America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -

[vt]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

Your list proves religion is not the cause of suffering, but that non democratic autocratic regimes are!

Communism - 94 million killed since 1917

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bl...k_of_Communism

The fascists killed at least 26 million from 1933 to 1945

Here's a more comprehensive headcount from all sources in the last 100 years:

http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm

Note: none of these were caused by religions. It seems like the we need more peaceful religions and less of radical political systems.

[Woodsman]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

Your list proves ...

Nothing, as do your assertions.

[santafe2]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

Santa Fe said:

"I suspect religion is on the block in the 21st Century. Mohammed, Jesus, great philosophers. Their followers, idiots of the worst sort."

So everyone who professes a religious faith is an idiot?!

Yes, we've had religious wars, and many have been killed in the name of religion.

But fascism and communism are philosophies too, and far more have been killed and tortured in their name.

Fair enough vt. It appears we agree that the followers of many philosophies hate those that do not follow their philosophical path and are willing to kill those who oppose them. To say that political philosophies are worse than religious philosophies is like arguing that cancer isn't so bad because it's not heart disease. That is your argument. Religion is awful but it's not Fascism. Ideals reduced to body count. Of the four philosophies we've mentioned only one is not despised in the US. In my opinion it should be.

[santafe2]

Re: Has been Authorities.

I think the US political system has lost much of the beauty and effectiveness it once had.

We'll have to agree to disagree on this point PS. The structure is still available when the population decides to avail themselves of the opportunity to vote.

[Polish_Silver]

The choices we have

We'll have to agree to disagree on this point PS. The structure is still available when the population decides to avail themselves of the opportunity to vote.

SF, do you like the choices you have on the ballot?

Romney ? Obama? Bush? Gore?

[dcarrigg]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

You usually sound quite reasonable, dc. What I (and at least 1/3rd of the American people according to Rasmussen) find "seditious and treasonous" is a Leftist assault on the Constitution and the rule of law: "sanctuary cities", open borders, prosecuting Christians who don't want to participate in procured abortion or sodomy, PC sanctioned speech, gun control that opens a clear pathway for easier confiscation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

I'll admit that a large part of the problem comes from the so-called "Right", as in Citizens United where I also find real problems.
And I have no beef with putting personal income tax rates back where they were during the Clinton years.

But the Left appears to desire the disassembling of our Federal system by imposing a de facto Unitary system. The 14th Amendment is now being used to negate the 1st Amendment. This will cause revolt.

Personally, I believe it's time for a divorce. Better to break the country in half now that to endure a bloody civil war.

What stuck me, Raz, was the tone. I didn't expect it from him. After all, a statist is simply someone who believes there should be a state. You're either a statist or an anarchist. This is black and white. It's one thing to argue for smaller government. It's another to call people statists. Libertarians, a small but loud subset of whom want to end the Republic, have used 'statist' as an insult for years. But it's becoming more mainstream. And I don't much care for it personally. There's a far cry between arguing to devolve powers to states in a system of federalism and calling people 'statists.'

I can't imagine Mitch Daniels using that term in an op-ed even a handful of years ago. But the creeping anti-republican sentiment from a segment of the libertarian right has really twisted the vocabulary. And I don't think that's a good thing.

So far as the prospect for Civil War goes, in my opinion it's moot. Right now, as we speak, there's a pile of trident missiles being manufactured up the road from me headed to Electric Boat to be loaded on a boomer in Yankee waters. Meanwhile, how many ICMBs are sitting in Barksdale AFB in northern Louisiana? This wouldn't be some sort of game played with drums and led balls and team-colored uniforms. This would be the end, maybe of mankind. In the end, the 13th, 14th, and 15th were punishments against the south for losing the Civil War. I don't think the south was ever meant to feel comfortable with these amendments. But if the south was ever going to rise again, the time for that would have been somewhere between Rutherford B. Hayes and Dwight D. Eisenhower. That was the last chance for a land-war.

Even if somehow southern people managed to arrange for a peaceful divorce, your social policy would still be dictated by Wall Street and the rest of the S&P 500 boardroom class. Outcries about civil rights from Berlin to London to Paris to New York to Los Angeles would force giant multinational businesses to either leave or to twist politician's arms into compliance. Just look how they have dealt with Putin's Russia. The whole congealed neoliberal capitalist trading bloc essentially moves social policy in lock-step, give or take a few years. When Nixon rolled out the DEA and outlawed drugs, every capitalist country followed suit. Even now, gay marriage is going legal everywhere and marijuana legalization is going to follow in its wake. Italy's talking about it. States out west have done it. New England will be a bit more provincial, but once one state does it, the other 5 will follow. Can't miss out on a revenue stream. And then comes California. Then it's over. It's only a matter of time.

