The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:06 pm

sophie wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:58 pm
Tortoise wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:15 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:43 pm
Unskilled jobs are not a problem. The more that immigrate here, the more we need unskilled labor. And someone needs to do these jobs, Americans currently don't want to.
Most Americans currently don't want to do those jobs because they pay peanuts, and they pay peanuts because there are so many unskilled workers competing for them.

Reduce the number of unskilled workers competing for those jobs, and watch what the law of supply and demand will do to their wages and the resulting number of Americans willing to apply for them.
+1000.

The usual argument I hear from Democrat friends & family is that raspberry farms in California can't find enough Americans to pick raspberries. Well, that's because they pay something like 25 cents an hour. Increase that to, say, $10 an hour and people will be migrating to the raspberry farms to pick up jobs in season - just like what used to happen before the era of cheap illegal immigrant labor. So then, says they, raspberries will get more expensive. True enough. But then, your taxes won't be so high because you're no longer subsidizing the illegal immigrant's health care, care & feeding of children born in the country, family members who come in via chain migration etc. At the same time, a bunch of Americans now get jobs and earn money to support themselves, and form them to spend and put back into the economy. Win, win, and win. Net cost to you: probably negative, because the free market is a whole lot more efficient than cycling that money through government bureaucracies.
For what it's worth, my arguments and support of "immigration" are in the realm of stepping up legal immigration. I do agree that illegal immigration is a problem. But I think stepping up on legal immigration is one of the most effective strategies in combating illegal immigration. It won't solve the problem by itself, but it's the best place to start, imo. There of course is always the elephant in the room of if all these under min wage jobs became documented legal min wage jobs there would be a quick rip up in inflation and cost of living, as illegal immigration has enabled our cost of living to stay really low. Are the Republicans really willing to rip that bandaid off, or is it just a show to try to get votes? It's sure easier to stomach throwing billions of government dollars away building a useless wall which really doesn't change anything, than to watching the price of groceries go up 5x overnight. The "wall" is a magic trick, it's a distraction to keep your eyes away from the fact that nothing actually changed.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by doodle » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:23 pm

sophie wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 2:43 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:13 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 1:10 pm
MangoMan wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:16 pm
doodle wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 12:07 pm
And another question...is New Republicanism just another type of soft authoritarianism? What is more oppressive? A society where the government regulates everything or where societal pressure tells you that you have to stay at home and have babies, and can't come out of the closet and dress like a woman and get face tattoos? Afghanistan has very little in the way of government regulations but is orders of magnitude more oppressive and authoritarian...but it's socially driven.
I would think you would be happy. The Republican Party has moved so far left it is now what the Democrats of the 70s were.
Is that not what "conservatism" is by very definition? Go back through our history and you'll find that today's liberal ideas are always tomorrows conservative ideas. The conservatives of 2080 will basically be the liberals of 2020. Let us not forget Abraham Lincoln himself was a liberal at the time, though conservatives today try to claim him as theirs.
Maybe the left is just moving too fast and too far left. Baby steps would be more palatable.
Baby steps to what? As far as I can tell, the Democratic party is firmly on the path to pure socialism.

Socially, the baby steps idea works fine for me. That's how civil rights, women's rights, freedom of religion etc all came to pass. The whole transgender thing is too new for people to wrap their heads around. Plus I suspect it is, in fact, a craze, with a strong element of social pressure on kids especially that I abhor, so it's not clear exactly how best to handle it yet.

In the meantime, keep in mind that the framers of the Constitution were quite socially liberal for their day. Freedom of and from religion? Freedom of speech and of the press? All men are created equal? Absolutely incredible, even radical ideas for that period. And yet, a constitutionalist judge is now seen as far right. Go figure.
The entire world is on a path to socialism...it's coming, step by step. For the most part we already live in a socialist nation. Kids play on public playgrounds, they go to public schools, people rely on public social security pensions, and disability, and medical coverage in old age. We have public universities, and highways, and parks and police and fire departments . Within my lifetime we will see Universal Basic Income, a national healthcare system, and probably publically funded higher education.

