former leaders – like presidents and vice presidents – chosen by House and Senate leaders of both parties.
Note that I alluded to this in the Newer Deal's proposal for a neutral Executive Branch Manager. Too soon? Seriously?
Some more-crackpot suggestions.
All right, we’re about to tip into notions that are more than just “unusual” or “judo.” These crackpot ideas may yet have their day, though. [3] And I want to be on record proposing them.
– Provide basic firearms safety training in all high schools, along with Driver's Ed and comprehensive sex education. Think about it! Isn’t this one of those positive-sum, win-win scenarios? It lets us judo past the NRA’s trenches by offering one thing they claim that they want - the one item on their agenda that might actually help reduce gun violence![4] While forcing them into a deal that would also help reduce teen pregnancy, STD and abortion rates by empowering girls and women with knowledge.5]
Think it through. Better yet, ponder how MAGAs will react when they think it through! Every kid from a liberal family, every feminist girl, every minority kid in every city getting the gun safety (and use) training that the NRA claims it wants all kids to have! And every son or daughter of the NRA exposed to concepts of liability, insurance and every other parallel with owning and using motor vehicles.
A head scratcher? You don't yet see how it's a win-win? Well, just let it sit there, among less busy neurons at a corner of the mind. It'll comce to you how it could be a win-win-win, outmaneuvering the nuts.
– As of mid 2019, Bernie Sanders came aboard supporting this proposal that long predates even my own interest[6]… a small tax on financial transactions. As low as 0.01%, it would not even be noticed by average human investors! But it could stymie the AI programs at major Wall Street firms that make tens of billions of trades a day. Advantages include a way to limit volatility, plus helping to control a “churn-hungry” financial caste. But I have a bigger reason: it could diminish the likelihood of those cryptic, unscrupulous Wall-Street firms unleashing artificial intelligences that are by design voracious, parasitical, predatory, amoral and utterly insatiable potential “skynets.”[7]
And yes, I wrote that in 2019.
– Ban interlocking corporate directorates among a narrow CEO caste of golf buddies voting each other vast compensation packages. The Greatest Generation wisely forbade this conniving incest. They also banned massive stock buybacks. They were smarter than we are. And yes, they also adored Jonas Salk.
– Give capital gains tax breaks only to long held and voted stock. Or else... (more radical, but justifiable) ... only to new issues that actually raise new money for companies. Since older equity does nothing to raise investment capital for the company. (Ponder that! Older equities base their value on the existing capital and dividends of the company and have absolutely no basis for tax preference, while NEW issuances might merit encouragement by taxpayers.)
– Revise "corporate democracy" to reward involved, long-term actual human stockholders and purchasers of new issues, while limiting the power of passive proxies and shell companies, especially those shells who don’t devolve within one layer to real human owners.
– Nukes. More mind-blowing still, even though techno-liberals like Stewart Brand have pushed it for years, and it might help reduce carbon emissions significantly… consider making new allies and crucial support for environmental action in exchange for accelerated development of two or three of the truly impressive new types of ultra fail-safe nuclear power plants?
– Establish an Institute for Verification and Re-test. One problem with modern science – it emphasizes new discoveries over the verification process upon which the whole thing relies. Postdocs and professors don’t find it sexy to merely check out or replicate a recent finding, nor does that lead to prizes and fame. Necessary for the peer review process to work, we need some way to encourage tests to reproduce results. A possible role – if properly set up – for burgeoning networks of amateur scientists?
== Even more crackpotty! ==
Okay, you were warned… have nearby several grains of salt…
– Revive air travel the simplest way.
One sign of our spiral toward levels of class war last seen in 1789 France is how the rich are abandoning us to our fates in deteriorating airports and airlines, fleeing from First Class into charters and corporate and private jets, thus avoiding all the frisking and hassles. History is clear. When elites abandon a mode of transportation (e.g., railroads and ocean liners in the 1950s) that utility starts to die! Moreover, the gulf between the mighty and little people widens to unsupportable levels. (See David Rothkopf’s book Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making.)
This can be solved with some decent agitation, followed by the right taxes and fees so that private and corporate air at least pay their own way, and ideally subsidize the airways.
Metaphorically speaking – and so far I am still talking only in metaphors! – we must lift torches and pitchforks, picket the private, no-TSA airports and chase those elites and moguls "Back into First Class, where you belong! Sit there with your tablecloths and mimosas and champagne. But fly with us! Just you watch how quickly air travel (including TSA) improves for everyone.
== The crack-pottiest! ==
– Ban the undergraduate business major. Let them go for an MBA after four years spent creating or delivering goods and services. You think I’m joking? Ten years later, you’ll think we entered a Golden Age. (The Chinese leadership consists almost entirely of managers who were promoted from their start as engineers. Consider what happened to Boeing, when they stopped doing that.)
– Stop letting taxpayer-subsidized companies "shout" into space. All right, this one sounds super-crackpot. But as we speak, private companies using dishes that were paid for by the U.S. taxpayer are beaming commercial stunt messages – for everything from snack food companies to Craig’s List – into outer space – supposedly to sell music videos and garage sale items to aliens!
Sure, it sounds harmless, and it might be. But that’s the problem, we just don’t know. And at minimum it violates laws against amateur interference in diplomacy with foreign powers.[8]
And while we're at it... will at least some of you finally grow up about UFOs?
...and finally...
– Revive rural ghost towns as slightly-subsidized havens of all kinds. Seriously, does anyone look for win-win solutions, anymore? There are rural villages dying all across America. Luring giant vulture companies to come and snap up vast tracts in a crushing steamroller of restored peonage that calls to mind the 1932 Dust Bowl, leaving Karl Marx rubbing his hands, in expectant glee for what comes next.
Sure some of those small towns are showing leadership and verve, adapting, experimenting and thriving with new models… and we must help those, generously! Yay that. Incentives might encourage folks in - say - four small, dying towns to ingather and consolidate with the one that has real prospects.