Social policy is no longer a local issue. It's as 'globalized' as economic policy. They decide these things in Davos, not in Washington, and certainly not in Jackson or Hartford. Not so long ago, my family and friends would have to smuggle Beatles Records to the Republic of Ireland. Their social policy was so tight, rock and roll was not allowed. Ireland only legalized divorce in 1995. 20 years later, they legalize gay marriage. You see how fast globalized neoliberal policy spreads and changes things. I don't think a new confederacy would have any more luck combining global capitalism and traditionalism than Ireland did. Like it or not, for better or worse, global capitalism breaks down traditional ways of life and homogenizes culture.

At least that's the way it looks from my vantage point.

[Raz]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

What stuck me, Raz, was the tone. I didn't expect it from him. After all, a statist is simply someone who believes there should be a state. You're either a statist or an anarchist. This is black and white. It's one thing to argue for smaller government. It's another to call people statists. Libertarians, a small but loud subset of whom want to end the Republic, have used 'statist' as an insult for years. But it's becoming more mainstream. And I don't much care for it personally. There's a far cry between arguing to devolve powers to states in a system of federalism and calling people 'statists.'

I can't imagine Mitch Daniels using that term in an op-ed even a handful of years ago. But the creeping anti-republican sentiment from a segment of the libertarian right has really twisted the vocabulary. And I don't think that's a good thing.

I agree with you about the principles involved but we must remember that the meaning of words had evolved over time. Liberals in the 19^th Century wouldn’t recognize much of what passes for “Liberalism” of the late 20^th Century – PC for one. And neither would the founders:

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."
~ Benjamin Franklin: Silence Dogood, The Busy-Body, and Early Writings

Libertarians are great at discussing the defense of Constitutional rights yet don’t seem to grasp that a complete enactment of their principles would mean so small a state that there would be little or no power to defend anyone’s rights.

Yet part of their complaint appears valid when one looks at the size, scope and overreaching tentacles of powers assumed by the Federal Government. The 10^th Amendment has been de facto destroyed and the central government of the United States has steadily assumed powers that were never granted to it by the Constitution.
It has done so through the natural growth of the entitlement state and also through an activist judiciary that in some respects has literally taken powers that the founders never granted or intended, i.e. decisions that should have been made by the states and the people through the process provided: amendment. They’ve used the Commerce Clause as a blank check to decide whatever they wish.

So far as the prospect for Civil War goes, in my opinion it's moot. Right now, as we speak, there's a pile of trident missiles being manufactured up the road from me headed to Electric Boat to be loaded on a boomer in Yankee waters. Meanwhile, how many ICMBs are sitting in Barksdale AFB in northern Louisiana? This wouldn't be some sort of game played with drums and led balls and team-colored uniforms. This would be the end, maybe of mankind. In the end, the 13th, 14th, and 15th were punishments against the south for losing the Civil War. I don't think the south was ever meant to feel comfortable with these amendments. But if the south was ever going to rise again, the time for that would have been somewhere between Rutherford B. Hayes and Dwight D. Eisenhower. That was the last chance for a land-war.

The paragraph above is so outright sectional and silly that I can’t believe you of all people actually wrote it.
So the Blue States are willing to commit suicide?

What makes you think I’m prognosticating a “Suthun Rebellion”? The country is evenly divided – Obama carried the popular vote in 2012 by no more than 5 million ballots – and if you look at these maps you don’t see a “Solid South” but a Solid Red-State Block.


2012 Presidential Election by State.png


(BTW, you’ll notice that the entire US Minuteman Missile force of 450 warheads is based in Montana, North Dakota and Wyoming – three states that are redder than Alabama and Mississippi – and the Atlantic Fleet of six Trident Missile carrying submarines just happen to be based in Kings Bay, Georgia – not to mention the 200 operational strategic nuclear warheads on B-52H and B-2 bombers now based at Minot, North Dakota, Barksdale AFB in Louisiana and Whiteman AFB in Missouri, some of which since 2013 are operated by Air Guard and Air Force Reserve units in Missouri, also a very red state.)