It's not going to stop. It's as if conservatives want to freeze frame an era while history marches on. When the framers wrote the constitution, "men" meant literally white men....that definition has been expanded by "activist" judges and legislators to include women and minorities. Certainly the framers didn't mean black men when they wrote "all men" if they had we wouldn't have had to fight a civil war regarding that issue..a hundred years later.

The idea of Universal Basic Income...(welfare for all) dates back to Thomas Paine. When automation continues to strip away the need for workers this will eventually become the solution in order to save the beneficial elements of capitalism. You can't sell products to people without jobs. Adam Smith would have opposed intellectual property protections for life saving drugs. I'm sure many of these protections will fall to the wayside.

Conservatives reach back to these monumental figures of the englightenment but cherry pick ideas and cobble together a "conservative" world that is in many ways a radical departure from their hero's beliefs and actions.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by doodle » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:30 pm

I guess I don't understand conservativism as a philosophy. It seems to me like trying to drive a car by looking in the rearview mirror. Sure, there are lessons from the past that can be carried into the future, but our world has fundamentally changed...we have satellites, and nuclear bombs, and nearly instantaneous global travel and trade and communications. Vast corporate power and influence, a burgeoning population and global environmental and resource issues. These are issues that from my perspective require new problem solving ideas. The enlightenment philosophers projected a radical new idea onto humanity to solve issues with entrenched monarchies and feudal societal structures. They were hardly conservative. Likewise, we need to look to new ideas today to solve the issues of today....issues our founding fathers could have never conceived of.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by Tortoise » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:38 pm

The core philosophical divide seems to be between individualism and collectivism.

New problems in the world created by new technology and social trends can be solved in innovative ways even if one's core philosophy is individualism. Solutions to the new problems can be considered in the context of maximizing individual freedom. They are not mutually exclusive.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:42 pm

doodle wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:30 pm
I guess I don't understand conservativism as a philosophy. It seems to me like trying to drive a car by looking in the rearview mirror. Sure, there are lessons from the past that can be carried into the future, but our world has fundamentally changed...we have satellites, and nuclear bombs, and nearly instantaneous global travel and trade and communications. Vast corporate power and influence, a burgeoning population and global environmental and resource issues. These are issues that from my perspective require new problem solving ideas. The enlightenment philosophers projected a radical new idea onto humanity to solve issues with entrenched monarchies and feudal societal structures. They were hardly conservative. Likewise, we need to look to new ideas today to solve the issues of today....issues our founding fathers could have never conceived of.
There are always those that desire change (liberals) and those that resist change (conservatives). I think you do need both to balance each other out in a way. It's kind of a yin and yang when it's functioning properly. We always will move forward. Change will always happen. We will never go back to the way things used to be. So in a way, the battle is already won. *Spoiler Alert* the liberal side always has and always will win eventually. You can go back to any point in history and see this is true. But the words liberal and conservative are moving goal posts relative to the present day. Todays conservatism is yesterdays liberalism, and todays liberalism is tomorrows conservatism. So while the liberal view point always will win out eventually, I think the conservatives when they are doing their job properly help keep the dreamy ideological change makers from getting too carried away, help to slow the process down, help to bring up lessons learned in the past, and in turn help to ensure a safer transition from point A to point B.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 6:17 pm

Simonjester wrote:
Tortoise wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 3:38 pm
The core philosophical divide seems to be between individualism and collectivism.

New problems in the world created by new technology and social trends can be solved in innovative ways even if one's core philosophy is individualism. Solutions to the new problems can be considered in the context of maximizing individual freedom. They are not mutually exclusive.
this..
the future is isn't as the liberals suggest destined for collectivism. we have a choice
and as old fashion and out of date (200+yrs) as individual freedom seems to the progressive, collectivism is seen as moving backwards toward tyranny to others
You need balance, imo. You need a mix of both individual freedoms and collectivism. You need a mix of both top down and bottom up. If you go to either extreme you wind up with oppression. The answer is not black or white, it's grey.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:39 pm

