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On February 13 2022 02:12 EnDeR_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 12 2022 20:28 LegalLord wrote:On February 12 2022 19:33 EnDeR_ wrote:
I think a fundamental issue is that the US has been doing just fine (or even great) over the last 100 odd years so there is little appetite for making big changes to the system. Obviously, the US has not been doing fine or great when it comes to under-represented groups, but for 70-80%+ of the population, things were just peachy (GH will cut in here saying that it is all based on the exploitation of the less fortunate and I would agree). It's only recently that things have started getting worse for a larger number of people, but there is a large amount of inertia in the system. This is also why I think messages such as 'make America great again' resonate so well with a large fraction of the population.
Basically, I'm agreeing with Zambrah to an extent, you're unlikely to get big changes to the system unless some major disaster occurs. "US has been doing fine" as specified seems like really fluffy and generic language, so it's not clear in what dimension you mean that, but the most meaningful one is probably economics. In which case it's more like the 75 years since 1945 rather than 100 years, because before the 1940s it was the Great Depression. And without bringing in specific metrics, it's more like the past 75 years have been 30 years of really clean and historically exceptional growth (40s-70s), 20 years of rocky growth that is still overall quite stable (through the 90s), and then the current period of around 25 years that has been a more visible decline to the point that people start to have other-country envy. Inertia is a powerful thing, and you'll find an endless number of mainstream politicians (and their mainstream disciples in the population at large, really) that take a general view of "things worked really great for us mid-century, we just have to recapture that same success and all will be well." The message of "make America great again" is kind of along those lines - keep in mind that it was controversial at the time because it implied America wasn't currently great, and previous users of that line have had mixed success - but you won't see bigger fanatics of that approach than among the liberal mainstream (your Clinton/Biden types). The cracks are showing, but the people who believe in this kind of thing are the ones who hold power and who have the right connections in the establishment to snuff out serious challengers. Still, it's been a long time since the US has actually been "doing fine" economically - it's just starting from the top of where it's ever been and the decay has been so gradual that most people don't realize it slipping away until crisis becomes the norm. Sure, it's fluffy language, but you get my point. The US has been the biggest economy in the world and has shaped international politics. For a long time the US was the land of opportunity, the beacon of success, etc. It wasn't that long ago that you had to be in America to get the latest tech and so on. When I was a kid, my dad had a serious crush on the US and kept saying how he wished Spanish politics resembled more what was going on over there. I think this is why the country is so unusually conservative for a modern democratic society. The US just hasn't had to deal with a rock bottom situation and the soul searching that goes with it.
That last sentence is what the US is missing. A reckoning. I'll probably die before it happens on the scale it needs to, but I can only assume it'll be glorious.
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On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway.
So... Bernie Sanders?
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On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 13 2022 00:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 12 2022 23:38 JimmiC wrote:On February 12 2022 14:36 Doc.Rivers wrote:
There has also been talk that China would help compensate Russia for the effects of sanctions. I'm skeptical that sanctions would really cripple Russia, or that the US has the power to disable the Russia-Germany pipeline, short of bombing it. Of course there is, because authoritarians stick together. "Communist" and "Fascists" are the exact same thing with different branding once you get to authoritarianism. That is why all this pro Trump is such bullshit, he is not profreedom he is pro authoritarianism. More right does not mean more free, unless you think a Russian has more freedom than someone from Denmark. People of every side should want actual fair elections that matter, and even if its their "team" doing the shit they should be mad as hell. Stop kissing the ring its gross. To be clear I think Trump should be rejected in the primaries in 2024. The election fraud lie was certainly a big problem and it is the reason he should be rejected. But even though he did some really deplorable things, his political opposition has been highly prone to exaggerate everything about him, ever since he became a candidate. They've also been determined to put him in jail, even if the reason is not so great. So the points I make that may seem pro-Trump are really just counters to that exaggeration and excess. But like I said, his days in politics should now be done (and I think there are many Republicans who agree on that). Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway. EDIT: Justin Amash might be reasonably close to this description.
