1) Palestine's sovereignty. I guess Democrats are pro-Palestine, but I don't know if it is an important matter amongst the voters — javi2541997

I think Palestinian sovereignty is the right thing, but it is a fraught issue here in the US and it's not clear to me who it helps. Both Jewish and Arabic voters tend to vote Democratic. One or the other is going to be pissed off no matter what you do. — T Clark

It's no secret that the Israel lobby holds great sway over American politics, and the lobby must have been on the side of the Republicans, since the Democrats have been trying to put pressure on Israel whereas the Republicans have expressed support.

The Israel lobby represents a diverse collection of special interests, and their influence extends to far more demographic fields than just American Jews.

As the situation in the Middle-East worsens, which is likely to happen under Trump, the lobby will ramp up their efforts to secure support from the US government.

With Israel on the cusp of regional war, in my opinion it is almost unthinkable that an American president is elected who is critical of Israel in any meaningful way.

With Israel on the cusp of regional war, in my opinion it is almost unthinkable that an American president is elected who is critical of Israel in any meaningful way. — Tzeentch

I agree. Yet I was wondering whether it is important to them for foreign policy affairs or not. Jewish lobbies are important on a national level, but I asked if someone also cared about what happens far beyond their frontiers. I used the example of Palestine because it seems that this is part of the 'woke culture' and Democrats might not feel comfortable talking that much about this problem. It is more clearer in Europe, apart from those who are blind to the situation.

The same happens regarding their relationship towards the European Union—or just Europe, I know you are not very fond of this institution—and the UK. Because these are the Western world as we know it, and I guess American voters also vote driven by how the USA would behave in that context or political arena.

I like Sanders and I like a lot of his policies. You and I just disagree about what policy approach is the right one given political conditions in the US now. — T Clark

Did you check the video? I'm not really arguing out of what I would like to see, but it seems that this is what the people want to see. The most supported candidate among the people were Sanders, he's able to talk to the people, not stand there and "pretend to be human" which other candidates do like if they were aliens who landed and tried to "speak human".

Policies doesn't really matter, it's how the politics are communicated to the people. Democrats don't understand how to do that and get lost in how to talk to people.

Like when Sanders talked to the Fox news crowd, he didn't shout complex policies in their faces, he asked them what they wanted, then gave them answers to it. Easily understandable answers that were basically much more left than what democrats offer today, but when it came in the context of the audience's worries and wants, they understood them rather than giving a knee jerk reaction.

The fundamental problem in the US is that no center or right wing policies will fix the actual problems that the US is facing. The economic inequality is increasing and people are getting poorer and more uneducated while working conditions destroy people. It's a death spiral that needs fixing, otherwise the US will become adjacent to a third world nation featuring a rich elite and a majority of poor people. It can be spotted in things like height.

While it's tempting to promote the same old tactics of promoting the free market to adjust this themselves, it doesn't happen. It's not how such problems are fixed. And it's easily to communicate this to the people as it's their own situation that's talked about.

The core problem for democrats is that rather than promoting a political stance, they're just trying to sound like the "good guys". But that doesn't help when there's nothing tangible for people to hang onto. It's very telling when the rightwing conservatives talk a lot of nonsense, but people listen to that because "at least they want something".

Like, are people so starved for a direction in politics that "whatever direction" is the most popular choice?

It's actually a trend among the more left leaning politics of the world that they mostly try to cater to right-wing ideas in order to win votes. They've been so focused on trying to "gain back votes" that they've forgot what actually gave them votes in the first place.

The most telling is that throughout the western democracies, the working class and the poor has always been supporting the left because they were on their side. But today, these people vote for the right, without the right having any actual tangible solutions for them. Where's the actual politics for the working class? For fighting actual economic inequality?

The left of the western world seems to have become rich posers who're basically the same as hipsters who try to look like they're hard working poor people in clothing and lifestyles, but are in fact rich upper class. The left has become a form of comic con for the working class, pretending to be on their side without ever being it. Using progressive politics as a form of lifestyle aura in order to look like they care for the struggling people. It doesn't work, clearly.

The left of the world need to find their roots. We live in a time in which actual left politics are needed, in which the working class is screaming for solutions. But the left are too afraid to get their hands actually dirty.