No, if there is to be another civil war it won’t look anything like the last one; it won’t be a neat and clear “sectional” War Between the States, but a true Civil War, probably resembling the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s – a land war and just as brutal. Here’s another map that illustrates what I’m speaking of - the 2012 Presidential Election by Congressional District:


2012 Presidential Election by Congressional District..jpg

If there is another civil war in the United States I wouldn’t count on it turning out like the last one even if a nuclear weapon of any yield is never detonated.

Even if somehow southern people managed to arrange for a peaceful divorce, your social policy would still be dictated by Wall Street and the rest of the S&P 500 boardroom class. Outcries about civil rights from Berlin to London to Paris to New York to Los Angeles would force giant multinational businesses to either leave or to twist politician's arms into compliance. Just look how they have dealt with Putin's Russia. The whole congealed neoliberal capitalist trading bloc essentially moves social policy in lock-step, give or take a few years. When Nixon rolled out the DEA and outlawed drugs, every capitalist country followed suit. Even now, gay marriage is going legal everywhere and marijuana legalization is going to follow in its wake. Italy's talking about it. States out west have done it. New England will be a bit more provincial, but once one state does it, the other 5 will follow. Can't miss out on a revenue stream. And then comes California. Then it's over. It's only a matter of time.

Since I never had a “southern sectional movement” in mind I’m not even going to address it. Nor do I care if this present court or even the CONgress gives legal sanction to same-sex “marriage”.

What boils my blood – and that of at least sixty million other adult Americans – is the idea that a bakery in Oregon owned by Christians that gladly serve homosexual customers in their place of business can be destroyed by government power because they refused to cater a wedding cake for two sodomites since they saw it as participating in a ceremony prohibited by their religious faith.

Hell, dc, even during the military draft of 1948-72 the Selective Service Act made provision for conscientious objectors!

Social policy is no longer a local issue. It's as 'globalized' as economic policy. They decide these things in Davos, not in Washington, and certainly not in Jackson or Hartford. Not so long ago, my family and friends would have to smuggle Beatles Records to the Republic of Ireland. Their social policy was so tight, rock and roll was not allowed. Ireland only legalized divorce in 1995. 20 years later, they legalize gay marriage. You see how fast globalized neoliberal policy spreads and changes things. I don't think a new confederacy would have any more luck combining global capitalism and traditionalism than Ireland did. Like it or not, for better or worse, global capitalism breaks down traditional ways of life and homogenizes culture.

At least that's the way it looks from my vantage point.

You and I agree on the corruption of crony state capitalism that serves the bankers, brokers, realtors and corporate interests through the political class, all to the detriment and literal destruction of the middle class. As conservative as I am I’ve been led to the point of publically financed elections at the Presidential and Senate level because I see that as the ONLY way to put an end to the whoring out of the central government to the 1% - and equally so as the only way to throw any of these bums out once they get into office and really begin feeding off the money steam from the political pimps.

I’m even confident that you and I could come to an acceptable compromise on the majority of economic and financial reforms needed to undo the corruption and at least restore a fighting chance for the former middle class and working families.

But in my post I was referring to issues that smack of civil tyranny – not economic strangulation.

[dcarrigg]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

Sorry I assumed you were talking about a southern rebellion. I suppose the idea of breaking up the union just dragged my mind towards history that way. But I still think the option of breaking up the US is unthinkable these days. The bulk of the world economy is predicated upon the continued existence of the United States and the security she provides. A break up would be too risky. It won't just be allowed to happen. And any which way you want to dice up the US military, a conflict like this in this day-in-age would be the largest and most destructive war in human history.

You've known me around here long enough to know I'm not often one to cheer Supreme Court decisions like this, regardless of whether I believe in the outcome. The Hollow Hope convinced me fairly well that the Court is a poor vehicle through which to push social change. But I think maybe you're underestimating how powerful private sector forces can be at pushing social change, for better or worse. It wasn't the Court that ended Arizona's version of the RFRA. It was the NFL threatening to pull the Superbowl. It wasn't the Court in Indiana either. It was a series of boycotts and corporations and conventions threatening to leave. It's not the 14th amendment in these two cases requiring wedding caterers or anyone else to serve gay people. It's corporate backlash.