I appreciate you listing your ideal criteria, although I'm not sure if many of those align with the Republican Party (and I don't think Justin Amash is a Republican) 
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edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative
eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad.
But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it.
+ Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here.
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On February 13 2022 04:31 Severedevil wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway. So... Bernie Sanders?
There's probably a lot of agreement with him, except that I assume he wants to increase govt spending, especially in certain areas. I would not agree with the whole European welfare state concept.
On February 13 2022 04:36 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 13 2022 00:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 12 2022 23:38 JimmiC wrote:On February 12 2022 14:36 Doc.Rivers wrote:
There has also been talk that China would help compensate Russia for the effects of sanctions. I'm skeptical that sanctions would really cripple Russia, or that the US has the power to disable the Russia-Germany pipeline, short of bombing it. Of course there is, because authoritarians stick together. "Communist" and "Fascists" are the exact same thing with different branding once you get to authoritarianism. That is why all this pro Trump is such bullshit, he is not profreedom he is pro authoritarianism. More right does not mean more free, unless you think a Russian has more freedom than someone from Denmark. People of every side should want actual fair elections that matter, and even if its their "team" doing the shit they should be mad as hell. Stop kissing the ring its gross. To be clear I think Trump should be rejected in the primaries in 2024. The election fraud lie was certainly a big problem and it is the reason he should be rejected. But even though he did some really deplorable things, his political opposition has been highly prone to exaggerate everything about him, ever since he became a candidate. They've also been determined to put him in jail, even if the reason is not so great. So the points I make that may seem pro-Trump are really just counters to that exaggeration and excess. But like I said, his days in politics should now be done (and I think there are many Republicans who agree on that). Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway. EDIT: Justin Amash might be reasonably close to this description. I appreciate you listing your ideal criteria, although I'm not sure if many of those align with the Republican Party (and I don't think Justin Amash is a Republican)
Yeah, Amash apparently switched to the Libertarian Party. I am certainly not a traditional Republican, although I tend to vote for them rather than the democratic candidate, and there is some degree of overlap between the Amash type candidate and the Trump base.
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On February 13 2022 04:42 Introvert wrote:edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad. But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it. + Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here.
Not sure if I'm reading this correctly, but are you saying that by bringing the past back and facing it (assuming this is mostly do to minority rights and history of this country) that it is wrong and America can't move forward? Same with holding politicians accountable? I remember the 90s after Clinton and his controversy, it was more or less forgotten and people just went back to work. But I think the biggest thing is that we have vastly more methods of getting and sending "news" Everything is a spark away from being the hottest thing but then, unless it's something truly egregious, it fades just as fast.
What exactly, are you meaning when you say the bolded part? Apologies if I misread something.
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Northern Ireland25449 Posts
On February 13 2022 05:02 Doc.Rivers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 04:31 Severedevil wrote:On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway. So... Bernie Sanders? There's probably a lot of agreement with him, except that I assume he wants to increase govt spending, especially in certain areas. I would not agree with the whole European welfare state concept. Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 04:36 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 13 2022 00:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 12 2022 23:38 JimmiC wrote:On February 12 2022 14:36 Doc.Rivers wrote:
There has also been talk that China would help compensate Russia for the effects of sanctions. I'm skeptical that sanctions would really cripple Russia, or that the US has the power to disable the Russia-Germany pipeline, short of bombing it. Of course there is, because authoritarians stick together. "Communist" and "Fascists" are the exact same thing with different branding once you get to authoritarianism. That is why all this pro Trump is such bullshit, he is not profreedom he is pro authoritarianism. More right does not mean more free, unless you think a Russian has more freedom than someone from Denmark. People of every side should want actual fair elections that matter, and even if its their "team" doing the shit they should be mad as hell. Stop kissing the ring its gross. To be clear I think Trump should be rejected in the primaries in 2024. The election fraud lie was certainly a big problem and it is the reason he should be rejected. But even though he did some really deplorable things, his political opposition has been highly prone to exaggerate everything about him, ever since he became a candidate. They've also been determined to put him in jail, even if the reason is not so great. So the points I make that may seem pro-Trump are really just counters to that exaggeration and excess. But like I said, his days in politics should now be done (and I think there are many Republicans who agree on that). Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway. EDIT: Justin Amash might be reasonably close to this description. I appreciate you listing your ideal criteria, although I'm not sure if many of those align with the Republican Party (and I don't think Justin Amash is a Republican) Yeah, Amash apparently switched to the Libertarian Party. I am certainly not a traditional Republican, although I tend to vote for them rather than the democratic candidate, and there is some degree of overlap between the Amash type candidate and the Trump base.
