Generational Dynamics World View News

[Navigator]

Minority rule. Between gerrymandering, the filibuster, refusing to schedule Supreme Court hearings and other tricks, the wheels of government are not in the hands of voters. Large campaign fund contributors get more control than the voters. But suddenly, the people want certain popular bills passed and find they can only get it by bypassing the tricks. The tricks are apt to get trampled. A few more votes in the senate and the filibuster is gone, voting rights bills get passed, and...

Both sides engage in gerrymandering and filibusters. Both sides have done what they can to impede the confirmation of Supreme Court justices they don't like. We have problems both with large campaign contributors and with a press that is now more about advocacy than anything else and true investigative reporting is almost dead.

Only a minority of people are behind almost any bills. I would guess that whatever you are referring to, less than 50% of people want it passed.

[Navigator]

From my S&H perspective I see in the crisis that the major problems are solved. The conservative faction that wishes the established habitual problems to get continued gets rolled over by a progressive population that thinks the problems have existed long enough. Flattened. Crushed. Sorry, but that is the pattern you come to expect.

I don't see conservatives wanting problems to continue any more than liberals do. There are two sides and both seem to have power on and off. The system is still working as designed.

Congress isn't going to "solve" anything at this point. Any real solutions will involve pain. And we will have to be in a painful period that is forced on us for anything to change.

[Navigator]

I also would have you remember that the life savings of lots of people got wiped out by the stock market crash. Social Security was necessary if a large part of the population were to have anything. You can claim it wound up as a Ponzi scheme. You can wish FDR could have come up with something else. What else? If the existing scheme is wrong, what else would have got it done?

The only truly viable solution for Social Security was to mandate retirement savings. You could for example, by law, have required people to buy treasury bonds with a certain percentage of their income (instead of it going into SocSec taxes). Then they could use their own savings for retirement.

Those that are infirm or physically/mentally are incapable of work would have to be covered by a governmental safety net. But these are a small minority compared to the work force.

Those who were wiped out by the Great Depression were mostly made whole during WW2 by the massive savings rate of that period.

Still, some kind of governmental safety net could have been set up while the mandatory savings program was getting into swing. But it would have been TEMPORARY, and could have been phased out by 1960 or so. It would NOT have turned into the ungodly nightmare that Social Security has become.

This whole idea of taxing/borrowing, and allowing the government to decide who gets what is FUNDAMENTALLY FLAWED. It has, as we are all about to experience, crippled us economically. It has corrupted government at every level, and has led to a serious undermining of society at large.

[Navigator]

I am aware that a prejudiced police union is a problem in Chicago. As they are not being allowed to abuse their power they are refusing to serve. Blaming this on some liberal policy is creative. Not every city has the same mix of problems. I was just indicating the the problems with Cubans meshed well with other immigrants who are biased against when they first come. Blacks? They have been here for a long time and still are biased against. You cannot attribute the worst examples of the most criminal few to an entire culture and population. You need to address the problems of crime and justice, not imagine entire cultures to blame.

Are you saying the crime problem in Chicago is because the police aren't allowed to be abusive? That's what the above looks like. Which is a rather extreme and I would say incorrect conclusion based on your personal opinions rather than any kind of evidence.

However, I do agree that there are serious problems with policing in the USA. And yes, police judging people by their appearance is a BIG problem. I have posted about that at length in the past.

In all the big cities, those in political power seem to have decided to actually ALLOW crime to go on, as they seem to think that this will make them more popular with their voting base. This is how big cities will become like Detroit. People who pay taxes will flee, and then the city can't afford anything and implodes. But the politicians in charge will continue to collect their salaries (plus campaign contributions) until the end, not doing a thing about it, as the people voting for them don't want them to.

[Navigator]

On the other hand, the progressive side is looking for justice against the insurgents, passing voting rights legislation, fighting inflation, securing people the right to control their own bodies, etc… The conservatives are by voting as a block fighting everything that the progressives are trying to do, no matter how popular. To get anywhere, the Republicans must learn to help the people rather than fight the Democrats. The government should return to doing the best for the voters rather than winning a partisan squabble. As is, only the Democrats have figured it out. McConnell voting the Republicans as a block against Obama might have seemed like a win, but all he did was turn the Republican voters against the establishment Republicans. He enabled Trump, which could yet destroy for a time the conservatives.

I am glad that liberals want justice against insurgents.

I am not for the current voting legislation, as it has more to do with eliminating verification than anything else. I completely fail to understand how requiring having a valid ID is "suppressing" the vote. I think its only logical to require an ID so that someone doesn't vote twice. Which is what I think the proponents of this legislation want to happen.

