What Do You Think Today?

[sgt.null]

Peter - the problem in America is one side sees the other's policies as inherently wrong. [Republicans vs Socialists]
And the other sees the people being morally wrong. [Socialists vs God-fearing Americans]

[Savor Dam]

Peter - the problem in America is one side sees the other's policies as inherently wrong. [Republicans vs Socialists]
And the other sees the people being morally wrong. [Socialists vs God-fearing Americans]

Sarge, this prompts some questions:

• The usual opposite of Republican is Democrat.
  Are you conflating all Democrats with Socialists? (If so, I disagree.)
  Is this truly a "one side sees the other's policies as inherently wrong" (if so, which is which?), or is this rather a reflexive mutual regard?
  
  As for your second bit, are you asserting Socialist and G-d fearing Americans are mutually exclusive, that one cannot be both? (Again, if so, I disagree.)
  In any case, which way do you think this runs? Do Socialists see G-d fearing Americans as morally wrong? Do G-d fearing Americans see Socialists as morally wrong. Both?
  (In reality, neither ought to be true, at least by my sense of morality...which admittedly may differ from that of others.)

You may want to consider less diametric thinking. Matters are not always so polar; there are subtleties and gradations that bear consideration.

[sgt.null]

SD - I was poking some fun. But younger progressives do trend towards socialism. Remember I'm talking big picture.

Even the Democrats as a whole will promote what they believe to be socialist ideas. Even when getting the terms wrong. Like many believe social security is socialism. Just because social is in the word.

And since at least Hilary ran, the left snd their media have been conflating the right with bad moral behaviour. Many on the left see Republicans as racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamaphobic, religious bigots. Clinging to God and guns. Deplorables. Those are qualities of character - not political positions.

What Socialist state is also Christian? I see some parties claiming both. Bit no states. I would hope that any God fearing Christian would see tje evils of socialism.

https://freethepeople.org/how-many-peop ... sm-killed/

[peter]

I'm guessing that there are bound to be subtleties and gradations in the two 'conditions' - but it does seem to be a truth that the division of a whole people (I'd like to describe the American people as that) into a dumbbell pattern of points (in respect of their thinking) is more pronounced than it has been for a long long time. The two camps also seem broadly to sit over a north-west/south-east geographic divide - at least so it is presented in the UK press. Whether this dynamic is of sufficient tensile stress that it could fracture the whole, you guys will know better than me.

In the UK, speaking in terms of the Union, with the different nations pulling in so obviously different directions, it is difficult to see how the whole can survive. England has put itself into opposition with it's sister nations (or at least half of the population and the Government have) and barring a big turnaround that is unlikely to happen anytime soon (even the opposition parties would be unlikely to attempt to turn around the events of the last few years, even if they were able to secure power in the near future, which again is questionable) it seems to me that a breakup is almost inevitable.

I suspect that there are many among both the political class and the general populace who would shed no tears were it to happen.

[sgt.null]

Peter - liberals tend to be on the east coast. NYC and Washington DC being the largest examples. And the west coast. Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle being examples. In between large cities tend to be run by Democrats. Chicago, Detroit. St. Louis, Baltimore, etc. You can tell them by their crime and homelessness.

That leaves the south, Midwest, Great American West, Midwest. The rural areas and smaller cities.

[peter]

That's useful Sarge - I can form a sort of picture from it; it'll be interesting to see how the coming election conforms to that pattern or if there will be significant deviation either way.

[I'm Murrin]

(Note that the pattern is "wherever there are more people".)

[peter]

Yes, the US system is somewhat different to ours (and pretty damned complicated to boot iirc) in that respect. I read an account of how it works on one occasion - and became completely lost in it's complexity as I remember. It can throw up some strange anomalies under certain circumstances I believe.

[sgt.null]

The middle of America us what some have termed the flyover states. Lots of farming, lots of manufacturing. People who work for a living.

[Avatar]

You mean people who labour for a living?

--A

[sgt.null]

Yes. Labor is something our lords in congress need to do.

[Avatar]

Yeah, often thought that political office should not have a salary attached. See how keen they are to get elected then...

--A

[I'm Murrin]

Not paying them just encourages corruption, though. They need a reasonable wage along with strong rules about accepting donations and what they can do with their money while in office (cf the senators who sold their stock and bought shares in respirator companies the day before the info about how bad Coronavirus was gonna be went public, after they'd been in private meetings about same).