Why not just not be a Republican?
I mean this doesn’t preclude voting for them, or alignment where it occurs. Speaking of Bernie
Not meant to be an imposition or critical in any way, I’ve had many a productive discussion with various flavours of discussion, provided said discussion occurs outside of realms such as defending what Trump’s done this week.
The populist current incarnation of the party that he helped shape seems (almost) as far removed from the political leanings or some of my conservative buddies as my own politics are.
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On February 13 2022 04:42 Introvert wrote:edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad. But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it. + Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here.
I don't thing federalism should be in this list. Germany is also a very strongly federal republic, and while Germany is generally slightly conservative, it is by far not as weird as the US in this regard.
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On February 13 2022 05:02 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 04:42 Introvert wrote:edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad. But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it. + Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here. Not sure if I'm reading this correctly, but are you saying that by bringing the past back and facing it (assuming this is mostly do to minority rights and history of this country) that it is wrong and America can't move forward? Same with holding politicians accountable? I remember the 90s after Clinton and his controversy, it was more or less forgotten and people just went back to work. But I think the biggest thing is that we have vastly more methods of getting and sending "news" Everything is a spark away from being the hottest thing but then, unless it's something truly egregious, it fades just as fast. What exactly, are you meaning when you say the bolded part? Apologies if I misread something.
sorry, that was written kind of quickly.
Not at all. What I mean is that it seems to me as though Americans, to use a trite phrase, want to look forward rather than dwell on the past. What happened before doesn't dictate what will happen in the future; it's basically a kind of optimism. I actually think in that sense acknowledging all the bad in our history helps this optimistic outlook by seeing how we've changed for the better. But both federalism and this look-forward view might help explain how it took 100 years from the end of the Civil War to get the civil rights amendments enforced. I admit that to me, that makes some sense at least.
The Clintons are a really good example of being forgiven. There is so much in their history and it didn't really catch up to them until Hillary barely lost in 2016. I'm for less politician forgiveness-- pretty much every politician is replaceable, or at least they should sincerely think they are to keep them in line. But I see the forgiveness as a kind of side-effect of the American tendency to focus on the future. That's a downside. I'm for societal forgiveness as a cultural ideal but to me it's too generously applied to politicians themselves.
COVID is going to be another one of those things Americans could learn from but they won't. I don't mean this in the way most would though, all the power the states and federal government took for themselves is going to be forgotten and we aren't going to rein it in or hold anyone to account for, say, masking kids and closing schools for so long. Once COVID is over, most Americans will breath a sigh of relief and almost forget it happened.
So there are times when this habit of looking forward is good and times when it's less useful, but either way it helps explains why Americans don't fundamentally change the structure of government even if they are unhappy. Having regular elections helps too. Everyone gets their pound of flesh.
On February 13 2022 05:46 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 04:42 Introvert wrote:edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad. But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it. + Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here. I don't thing federalism should be in this list. Germany is also a very strongly federal republic, and while Germany is generally slightly conservative, it is by far not as weird as the US in this regard.
Like I said, this is an idea that I haven't fully developed, but also I think federalism is only one aspect, albeit an important one. I also suspect the two world wars are a significant factor in why the US is so different, along with sheer size. Political and intellectual history, too. So it's a sum of factors.