So what if you lose votes on the right? They don't matter if you lose a larger hand on the left because you left them in the dirt.

1. Inalienable rights—e.g., the right to life, liberty, and property. Everyone has certain rights because their nature is such that they are a person.

2. Freedom of religion. Everyone should be able to follow their own notion of what is good, as long as it doesn’t impinge on other peoples’ rights.

3. Freedom of speech and press.

4. The right to not be unreasonably searched.

5. The right to not self-incriminate.

6. The right to bear arms.

Etc.

Liberals are moving away from these core values in the name of social justice. — Bob Ross

Do you mean liberals or left-wing politics? Because left-leaning politics have nothing to do with it. Just look at Scandinavia:

1. How does that come in conflict with anything in left politics? What type of liberties do places like Scandinavia not have for instance? Because we have all of those liberties.

2. This is also not coming into conflict with actual left politics. It's true for places like Scandinavia as well.

3. If we're looking at actual statistics of this, Scandinavia ranks higher than the US, so it's not the political leaning that's preventing this.

4. This right is better followed in Scandinavia than in the US.

5. Not a problem in Scandinavia.

6. This one is the only thing that differs, because it actually has nothing to do with human rights, it's a constitutional law based on types of weapons that aren't remotely alike what exists today. The problem with this is that the research is clear on the connection between amount and availability of firearms and deadly violence. That if reduced, deadly violence is also reduced. To put into perspective, if you flip this and instead say "the right to not be a victim of gun violence", which is more akin to an actual citizen right as a protection, then such a right is fundamentally broken by the status of deadly gun violence in the US. The sixth amendment does not correlate with fundamental human rights or values of liberty, it's a made up concept of liberty that no other nation with similar values of liberty shares. The arguments for it are arbitrary and does not have a fundamental impact on the freedom of the people. The only notion of freedom it is connected to is within the context of civil war and uprising, so at its core, the importance of it is only valid when all other constitutional laws are broken. Basically it becomes meaningless and gets an irrational amount of importance in a context it does not have.

Liberals are moving away from these core values in the name of social justice.

Would you say that Scandinavia has more social justice than the US? In what way do you define social justice? How come Scandinavia have more left politics while still having more freedom of speech and protections of citizens rights?

Fundamentally, in what way do you connect actual left politics with limiting those core values? Disregard the sixth amendment because, as I described, it's not actually a fundamental component of liberty, none of the other amendments are worse in Scandinavia, they're even better protected, and yet, the politics are on the left.

So I really don't understand why right wing and conservatives use these things as arguments against left politics. There's no connection. The US could have a major welfare overhaul and mitigate economic inequality, protect workers rights, free education etc. and still have strong protections of the constitution.

The whole idea that left politics try to destroy the constitution is just fiction. It's a made up conflict and propaganda narrative to produce fear among right wing conservatives that the left will take away your rights. But looking at Scandinavia these rights are even better protected and followed and they still have better living conditions for more people due to the left politics being the core political stance.

Most of the US democrat vs republican debates and conflicts are generally about made up bullshit. It's why democrats stopped voting for democrats, because they don't offer any actual left politics. While the republicans spiral down into absolute nonsense through Trumpism, with policies that have nothing to do with reality based on conspiracies and Christian fundamentalism.

Basically, people in the US have gotten lost in politics through focusing on nonsense rather than discussing real issues. If you listen to both sides... where's the actual politics? Everything is a performance perpetuating these inflated fictional narratives rather than dealing with actual problems. If you think "social justice" is a real threat, it's not. It's not infringing on the constitution, it's not a real issue, it's a ghost story that you've bought into.

And who wins on these ghost stories? Keeping the people debating fictional issues rather than fixing real problems? The ones who can rise to the top by not making too much noise. Because when you look at someone like Bernie Sanders, who actually try to promote real left politics, he gets overthrown by his own party because he's "too much". While Trump's protection of billionaires work great for right wing politics so if he can hypnotize the working class with his nonsense, the billionaires don't have to fear real left politics threatening their dominance. Both sides trying to do as little as they can in order to just keep the problems away from their careers.

It won't hold.