Simonjester wrote: i have no problem with a mix, i disagree that it must be top down however, bottom up collectivism is far more in keeping with the American individualism ethos.. if we take care of ourselves, our family, our friends, our neighbors, our community, our towns and city's, the need for some uncountable, far away, and more often than not misguided (if not incompetent and criminal) bureaucracy would largely vanish..
Right, but the whole thread we had last week was my argument about why full on individualism did not work in the past and would not work in the future. You need the top down aspect as well. We can even step out of government and look at companies. What well run super successful company only has a bottom up structure? None. They need the top down direction to make sure each team in the company is functioning properly within the whole. Now you also need your bottom up, this is where a lot of innovation happens. You want the individuals to be empowered and able to create. But you need the top down to ensure they are spending their valuable innovation time on the things that benefit the company as a whole, make sure there's no redundancies, make sure nobody is stepping on each others toes, that everyone is playing fair, that everyone has equal benefits, and that everyone is following the mission statement and ideals of the company. Any well run company has a good mix of top down and bottom up. Likewise, any good government has a good mix of top down and bottom up. You go all bottom up, or all top down, and bad things happen... usually in the form of tyranny and oppression. We spent a great deal of time last week talking about the tyrannies and oppression that existed back when our country was a small mostly bottom up country. That's really all the proof I need to prove that point. It's just like how people can point to the failures of communism in the past for why a full top down approach also fails. On paper, both extremes can sound quite compelling. In actual practice, far from it. Now the real interesting question that is just stuffed full of wonderful nuance is not the black and white which is better, but what is the proper mix of both? What shade of grey is ideal? At what point is the grey too dark, and at what point is the grey too light? I don't think there is a definitive answer. I do know that neither extreme is good. I don't know what the exact Goldilocks mix of both is.
Simonjester wrote: tom covered a bunch of my answers to this in his post, but in addition to the differences he mentioned between corporations top down and government top down, there is also the underlying argument by comparing the two that you seem to be making, which is... what we need is organization ( your description of the function of leadership in top down corporations) and i don't disagree..

but organization can be achieved in many ways, under the threat of force being the most dangerous one by far..

government :o i would rather have a phone app...
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by Tortoise » Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:00 pm

It's incorrect to say or imply that individualism means there should only be individual freedom and no collective constraints, or vice versa. (That's not meant to be a strawman, pmward. It's how I interpret the "black or white" accusation in your last couple of posts.)

Individualism simply means the priority should be on individual freedom as much as possible. In some cases, yes, individual freedom has to take a back seat to a collective constraint in order for society to function properly and smoothly.

One example would be the fact that even the individualistic founders of the U.S. knew that some collective constraint was needed. It's why they formed a government and not just a private business agreement.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:10 pm

Tortoise wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:00 pm
It's incorrect to say or imply that individualism means there should only be individual freedom and no collective constraints, or vice versa. (That's not meant to be a strawman, pmward. It's how I interpret the "black or white" accusation in your last couple of posts.)

Individualism simply means the priority should be on individual freedom as much as possible. In some cases, yes, individual freedom has to take a back seat to a collective constraint in order for society to function properly and smoothly.

One example would be the fact that even the individualistic founders of the U.S. knew that some collective constraint was needed. It's why they formed a government and not just a private business agreement.
For definition in my black and white analogy. When I say individualism or collectivism I'm looking at the most extreme form of both. So basically, the most extreme individualism would be that fully "bottom up" libertarian/anarchist like government with no Federal government and all local bottom up governance. Collectivism at its most extreme is basically communism. Complete top down, master planning, and all the inflexibilities and fragilities those bring.

So what you've described as your ideal is a shade of grey. It's probably a lot of white and just a little smidgen of black mixed together. I still personally think it's too light of a shade of grey, but this is where all that wonderful nuance I mentioned comes in. Also, there's the fact that both bottom up and top down systems have complimentary strengths and weaknesses. Neither strategy is all strength or all weakness. So how do you mix the two together just enough to negate the weaknesses of the other, without also watering down the strengths? It's a very complex subject.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:14 pm

tomfoolery wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:04 pm
As far as needing a balance, that sounds as ridiculous as smoking one cigarette each morning with a multivitamin so you can balance the healthy with the unhealthy since too much healthy will make you less healthy.
Well considering that once again nobody has yet refuted the problems I identified in the other thread about the issues in our countries past when it was more bottom down... you can't really call it healthy. Was slavery healthy? Was the genocide of the native Americans healthy? Was the discrimination of women healthy? Would any of those things existed if there was enough top down enforcing the actual words of the constitution to balance out the bottom up? No it wouldn't have.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by glennds » Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:14 pm

Tortoise wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:00 pm
It's incorrect to say or imply that individualism means there should only be individual freedom and no collective constraints, or vice versa. (That's not meant to be a strawman, pmward. It's how I interpret the "black or white" accusation in your last couple of posts.)