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Northern Ireland25449 Posts
On February 13 2022 04:42 Introvert wrote:edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad. But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it. + Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here.
America historically has been anything but conservative. In the arts, in technical and business innovation there’s a reason the country was as much a cultural superpower as an economic one, I feel that’s oft understated.
Now it feels we live more in a global, relatively homogenised culture built atop of those exports, but it’s a very American-shaped culture.
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On February 13 2022 06:09 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 04:42 Introvert wrote:edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad. But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it. + Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here. America historically has been anything but conservative. In the arts, in technical and business innovation there’s a reason the country was as much a cultural superpower as an economic one, I feel that’s oft understated. Now it feels we live more in a global, relatively homogenised culture built atop of those exports, but it’s a very American-shaped culture.
From the posts I was reading, I took conservative to mean unchanging in government, more or less. Obviously Americans do like to think of themselves with lots of buzzwords and catch phrases, like "dynamic", "innovative", "force for good", etc. All this on the back of a republican system not really in use by any other modern country, with a federal government of limited powers that has had its basic structure and restraints maintained 250 years. Other systems have been around longer, but they also provided more power to the government in the first place and were in many or all ways, less democratic.
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On February 13 2022 05:43 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 05:02 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 04:31 Severedevil wrote:On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway. So... Bernie Sanders? There's probably a lot of agreement with him, except that I assume he wants to increase govt spending, especially in certain areas. I would not agree with the whole European welfare state concept. On February 13 2022 04:36 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 13 2022 00:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 12 2022 23:38 JimmiC wrote:On February 12 2022 14:36 Doc.Rivers wrote:
There has also been talk that China would help compensate Russia for the effects of sanctions. I'm skeptical that sanctions would really cripple Russia, or that the US has the power to disable the Russia-Germany pipeline, short of bombing it. Of course there is, because authoritarians stick together. "Communist" and "Fascists" are the exact same thing with different branding once you get to authoritarianism. That is why all this pro Trump is such bullshit, he is not profreedom he is pro authoritarianism. More right does not mean more free, unless you think a Russian has more freedom than someone from Denmark. People of every side should want actual fair elections that matter, and even if its their "team" doing the shit they should be mad as hell. Stop kissing the ring its gross. To be clear I think Trump should be rejected in the primaries in 2024. The election fraud lie was certainly a big problem and it is the reason he should be rejected. But even though he did some really deplorable things, his political opposition has been highly prone to exaggerate everything about him, ever since he became a candidate. They've also been determined to put him in jail, even if the reason is not so great. So the points I make that may seem pro-Trump are really just counters to that exaggeration and excess. But like I said, his days in politics should now be done (and I think there are many Republicans who agree on that). Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway. EDIT: Justin Amash might be reasonably close to this description. I appreciate you listing your ideal criteria, although I'm not sure if many of those align with the Republican Party (and I don't think Justin Amash is a Republican) Yeah, Amash apparently switched to the Libertarian Party. I am certainly not a traditional Republican, although I tend to vote for them rather than the democratic candidate, and there is some degree of overlap between the Amash type candidate and the Trump base. Why not just not be a Republican? I mean this doesn’t preclude voting for them, or alignment where it occurs. Speaking of Bernie Not meant to be an imposition or critical in any way, I’ve had many a productive discussion with various flavours of discussion, provided said discussion occurs outside of realms such as defending what Trump’s done this week. The populist current incarnation of the party that he helped shape seems (almost) as far removed from the political leanings or some of my conservative buddies as my own politics are.
Well even though amash is not a traditional republican, I would still say that in terms of his political views, he is much more closely aligned with the republican party than the democratic party. He only left the party because of a nevertrump-type stance. Prior to that, he was an elected republican and founding member of the freedom caucus (aka the tea party).