Only then what to do with those abandoned other three? Where local farmers workers and merchants just couldn’t quite make a profit? Once we’ve helped those folks get profitable on their own feet in a newly-consolidated, vibrant town -- perhaps slightly-subsidizing mom n' pop stores that aren't Walmart? What to do with the other three?
Are there modern problems that might be helped by offering the bought-out or abandoned ones to certain groups across America? Offering those groups a completely voluntary, subsidized life in fresh air, gardening or farming, or running businesses that (with modest subsidies) need merely to break even, not make a profit?
You can guess I am talking about groups who are already receiving aid (or expensive care-taking or else restricted movement) far more expensively in cities or shelters or minimum security facilities. In a village, taxpayers need only underwrite a marginal bit, for the garden-farm or restaurant or fix-it shop to crest at viability.
If you can’t imagine half a dozen potential uses and constituencies in just a minute or two – from purely voluntary homeless redoubts to safe places for refugees to do their paperwork, to… well… just try again. There are dozens.
Okay, there are lots of these items that may seem marginal or crackpot today… like votes for women, back 120 years ago. Meanwhile, I hope one thing above all. That sane American voters – and in other nations allied for the future – will give us the power to wrangle over these things, and enact a lot of them.
[1] Political suggestions from 2006 and earlier. http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/suggestions4congress.html
[2] The 2019 “Ig Nobel” Economics Prize was awarded for testing which country’s paper money was "best at transmitting dangerous bacteria" (the Romanian Leu won, but the US Dollar was a finalist).
[3] A blog on crackpot notions! http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/crackpotsuggestions.html
[4] Envision every elementary school kid encouraged to tattle on Uncle Bob’s unsafe and unsecure shed fulla bazookas, while praising dad for the responsible rifle safe. Oh, the NRA would split over this! Then imagine red skulls imploding as liberal and minority kids learn weapon basics.
[5] Abortion rates decline more in blue than in restrictive red states, why? All studies attribute it to sex education. https://www.npr.org/2019/09/18/761753866/u-s-abortion-rate-continues-long-term-decline
[6] Transaction taxes might save us all. http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/transactionfee.html
[7] The amount of money in the top three investment funds alone is now equal to the GDP of China.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-asset-management-in-decline/
http://statisticstimes.com/economy/projected-world-gdp-ranking.php
https://www.pionline.com/article/20190221/ONLINE/190229952/fidelity-sees-record-revenue-operating-income-despite-dip-in-aum
[8] See my evaluation of the cult phenomenon called METI or "Message to Extraterrestrial Intelligence." http://www.davidbrin.com/meti.html
58 comments:
All great ideas - the one I would be least in favor of is the nuclear power option
Nuclear is safe and green - but far far too expensive - and its "rival" Solar, Wind and Storage is still rapidly dropping in cost
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2026/Items/Jan12-1.html
...
Anyhow, we thought the video of Good being shot was going to be similar, [to Rodney King] and that we were going to have to write something along the lines of "When there's a lot of action going on, and the footage is not complete, and is kind of shaky and unfocused, it can be hard to reach firm conclusions about exactly what happened." But when we watched, we were shocked at how unambiguous it actually is. To paraphrase what we wrote last week, there is NO WAY to conclude that the use of deadly force was justified (more on this tomorrow). It almost couldn't be clearer. We've now read numerous detailed analyses that say the same thing, from The New York Times, Slate, Mediaite, and The Washington Post, among others.
For a couple of days, members of the Trump administration, and their supporters in the media, tried to argue that the bystander video proved that Good was responsible for what happened. And that is just... not the tale that the video tells. So, over the weekend, a second video was released. This one was taken by the shooter himself, using his cell phone (ICE agents largely do not wear bodycams).
...
It is truly remarkable that folks on the right think the second video is exculpatory. It is true that this version of the video is more favorable to the White House's position than the first video is, for two reasons. The first is that Becca Good did do a little jawing, which nominally makes her a little culpable, at least in some people's eyes (though jawing at cops, or pseudo-cops, is not a "use of lethal force" moment). The second is that those incomprehensible frames, which include a sound we describe as "blunt," are open to interpretation. It's possible that the sound you hear is the car making contact with the shooter. It's possible that it's the gun firing or being drawn. What's most likely, in our view, is that it's the agent running his finger over the phone's microphone while shifting it around in his hands, so he can grab his firearm.
Beyond those two things, the weight of the evidence in the film actually works against the shooter. Again, "I was verbally accosted by someone" is not a legal basis for shooting a person and, in any case, it was Becca Good who was jawing. Renee Good was being perfectly pleasant. There are also some very good questions that the new video raises. For example, "How could an officer go from conversing with a person to fearing for their very life in the span of 10 seconds?" And, "If the officer feared for his life, why was he holding his cell phone, and not his gun?" And finally, "If the officer's cell phone was in his hand when the situation allegedly turned dangerous, was he really in the best position to make decisions about the use of deadly force, much less to handle his weapon properly?"
...
The entire article (not paywalled) is worth reading and way too long to excerpt all of it. I post this section in order to say that Victor Davis Hanson can kiss my @$$.
Concrete proposals! A more robust Inspectorate! Attempts to improve on ideas from Dr. Brin! Come read and comment!
@Dr.Brin:
Notes regarding the last post:
1) My primary concern is that your proposals - while combating the effects of fascism - like corruption and fraudulent elections -do pretty little in addressing their roots in preventing it's return later.They have their place, but in of itself are not enough.
You argue with the necessity to acquire power, and that is not wrong, but also has the problem that any possible future Democratic presidency will just be another short phase of sanity.