It is a bad joke that "liberals want to fight inflation" as their ideas on government spending created it in the first place. It is a shame to conservatives that they have also engaged in massive government deficit spending. The economic mess of government debt issuance/money creation is now unsolvable.

" securing people the right to control their own bodies". Well, they have the right to not have unprotected sex. That is how you control your body. You decide to engage in sex, you need to be prepared for the potential result. What about destroying the body of someone else. That's murder. You don't get to kill someone else because that isn't the "result" you wanted.

I think the Right is doing its proper job in impeding the Left. The Democrats haven't figured anything out except how to increase handouts in every shape and form. They are much more responsible for the current mess than the Republicans.

[Bob Butler]

Briefly answering a bunch of Navigator’s points.

You seem to be opposing democracy. Up to half the people can oppose something that the people want. If most of a sanctuary city wants to help, they do. If a minority would prefer that the help not be given, that is a problem with how democracy works. You can’t have a minority vetoing what the people want.

Right now the Democrats are pursuing the popular vote and the Republicans are gerrymandering and filibustering. The shoe has been on the other foot at times. Regardless, I would prefer the practices stopped. The crisis is the time to do it. The Republicans have become so addicted to the practices that they will force the Democrats to do the stopping.

If you don’t see conservatives resisting change and progressives seeking progress you aren’t looking very hard. I’ve gone through the big problems in prior crises often enough: noble privilege, colonial imperialism, slavery, government regulation of the economy, containing autocratic government, criminals in chief, prejudice, use of the law to oppress minorities. In the crisis the progressives get sick of the long extant flaws and force change. In the other three turnings? Not so much. But if you can’t see the conservative factions resisting changes to traditional wrongs, you should look a little harder.

The problems of prejudice manifest and are fought in various ways in various cities. We had the problems of bussing in Boston. Miami centers more on Cuba than most cities. In Chicago fighting crime by attacking minorities without due process became part of the police culture. Ending prejudice is a long hard road travelled differently in different places. While the police are our primary mechanism for implementing justice, they are also part of the prejudice problem. Hopefully, seeing the racists attacking the police on January 6th will change their perspective somewhat. I agree that there is a problem, but the elected officials are often trying to do what is necessary and right for those that elected them. Yes, the police problems in Chicago, Milwaukee and elsewhere can involve elected good guys and police bad guys. The elected officials that provided Flint Michigan’s water and Texas’s electricity might be praised less. At best, democracy is messy. As Churchill suggested, democracy is the worst possible form of government possible, except every other system that has been tried. If cultures worldwide are choosing to imitate the West, they should note we have not got all the kinks out yet.

If the government had believed in regulating the economy during the Gilded Age, perhaps some of your preferred alternatives to Social Security would have happened. The problem was suddenly starting correcting things in the middle of the Great Depressions’s lack of funding. FDR had to borrow against the future. Sure, with 20 20 hindsight it would have been better to slowly solve the crisis problems before they become a crisis, or count on war profits from a conflict that hadn’t happened yet. Seeing the future would be an improvement on hindsight. Things come to a head periodically after being put off too long. The S&H cycles exist. There are consequences. The question is not what happened back then, but how to deal with the results now.

In the S&H high and awakening we did tax and spend liberalism. In the unravelling and early crisis we did small government. I suspect we’ll never get it quite right and will have to deal with overshoot in both directions. After years of small government and sending jobs abroad, it is time to change course.

[Cool Breeze]

Black Lives Matter. There was a practice of applying improperly the mechanisms of justice against minorities. Justice should be equal.

Agreed. Also agree with John's recent post. I have previously voiced extreme disdain and concern regarding comments people make on the board concerning different ethnicities.

All you can tell about a person by looking at them is what they look like. That's it. Judgements based on appearance are fundamentally flawed. Every person deserves to be judged as in individual based on their actions.

I treat individuals individually, but I'm no dummy, I know there is a probability that certain traits go with certain phenotypes that also largely have the same "culture" and that these are also chicken and egg. The larger issue is that all I hear about is group this, group that but when it comes to the most violent groups, all of a sudden the data (as acquired by the FBI) doesn't matter, and we're only supposed to talk about "individuals" otherwise you are a "bigot."

You can't have it both ways. The people that don't want us to talk about characteristics of groups make general statements about whites, their "privilege" and other group lies. And to answer the question I asked before, all blacks would rather lives with whites or asians, if they could. Duh

But they aren't "racist." LOL, everything these collectivist degenerates talk about is a lie.

