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Sini #147017 10/17/21 01:21 PM
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Originally Posted by Sini
Sure. We are 10 month into Biden's presidency and the following happened:

1. 5%+ inflation
2. Supply chain collapse - fuel shortages, car shortages, electronics shortages and is getting worse every day.
3. Desiastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan
4. Refugee crisis at the southern border

These are just undeniable failures as I am not even brining up soft scandals like Hunter Biden or grouping.

These things were well under way under Trump, if not directly initiated by Trump such as Afghanistan.

I'm not going to argue that Biden has handled everything well by any stretch, but economic and supply chain issues didnt suddenly happen and are not the result of any policies Biden has instituted. The economy has huge momentum and turns slowly, and actions taken under Trump will still bear the largest impact for the next couple years at least.

As far as supply chain shortages, Trump directly did the most damage there by instigating the trade war with China. That being said, there are myriad other factors and a reasonable case can be made that starting the process of economic distancing from China was a good policy even if it would be painful in the short term, but still, aside from COVID that is the biggest factor in starting the spiral of supply chain disruption and exacerbated COVID shortages because the high tariffs made business less likely to replenish in uncertain COVID market combined with uncertain tariss/trade environment - aka why commit to purchase in COVID uncertainty when the tariffs might go away by the time materials needed, etc. Which shouldnt be seen as me taking a stance against the China tariffs, but the uncertain trade environment certainly contributed to decisions made when COVID hit that sparked supply chain failcascades.

In any case, the supply chain issues are deep and long building - Biden may well not institute policy that properly facilitates recovery, but in no way does he bear culpability for the current state of ther issue.

Last edited by Derid; 10/17/21 02:29 PM. Reason: typo fixes

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)
Sini #147018 10/17/21 02:19 PM
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Originally Posted by Sini
I think in any conversation about decline we need to first agree on definitions. We can talk about decline of enlightenment values. We can talk about decline of the middle class America. We can talk about decline of manufacturing. We can talk about decline of military dominance. We can talk about decline of education. We can speculate about innovation and when to expect decline there.

Personally, I think we are heading toward technocratic oligarchy. It appears that Twitter just got away with election meddling, this will only embolden future bad actors in this space. I would like to hear what you think can be done to discourage future misbehavior.

Sorry I never responded to this one, politics became too depressing for me to follow for a while.

Decline of enlightenment values would be the closest decline, but that also not quite on point - in some regards, enlightenment rationalization taken to certain extremes is I think partiall responsible for our situation.

One of the best frameworks with which to examine our current social ills comes from Max Weber, where he outlined the phenominae of disenchantment and re-enchantment. What we are seeing in my view is the US public, being disenchanted of any unifying belief or narrative, is a social fragmentation of beliefs and values amongst different social spheres where varying social spheres have become re-enchanted with disparate value sets and beliefs that even take on quasi-religious properties in many regards. Disenchantment with religion and science which for periods of time served as a near-universal basis for social agreement were to some degree supplanted with (and often coincided with ) enchantment with patriotic myth, such as belief in Founding Fathers, Constitution, American Dream, Manifest Destiny, Democracy, Enlightement rationality - and disenchantment with those 'myths' has resulted in the various competing social spheres to become re-enchanted with diverse sets of beliefs and values that are largely incompatible with one another, resulting in large swaths of the public not sharing enough of a common philosophical grounding or value agreement needed for reasonable mutual accomodation of interests, nor of peaceful arbitration between the competing social spheres of influence as to what constitutes an acceptable public good.

Lacking a shared universal belief, or, in some regards a shared mythology, as common ground for mutual respect of political rules and process that facilitate governance is undermining the institutions underpinning our very system of governance and shifting our society from one in which power is derived from rational-legal authority to one that is driven by charismatic authority.

Or put slightly differently, when competing social spheres of influence cannot agree on a common set of rules and values by which to arbitrate their differences according to a shared rationale for creating and enforcing rules - rational-legal systems cannot function, and lose their power. That vacuum is typically, and in our case currently, being filled by a rise of charismatic authority.

Unless we can once again find a widely shared belief in a common set of values to underpin our political interactions, the fragmentation will continue with the end result being rising social violence and either dissolution of the body politic or (more common and likely) escalated social violence and authoritarianism under whichever chasimatic authority wins out in the end.

Last edited by Derid; 10/17/21 02:35 PM.

For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)
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Derid #147020 10/18/21 05:03 AM
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Originally Posted by Derid
The voter ID thing is about intimidation and finding ways to disqualify votes based on typoes and technicalities that arent even often committed by the voter. Oh, you last name on ID is Freeman... but here on this voter roll it was typed out "Fremen" sorry, tossing your vote. And the people being targeted have less ability to work through channels to contest. As for mail in voting, theres been no evidence of fraud, and no reason to think there would be fraud - and even if there were the answer would be additional mail/ballot tracking. Its easy enough in todays world to see exactly where your package or letter is, and where it ends up.