2) Your statement about defense spending is counterfactual. From 1955-1960 (first rearmament) it rose to 5% of GDP and was at 3% until the fall of the Berlin Wall. It remained at 1.5% until the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Also, one should mention that Poland, the Poster Boy of rearmament, is still heavily subsidized by the EU net payer countries. Make of that what you will.
Fixing the root cause of fascism is a huge problem of the scale "End world poverty". It can probably be done, but it takes a lot of coordination and trust in slow processes that leave our grandchildren wondering what all the fuss was about.
Thanks Catfish. I modified both the IGUS and Cyber Hygiene portions of the Newer Deal and linked to your missive. See
https://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2025/11/last-week-i-issued-three-parter-that.html
Der Oger, I understand your priority is different than mine. Most of my proposals are structural, meant to restore a functioning Republic by eliminating cheating, empowering facts to refute lies, empowering the minority to better question the majority and empowering the majority to transparently govern. All of which have been so crippled that we do not have a government, we have a rampaging mob of microcephalic thugs and their equally stoopid oligarch-lords who represent a small sliver of the nation.
But you are being unfair, I believe. If the structural flaws are fixed, and blackmailed lunatics replaced by adults, then negotiation can resume in positive sum ways and many other problems addressed. IF WE HAVE TO CHOOSE which items to address first, the structural flaws exploited by the mad Trumpists must come first.
Moreover, there are increments on liberal agendas that ARE in the 35+ measures. (If you'd actually read them all.) The HEALTHY CHILDREN ACT shows how, at a very popular single stroke -- even just a one-sentence law! - the youngest (and most important) 20% of the population would get the same medicare that's extremely popular among the oldest 20%. And thus the Big Squeeze on the insurance industry would commence, forcing them to realize they must negotiate or die.
The Rural America Act would throttle back the corporate murdering and takeover of family farming, gaining popularity in non-urban America and setting the stage for further anti-monopoly legislation. The same power breakup would happen in the home-building industry. And restoring the Postal Bank would provide alternatives for the poor, constraining abuses by the banking industry.
Seriously, I'd like to see your own list, because you were pretty darn vague in criticizing mine. See if you can prioritize along the 60%+ rule (??) And show us how your priorities will do a bit of good if the STRUCTURAL. reforms aren't made first.
I stand corrected about the % of GDP spent by Germany on Defense, though with Honnecker & co. next door, one would expect it to be higher than the European average. And still VERY low compared to the US.
But at least you are spewing drool like we get from Duncan... that EUROPE defended the USA instead of vice versa. Yeah, yeah. Sure. Breszhnev's 20,000 tanks and 50,000 artillery pieces were kept out by... um... kept out by...
Dr Brin:
"though with Honnecker & co. next door, one would expect it to be higher than the European average. And still VERY low compared to the US."
I'm about 10 years younger than you, but it seems to me in the post-WWII period, there wouldn't have been a big push from the rest of the world for German ramification. "Howsabout you let us handle your defense, 'k?" was probably a policy.
Even as late as the second Iraq War, my jaw dropped open when neocons complained about Germany and France being too pacifistic. They should have praised God that we lived to see such a miracle.
"rearmament". Let it stand.
Scott Adams passed away today.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/article/dilbert-creator-scott-adams-dies-at-68-after-prostate-cancer-diagnosis-160126400.html
I meant to say "at least you are NOT spewing drool..."
Seriously, I'd like to see your own list, because you were pretty darn vague in criticizing mine.
Okay, I'll try.
First, the Past Atrocities Reconciliation Act (PARA), which shall do the following things:
1) Acknowledging the great crimes against humanity, like the genocide of Native Americans, Slavery, the Armenian Genocide, colonialism, Holodomor, the Holocaust and whatever they Trump administration will come up with in the next three (or probably more) years as such.
2) Anyone found guilty in a criminal court of aiding and abetting, gloryfying, proposing or denying those events shall loose his rights as noted in the 14th admentment. Plus jailtime and/or fines. Consider swastika and confederate flags as "gloryfying speech".
3) A special trial court shall be formed to persecute the former regime. Swiftly. Think of a mixture between the Nuremberg Panel and South Africa's Peace and Truth commissions.
4) Federal grants to schools and universities should be tied to a mandatory civics and history lessons plan that actively discusses the darker issues.
5) Funding of memorials and museums that explicitly deal with the dark spots in history.
Second, an Act of Congress that requires a full Vote for any treaty to be signed or terminated by an administration. Any violation of international treaties shall be considered an "High Crime and Misdemeanor".
Third, repeal of the "Invade the Hague Law" and signing the Rome Statute.
Fourth, public broadcasting. Create a network of independly funded national and local broadcasters tasked with educating and informing the public as well as defending the constitution by providing investigative journalism. Include a moderated social Media Network (like Twitter, but with real moderation).
Fifth, strengthen the unions. Make it a felony to hinder the formation or businesses of unions, and any legal counsel found in participation of it risks his license. Make exceptions for small businesses and certain types of state employees. (I would even look at introducing Works Councils to larger companies, and thereby democratizing them from below).
Sixth, raise the minimum wage. Automatically adjust it for Inflation. Tie unemployment payments to it.
Seventh, do away with "at will" termination of labor contracts, except in cases of criminal or intolerable behaviour.
Eighth, modify the Senate Filibuster rule by mandating that, for a successful vote, the Senators must at least represent 50.X+% of the US Population, in addition to or instead of the 60 votes needed for it.
Ninth, free healthcare for every person. Responsibly state-managed systems are superior in outcome to the private industry or the hybrid system we have.
Tenth, free access to higher and vocational training facilities, entry requirements provided.
(More another day.)
He said he owed his success to positive thinking and envisioning the outcomes he wanted to happen.
This is starting to sound like the Underpants Gnome theory of politics:
1. Make a list of ways to change the system.
2. ??
3. Utopia!
Don’t like these 3 points? I’ll give you 30! Still no good? Here’s a hundred more!