Individualism simply means the priority should be on individual freedom as much as possible. In some cases, yes, individual freedom has to take a back seat to a collective constraint in order for society to function properly and smoothly.

One example would be the fact that even the individualistic founders of the U.S. knew that some collective constraint was needed. It's why they formed a government and not just a private business agreement.
I think that's a valid point i.e. not one in lieu of the other, but a hierarchy of one having priority over the other. The two are not always in a tug of war.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:17 pm

glennds wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:14 pm
Tortoise wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:00 pm
It's incorrect to say or imply that individualism means there should only be individual freedom and no collective constraints, or vice versa. (That's not meant to be a strawman, pmward. It's how I interpret the "black or white" accusation in your last couple of posts.)

Individualism simply means the priority should be on individual freedom as much as possible. In some cases, yes, individual freedom has to take a back seat to a collective constraint in order for society to function properly and smoothly.

One example would be the fact that even the individualistic founders of the U.S. knew that some collective constraint was needed. It's why they formed a government and not just a private business agreement.
I think that's a valid point i.e. not one in lieu of the other, but a hierarchy of one having priority over the other. The two are not always in a tug of war.
Right and I think we have that in the bill of rights. There is a clear priority to individualism. But if there was no need for collectivism they never would have created the federal government to begin with. Not to mention without any top down there would be nobody there to ensure people actually followed the bill of rights.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by glennds » Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:32 pm

pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:39 pm
Simonjester wrote: i have no problem with a mix, i disagree that it must be top down however, bottom up collectivism is far more in keeping with the American individualism ethos.. if we take care of ourselves, our family, our friends, our neighbors, our community, our towns and city's, the need for some uncountable, far away, and more often than not misguided (if not incompetent and criminal) bureaucracy would largely vanish..
Right, but the whole thread we had last week was my argument about why full on individualism did not work in the past and would not work in the future. You need the top down aspect as well. We can even step out of government and look at companies. What well run super successful company only has a bottom up structure? None. They need the top down direction to make sure each team in the company is functioning properly within the whole. Now you also need your bottom up, this is where a lot of innovation happens. You want the individuals to be empowered and able to create. But you need the top down to ensure they are spending their valuable innovation time on the things that benefit the company as a whole, make sure there's no redundancies, make sure nobody is stepping on each others toes, that everyone is playing fair, that everyone has equal benefits, and that everyone is following the mission statement and ideals of the company. Any well run company has a good mix of top down and bottom up. Likewise, any good government has a good mix of top down and bottom up. You go all bottom up, or all top down, and bad things happen... usually in the form of tyranny and oppression. We spent a great deal of time last week talking about the tyrannies and oppression that existed back when our country was a small mostly bottom up country. That's really all the proof I need to prove that point. It's just like how people can point to the failures of communism in the past for why a full top down approach also fails. On paper, both extremes can sound quite compelling. In actual practice, far from it. Now the real interesting question that is just stuffed full of wonderful nuance is not the black and white which is better, but what is the proper mix of both? What shade of grey is ideal? At what point is the grey too dark, and at what point is the grey too light? I don't think there is a definitive answer. I do know that neither extreme is good. I don't know what the exact Goldilocks mix of both is.
pmward,
I would like to agree with you and track back to last week's thread, but with a slightly different spin if I may.
Where the pure ideological bottom up liberarian, anarcho Ayn Rand ideology falls down, is that some influence or control is going to present itself from somewhere anyway.
For example, in a truly minimal government world, power will begin to accrue in the hands of corporations and their owners. Since the prevailing laissez faire motivator is self-interest, these power centers will turn their resources toward the accumulation of more power and before long there is little the public can do to avail itself from a private form of tyranny.
Look around at the pharma industry we have today and the way in which pharmaceuticals are advertised and pushed by physicians under threat of malpractice for falling below the standard of care which coincidentally is defined by ordering drugs most of the time. And prices are both fixed AND opaque. There are plenty of other examples, media being another prominent one.
My point is the fantasy of true individual liberty is just that, a fantasy, because the individual will always be subject to some level of manipulation from more powerful forces. Which would you rather they be? Private corporations like the pharma companies, media companies, food conglomerates? Or government, where theoretically you have some voting influence and representation?

