Those are not the ones you are trying to have a dialogue with. Just like the rioters are not the ones we have to sit down with to discuss police reform.
I live rural. And yes I have a heck of a lot more tools than someone that lives in an urban area. But the rural people that I know, actually care about others. Doesn’t matter if you live in the city or not.
Trump supporters and Trump himself does not give a shit about anyone but themselves.
So we shouldn’t collectively try to help slow it down with new tech? Tech that will help everyone? Do you want coal mining back? Reduce emission controls? Disband the EPA?
“I don’t like how it’s worded so instead I’ll vote for the guy actively destroying everything in the most incompetent way possible”
A long post, and you make several points that I think are interesting and I would like to discuss further. In my opinion some of what you point out is contradictory, but I would still like to discuss your points further, if nothing else for my own enlightenment.
First, you mention that the ethos of rural life includes a strong pressure to conform to the community’s values. I agree that this is the case. You then state that you believe in Locke’s vision on the nature of man, that we are born as free individuals. You also seem to sate that you disagree with Rousseau and being born as a mass of humanity with obligations to the collective. Doesn’t this go against what you hold out as a virtue of rural life, with the pressure to conform to the community’s values? What about the gay person in rural Alabama? Should they be free to live their life freely, or should they have to conform to their communities values? Is it a matter of the gay person having to conform because the conformity is being enforced by the local Baptist pastor or Catholic priest rather than the POTUS?
With regards to class warfare, you mention government carving out a special place. You then cite Elon Musk as someone who you don’t envy, and state that he provided millions of people with electric cars and so on. A liberal, at least this liberal, claims that his employees had a significant part in that, and that Elon Musk isn’t personally on the assembly line making all those Teslas. In his case, he at least had a large part in creating all these systems. The connection gets more tenuous, however, with a lot of other wealthy capitalists. The majority stockholders of Ford or GM didn’t have any part at all in creating the systems that make their cars. The owners of Pfizer and Moderna didn’t have anything to do with the creation of their Covid-19 vaccines. The owners of McDonald’s aren’t flipping burgers at your local store, and so on. Why should the owners reap the vast majority of the wealth of these enterprises?
I don’t have any numbers but from what I’ve seen Trumpers are VERY likely to own a business – these are folks who have been mad at government and society for a long time. Owning their own small business is a way for them to avoid much of both. They run their pallet shop (or landscaping business), homeschool their kids, interact only with their fellow church members or others who think as they do.
It seems to me that this propaganda has become noticeable in the past 28 years or so. Before that, there was not the dehumanizing of everyone to the left of them. Could you imagine someone wearing, “I’d Rather Be a Russian than a Democrat” shirts at a republican rally 30 years ago?
What is different in the past 28 or so years that has facilitated this dehumanizing, and what, if anything, can be done to stop, moderate, or revert it to pre-demonizing times? Because it seems to me that we’re not going to get anywhere if republicans think everyone to the left are monsters, and it won’t stop as long as they are continually fed this attitude from social media, talking heads and even politicians.
Also, it’s pretty clear that democrats are getting tired of this treatment, are running out of patience, and are beginning to return the favor. You can’t have agreement when one side thinks the others are monsters. I’m not sure you can even have peace when both sides think the others are monsters.
Possibly by thinking about what Warnock actually said and realize it is only a threat to white supremacists who want America to continue worshipping whiteness in perpetuity
Yes, there are those on the far right who want to impose their religious law upon the rest of us. It is why they get so worked up about so called “sharia law” - they know that their judges have already set up the Christian equivalent in many rural counties, so from that perspective, I guess it makes sense that Muslim judges would be viewed as a threat. Projection once again.
Since democrats DID condemn it, it absolutely IS whacky and unreasonable, yes. Understanding that you have a problem is the first step towards a solution, so this is great progress! 
Not at all. Free association within a community by voluntary choice is not collectivism. In fact, social hierarchies are important to the functioning of a complex social system. There’s a difference between allowing individuals to thrive in the community of their choice, and believing that everyone is part of a collective they did not choose and for which they have responsibilities, and that the needs of the collective supercede the rights of the individual.
This even applies to things like Kibbutzes and Hutterite colonies. They may be rigidly structured and demand much of their members, but the members are free to leave at any time if they think they are not deriving personal value from it. These types of organizations work because they tend to have sizes of membership that fall below Dunbar’s number, which means self-regulation, reputation and personal knowledge of each person allows self-organization without regulation. Once you get to larger sizes of ‘community’, this type of collectivist enterprise breaks down. And the ability of people to leave if they don’t like it is critical, because people will not self-organize effectively unless it is voluntary.
Totally with you here. In fact, a neighbor a couple of farms over from us was an ex-Hutterite who left the colony and started a farm on his own. I suspect he was gay, as he never married. Again, he was free to leave the colony that wouldn’t accept him, and did. The rest of the community was also very religious (Mennonite), but they accepted him fine. Because no one asked him, and the stuff they cared about (hard work, keeping your word, showing up when you promise, etc) he was awesome at, and generally seen as an asset to everyone. I remember him being well-liked by all, but everyone was careful not to be too prying about his personal life…
But you make a good point. What should happen to people who do not fit in to a society or social group? I have personal experience with that, having been a smart-assed young athiest kid with long hair constantly asking uncomfortable questions in Church. We got a lot of sideways looks around town, and I knew I could never live in such a place. But we weren’t ostracised, and almost everyone we dealt with treated us kindly and fairly.