When has the world ever worked like this? Never, except in the minds of power-tripping nerds.
As expected, the 'proposals' of Der Oger start out not only impossible and unrealistic, but political suicide. Above all they are tendentiously insulting, coming from a German.
Should the 'empire' re-evaluate its past? And acknowledge errors and crimes? Sure. No other empire ever did it as much as citizens of the American Pax. But we do it via Hollywood! The same morality tales (many of them guilty confessions) that gave YOU and Duncan and most of the world the values by which you find us at fault.** Hollywood has been the most effective by far, but it also happens via scholarship, both journalistic and academic. And yes! Much has been taught in schools, though now quashed under Trumpism.
Jeepers, even the much maligned "cowboys and indians" movies of the 1930s and 40s almost always blamed some corrupt whites for tricking or deceiving or cheating some tribe into a war they could not win. Care to bet on that? Even Errol Flynn's extolatory biopic on the spectacularly evil bufoon George Custer! (Now universally reviled, thanks to later films like LITTL BIG MAN.) Even the Flynn movie blamed evil whites for pushing the Sioux into war.
(**Are you even at all capable of tracing where you got those values that you smugly rail at us, now?)
RIGHT NOW, Rachel Maddow, who does 90%+ good denouncing Trumpism on MSNBC each night with erudite factuality, is bringing out her 'brave exposé" documentary on the camps where Japanese Americans were interned during WWII... only the TWENTIETH or so documentary on that subject, across the last 30 years. (Side note, the death rates among the interned FELL from what they had been, before the war. And the apologies began within a year. And eventual reparations. But the important thing has been the guilt trips that teach "Don't do that sort of thing, ever again.")
And again I ask: COMPARED TO WHAT? Compared to other empires back to Gilgamesh? Namibia? The Belgian Congp, Australia, or what the Aztecs did to their neighbors? Or the Mayans to each other? The Hollywood-venerated Sioux & Apache who slaughtered other tribes to enslave their women?
Or compared to what we OUGHT to be? And yes, compared to THAT, America has been flawed, uneven, callously-careless and sometimes downright evil ...BY those NEW standards that WE have been forefront at spreading across generations.
What seems dismally dishonest is to extend that disappointment in our inability to live up to those standards across earlier centuries while NOT. making any comparison to other empires and brutal ancestors All of whom WERE TECH-EMPOWERED CAVEMEN... like us.
Why don't we accept Hague supremacy? Because of YOU and Duncan, my dear friend. We have a job to do in what are still deeply primitive times. And that job will be impossible if constantly harassed by ingrate-brats who would tear down the one thing that's enabling us to bridge over to (maybe in the year 2120?) an actually mature human civilization with NO EMPIRES. The world you and I both want. And that you demand overnight and that will kill any chance of it ever happening.
YOUR reflex is exactly why - for the future's sake - we cannot yet give up the immunity hald by a Pax power.
As for the other items on Dr Oger's list.... My proposals would make movement toward universal health care unstoppable... though incremental enough that it can actually, actually pass an admittedly corrupted political process.
The rest of your list? You are pretending those aren't either already on my list or already parts of the Democratic party's agenda. And not one of them is anywhere near as important as fixing the structural flaws that have destroyed the USA's ability to negotiate solutions like modernist neighbors shouls.
YES! That is exactly the dour, grumpy, progress-hating modernity-hating, smart-people-hating party line. Thank you Treebeard. None of the incremental problem solving methods of 200 years were ever good ideas. How about you go somewhere where none of that ever happened?
A continent ruined by warfare did not match the spending of a continent that had profited from the war
And you really find THAT surprising?
Especially as the USA devoted considerable effort to ensuring that the British Empire would NOT recover as a competitor
Which was never going to happen as we were disassembling the empire ourselves - without the American sanctions were would possibly have moved slower with better outcomes
The "Drool" is that the USA spent a fortune to defend Europe! and not to defend itself
https://www.threads.com/@stonekettle
At noon today, Eastern time, women across America will cover their drinks for one minute in memorandum of Scott Adams.
'Bout right.
Dr. Brin,
the core fuel for fascism is nationalism, combined with the belief in a mythical past and destiny, strongmanship, social chauvinism and the exclusion of "the other".
That is the idea that must be squashed, as fast and lasting as possible.
Jesus you are such a trashy mind, spewing incantations, Europe was rebuilt by the Marshall Plan. PROFITED???? What an ignoramus you are, sir. BET NOW over any of your garbage assertions above, all of which are diametrically opposite to true. And provably so.
Just the thousands of liberty ships pouring vast amounts of treasure in the form of arms, trucks, tanks, planes and everything that made the difference. literally and totally saved both the USSR and Britain. And that was before we pushed hard on Japan to get out of China, prompting the attack that killed thousands at Pearl Harbor. From, then on, ALL of the allies depended utterly on US factories, never paid back. Profit? what an ass.
Moreover the Marshall Plan worked. By the mid fifties Europe was fully capable of re-arming to defend itself... FAR more prosperous than the still ravaged east and Russia.
Butt Europe did NOT have to defend itself! Instead of the fortified borders that all European nations spent all their wealth upon before WWII, you got the US -pushed coal and steel union then the EEC which became the EU... and freed-up vast, vast capital to spend on your vaunted socialism.
Diametrically opposite-to-true incantations and were you a man of honor I would challenge you to wagers.
Der Oger, I do not disagree overall. But we are cavemen and barbarians, all of us descended from the harems of kings and rapacious lords. Your idealism is fine and I wish you would admit where you got it from. (Hollywood!) But it is no excuse for utter lack of perspective. EVERY step we have taken toward that world you want has been under the umbrella of a pax that is the only reason we all did not lapse into the old ways of 6000 years, after 1945.
And it could have started earlier -- and my 3rd & 4th cousins would not all have been murdered - had you listened to Woodrow Wilson.
