The decline of the United States

General Discussion
21

Vince, my comments relate to the topic, “The decline of the United States”, because I see T rump’s “leadership” as a catalyst and a clear conduit to our country’s decline.

I have no intention of driving you away from this forum. I am driven to confront BS. So the broad strains of BS ideas that you espouse, are just red meat, to me. They motivate me to respond. That is not to say that ALL of your expressed ideas are BS. And I like that, too. Because I love truth. (And you express your views with basic relative clarity, which is a plus on this forum. Tho I think your last post is too long.) So recognize that I am not attempting to be abusive to you, but I do really like abusing some of the BS ideas, that you hold and espouse, because they are not truth.

I appreciate your decision to stop swift boating Biden with the “dementia accusations”.

Above, you said, “Humanity must act decisively to prevent what could be a climate collapse.” Now that is truth. You also said, " If we’re going to pick which “ism” is going to result in “The End of History” I would say that it will be denialism." If by that, you are referring to the denial of things like AGW, evolution, facts in general, etc., then that also sounds true to me.

But I don’t quite see how your long diatribe about oil, and natural gas, Russia, Ukraine, and US marketing of these fossil fuels, fits in to your “ultimate conclusion” that “Humanity must act decisively to prevent what could be a climate collapse.” (Is it relevent to your argument that US shale oil costs $39 a barrel to produce, when the current world price of oil is closer to $20 a barrel? It would seem that our shale oil production must shut down, until the price goes back up.)

Also, I confront your rhetorical BS question, where you ask, “So what was Joe Biden and his dipshit son doing mucking around in energy speculation in Ukraine?” Either show your evidence for this or admit your own partisan acceptance of Republican and Trumpublican efforts to relentlessly tag Biden as corrupt, when the T rump administration is BY FAR the most corrupt administration in modern days.

 

22

Now the most widely accepted (among many) BS idea that you spread, is that democracy is not possible in our current political system and that the 2 major parties are equally under the influence of wealthy interests and the fossil fuels industry.

Here is the kernel of truth in that BS. In a democracy, there tends to be various factions of influence. With our right wing biased Supreme Court, having mandated that “corporations are people and money is speech”, our democracy is way disproportionately effected by moneyed interests. That is true. It is NOT TRUE that either party is equally going to be a pawn of the moneyed interests.

If you let a Republican or T rump remain in power, the “Citizen’s United” SCOTUS decision will remain in effect for generations. THAT WILL HAPPEN. Even one single more right wing Justice in the Supreme Court will almost certainly insure that. Hope is almost gone, already, because of T rump’s Court picks, so far.

But hope is not gone. Democracy is not a perfect system, just the best we’ve got. Every interest group and voting block and individual will not get their way in a democracy. That is the nature of it. We can seek to do better. We can seek to radically do better, yes, until there is only a choice of doing better, but not radically so. At that point, the choice is do better and keep trying to do radically better, next time you can.

Seriously, if you pay attention to what the Dems have done, even recently, legislatively, and what they sometimes prevent the Repugs from doing in terms of supporting the wealthy and corporate interests , you could clearly see that the 2 parties are not equal in intention or effect.

 

23
In a way my vote for a presidential candidate is of no consequence.
Yeah, but on the other hand - voting is the only time your* opinion actually matters.

 

*as in the vast majority of us.

24
If you let a Republican or T rump remain in power, the “Citizen’s United” SCOTUS decision will remain in effect for generations. THAT WILL HAPPEN.
There are other alternatives. Top heavy, disconnected, dishonest, self-serving, incompetent governments are known to collapse.

 

just musing, . . . over my hot milk, … somehow the beer used to be more fun, … but hey, gotta respect the decline. :wink:

Night, night.

25

Tim:

I quickly scanned about two months of your posts. Many forums provide a filter to enable that, but I’ve seldom if ever used them, because in some way it made me feel sneaky or devious. I mostly wanted to find out if you were overly focused on politics, and maybe then be able to determine which flavor of partisan you might be. What I discovered in the process is how similar many our political opinions and conclusions are. I only expanded about three of them; you do speak plainly and directly, and the first few lines for each entry usually made your point(s). Read the post where you stated your educational and professional credentials. You are much better educated than I am. Though I attended OSU I didn’t graduate, but did complete all the calculus, analytical geom. and trig, statistical analysis (for science, tech & engineers,) and all of the required surveying courses. What I learned, I learned well, it gave me a solid scientific foundation, put me miles ahead of those of my age also going for their prof. license (BS not required then, or even now,) and prepared me for the digital revolution that transformed my profession in advance of it sweeping over everything else.