What you discribe is a real issue, but it is unrelated to having to present identification to vote. Many countries, like Canada and UK, have strict voter identification laws and yet the abuses you described have not materialized.

Personally, I support Voter ID laws when mail-in-voting is involved. There were numerous documented cases of voter fraud, just not on systemic scale that would alter the outcome of the elections. The very real damage of any voter fraud is undermining confidence in elections. Trump is able to claim systemic fraud because it is sufficently plausible that you can find instances of fraud making it impossible to outright rule Trump's claims out.

Originally Posted by Derid
I've seen real voter supression in action, with my own two eyes. I used to live in a high end neighborhood in the heart of Columbus generally referred to as German Village https://www.thefitchlawfirm.com/blog/columbus-ohio-best-and-worst-neighborhoods/ (#2 on list) - and we had a short line to vote, and 3 voting machines. Now, being in the heart of a city it was one of those cases where just a few blocks away there was an enormous income divide (and color divide) where I saw with my own eyes the lines of people waiting to vote that literally streteched around several blocks. They had 1 voting machine to serve far greater numbers of people. It even made local news, which is how I know they had one machine, though I saw the lines myself.

What you describe happened without voter ID laws in place and can be addressed even with voter ID laws in effect.


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Derid #147021 10/18/21 05:16 AM
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Originally Posted by Derid
The Democrats have often assaulted common sense, decency, and good governance but at least they are not actively working at destorying the foundations of the republic itself. Yet. We might see some from their side if they go and try SCOTUS packing or something, but for now cooler heads seem to be prevailing.

The foundation of the republic is its values, some of which are codified through the law. If you destroy the values, the law alone will not hold.

The radical wing of Democrats are assulting meritocracy, the very notion that people of merit achiving goals that are objectively valuable to a broader society should raise to the top, and in that they are damaging the foundational value of Western Civilization. This damage is further spreads into attacking free exchange of ideas. The regressive left after capitulating on convincing others with arguments went all-in on censorship and that censorship spilled into all areas of life, and not just politics.. Last but not least, the obsession with group dynamics leads to abandonment of individualism, when taken to the logical conclusion would lead to a caste system. I don't believe it is possible to build a free society on such framework of rotten values, as such with near-certanty of the end result the only question is how fast we get there.

All of that is by far more dangerous than Trump's inept attempts to undermine democratic processes. We can clearly see that the system is holding against Trumpism, can you see that the system is NOT holding against Left's follies?


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Sini #147035 10/20/21 09:12 AM
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Glenn Greenwald - The Mountain of Data Showing How Authoritarian Democrats Have Become

1:40 - Survey by Pew Research Center on censoring Internet - 65% Democrats want government censorship, 76% want tech giants to do it.
21:13 - Gallup poll on media - only 36% of general population trust reporting by corporate media to be accurate and fair, but Democrats trust at 70%.
27:00 - Democratic Congress pressures tech to censor more
35:20 - YouGov poll shows that 66% of Democrats belive "Russia tampered with vote tallies in order to get Donald Trump elected President".


https://rumble.com/vnwyhz-the-mountain-of-data-showing-how-authoritarian-democrats-have-become.html


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Sini #147037 10/20/21 04:51 PM
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Originally Posted by Sini
Originally Posted by Derid
The Democrats have often assaulted common sense, decency, and good governance but at least they are not actively working at destorying the foundations of the republic itself. Yet. We might see some from their side if they go and try SCOTUS packing or something, but for now cooler heads seem to be prevailing.

The foundation of the republic is its values, some of which are codified through the law. If you destroy the values, the law alone will not hold.

The radical wing of Democrats are assulting meritocracy, the very notion that people of merit achiving goals that are objectively valuable to a broader society should raise to the top, and in that they are damaging the foundational value of Western Civilization. This damage is further spreads into attacking free exchange of ideas. The regressive left after capitulating on convincing others with arguments went all-in on censorship and that censorship spilled into all areas of life, and not just politics.. Last but not least, the obsession with group dynamics leads to abandonment of individualism, when taken to the logical conclusion would lead to a caste system. I don't believe it is possible to build a free society on such framework of rotten values, as such with near-certanty of the end result the only question is how fast we get there.

All of that is by far more dangerous than Trump's inept attempts to undermine democratic processes. We can clearly see that the system is holding against Trumpism, can you see that the system is NOT holding against Left's follies?

I disagree that the system is holding against Trumpism, I believe it is still being eroded.

I'm not about to argue in favor of the far left. or mount a defense of their behavior as I find much of it to be problematic - and in some regards, a major cause of setting the stage for current predicament. They are, after all, the folks most responsible for busting the myths in the first place - sometimes with good reason, and other times not so much - and their assaults on political process have been large and also largely responsible for large swaths of people on the center-right and right becoming disenchanted with the idea that people outside of their own social bubble are willing to consider their own interests.