And I think that the power of multinational corporations to dictate social policy is far stronger today than ever before. That was the whole point of my Ireland/Davos paragraph. Dozens of different countries with different laws, legislatures, courts, executives, federal arrangements, whatever--they all change the same social policies around the same time. How else do gay marriage / civil unions happen in Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, Germany, Mexico, USA, Canada, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Ireland, UK, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, France, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Columbia, Estonia--all around the same time? What's left but Africa and Asia?

In the end, I don't think the economic and the social are so separable as people think they are. I think that maybe globalized economy means de facto globalized social policy. And that to me seems like something social conservatives ought to mull over, at least a little bit. Because even if you managed to cast out New England and the rest of the large cities in America, you just might find that global markets have little regard for traditional ways of life of any kind.

[vt]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

"What boils my blood – and that of at least sixty million other adult Americans – is the idea that a bakery in Oregon owned by Christians that gladly serve homosexual customers in their place of business can be destroyed by government power because they refused to cater a wedding cake for two sodomites since they saw it as participating in a ceremony prohibited by their religious faith.

Hell, dc, even during the military draft of 1948-72 the Selective Service Act made provision for conscientious objectors."


I'm waiting to see what happens when a Mosque refuses to do a gay wedding or a Muslim baker refuses to cater it.

[dcarrigg]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

I'm waiting to see what happens when a Mosque refuses to do a gay wedding or a Muslim baker refuses to cater it.

Nobody will care about the Mosque not doing gay weddings. Just like nobody cares about the Catholic Church not doing gay weddings. Nobody I know, even the leftist lefty who believes in healing crystals and wears corduroy patchwork pants, thinks that Churches should be forced to marry anybody.

The baker is another story. And people will be pissed at the muslim baker who does this, if and only if the baker runs a business open to the public. If it's a private baker who just bakes for friends or members or a club, then nobody will care.

You see, public accommodations are viewed differently than churches to most on the left. It's a civil rights issue. Harkens the mind back to Woolworths lunch counters and Greensboro sit-ins.

Put simply, the idea is this:

If you want to discriminate, start a private club. If you want to advertise a business as open to the public, it has to actually be open to the public, it cannot discriminate and only be open to certain classes of the public.

So it works like this:

Johnny wants to start a restaurant that doesn't allow black people. Johnny can open up a private restaurant that doesn't allow black people. He cannot advertise it as open to the public. It must be a private membership group. It cannot advertise itself as open to the public. Johnny cannot open up a restaurant and put a big sign up that says "Restaurant Open" that you can see from the highway. Because the restaurant is not really open. It's only open to the right kinds of people. And that means that it's really functioning as a private club pretending to be public accommodation. And that's the rub.

The issue most of us take, anyways, is not that we want to force business owners to do anything in particular other than tell the truth. If you advertise your business as open to the public, and it is in fact not open to the public, then there is a problem. Ditto if it's segregated.

So this is the lens the majority of the left looks at this though.

If the Indiana Pizza Shop guy wanted to serve anybody pizza who walked through his door and paid regardless of their religion or race or who they decided to have sex with, then he wouldn't be lying if he advertised his business as open to the public. Ditto with the catering service.

If the Indiana Pizza Shop guy wanted to start a private Christian pizza club that also would cater weddings but was not open to the public, and this private pizza club discriminated against gay people, the majority of people on the left might not like it, but they would not be outraged by it.

Hell, even if that pizza shop simply advertised "private catering available for select guests," it wouldn't be as much of an issue.

The outrage comes from discriminating in public accommodations.

And here's the real fear on the left:

Once you allow discrimination in public accommodations, even once for a single caterer, where do you go from there? I'll grant you it's a slippery slope argument. But it's the one that pops into their heads.

So the thought ends up going something like this:

What if Marriott and Hilton both say they're uncomfortable with gays staying in any of their hotel properties? That's potentially a lot more of a moral issue than dropping off some pizzas at a wedding, considering the acts going down on the sheets. Should they get to put up giant "No Gays Allowed!" signs on every one of their hotels because of their religious beliefs? Now all the sudden this is a real public issue. Cities with limited downtown land and limited numbers of hotels have to deal with this. Same issue could happen at that one gas station in Death Valley or something like that. Refusals to serve could create real logistical problems. And especially around me, where citizens take a kind of pride in standing against that sort of thing, it's going to be a hellfire of a protest, with every bit of the moral indignation and righteousness felt by Evangelicals, only with more Catholic Nuns and atheists and Episcopalians floating around. I promise. I watched local citizens protest and kill the closest chick-fill-a, hobby lobby, and BP near me for social and environmental reasons. And this was nowhere near so big an issue as an outright ban on serving gays.