[sgt.null]

the need term limits and no pension.

[Lazy Luke]

That is a disorder, indeed.

[peter]

Also, we in the UK had such a system - and alls it meant was that only the people who had money could ever get on to the legislature (the aristocracy in those days) and all they did when there was to pass laws in their own interest. It was only the introduction of payment for MPs that opened up the system to anyone who could get elected. Better to select politicians in the same way jury's in the UK are selected - by random from the electorate. That way at least a representative proportion of them would be honest (and they could be advised by select committee on the technical consideration of the areas in which they are to vote).

[sgt.null]

Our Congress passes laws that they are not subject to. The were exempt from Obamacare. They get a fat pension. They vote on their own raises.

[peter]

There is a spat going on in the UK at present apropos the BBC's initial decision (since reviewed) to drop the playing of Elgar's Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory from this years Promenade Concerts, at the end of which the songs are traditionally sung, being belted out by an enthusiastic flag-waving audience, with ticker-tape and balloons falling from the ceiling.

The event has an undeniably nationalistic feel to it - and an English one (as opposed to British, despite the word 'Britain' appearing in the lyrics. But this is not why the meticulously PC "Auntie Beeb" has decided that in the Covid emptied Royal Albert Hall, the song is not appropriate. Rather, it is because of the referencing to slaves (and the British never being prepared to accept the condition being placed on themselves - presumably while at the same time being prepared and even being involved in, the subjugation of other peoples under its yolk).

I suppose in the fervid and emotional time of the 'Black Lives Matter' protests the referencing is not terribly subtle, but neither then is the whole jingoistic thing of the upper middle class crowd bobbing up and down and getting swept away in their nationalistic fervour (if only briefly). But at the end of the day, I doubt that the concert represents a recruiting ground for Combat-18 so much as a brief blowing off of steam in a quickly forgotten throwback to (imagined) passed glories.

I'm the first to say that their is an undoubted move in the English mood toward nationalistic thinking (and an ugly thing it is in my opinion), together with a harking back to a past in which it was perceived (through the rosy glasses of false-memory) that 'things were much better', and on this ground I might be shifted slightly toward the dropping of the twaddle contained in the songs. Indeed this to some degree is the compromise that the BBC have arrived at. They have relented (under pressure) from dropping the songs all together, and instead have decided to perform them without the lyrics being sung.

In the absence of the jubilant crowds packing the galleries and halls of the Albert Hall, let's face it, the singing of the songs would have been a bit of a damp squib anyway, so it seems a reasonable compromise to me - and for any of a real mind to, the pages of YouTube are full of every performance since the year dot. But what about in years to come? I started this post thinking that I'd say "for friks sake - it's a harmless piece of fun for the middle classes; let it ride", but I no longer find myself so sure. Not (alas) because of the BLM angle, because I don't believe that any of the singers there are for one moment anything but repulsed by the iniquitous slave trade history of our country (if they even think about it), but because I suddenly find myself questioning the nationalistic nature of the event in the face of a rising tide of nationalism right across Europe, which fills me with trepidation for the future, and it is abhorrent to me to see my country adding to.

But in reference to this year alone, I think the dropping of the lyrics is absolutely bang on. After all - can you think of anywhere in the world less qualified of the epithet 'Land of Hope and Glory" than England 2020.

[Skyweir]

Also, we in the UK had such a system - and alls it meant was that only the people who had money could ever get on to the legislature (the aristocracy in those days) and all they did when there was to pass laws in their own interest.

Kinda seeing that system not that much changed.

Better to select politicians in the same way jury's in the UK are selected - by random from the electorate.

That way at least a representative proportion of them would be honest (and they could be advised by select committee on the technical consideration of the areas in which they are to vote).

Thats not a bad idea at all.

Yeah Im not a fan of nationalism and it is an ugly world view. Its a sad thing to lament what was once deemed "the glory days" as they were also accompanied by dark times and dark deeds, like human trafficking and ritualised human servitude.

Interesting thoughts Pete .. I tend to oscillate between thinking is it really worth getting bent out of shape about the trite .. to mmm .. well the trite could be representative of something deeper and more pervasive than at first glance.

[peter]

You got that Sky!

Dang - why is everything always so complicated!