It's just that on the other hand, I believe that there are currently more powerful cultural forces at work that wish to see Trump and other far-right populists in power no matter the cost.

The tipping point for me is how not just T's inner circle, but a large group of sitting officeholders and right wing media are willing to throw the ordinary folks of their own party who hold low and mid level civic positions - such as vote counting, and certifying - under the bus. As if the local long-time GOP foot soldiers across the USA who hold mostly middle and upper-middle class livelihoods are going to somehow join a huge conspiracy to commit fraud in order to elect left-wingers to power. That is something well beyond mere doubt and distrust, it enters the realm of outright insanity. And those pols pushing it are not insane, just completely shameless and completely unprincipled. History has shown that absurtity of this level is exceedingly dangerous.

It's not that I don't largely agree with your thoughts about the far-left, its just that at this juncture the far-right seems more threatening to the system itself, and maining the system and confidence in at least some basic institutions will be required to restore sanity in the event that the current fevers pass and society starts wanting to steer itself back towards sanity.

Trump is no saviour or even lesser of two evils, he has already shown that the only thing he cares about is his own ego and will not even acknowledge any reality that damages it. The enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend, and I think that is the case here. Nor do I think further entrenching a cadre of proven lackeys and sycophants into the DC power structure to be a particularly good idea. Bringing in Trump's cohort is like bringing in the bear to fight the tiger, even if it works you still get eaten in the end either way.

That being said, I don't have a good answer to the situation. No progress is possible when no party or cultural shpere has a cogent set of principles, and people are unable to judge ideas on merits as opposed to origins. We need a cultural shift, and I have no idea where one might come from. Anger, hater, outrage, discord, these thing get people engaged especially on social media and the tech giants are more than happy to stoke the fires for fun and profit. Not that censorship would work either, all censorship does is hand arbitrary power over public discussion to an arbitrary body.

It's a pile of shit, I just dont think that things will improve by making that shitpile bigger and stinkier.


For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)
Derid #147038 10/21/21 11:35 AM
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Originally Posted by Derid
It's not that I don't largely agree with your thoughts about the far-left, its just that at this juncture the far-right seems more threatening to the system itself...

I disagree with you. When I go through "what US would look like if X gets everything", the far-left (who are firmly in charge of the entire left right now, as all classic liberals got cancelled) scenario looks by far more dangerous.

Fundamentally, Trump is there for Trump. The other side are essentially postmodern equivalent to religious fundamentalists.


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Sini #147039 10/21/21 01:34 PM
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Originally Posted by Sini
Originally Posted by Derid
It's not that I don't largely agree with your thoughts about the far-left, its just that at this juncture the far-right seems more threatening to the system itself...

I disagree with you. When I go through "what US would look like if X gets everything", the far-left (who are firmly in charge of the entire left right now, as all classic liberals got cancelled) scenario looks by far more dangerous.

Fundamentally, Trump is there for Trump. The other side are essentially postmodern equivalent to religious fundamentalists.

I think the issue is that the Trump crowd intends to do far more than just what Trump hisself wants at a given moment.

Also worth considering, is that should the system continue to erode, I dont think they can win in the long term. Eventual winners will still likely be the radical left. I think embracing Trump is a reaction, not a strategy. I'll admit that viable options seem slim at the moment, hence why I find politics to be a depressing topic these days. If anything, I think presence of Trump shifts many people outside of the right-wing sphere in a more radical direction than they would otherwise take.

I've not really done an examination in terms of "If who got everything they wanted" though to be honest, because that seldom happens.


For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)
Derid #147040 10/21/21 01:55 PM
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Originally Posted by Derid
I think the issue is that the Trump crowd intends to do far more than just what Trump hisself wants at a given moment.

Personality cults don't tend to last past leader's death. It is more likely that Trumpism will fade once Trump croacks of the natural causes than any other scenario. The absolutely worst case scenario is 10 years, then it will go the way of the tea party. Then the Trump crowd would scatter like cockraches.

I think you are severely overstate the dangers of Trump by failing to account for his incompetence, lack of motivation, and lack of planning for the future. Sure, in an alternative-reality motivated, disciplined, and tactical Trump could have ended up President for Life by now, backed by a group of equally ruthless and competent posse. However, this is not here and now. You know and I know that Trump is shit at anything but random acts of norm-breaking and bluster.

He is lesser evil, because he is lesser, not because he is not evil.

Last edited by Sini; 10/21/21 02:05 PM.

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Sini #147041 10/21/21 02:14 PM
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I guess my question then would be - then what comes after? How much damage do you think would be done by Trump's crowd, and how will things look after Trump?

Once the personality cult falls apart, then what? Mitt Romney type figures taking over? I find that hard to imagine. Even if you think that Trumpism can form a bulwark against the radical left, what good is it if it only lasts 10 years? Seems to me like 10 years of damage, with the premise of immenent failure baked in.


For who could be free when every other man's humour might domineer over him? - John Locke (2nd Treatise, sect 57)
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