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On February 13 2022 06:02 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 05:02 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:On February 13 2022 04:42 Introvert wrote:edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad. But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it. + Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here. Not sure if I'm reading this correctly, but are you saying that by bringing the past back and facing it (assuming this is mostly do to minority rights and history of this country) that it is wrong and America can't move forward? Same with holding politicians accountable? I remember the 90s after Clinton and his controversy, it was more or less forgotten and people just went back to work. But I think the biggest thing is that we have vastly more methods of getting and sending "news" Everything is a spark away from being the hottest thing but then, unless it's something truly egregious, it fades just as fast. What exactly, are you meaning when you say the bolded part? Apologies if I misread something. sorry, that was written kind of quickly. Not at all. What I mean is that it seems to me as though Americans, to use a trite phrase, want to look forward rather than dwell on the past. What happened before doesn't dictate what will happen in the future; it's basically a kind of optimism. I actually think in that sense acknowledging all the bad in our history helps this optimistic outlook by seeing how we've changed for the better. But both federalism and this look-forward view might help explain how it took 100 years from the end of the Civil War to get the civil rights amendments enforced. I admit that to me, that makes some sense at least. The Clintons are a really good example of being forgiven. There is so much in their history and it didn't really catch up to them until Hillary barely lost in 2016. I'm for less politician forgiveness-- pretty much every politician is replaceable, or at least they should sincerely think they are to keep them in line. But I see the forgiveness as a kind of side-effect of the American tendency to focus on the future. That's a downside. I'm for societal forgiveness as a cultural ideal but to me it's too generously applied to politicians themselves. COVID is going to be another one of those things Americans could learn from but they won't. I don't mean this in the way most would though, all the power the states and federal government took for themselves is going to be forgotten and we aren't going to rein it in or hold anyone to account for, say, masking kids and closing schools for so long. Once COVID is over, most Americans will breath a sigh of relief and almost forget it happened. So there are times when this habit of looking forward is good and times when it's less useful, but either way it helps explains why Americans don't fundamentally change the structure of government even if they are unhappy. Having regular elections helps too. Everyone gets their pound of flesh. Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 05:46 Simberto wrote:On February 13 2022 04:42 Introvert wrote:edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad. But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it. + Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here. I don't thing federalism should be in this list. Germany is also a very strongly federal republic, and while Germany is generally slightly conservative, it is by far not as weird as the US in this regard. Like I said, this is an idea that I haven't fully developed, but also I think federalism is only one aspect, albeit an important one. I also suspect the two world wars are a significant factor in why the US is so different, along with sheer size. Political and intellectual history, too. So it's a sum of factors.
Thanks for clearing that up. I can't formulate a response well enough at the moment, so I'll wait. But I think I want to discuss this idea further.
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United States42772 Posts
I’d say America is more conservative because of racism. In most of the developed world class consciousness was successfully able to develop in the population. People recognized that the government should serve the interests of the majority and the majority had an interest in making things better for themselves. The entrenched interests lost ground to the people.
In America half the people would prefer not to have healthcare if it guarantees other people also can’t have it. The working poor in America don’t recognize that immigrants and people of colour are their allies and that the rich are their enemies. They join with the establishment to protect their status from an imagined threat, despite their status being low.
Conservatism in a open democracy relies upon these weird alliances. The 1% are hugely outnumbered and so they need to join with another section of society to collectively shit on a third one. If they just ran on “we’ll shit on all of you” they’d only pick up the votes of morons who think “sure I’m eating shit today but one day I’d like to shit on others so better keep the shit pipeline in place”. Instead they run on “I’ll shit on all you guys but half of you can shit on the other half, those people”. That only works if there is a “those people”. America is very racially diverse so there’s lots of those people to choose from. If America were as homogenous as Europe Conservatives would struggle to make the working poor love the taste of shit.
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I think a President of a country should have three main goals:
1. Keep the country running
2. Advocate for a vision of the country and push the country in that direction
1) Trump evidently didn't do 1 well at all. But I think he did 2 quite effectively it's just that many of us would consider the vision to be fundamentally wrong.
2) Biden is not keeping the country running properly. There have been other posts describing this so I will not go into details.