[Bob Butler]

I remember one experience at work. One of our system guys was former military, a black guy who was involved in the acquisition process when he was in the army and again with us. He was the systems guy for the project, knowing precisely what our project was required to do. One time the army acquisition officer made a really bad assumption and decision. This set our guy off.

There is an odd part of the military culture. So long as you begin and end your rant with the word sir, you can be as blunt and direct as you need to be. I imagine you had best be right. But at any rate, he went at the white officer as vehemently as you can get, and those witnesses who had not been in the military were aghast. By civilian standards, you do not do that with a customer. But seemingly when a superior officer is being an idiot, it gets urgent at times to avoid a mistake.

Our guy was acting the military culture, not the ghetto culture. The moral? Looking at a guy, you can assume a culture and easily be dead wrong. Oh, yes. He made his point and we completed the job.

[Guest]

Black Lives Matter. There was a practice of applying improperly the mechanisms of justice against minorities. Justice should be equal.

Agreed. Also agree with John's recent post. I have previously voiced extreme disdain and concern regarding comments people make on the board concerning different ethnicities.

All you can tell about a person by looking at them is what they look like. That's it. Judgements based on appearance are fundamentally flawed. Every person deserves to be judged as in individual based on their actions.

I treat individuals individually, but I'm no dummy, I know there is a probability that certain traits go with certain phenotypes that also largely have the same "culture" and that these are also chicken and egg. The larger issue is that all I hear about is group this, group that but when it comes to the most violent groups, all of a sudden the data (as acquired by the FBI) doesn't matter, and we're only supposed to talk about "individuals" otherwise you are a "bigot."

You can't have it both ways. The people that don't want us to talk about characteristics of groups make general statements about whites, their "privilege" and other group lies. And to answer the question I asked before, all blacks would rather lives with whites or asians, if they could. Duh

But they aren't "racist." LOL, everything these collectivist degenerates talk about is a lie.

But it is ok, even encouraged, for POCs to denigrate whites, especially white men as racists and Nazis. The hypocrisy of the POCs has reached epic levels. The road to genocide is clear here.

[Tom Mazanec]

Belarus begins military exercise on Poland border – and just 20 miles from Ukraine - to rehearse 'liberating territory' and regaining control over border regions
By RACHAEL BUNYAN FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 03:13 EDT, 8 September 2022 | UPDATED: 09:01 EDT, 8 September 2022
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... itory.html

US Doing A Europe To Asia; Wants ‘Asian Allies’ To Raise Their Defense Budgets To Counter China But Does Not Do Much For Indo Pacific Command
EXPERT REVIEWS
By
Prakash Nanda
September 8, 2022
https://eurasiantimes.com/us-doing-a-eu ... r-defense/

Ukraine's Top General Doesn't Rule Out "Limited" Nuclear War
BY TYLER DURDEN
SATURDAY, SEP 10, 2022 - 07:11 AM
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/ ... uclear-war

Super Success In Ukraine, China Unveils Its Own Switchblade-Like Kamikaze Drone In Live Fire Drills
By
Sakshi Tiwari
September 10, 2022
https://eurasiantimes.com/china-unveils ... aze-drone/

Is A US Civil War On The Horizon?
BY TYLER DURDEN
FRIDAY, SEP 09, 2022 - 10:40 PM
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/us- ... ar-horizon

EUROPE POLITICS
Washington hits back at ‘desperate’ Putin after he slammed U.S. ‘dictatorship’
PUBLISHED THU, SEP 8 20224:30 AM EDTUPDATED THU, SEP 8 20228:55 PM EDT
Holly Ellyatt
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/08/us-reac ... ship-.html

Ukraine launches surprise counterattacks against Russian troops while they’re distracted in the south
PUBLISHED THU, SEP 8 202210:19 AM EDTUPDATED FRI, SEP 9 20228:40 PM EDT
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/09/08/ukraine ... south.html

US: Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians forced to Russia
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press - Wednesday
https://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/us ... r-AA11AdFk

A Russian soldier speaks out: ‘The people are afraid’
BY ALEXANDER J. MOTYL, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR - 09/08/22 7:00 AM ET
https://thehill.com/opinion/internation ... re-afraid/

"A Dangerous Escalation": Majority Of Americans Think Biden Speech Was "Designed To Incite Conflict"
BY TYLER DURDEN
WEDNESDAY, SEP 07, 2022 - 05:35 AM
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dan ... e-conflict