Unlike Duncan, you do not say untrue things. I desire the same overall goals. It is your utter, utter lack of historical perspective and awareness of how HARD a job it is, to tame a real human civilization, that I find disturbing.
Have you any idea how many LOCOMOTIVES and rail cars the US shipped over, both before and after the May 1945 surrender? How many hundreds of miles of track and all the gear needed to restore the bombed-out infrastructure and get enough coal flowing from ruined mines to keep Europeans from freezing by October of that year? The tankers delivering far more fuel AFTER the war than before. And far, far more FOOD than we ever sent to our troops? You fantasizing ingrate?
WE dismantled the British Empire? While feeding a near starving Britain across 45 and 46 and 47? You promised India freedom, if they would not rebel during the war, and both parties kept their promises. Great. Respect-worthy. But you think it wasn't also time to let go of others?
Look up Anson Burlingame and how the USA for 50 years objected to and sometimes prevented Euro-Russian-Japanese dismemberment of China, feeding the resentment they feel to this day. Oh I could go on... and you could answer with American crimes! Of which there were many. And we use Hollywood to chide ourselves for those, endlessly... but I waste my time.
the core fuel for fascism is nationalism, combined with the belief in a mythical past and destiny,
Unfortunately that is what Dr Brin is pushing
Nationalism - check
a belief in a mythical past and destiny - check
America has done some good - along with a LOT of evil
America was nowhere near the "worst" of the empires
But at the same time it was not noticably better than the best of them
A starving britain - one that maintained rationing (which led to the healthiest generation!) until the 50's - the REASON for that is the requirement from the USA to repay the huge loans that we took from America - loans that we used to save the world INCLUDING the USA
I have the same goals as Dr Brin - but a much much clearer view of history
The spew of sanctimony lies goes on and on. That he actually believes Britain starved because they had to pay back loans is stunning counterfactual and I invite wager stakes over that, vs. the US feeding them and most of Europe in those years. But I have already tried issuing facts and Duncan answered not a single other one. Not one. Not one in the slightest. So I am done doing that.
Except to say that unlike him, I am not a fucking ingrate. I have long been extensively on record as grateful to Churchillian Britain for holding the line against the purest evil in all of history, until America's internal psychic struggle swung from isolation back to courage and sanity. Whereupon, as Churchill and even deGaulle openly avowed, we came to the rescue.
A struggle that continues today, and some around the world are HELPING us to win that struggle now. Partly out of friendship and partly out of simple sanity, recognizing that the progress toward an end to nations will only continue if we resume the only thing that ever worked... the intermediate Pax that gave us the best 80 years, ever.
I am loyal to an outcome that I will never live to see, an outcome that would take those 80 years much further, perhaps led by someone else. Perhaps without nations.
THAT IS NOT NATIONALISM. It is self-interest. If someone else could fill that role, I'd move there and help them! In fact, I already have. California is actually the leader of the world and doing 'soft secession', as we speak. I pray it won't be necessary. But there is no other 'nation' in the world that could take America's place, if the USA tumbles into madness.
And none of you have even remotely dealt with this on a basis of confirmable history or fact. Not one of my facts offered here was answered with fact, even once. Just a bigotted sanctimony that is SO similar to the confederate Trumpist jerks who I am fighting every day... without a lick of help from either of you.
Look up a good guy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anson_Burlingame
And later his treaty was betrayed when Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. Which is used by some to show US hypocrisy. Until we learn that the earlier version - vetoed by the President in support of the Burlingame Treaty, had a 20 year expiration. He signed the next version with a ten year expiration. Ten years to mollify the 'red' side of American nature... then immigration resumed. Weigh these things, instead of looking only for evidence to support a narrative.
Der Oger,
That simply isn't going to happen this century. Not in the US. We are barbarians and quite certain of our opinions. Sure. Many of us know that is a dangerous POV... but it is what it is and won't be changing anytime soon.
Your best option is to have the barbarian like you. I'm serious.
Fortunately for the world, our barbarian nature doesn't always opt for the stupidity that is occurring today. We will get past this some day, but we will still be barbarians.
Duncan,
Wow. It's like you moved to a different planet or something.
Of course the US was motivated to see the British Empire dismantled. I have no problem with that as it freed a lot of people. Perhaps the empire would have dissolved anyway, but you won't convince me y'all were peacefully disassembling it yourselves. The Irish would say otherwise.
The US didn't profit from the war. Our debts where huge. What happened is we didn't get demolished like everyone else did. EVERYONE else.
Our spending after that was about defending the mercantile order. Different people touch that elephant and call it different things, but it was the system of markets we defended by using many of the pages from the playbook developed by the British.
Both the British and Americans are sea powers. Of course we tried to displace them.
I answerred every one of the "facts" you presented last time - you were WRONG in every one
Now - the USA "fed" Britain - we did buy food from the USA - "buy" being the operative word
The UK finished paying back the American war loans in 2006
The "Marshal Plan" was a masterpiece - a great plan that worked superbly
But it was NOT "altruistic" - the initial "Plan" was to starve Germany to prevent it from ever rising again
That was only changed when the USSR was seen as a threat - THEN the plan became "rebuild Europe" (and Japan) so that it can act as a shield against the enemy (USSR)
Hollywood and the massively important "suspicion of authority" meme
Hollywood did spread that meme - but so did the British film and TV industry - I suspect the other European countries contributed
And the British version was more nuanced!
If the martians stole the USA away - then there are a number of other nations that could fill that gap - even - horror of horrors - the French!!
"I answerred every one of the "facts" you presented last time".
You are a jibbering liar and a coward who won't stake 10% of his income on that. And I AM willing! I am done with you. You are as bad as locumranch.
I am pondering posting the following. Should I?