Another way to look at it is to ask yourself what the food and drug industries would look like today if there was no FDA? What would our environmental situation be if there was no EPA and companies could truly do as they please? Would you sue them in a court system? On what basis if there are no regulations for them to have violated?

I'm not advocating for big government per se, but I am saying sometimes you have to pick your poison.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by vnatale » Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:45 am

pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:39 pm

Simonjester wrote:
i have no problem with a mix, i disagree that it must be top down however, bottom up collectivism is far more in keeping with the American individualism ethos.. if we take care of ourselves, our family, our friends, our neighbors, our community, our towns and city's, the need for some uncountable, far away, and more often than not misguided (if not incompetent and criminal) bureaucracy would largely vanish..


Right, but the whole thread we had last week was my argument about why full on individualism did not work in the past and would not work in the future. You need the top down aspect as well. We can even step out of government and look at companies. What well run super successful company only has a bottom up structure? None. They need the top down direction to make sure each team in the company is functioning properly within the whole. Now you also need your bottom up, this is where a lot of innovation happens. You want the individuals to be empowered and able to create. But you need the top down to ensure they are spending their valuable innovation time on the things that benefit the company as a whole, make sure there's no redundancies, make sure nobody is stepping on each others toes, that everyone is playing fair, that everyone has equal benefits, and that everyone is following the mission statement and ideals of the company. Any well run company has a good mix of top down and bottom up. Likewise, any good government has a good mix of top down and bottom up. You go all bottom up, or all top down, and bad things happen... usually in the form of tyranny and oppression. We spent a great deal of time last week talking about the tyrannies and oppression that existed back when our country was a small mostly bottom up country. That's really all the proof I need to prove that point. It's just like how people can point to the failures of communism in the past for why a full top down approach also fails. On paper, both extremes can sound quite compelling. In actual practice, far from it. Now the real interesting question that is just stuffed full of wonderful nuance is not the black and white which is better, but what is the proper mix of both? What shade of grey is ideal? At what point is the grey too dark, and at what point is the grey too light? I don't think there is a definitive answer. I do know that neither extreme is good. I don't know what the exact Goldilocks mix of both is.


Excellent elucidation of how it all works together and that there is a mix needed. Of course, the eternal question is what IS the proper mix, which you have also acknowledged. The battle is always over which end of the range of mix should be chosen.

Above provided by: Vinny, who always says: "I only regret that I have but one lap to give to my cats." AND "I'm a more-is-more person."
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:42 am