3) Biden has not effectively advocated for the change he wants to see. There are people on the left who are quite effective - take AOC for example. People are listening to AOC in a way that Biden isn't.
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Northern Ireland25449 Posts
On February 13 2022 08:03 KwarK wrote:
I’d say America is more conservative because of racism. In most of the developed world class consciousness was successfully able to develop in the population. People recognized that the government should serve the interests of the majority and the majority had an interest in making things better for themselves. The entrenched interests lost ground to the people.
In America half the people would prefer not to have healthcare if it guarantees other people also can’t have it. The working poor in America don’t recognize that immigrants and people of colour are their allies and that the rich are their enemies. They join with the establishment to protect their status from an imagined threat, despite their status being low.
Conservatism in a open democracy relies upon these weird alliances. The 1% are hugely outnumbered and so they need to join with another section of society to collectively shit on a third one. If they just ran on “we’ll shit on all of you” they’d only pick up the votes of morons who think “sure I’m eating shit today but one day I’d like to shit on others so better keep the shit pipeline in place”. Instead they run on “I’ll shit on all you guys but half of you can shit on the other half, those people”. That only works if there is a “those people”. America is very racially diverse so there’s lots of those people to choose from. If America were as homogenous as Europe Conservatives would struggle to make the working poor love the taste of shit.
While I agree with some points I don’t think I this entirely scans
This phenomena plays out in similar fashions in relatively homogenous populations as well.
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Northern Ireland25449 Posts
On February 13 2022 06:53 Doc.Rivers wrote:Show nested quote +On February 13 2022 05:43 WombaT wrote:On February 13 2022 05:02 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 04:31 Severedevil wrote:On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway. So... Bernie Sanders? There's probably a lot of agreement with him, except that I assume he wants to increase govt spending, especially in certain areas. I would not agree with the whole European welfare state concept. On February 13 2022 04:36 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 13 2022 03:47 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 13 2022 02:05 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 13 2022 00:49 Doc.Rivers wrote:On February 12 2022 23:38 JimmiC wrote:On February 12 2022 14:36 Doc.Rivers wrote:
There has also been talk that China would help compensate Russia for the effects of sanctions. I'm skeptical that sanctions would really cripple Russia, or that the US has the power to disable the Russia-Germany pipeline, short of bombing it. Of course there is, because authoritarians stick together. "Communist" and "Fascists" are the exact same thing with different branding once you get to authoritarianism. That is why all this pro Trump is such bullshit, he is not profreedom he is pro authoritarianism. More right does not mean more free, unless you think a Russian has more freedom than someone from Denmark. People of every side should want actual fair elections that matter, and even if its their "team" doing the shit they should be mad as hell. Stop kissing the ring its gross. To be clear I think Trump should be rejected in the primaries in 2024. The election fraud lie was certainly a big problem and it is the reason he should be rejected. But even though he did some really deplorable things, his political opposition has been highly prone to exaggerate everything about him, ever since he became a candidate. They've also been determined to put him in jail, even if the reason is not so great. So the points I make that may seem pro-Trump are really just counters to that exaggeration and excess. But like I said, his days in politics should now be done (and I think there are many Republicans who agree on that). Hypothetical question for you: Out of curiosity, who do you think would be the most reasonable, best Republican candidate for president, and why? Putting aside their actual chances of winning the 2024 primary, of course. Honestly I would need to do a little research to find a particular name. Unfortunately the person would probably have little name recognition and thus no chance. It would be someone who is currently in congress or a governor, is moderate and willing to compromise and go against the party line as appropriate, opposes foreign policy adventurism, says we should repeal the patriot act and trim the intelligence agencies. Probably should raise certain taxes and cut government spending (including defense spending) to address the national debt. Calls out and criticizes the media for their errors and exaggeration/misinformation frequently. Those are some of the priorities anyway. EDIT: Justin Amash might be reasonably close to this description. I appreciate you listing your ideal criteria, although I'm not sure if many of those align with the Republican Party (and I don't think Justin Amash is a Republican) Yeah, Amash apparently switched to the Libertarian Party. I am certainly not a traditional Republican, although I tend to vote for them rather than the democratic candidate, and there is some degree of overlap between the Amash type candidate and the Trump base. Why not just not be a Republican? I mean this doesn’t preclude voting for them, or alignment where it occurs. Speaking of Bernie Not meant to be an imposition or critical in any way, I’ve had many a productive discussion with various flavours of discussion, provided said discussion occurs outside of realms such as defending what Trump’s done this week. The populist current incarnation of the party that he helped shape seems (almost) as far removed from the political leanings or some of my conservative buddies as my own politics are. Well even though amash is not a traditional republican, I would still say that in terms of his political views, he is much more closely aligned with the republican party than the democratic party. He only left the party because of a nevertrump-type stance. Prior to that, he was an elected republican and founding member of the freedom caucus (aka the tea party).