The whole Greenland thing has nothing to do with Donald Trump’s claimed ‘national security needs,’ since a healthy NATO is what actually thwarts Russia, and wrecking NATO is Putin’s dream. It also has nothing to do with ‘rare earths’. (Norway has more and far more easily accessed.) Just like Venezuela had almost nothing to do with ‘oil.’
Is “Greenland!!” possibly a ploy to divert attention to the far-north, when the next manic strike by imperial confederatism will actually be southward, much closer to Trump’s Florida estate? Indeed, maybe something almost identical to a slave-state ambition in the 1850s? And an obsession for mafiosi since 1959. Keep your eye on Cuba.
Nevertheless, clearly the root reason for Trump’s Greenland obsession is much simpler - his narcissistic wish to be remembered forever, for adding to the US a territory that looks larger on a Mercator Map than Africa, and thus out-doing Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase and maybe replacing him on Mt. Rushmore.
Hm, maybe. But it’s my job to speculate outside normal narratives. So I have to ask… does the Greenland Thing go deeper than just wrecking NATO for Vlad and Trump wanting to be remembered for some grandiose, map-grabby-grabby? After all, why should a solipsist care how others remember him, after he is gone?
Or… will he be ‘gone?’
Remember, his White House is infested with techweirdos, from his VP (Peter Thiel’s hand puppet) to jibbering, would-be Machiavellis like Mencius Moldbug and Stephen Miller, to whoever Elon planted in the staff. And one thing that’s guaranteed to have been broached to the Don is… cryonics.
We’re talking body-freezing after death (or nowadays just the head, unless you pay extra), with the aim of being revived – or upload-downloaded into a fresh young body – in some future era. Can you honestly tell me that you don’t think Trump would leap at it, once they tell him about it?
But… how to ensure that future-folks, in that scientifically-advanced era, will go to the effort of repairing all your cells and reviving you, even if they have the tools and means? One thing is certain. It won’t be in fondly-recollected gratitude for goodness or beneficence; not in this case! Those aren’t Trump’s calls to fame.
Most current cryonics customers are at least somewhat rich. I know some who have assured me (perhaps a little frantically) that their investment accounts – not bequested to living heirs – will more than pay for revival, someday! A way for rich guys to “take it with me!” Maybe this explains why Trump needs to ‘acquire’ more and more and more wealth by any means, no matter how filthy… in order to make that mountainous bribe convincing enough to cross centuries!
As if future folk could not simply shrug and say “that’s not how we roll here, great-grampa! We’re adjusting the ledgers, now, and applying that capital to something useful.”
Trying to prevent that -- and force a stable, money-based standard of revival -- may be among the top reasons why Trump… along with some of the other New Lords and Olde Families… are engaging in their current worldwide putsch to end the Enlightenment and re-establish dismal feudalism. Because a feudal society can ensure the continuity and power of inherited or self-bequeathed wealth. In fact, that’s the why feudalism dominated for 6000 years, on five continents!
But then, instead of mere lucre, let’s go back to fame! Trump’s passion for all his life would naturally extend into purported afterlife! They’re sure to revive someone who was as interesting as me! Or who had such great ratings! Fame is always called a version of immortality, right? And can anyone doubt that the same theme pounds through every fiber of Trump’s being?
And what better way to ensure epic fame than doubling (Tripling? Mercator sextupling?) the size of the United States?
CONTINUES:
== A modest proposal ==
Which brings us to a weird suggestion. (Weird? From me? Never!) And mind you, I am not actually doing this thing that I’m about to discuss, only speculating about it, as if in a sci fi story. Indeed, I might write it, with all the names changed!
Still, it’s a transactional offer that might seem straight off the pages of The Art of the Deal. One that might compel something that we want… without violating any current law, whatsoever. And if I’m right about this motive – consistent with the techie-incel brats who now infest the White House – then it goes straight to the core of Donald Trump’s greatest wish and goal.
“Dear Donald, have we got a deal for you.
First, if the core supposition of this missive is wrong, then all of what follows is just moot speculation, worthy of a sci-fi flick.
“But given the nature of the men who have been planted around you, it’s a pretty good guess that you have by now arranged for your cadaver – after death – to be cryonically stored, which is by law merely a process for disposing of human remains, like burial or cremation.
“To be perfectly clear – none of us intend in any way to hasten that demise! Indeed, we vow to prevent or delay it, if ever any of us find ourselves in a position to influence such matters.
“But let’s assume that happens and that – clutching both a death certificate and a cryonics contract – your body commences a voyage of chilled storage and delayed delivery to some future time. In that case, it is inevitable that we or others will discover the facts about that body-disposal arrangement. And we now propose a non-disclosure agreement or NDA, your favorite kind of agreement, under which we’ll refrain from openly revealing the location of your remains, or in any way acting on that knowledge, providing only that the following terms have been fulfilled –
“-- that you have resigned from the office of U.S. president by May 2026… and that you take JD Vance with you. And that whatever foundation or trust you set up, to pay for eventual revival, shall preserve capital for that purpose, but use the interest in service of what future generations will assess to be good causes.
“Again, this is not, in any way, shape or form, a threat to you, as a living human being. Indeed, each of us vows to protect your life and health from harm, if ever any such power presents itself.
“Furthermore, we are assured that revealing the location and condition of a corpse is routinely done in a vast majority of burials and/or cremations today. There is no rational reason that yours – perhaps in a secure and guarded refrigeration crypt – should not be a matter of public record and/or historical/archaeological or even medical interest. Some folks may even visit yours as a shrine! Whatever others decide to do with the information is not something we care to even imagine. But if your intention is to keep the actual location secret, then our offer stands. With plenty of time and incentives and curiosity, we’ll find it. At which point, the NDA will kick in!
“That’s it. A mutually beneficial deal, taken from your book and your business and personal practices. And we who are involved in offering you this deal will feel honor-bound to keep it. And you know that many people do believe in honor. Even if you never did. And we promise to urge others to keep the same deal. Assuming that you keep your side of the bargain.