glennds wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:32 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 7:39 pm
Simonjester wrote: i have no problem with a mix, i disagree that it must be top down however, bottom up collectivism is far more in keeping with the American individualism ethos.. if we take care of ourselves, our family, our friends, our neighbors, our community, our towns and city's, the need for some uncountable, far away, and more often than not misguided (if not incompetent and criminal) bureaucracy would largely vanish..
Right, but the whole thread we had last week was my argument about why full on individualism did not work in the past and would not work in the future. You need the top down aspect as well. We can even step out of government and look at companies. What well run super successful company only has a bottom up structure? None. They need the top down direction to make sure each team in the company is functioning properly within the whole. Now you also need your bottom up, this is where a lot of innovation happens. You want the individuals to be empowered and able to create. But you need the top down to ensure they are spending their valuable innovation time on the things that benefit the company as a whole, make sure there's no redundancies, make sure nobody is stepping on each others toes, that everyone is playing fair, that everyone has equal benefits, and that everyone is following the mission statement and ideals of the company. Any well run company has a good mix of top down and bottom up. Likewise, any good government has a good mix of top down and bottom up. You go all bottom up, or all top down, and bad things happen... usually in the form of tyranny and oppression. We spent a great deal of time last week talking about the tyrannies and oppression that existed back when our country was a small mostly bottom up country. That's really all the proof I need to prove that point. It's just like how people can point to the failures of communism in the past for why a full top down approach also fails. On paper, both extremes can sound quite compelling. In actual practice, far from it. Now the real interesting question that is just stuffed full of wonderful nuance is not the black and white which is better, but what is the proper mix of both? What shade of grey is ideal? At what point is the grey too dark, and at what point is the grey too light? I don't think there is a definitive answer. I do know that neither extreme is good. I don't know what the exact Goldilocks mix of both is.
pmward,
I would like to agree with you and track back to last week's thread, but with a slightly different spin if I may.
Where the pure ideological bottom up liberarian, anarcho Ayn Rand ideology falls down, is that some influence or control is going to present itself from somewhere anyway.
For example, in a truly minimal government world, power will begin to accrue in the hands of corporations and their owners. Since the prevailing laissez faire motivator is self-interest, these power centers will turn their resources toward the accumulation of more power and before long there is little the public can do to avail itself from a private form of tyranny.
Look around at the pharma industry we have today and the way in which pharmaceuticals are advertised and pushed by physicians under threat of malpractice for falling below the standard of care which coincidentally is defined by ordering drugs most of the time. And prices are both fixed AND opaque. There are plenty of other examples, media being another prominent one.
My point is the fantasy of true individual liberty is just that, a fantasy, because the individual will always be subject to some level of manipulation from more powerful forces. Which would you rather they be? Private corporations like the pharma companies, media companies, food conglomerates? Or government, where theoretically you have some voting influence and representation?

Another way to look at it is to ask yourself what the food and drug industries would look like today if there was no FDA? What would our environmental situation be if there was no EPA and companies could truly do as they please? Would you sue them in a court system? On what basis if there are no regulations for them to have violated?

I'm not advocating for big government per se, but I am saying sometimes you have to pick your poison.
Yes I made a similar argument in the thread last week. Basically in the bottom up anarcho libertarian end you wind up with distributed tyranny (aka plutocracy with a healthy dash of tyranny of the majority), whereas in the full top down communist system is a centralized tyranny.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:44 am

Simonjester wrote: we need is organization ( your description of the function of leadership in top down corporations) and i don't disagree..

but organization can be achieved in many ways
So in other words, you're agreeing we need a shade of grey?
Simonjester wrote:
meh not sure.. depends on the grey, if you mean that we begin with the premise that individual liberty is the start point, and that authoritarian top down command is a negative that is always dangerous, then working from where we are toward more individual liberty is grey getting lighter.. fine..
I don't present any anarchist libertarian philosophical ideals as a "lets do it all right now" solution (i am well aware half of humanity are idiots ) but if given a choice between organization that is by force and organization that isn't, would you pick the -lets give these humans (half of whom will be idiots) a gun and tell them to point it at us and make us do what they think is right solution, over alternatives? just because humanity hasn't thought its way out of the "government is the only box thinking", doesn't mean we cant..

we have made unbelievable leaps in information/organization technology, at the same time government, even in the country with the absolute best checks and balances of power has become a banana republic.. i joked i would rather have a phone app than a government, but how much of what needs to be done is at its core just getting information from one place to another? we may well be at a point where we have tools that will get us out of the, point a gun at me (take my stuff) and tell me what to do method of organization..
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:45 am