I guess the simple point here is this: Your church can ban gay people. Lefties might not like it, but most will understand. Your private club can ban gay people. Lefties might not like it, but most will understand. But your business open to the public cannot ban gay people. Lefties will fight you tooth and nail.

If you want to discriminate, don't operate an accommodation business that is open to the public. Operate as a private caterer. Otherwise, you're drifting into Civil Rights territory that's going to rile everybody up. Big time.

It's funny that this is the new front in the culture wars. I definitely didn't see it coming. But maybe this is how the Court ends up being a Hollow Hope in the end. The court legalizes gay marriage in all 50 states. Half the states ban gays from hotels and theaters and restaurants and gas stations in response. I guess I should have seen it coming. I just didn't.

All this is to say nothing other than to explain to you the thought process going on here.

I promise, almost nobody but the very battiest person on the left at all is ever going to be upset that a Mosque doesn't perform a gay wedding ever. If you think that, you're fundamentally misunderstanding the thought process.

[vt]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

I understand about churches

It will still be interesting if a Muslim business owner has to make a decision and the reaction. Will someone on the cultural left even try?

I don't have any prejudice, but believe we should respect religious beliefs and lack thereof.

[dcarrigg]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

I understand about churches

It will still be interesting if a Muslim business owner has to make a decision and the reaction. Will someone on the cultural left even try?

I don't have any prejudice, but believe we should respect religious beliefs and lack thereof.

Yes. People on the left will go after the Muslim business owner for refusing to serve gay people in the same way. The Daily Kos already had an article about it.

[Polish_Silver]

What is statism?

What stuck me, Raz, was the tone. I didn't expect it from him. After all, a statist is simply someone who believes there should be a state. You're either a statist or an anarchist. This is black and white. . .

A statist is an advocate of statism,
which is

concentration of economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government often extending to government ownership of industry

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/statism

Informally, a statist is someone who wants a public policy solution for almost every social problem.

[rjwjr]

Re: America's Next Revolution (the fourth) -Shattered Consensus

I don't recall an iTulip thread becoming quite so heated. Maybe it's a sign that tensions are higher than we realized and revolution in some form is a growing possibility. That said, I was pleased to see that productive dialog prevailed once heated debate over seemingly opposing views was further discussed. iTulip is, indeed, a community of special individuals.

It made me think of this saying (which I thought was typically attributed to Jefferson Davis or Andrew Jackson, but this is the one that Google found for me)...
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot
exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will
continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they
can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
candidates who promise the most benefits from the public
treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally
collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed
by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest
civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about
200 years."
-- Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor 1787

Maybe civil war (or it's less lethal version; threat of cessation) doesn't lead to the expected "utopia" of a separate and "happy" north/south (red/blue), maybe it leads to dictatorship.

Personally, I currently believe that stronger States rights and less Federal centralization may be the best way to diffuse this growing time bomb. Break it into smaller pieces, allow competition between the States and the freedom for the citizenry to vote with their feet, then learn from best practices.

Although I can't help but mention that the financial problems in California, New York, and Illinois seem to be a precursor to not-best-practices and a real life example of the quote above.

[Polish_Silver]

Tyler on California.

. . .
It made me think of this saying . . .. A democracy will
continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they
can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.
From that moment on, the majority always votes for the
candidates who promise the most benefits from the public
treasury, . . . .
-- Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor 1787

. . .

I think Tyler was very perceptive, and California is a perfect example of his prediction. The state is not poor by any stretch, yet it's finances
are abysmal. During the period of rapid population and economic growth it was easy to justify future liabilities. Hardly anyone asks the question, can we continue growing like this for another 30 years?

As "proof" of how big this problem is, I was watching a TV interview with Mark Sanford, the former governor of South Carolina.

Interviewer: "what have you been thinking about?"

Sanford: "I've been reading this Scottish historian, Tyler. He says democracies cannot last very long . . ."

Interviewer: "let's get back to your personal life. Did you learn enough from your first marriage to make this one last? ."

That is not verbatim, but it's not far off.

The gold standard instilled some discipline.
The US stayed on it for a long time. If it wasn't for leveraged lending, and the attendant deflations, we'd still be on it I think.

Tyler was writing in the heyday of the British gold standard. But Britain was not a democracy yet.