“And now we’re done… except to remind you that crushing the dreams of a vast majority of human beings on this planet may not be the best way to ensure a safe and successful arrival at your desired, promised land of personal immortality.”
CONTINUES...
== Take the deal, Don ==
Is this entire scenario likely? I could not possibly venture what the betting odds might be. Only that it is entirely consistent with the openly-stated thinking of the wormtongues who now surround an impressionable old dementian. And we’re doing him a favor by getting him to ponder the ice-cold-voyage scenario that those Trump-whisperers have been offering him.
There are implications that Moldbug (Yarvin) or Miller won’t have mentioned. And maybe Donald Trump ought to ponder them. And perhaps even sacrificing a little near-term power in exchange for future immortality. And then – through his early absence – allowing us to resume scientific and social progress that are prerequisites for the kind of future on which his plans depend.
Back to the bets you offered
Dr Brin
Please point to any single point where my comment is NOT 100% true
Against the USSR - we protected you just as much as you protected us - especially as the battleground was to be in Europe - NOT in the USA
100% true
Against Russia - we have not NEEDED protection!
100% true - Russia has never been as powerful as "the rest of NATO" - it does have more nukes but either France or the UK have enough to destroy Russia
The fact that you CHOSE to waste huge amounts of resources on your military is your problem - not ours
100% true -
Eisenhower said - "we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex."
Only you ignored him!
100% true
If you want to bet on these go for it!!
Additional comment on US military spending - a large percentage of your "military spending" is on healthcare for veterans
In other countries that is NOT part of "military spending"
American Empire
From Jim Wright's page
See the aftermath of CIA sponsored regime change in Iran, Laos, The Congo, the Dominican Republic, Iraq, British Guyana, Brazil, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Chili, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Angola, East Timor, Argentina, Iraq again, Afghanistan, Poland, Chad, Nicaragua, Grenada, Panama, Iraq again, Haiti, Iraq again, Haiti again, Zaire, Venezuela (2002), Iraq again, Somalia, Haiti again, Palestine, Syria, Honduras, Libya, Syria again, Bolivia, etc, for details.
That is a significant percentage of the world's nations that have "benefited from" from "CIA sponsored regime change"
"The American Pax has been 90% unlike any previous 'empire.'"
Nope - not significantly better than the best ones
Nowhere near as bad as the bad ones
So your support of Pax Americana isn't actually about patriotism, but that old globalist/commie fantasy, "an end to nations"? LOL. Clearly spheres of influence isn't enough for this dude, he wants the whole world. Maybe the stars and stripes can succeed where the hammer and sickle failed?
Where do people get this delusional and nutty? Too much science fiction growing up? Fortunately the “one world” dream is one of those mid 20th century, 3-channel boomer ideas that almost nobody under 70 takes seriously.
It all makes sense if, as Matthew asserts, our host gets a sizeable chunk of income from US intelligence agencies and the military. Hence his glorification of the “protector caste” and his reluctance to ever say a bad word about the CIA, the military, or really any American imperial venture. It’s always “well, if they’re gonna bomb or invade, I hope they do it smart and get the liberal guy in there”, along with some cartoon characterization of the villainy of the world outside Pax Americana.
There’s that old saying, “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” A guy who gets paid by DC imperial institutions can’t be expected to be any kind of objective analyst of the American empire. Although with this dude there’s clearly some kind of ideological/cult fanaticism at work too. Either way, you’re probably wasting your time arguing with him. I mean come one, does anyone think a guy who claims his country in his time is greater than all others in history combined is a serious thinker? I’m baffled that anyone takes him seriously as a political analyst, although it looks like even some of his long-time followers are finally starting to push back on this propaganda.
Alfred, debts? You mean government debts or put another way, financial assets in the hands of the people (and banks). The difference is that most of the European countries owed a substantial fraction of those debts overseas. They ran trade deficits for a long time after the war, so domestic demand was limited. So the US giving other countries cheap loans was in everybody's interest.
@Dr. Brin & Alfred:
We all have the capacity to be barbarians. That is not the question.
But we all have the option to restrain our barbarians nature, give in to it only under certain circumatances, or fully and willingly embrace it.
Oh,and either to make excuses about it afterwards or take responsibility for it.
Delved into the Medicis lately, and I found some interesting parallels. Lorenzo "The Magnificent" was (alongside with the last Duke of Burgund) one of the, If not THE Patron of the Renaissance (and by extension, the Age of Enlightment), creating a critical mass of artists and scholars while fighting the old elites.
On the other hand, this "critical mass" and other developments such as corruption and nepotism, fostered a greater rift between the population, exploited by Savonarola and allowing him to rise to power.
The Medicis returned to power, but became Part of those old elites and later betrayed Galileo, ending their two centuries of patronage, before dying out.
Re: Greenland:
A proposal that was made by the earlier Trump administration was swapping Puerto Rico for Greenland, for obvious reason.
Thing is: would the Puerto Ricans would rather stay in the US (with no say in the Federal government and no chance of becoming a state in the near future) or become Part of the Kingdom of Denmark
(and the EU) and gain 1/3 of the seats of the Danish parliament?
With all that entails?
I am treating this lying twit like I treat his psychic twin, locumranch.
Fun fantasy.
Another fantasy - the Monroe doctrine.
Quiz: Who was the proposed guarantor that Europe would be kept away?
Hint: They ruled the waves.
A fun fact:
From Wikipedia, about the American Virgin Islands:
Previously known as the Danish West Indies of the Denmark–Norway (from 1754 to 1814) and the Kingdom of Denmark (from 1814 to 1917), they were sold to the United States by Denmark for $25,000,000 in the 1917 Treaty of the Danish West Indies[8] ($614 million in 2024) in which the United States also recognized Denmark's control over Greenland , and have since been an organized, unincorporated United States territory.