My conclusion that US democracy has failed along a predictable course is not BS, it’s valid. I didn’t say democracy was impossible, only that it has failed. The midterms of ’06 were a turning point for me; the Democratic Party was given an electoral mandate to change the course of US policy and action (the war) and they didn’t even try. I didn’t say there weren’t still differences between Party objectives, but it seems too much a matter of degree and too little a difference in kind. Obama continued the trajectory of expanding executive power, and then along comes Trump. Democrats continue to endorse expanding military and “intelligence” budgets and compromising away what is left of the social safety net.

I brought up the AUMF because it was a critical turning point. If ever we needed our elected representatives to make the correct choice, we needed it then. I understood perfectly that GWB was explaining a commitment to many decades of war; I understood that it was likely to cause a (Iraqi) civil war, the destabilization moving outward, and an increase not a decrease in Islamic jihad; I knew that Sadam was a megalomaniac and no friend of al Qaeda. I could go on, but the point is, if I understood those things, why didn’t the political class, fond as they are of telling us “We know better” than the rest of you? And Joe Biden was instrumental in marshaling Democratic “yeas “ and limiting testimony before the Senate by those that that would bring messages of “Here’s why we shouldn’t.” He is all over the public record in his support of that decision, even after the consequences emerged of why we shouldn’t have. I’m not wanting him to make a down-on-his-knees apology for that decision; I can’t trust someone who made such a bad decision at such a critical moment, and really has no defensible excuse for not doing better. He performed the same erroneous function wrt Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas.

But I suspect you’re getting impatient about now, because I haven’t addressed my own seemingly indefensible intent of not voting against Trump. And perhaps it is an indefensible position because Trump is truly dangerous. Maybe I’m just too proud to admit that I could be so petty to say no because of sour grapes- my guy didn’t win. And I knew it was a pretty unctuous cop-out about my inconsequential vote, but it’s true, you know, or hey! maybe Ohio will surprise me, but I don’t think so. In the very longshot chance that it might, I should probably cast a vote for Biden if he’s the one. It is the only logical thing to do. (Our Governor DeWine(R) has acted decisively and didn’t wait to be told the correct things to do while others dithered; my admiration and respect for him has increased, but he will not be badgered into not giving the obligatory praise to his party’s leader.)

The pandemic is a game-changer though, and it is impossible to say who will ultimately benefit electorally. Despite Trump’s incompetent but predictable response his approval is at an all-time high. Go figure. As a behavioral psychologist you probably already have; it is a natural human behavioral response to close ranks behind authority in time of crisis or danger. (An aside: in normal times drivers around here are typically rude, impatient, and scoff-law. In the immediate two weeks following 9/11 everyone around here at least became an instant model driver, and damn if all those turn signals weren’t broken after all. And it seemed like all vehicles had been retrofitted with governors. I don’t read behavioral psychology periodicals and never saw this very obvious collective behavioral shift talked about. I expected something to be in Scientific American or Skeptical Inquirer, but I don’t recall that there was anything.)

I apologize for the length of that previous comment (Ukraine,) but I thought this one was necessary especially since by my reading we really do share many if not most of the same political beliefs and conclusions. The earlier one I should have stopped after the sixth paragraph, the remainder I thought I knew where I was going but got lost. If you’re not familiar with the study by Gilens and Page, I hope you would read it, draw your own conclusions and offer your own critique.

I’m puzzled though, since you seem so well-read and well informed that the reference to “The End of History” didn’t seem to elicit a response of recognition. It was a sort of play on words referencing Francis Fukuyama’s book of 1992 “The End of History and the Last Man.” Your remarks concerning pragmatic versus aspirational political effort would seem to be in agreement with much of Fukuyama’s thesis. The un-named isms I had in mind were capitalism v socialism: though FF’s book was mainly concerning the inevitability of liberal democracy, he seemed not to imagine it without the engine of capitalism.

I’ve spent some time trying to get this response right, and I’ve taken some more of your time if you read it. Now I have to go do those things I should have been doing, and probably won’t be back here for a while. Composed it on Word, so I hope copying and pasting it to the forum doesn’t get it tagged as spam.

26

When the Gilen’s and Page study 1st came out, I was freaked out, upset, drained of hope for our political system, and was becoming apathetic because of it. Over the years, as I actually looked into the study instead of just accepting over-generalized conclusions, I recognized that these conclusions were overblown. e.g., Here is one article that has some refutations to the idea that the study proved we are an oligarchy. https://www.vox.com/2016/5/9/11502464/gilens-page-oligarchy-study

You seem quite intelligent, so I imagine there was some reason other than your intellect that lead to you not completing your undergrad degree.

I think your explanation as to why most Americans approve T rump’s atrocious handling of the pandemic, is as good as any.