It sucks to live in a community that doesn’t accept you, but that’s why it’s critically important to allow a zone of privacy for people and to allow a social hierarchy. A gay person is free to leave a religious community and find a group they are more comfortable with. But in a ‘global world’ mass of collective humanity model, where does someone go if they don’t fit in with the tribe? This is why ‘de-platforming’ is so dangerous: It’s global. It used to be that a young person with the ‘wrong’ beliefs might need to leave town to find a better life. Where does someone go who has been ‘outed’ as undesirable at a national level and ostracized from participation? What happens to the conservative who gets fired for having the ‘wrong’ views and can’t find work anywhere because of it?
Federalism is one answer - whenever possible, state law is better than federal law, because people have more freedom to leave states with bad laws than they do with countries. Likewise, I will tolerate more and more intrusion by government the closer government is to me. My neighborhood has more rules for me to live by than does the city, which in turn has more rules than does my province, and the province has more than the federal government. This type of hierarchical arrangement allows people to find the community and set of rules they can most thrive under. The places with the most detailed rules are the easiest to leave if you don’t like it. Making everything a federal (or global) response strips people of the ability to flee systems they don’t want to live under.
That’s irrelevant. The Teslas would not exist were it not for Elon Musk. More importantly, they wouldn’t exist if we taxed billionaires for most of their wealth. Elon took the risks, put up his own money, had the vision, endured the setbacks (at one point he was flat broke living in an apartment, and if the next Falcon 1 rocket failed, he was done for).
Of course Elon needs workers. And he has to pay them a fair wage to work for him. Again, he couldn’t get the workers without the workers thinking they are better off working for him. Competition means he has to pay them not what he wants, but what the market dictates.
Workers get paid whether or not the product they are making is a success. They get steady pay and low financial risk in return for their labor. The capitalist provides capital investment that magnifies the value of the laborer, which gives the laborer more money. Win-Win. And in a free society, if you don’t like being a worker you can open your own business and try to make a go of it. I’ve done both, and they are very different things.
If you want to give workers a share of the profits of capitalism, it seems only fair that they also share the risk. And many workers have such arrangements, where a good chunk of their pay comes in the form of performance bonuses. I’ve been in such a job. It’s great when you get the bonus, but it really sucks when you work your ass off but lose $20,000 because an executive made a stupid decision and tanked a product or ruined a project. It seems that most people would rather have a steady paycheck and not worry about whether the corporation they work for makes good choices or not, because most people choose to work for flat salaries or hourly pay.
If workers really wanted such an arrangement, the employment system would evolve to support it. But for most people, financial stability is critical, and they don’t want jobs that pay them varying amounts based on factors outside of their control.
Because they put up the wealth that makes it work. Capitalism requires capital. All those investors who simply put up money also take the risk that they will lose all their money. Also, it is very much a skill to know WHERE to invest your money, and people who are good at it are a benefit to society because they ensure that capital goes to high-value uses. If they are bad at it, they lose their money to someone else better.
Of course the usual caveats apply. There is far too much cronyism in large business, to much special pleading for government favors, etc. When you came back to Musk I thought you were going to criticise the subsidy for electric cars which gave Elon an advantage over traditional car makers. That’s true, and I opposed such subsidies.
The real problem today is not capitalism - it is the marriage of capitalism and governments, and the revolving door and incestuous relationship between the two. Unfortunately, if you want big government within a capitalist system, that’s what’s going to happen.
One billion percent this.
He literally said America needs to repent for worshipping whiteness whatever that means. I have two white children. How am I to interpret that other than my white children are bad and need to be dragged down a peg or two, you tell me. In what form does America need to repent? And if I’m an American voter that happens to be white, what is the message he is conveying that tells me I need to vote for this guy?
Thank you for your responses, they are actually quite enlightening. I’m responding to what you say about capitalism, and am still organizing my thoughts on the other topics.
In Musk’s case, as you mention, he was actually taking a risk that may have not payed off. That’s why I noted the others as, in my opinion, being worse. In theory, as you say, the people putting up big money are taking the risk that their investment won’t work out. In practice, the wealthy have a heads I win tails you lose system. The well connected wealthy people will do well no matter what, with the “too big to fail” companies being the best examples. The top level executives seem to also live by that arrangement. If the company does well they get their huge salary and stock options. When the company does poorly they get a golden parachute and maybe one or two slightly disapproving articles get written about them in the press. Then they get to sit on the board of some other company and collect a paycheck doing that. The way the system works in practice just doesn’t seem fair, at least in my opinion.
Ah jeez, this so tedious. If you aren’t a white supremacist nor a WS enabler, then you are fine. If you have the ability to vote for/against one that advocates such WS positions, repent by voting them out.
Yeah? But how is it not black supremacist in nature?
You’ve got to love how ideas like “black lives matter” or “maybe we shouldn’t elevate whites far above everyone else in this country” are apparently controversial and “black supremacist”. I sure am glad we are making this attempt to “see the other side”.
The statement is “repent for worshipping whiteness.” Which part of that is a threat to your children or reflects black supremacism?
The worship of whiteness is one of the fundamental societal crimes of our culture. It has justified tremendous cruelty and ongoing discrimination.
You should teach your white children to reject worship of whiteness. Why wouldn’t you do that even without being told by this particular person?
More tedium.
Teach your white children that they should not look down their noses at other colored people because they themselves are white. That is it.