tomfoolery wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 9:01 pm
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:14 pm
tomfoolery wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:04 pm
As far as needing a balance, that sounds as ridiculous as smoking one cigarette each morning with a multivitamin so you can balance the healthy with the unhealthy since too much healthy will make you less healthy.
Well considering that once again nobody has yet refuted the problems I identified in the other thread about the issues in our countries past when it was more bottom down... you can't really call it healthy. Was slavery healthy? Was the genocide of the native Americans healthy? Was the discrimination of women healthy? Would any of those things existed if there was enough top down enforcing the actual words of the constitution to balance out the bottom up? No it wouldn't have.
Things aren’t so black and white. The definition of healthy is subjective.
You're making my argument for me here. I was pushing back specifically against your black and white labelling of top down being straight up "unhealthy" and bottom up being straight up "healthy". I'm also intentionally not responding to the rest of your post, because you're going way too extreme, way too inflexible, and way too short sighted. Drop the extremes and the black and white thinking and come meet us in the middle for an actual discussion based on fact instead of assumption and dogma.
Last edited by pmward on Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by sophie » Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:45 am

pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:14 pm
tomfoolery wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:04 pm
As far as needing a balance, that sounds as ridiculous as smoking one cigarette each morning with a multivitamin so you can balance the healthy with the unhealthy since too much healthy will make you less healthy.
Well considering that once again nobody has yet refuted the problems I identified in the other thread about the issues in our countries past when it was more bottom down... you can't really call it healthy. Was slavery healthy? Was the genocide of the native Americans healthy? Was the discrimination of women healthy? Would any of those things existed if there was enough top down enforcing the actual words of the constitution to balance out the bottom up? No it wouldn't have.
Those are straw man and frankly irrelevant arguments. The values of periods in the distant past are different from what we hold today, and that's generally a good thing. An important feature of the New Republican Populism is that it is much more socially inclusive - and socially liberal - than the Republican Party had been prior to 2016. The party had acquired a reputation for intolerance of minority groups of all types, and rightly so. I was severely turned off by the Republicans because of it, even though I appreciated its economic message. Now that it has shed that baggage, people of all types are taking a second look. They like what they see.

Totalitarianism may work fine in China and other countries with a long history of social and governmental restrictions on personal freedom, but it's simply not going to fly here. People come to this country in part because they want to escape those types of restrictions. I just don't buy the argument that totalitarianism is justified because there exists a group of people somewhere that might feel rejected by society.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:59 am

sophie wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:45 am
pmward wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:14 pm
tomfoolery wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 8:04 pm
As far as needing a balance, that sounds as ridiculous as smoking one cigarette each morning with a multivitamin so you can balance the healthy with the unhealthy since too much healthy will make you less healthy.
Well considering that once again nobody has yet refuted the problems I identified in the other thread about the issues in our countries past when it was more bottom down... you can't really call it healthy. Was slavery healthy? Was the genocide of the native Americans healthy? Was the discrimination of women healthy? Would any of those things existed if there was enough top down enforcing the actual words of the constitution to balance out the bottom up? No it wouldn't have.
Those are straw man and frankly irrelevant arguments. The values of periods in the distant past are different from what we hold today, and that's generally a good thing. An important feature of the New Republican Populism is that it is much more socially inclusive - and socially liberal - than the Republican Party had been prior to 2016. The party had acquired a reputation for intolerance of minority groups of all types, and rightly so. I was severely turned off by the Republicans because of it, even though I appreciated its economic message. Now that it has shed that baggage, people of all types are taking a second look. They like what they see.

Totalitarianism may work fine in China and other countries with a long history of social and governmental restrictions on personal freedom, but it's simply not going to fly here. People come to this country in part because they want to escape those types of restrictions. I just don't buy the argument that totalitarianism is justified because there exists a group of people somewhere that might feel rejected by society.
My argument there wasn't against Republican policy at all. That whole thing was a tangent I got pulled on that was more in the context of libertarianism. So your argument in the first paragraph specific to the Republican Party is not really an argument against the point I was making.