Which is fine by me. Equally he’s not defending Trump against the umpteenth charge of malfeasance
I think storied conservative positions and traditions are valuable and merit defending, in many domains.
Defending Trump, or going ‘what about Hillary’s emails’ just exhibits a giant yawn from me.
Like I do not care, at all. Do that if you want but don’t expect anyone on the left side of the ledger to be remotely charitable .
If on the other hand you have strongly held positions, believe it or not people on the left may respect them.
I respect and fully understand conservative worries about state overreach, and there’s some commonality there. I’m actually quite socially conservative despite being extremely left wing in most other areas.
There’s areas of possible alignment there, but that possibility is entirely killed when it gets to ‘let’s defend Trump regardless.
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On February 13 2022 08:15 gobbledydook wrote:
I think a President of a country should have three main goals:
1. Keep the country running
2. Advocate for a vision of the country and push the country in that direction
1) Trump evidently didn't do 1 well at all. But I think he did 2 quite effectively it's just that many of us would consider the vision to be fundamentally wrong.
2) Biden is not keeping the country running properly. There have been other posts describing this so I will not go into details.
3) Biden has not effectively advocated for the change he wants to see. There are people on the left who are quite effective - take AOC for example. People are listening to AOC in a way that Biden isn't.
Going to disagree on this. He has been very clear on what he wants - business as usual.
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United States42772 Posts
The country is running much the same as it has for the last 14 years, pandemic excluded.
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On February 13 2022 04:42 Introvert wrote:edit: re why is America supposedly more conservative eh, without giving it too much thought I'd say that while maybe that idea [has been on top too long] is a contributing factor, I'm not sure it's the main reason. I don't even know if it's that important, since the comparison seems most obviously drawn with western European democracies. It is true that Europe has had a lot more war on its soil, and more recently, and those seem to be events that are catalysts for change good and bad. But I'd guess the main reasons are actually 1) federalism, and 2) a more optimistic society. Federalism defuses change and political energy to many different levels... it's less important something changes structurally in the Constitution when the states themselves also extremely important and posses much of the political authority and legitimacy in America. The second is the often mocked-by-those-who-don't-share-it American optimism and future looking tendencies. Americans still by and large believe they can improve their own situation and are not merely victims of circumstance. Therefore it's less important to reform the system fundamentally. It's easier, and smarter, to change yourself. To go with this, Americans are forgetful, and move on from bad times quickly, it's also why we forgive our politicians for so many seemingly ridiculous faux pas or just straight up mistakes. There's less focus on the past than the future. To me it seems like the slow erosion of these two things are actually part of what is wrong in this country. "Diversity is our strength" but maybe not in exactly the same way most people who use that phrase mean it. + Show Spoiler +Note: as usual, I don't like generalizing all Americans and try to avoid the phrase "average American" when at all possible but I don't really see a way around it here.
Yes, but that's a circular argument. Things have been going well so people are more optimistic. If things had gone to the shitter, you'd have a less optimistic society. For real world examples, talk to anyone from Eastern Europe about the optimism in their societies.
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EPT