Emphasis mine.
Perhaps France should renege in the Louisiana purchase Deal?
If attacking a NATO ally is not an illegal order, then what is?
If attacking a NATO ally is not an illegal order, then what is?
Well, they try to make it legal:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/greenland-randy-fine-bill-51st-state/
Hilarious! Canada annexes Minnesota! Beyond wonderful! Do it. We're already half-into The Handmaid's Tale anyway, though Atwood's Gilead map was absurd. No way Gilead - or MAGA - is gonna get California or the rest of the west, either.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1jPn8psjkr0
It's been reported that the JCS said exactly that to a presidential request to draw up plans to invade Greenland. of course, if a US force reports being fired on a la Tonkin Gulf, this changes things.
Pappenheimer
Maybe the right way forward in dealing with Trump is sending a high-ranking Euro to a meeting with Trump and saying "Look, we have our own Epstein Files ... and they look very ...ugly. Maybe you don't want them to see the light of the day?"
Maybe that could save NATO.
"though Atwood's Gilead map was absurd. No way Gilead - or MAGA - is gonna get California..."
Not now, but her book was written back in the 80s, right? Republican governors and Proposition Hate weren't so long ago.
Since The West Wing is back on Netfilix, I've been catching up on old episodes, one of which involves a Democrat running a futile campaign for congress in Orange County, because no Democrat could ever possibly win there. And that aired in 2003. It's a different world.
A dozen NATO allies are sending small contingents for a 'reconnaisance' evaluation of Greenland... total less than 100 troops, but enough to make a tripwire. Blessings be upon them! This is what the world would have seen, if the confederates had won the 1860s (phase 4) Civil War.
And yes, this is all distraction. Not just from Epstein. Keep your eyes on Cuba!
This is what currently passes for tactical thinking, the old trope that one can use one partially compromised monster against any other, and this is what Dr Brin attempts to do when he throws a saddle on American Nationalism & rides off to do battle with Russia's Putin & Hitler's legions.
And this is how you partially tame a nation:
You gaslight it about your true intentions; you keep it sick & ignorant; you keep it poor by bleeding off & redistributing its wealth; you poison its blood with toxic diversity; and you hobble it with self-hatred.
Yet, you must keep this monster called 'nationalism' ALIVE if it is to be of any ongoing use to you. In the same way that all those icky oligarchs become 'untaxable', post-slaughter. And, this is exactly how the American people will escape you.
Best
Der Oger,
I get your point, but you are effectively preaching.
The Barbarian sees nothing wrong with what they know themselves to be. They'll reject majority opinions. Even overwhelmingly majority opinions. Certainty is a key indicator.
It's not just our political Right that is certain of itself. Most political factions in the US are. We don't all agree on what is to be done, but we are pretty sure our minority opinions are God's Own Truth.
Invading Greenland would be harder than Trump thinks. Climate could really stuff things up. And the US has less arctic trained and equipped land forces than the rest of NATO. The US Navy of course is what makes it difficult for the rest of NATO to supply Greenland. I can think of possible work arounds.
But Europe does not need equal forces to make invasion too expensive, especially when there is little US domestic support for the invasion. I think he will seek weaker targets.
Actually, as locumranch yammers go, this one ain't so bad! His description of elements that 'weaken' a nation is interesting... though HIS cult is what's doing a;; of that, redistributing wealth into the gaping maws of his beloved feudal lords... and yes, proud love of country is what's going to topple those lords and their Murdoch-fellating suck-ups.
Of course his spittle misses me, as does Duncan, since I am not a 'nationalist' and have proved it many times. I am a soldier of the Enlightenment Experiment and I will shore-up whatever entities are most likely to bring that experiment to its ultimate conclusion.
A society that encourages open-minded argument and discussion of all ideas, tested against evidence
One that opens up for all the Hollywood memes of suspicion of authority, tolerance, diversity, beneficence, courage, eccentricity and the (sometimes delusional) announcement that "I am remaking myself!"
One that keeps expanding the boundaries of inclusion and speculation.
One under which - "if it's not specifically forbidden (and I can protest!) then it is automatically allowed."
One where parentage and inherited wealth or status - or hypnotic persuasiveness - do not affect your life course or power anywhere near as much as diligence, talent, merit, deeds and the contents of your character.
If I seem US nationalist it is because of blatant - EXTREMELY blatant - cause and effect and outcomes. If Europeans had listened to Theodore Roosevelt, WWI would not have happened. If they had listened to Woodrow Wilson, Hitler would not have happened. They DID listen in 1945, when there was literally no other choice, and the EU happened... and the EU may be the seed of World governance, and I HOPE SO!
But till then, ONE factor made the last 80 years the best compared to ALL other human eras, combined. And in light of how America overcame many past psychotic episodes in order to become that factor, I think it's just to ask for a little patience... and HELP... from ingrates. If for no other reason than their own self-interest.
MY 'nationalism?' If it comes to it... and I hope not... California Uber Alles.
^^ Cultist who claims the whole world for an ideology and divides the world into two manichaean eras and camps, same as a Communist or ISIS member. But a good illustration that having an education and intelligence in no way prevents you from falling prey to cultism and possessing next to no self-awareness. The saying “people have ideas, ideologies have people” comes to mind.
No Treebeard, that's how YOU think. You zero-sum, black-and-white vision microcephs think that way and hence you cannot conceive that others don't. Above all, you suspect those deficiencies, that we see things you can't. And it is the source of your rage.
onward
onward
Patriotism and Nationalism are two different things.
The first is the love or respect for one's own country, the second is mostly driven by disregard, ignorance and hatred of other countries plus filling a personal void with flags and symbolism (which are themselves empty and lead to emptyness.)
MY 'nationalism?' If it comes to it... and I hope not... California Uber Alles.
And there is "local patriotism"....
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