In the second paragraph you're going way too extreme. I never once said we need totalitarianism here (and FWIW I feel like the "right" is embracing totalitarianism more than the "left" these days, but that's not a can of worms I want to open right now, so it's a tangent I will leave for another day). I have specifically said we need a shade of grey. We need the top down to provide direction and ensure that the rights and equalities laid out as our countries "mission statement" are upheld everywhere. But, a full on top down system inherently has weaknesses of being inflexible, fragile, and quite simply intolerable to live in. Bottom up on the other hand has complimentary strengths in that it is super flexible, agile (maybe even antifragile in some ways) and is for the most part tolerable to live in. The weaknesses of bottom up are that these local bottom up cells have the potential to get carried away, and without the top down checks and balances they can swing too far off center, infringe upon rights, and are susceptible to becoming a breeding ground for plutocracy and tyranny of the majority (which if you go back and read the thread I referred to, I made the argument that tyranny of the majority and plutocracy specifically were the root cause of issues like slavery, women's rights, and the genocide of the native Americans). So once again, you have complimentary strengths and weaknesses. Hence, you need the shade of grey to balance both out. Republicans are not anarcho libertarians. They are not in support of white or black, they are in support of a shade of grey. The ideal shade that Republicans and Democrats aim for are indeed a bit different. But there are some ways that Republicans want more federal control than Democrats, for instance in this very discussion we were talking about immigration. Republicans want more Federal power, i.e. more top down direction, on immigration than Democrats do. So this argument is not partisan at all, it is philosophical. Both sides have differing top down goals, but both still have top down goals none the less. I will also point out that I specifically stated that I do not know what the ideal shade of grey is. I also don't think anybody does. We are stuck doing the best we can with the limited information we have.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by sophie » Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:32 am

Sorry I really just can't read those walls of text. Can you be more succinct?
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:34 am

sophie wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:32 am
Sorry I really just can't read those walls of text. Can you be more succinct?
No. These things are extremely complicated. This is literally 400 level philosophy class material. There is no quick and easy cliff notes. You need to read and try to fully understand what I am saying. If you're unwilling to do that, then we cannot really have a discussion.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by doodle » Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:43 am

Basically as I understand it whether Republican or Democrat we are arguing over shades of grey. The correct balance of top down vs bottom up control..the details on how much individual vs collective. There are extreme voices (the loud and obnoxious minority) that drown out the middle of the road silent majority. Say...the communist workers party vs the anarcho capitalists. But that is not a realistic picture of the disagreement going on in this country. We are in many ways fighting world war 1 trench warfare...so much ammunition and bombs to gain 100 feet of territory.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by flyingpylon » Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:52 am

This thread seems to be missing something. A growing number of people have become dissatisfied with the status quo, specifically the inaction, poor decision-making, and misbehavior of the established ruling class regardless of party. Call them the establishment, the elites, the deep state, the swamp, or whatever you want. They are not working in the best interests of everyday Americans and people have had enough.

{ Trump references removed. 2 paragraphs }
- DS
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by pmward » Tue Nov 24, 2020 11:07 am

doodle wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:43 am
Basically as I understand it whether Republican or Democrat we are arguing over shades of grey. The correct balance of top down vs bottom up control..the details on how much individual vs collective. There are extreme voices (the loud and obnoxious minority) that drown out the middle of the road silent majority. Say...the communist workers party vs the anarcho capitalists. But that is not a realistic picture of the disagreement going on in this country. We are in many ways fighting world war 1 trench warfare...so much ammunition and bombs to gain 100 feet of territory.
Yep, this is it right here.
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Re: The New Republican Populism (personal Trump references not allowed)

Post by doodle » Tue Nov 24, 2020 11:08 am

flyingpylon wrote:
Tue Nov 24, 2020 10:52 am
This thread seems to be missing something. A growing number of people have become dissatisfied with the status quo, specifically the inaction, poor decision-making, and misbehavior of the established ruling class regardless of party. Call them the establishment, the elites, the deep state, the swamp, or whatever you want. They are not working in the best interests of everyday Americans and people have had enough.

{ Trump references removed. 2 paragraphs }
- DS

I agree in many ways.

They are not working in the best interests of everyday Americans and people have had enough.
Our political system has been taken over by big money interests. You aren't going to win an election taking 5 dollar donations from grandma.

However, just because you are able to identify a trend or a need doesn't make you suitable to lead that battle. The political discourse is so confused right now that I feel like common men are pitted against one another when in the end they are fighting for the same thing. It's a pretty typical tactic..divide and conquer.
Last edited by doodle on Tue Nov 24, 2020 11:13 am, edited 2 times in total.
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