I was not familiar with Fukuyama’s book. (I am not so much well-read as well scanned. But I don’t recall scanning that one.)

 

27

Just had to come back to see if you replied. When I have the time I’ll follow that link. By all the tests my intelligence is in the upper percentiles, but I am not an organized individual, never acquired good study habits, and to a certain extent was obsessive/compulsive - I’d try to get something “perfect” while everything else was going to hell.

Composed another lengthy comment full of personal biographical info, but that had nothing to do with where this thread began, so I deep-sixed it.

I haven’t actually read Fukuyama’s book either, but first encountered a discussion of it near the end of a book my brother recommended to me - A Theory of Everything - by Ken Wilbur. That latter book at first I wasn’t sure what to make of it, seemed suspiciously “new-agey” but I persisted and Wilbur proposed a system of assessing the historical progression of not only intellectual , but emotional, moral, and ethical intelligence, that if nothing else, seemed helpful sometimes in understanding the dogged persistence of our political and ideological polarization. Since then I’ve seen Fukuyama’s thesis discussed by many, and in many different contexts, and it remains relevant today.

28

Well great. But I won’t believe that liberalism has taken over until I see it. But IF liberalism did take over, why would that be “The End of History”? (Maybe because it is a good title to sell books?)

29

Still, that Lee Jones article made a lot of cogent points.

30
Well great. But I won’t believe that liberalism has taken over until I see it. But IF liberalism did take over, why would that be “The End of History”? (Maybe because it is a good title to sell books?)
Here is the short answer to Fukuyama's theory:
Francis Fukuyama, an acclaimed American political philosopher, entered the global imagination at the end of the Cold War when he prophesied the "end of history" — a belief that, after the fall of communism, free-market liberal democracy had won out and would become the world's "final form of human government." Now, at a moment when liberal democracy seems to be in crisis across the West, Fukuyama, too, wonders about its future. "Twenty five years ago, I didn't have a sense or a theory about how democracies can go backward," said Fukuyama in a phone interview. "And I think they clearly can."
31

Well, there you go. Fukuyama admits that his idea from 25 years ago is obsolete.

32

Well, Fukuyama is hardly a “pundit,” but is a serious practitioner in his field. Many serious and honest persons though often reach erroneous conclusions. Pinker, in his latest, travels in that same direction. When I believed I understood FF’s thesis well enough, I too rejected his conclusions, and long before the '08 collapse and of course before our current global trial by disease.

Why is US global leadership declining? In the document of 2000 produced by PNAC Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Defenses the authors prefaced their prescriptions and remedies with much talk of promoting and spreading “American ideals, beliefs, and way of life.” Whereas Fukuyama perceived the final and permanent ascent of liberal democracy as a natural and inevitable end to that aspect of human history, that portion of our ruling class - the militarists - were determined to make it so through the application of an iron fist. “To the REAR - CHARGE!”

33

Many here are probably familiar with an often repeated quote from JFK: “Those that make peaceful change impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.” What many may not be aware of though is the context in which he made that remark. It was not made from a podium in front of a political rally, exhorting the faithful to listen to the voices of the angels of their better nature. Rather, it was part of a prepared address to a conference of wealthy and powerful Central and South American business leaders, and it was a warning, not an exhortation.

What I found so interesting about that though is that even as he spoke those words, the US military and CIA were actively prosecuting several “counter-revolutionary” campaigns in Central and South America.

34
Well, Fukuyama is hardly a “pundit,” but is a serious practitioner in his field. Many serious and honest persons though often reach erroneous conclusions. Pinker, in his latest, travels in that same direction. When I believed I understood FF’s thesis well enough, I too rejected his conclusions, and long before the ’08 collapse and of course before our current global trial by disease.
You can be a serious scholar and a pundit. I think it tends to come with the territory for a lot of experts.

Many people like Fukuyama seem to write books and try to spread their message because of the think tanks they’re associated with.

Why is US global leadership declining? In the document of 2000 produced by PNAC Strategies for Rebuilding America’s Defenses the authors prefaced their prescriptions and remedies with much talk of promoting and spreading “American ideals, beliefs, and way of life.” Whereas Fukuyama perceived the final and permanent ascent of liberal democracy as a natural and inevitable end to that aspect of human history, that portion of our ruling class – the militarists – were determined to make it so through the application of an iron fist. “To the REAR – CHARGE!”
US "leadership" is declining because the world we used to dominate barely exists anymore.
35

Well, with T rump in charge, the world in which we were considered the “leader of the Free World” is definitely gone. But this is to a LARGE extent, because of T rump’s campaign meme of “America First” and because of T rump’s defective character as he pretends to be a “leader”.