The majority of Americans, including in conservative states, support same sex marriage. Electorates in Missouri, Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas - conservative states - voted to remove abortion restrictions or prevent changes in current law. The Republican party is not driven from the bottom up. It has been taken over by a relatively small group of rabid ideologues whose policies don't match those of their constituents…social conservatism is an important aspect of the Republican electorate, but we don't need all Republican voters. A large percentage of Republicans don't support Trump because of traditional values — T Clark

We’re talking about Trump, not anti-gay, anti-abortion zealots. Trump is neither of those. But his policy views are to the right of old line Conservatives in the mold of Bush, who were not isolationists, did not support Putin, did not support high tariffs, etc. Is Trump and Trumpism (isolationist hyper-nationalism, xenophobia, a zest for tariffs instead of economic globalism, a tendency toward authoritarian rule and a love of authoritarians like Putin) the product of “a relatively small group of rabid ideologues whose policies don't match those of their constituents”? If you believe that, do you realize you’re making the same claim about the basis of MAGA that they make about the basis of your support for liberal candidates? Trump supporters like to argue that a small cabal of progressive zealots (Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates) and the liberal press under their control manipulate Democratic voters for their own ends, that support for Trumpism is vastly wider than the liberal press claims it to be because of tampering with the vote by Democratic operatives.

Would the Democrats win back workers if they became America-first isolationists, went for high tariffs, anti-immigrationism and the gutting of Obamacare? Maybe. But would you vote for such a Democrat? And isnt that just MAGA by another name? The Democrats can reinvent themselves in whatever direction they want.Both parties have done so in dramatic fashion over the years. But the question is how they can do so now without turning into another version of Trumpism.

Says a supporter of the party that tried to overthrow the results of a free and fair election for president in 2020

Trump did try to do that, and I do not approve of that. — Bob Ross

I can't think of a response to that. You live in a different moral world than I do.

Wouldn’t the response be: “I am glad we at least agree on that!”? I was agreeing with you.

Your recent thread "In Support of Western Supremacy, Nationalism, and Imperialism" makes it clear this is not true.

:sad:

The party that refused to consider a Democratic Supreme Court nominee for purely partisan reasons.

I am fine with that: — Bob Ross

Ditto.

How do you not have a response to that? I thought the whole point of this OP was to open up the conversation, in good faith, to Democrats and Conservatives to demonstrate how the former is better.

You just ignored my entire post. How do you expect to convince people of your Democratic views if you are incapable of defending them?

You want to have a weapon in your home to defend yourself from whom?

Criminals and to overthrow a tyrannical government.

Also, is there a correlation between carrying guns and safety?

Absolutely. It takes a lot less training to use a gun for self-defense than melee fighting (like boxing, mma, using a knife, etc.), significantly safer for the victim to use (e.g., a knife fight ends with both parties at the hospital), it deters criminals from committing the crime in the first place being that a gun is the great equalizer (e.g., that scrawny women my be strapped), and can de-escalate situations (e.g., brandishing a firearm).

Exactly how many times a citizen lawfully “uses” a firearm for self-defense variously significantly depending on the agenda of the group putting out the study. At one point it was anywhere between 600,000 – 2.5 million times per year in the US; then it was 60,000 – 70,000.

The CDC came out with one that when to upwards of 2.5 million per year in the US, but then discreetly removed that study due to political pressure. The sad truth is that we probably won’t know the real numbers because one side wants to use the most liberal of numbers and the other the most conservative of numbers to the point of exaggerations. Liberals don’t want you thinking guns are used very often for self-defense, and conservatives want to think it is constantly happening.

I think a that a sublation of those two is probably correct: there are a significant amount of self-defense situations that happen in the US per year, but who knows exactly how much.

It seems like if we decide to ban you from bearing guns, you would feel 'oppresed' by the state, and your freedom will not be fulfilled.

Correct. Once one gives the government the power to regulate arms, not just guns, is when they give up the ability to stop the government from doing horrible things.

Interesting. Why don't you view social justice as a core value too?

I think it is, but I just don’t view it the same as liberals. For liberals, it is all about identity politics—e.g., you are black so we should care more because of the history around black people, you are gay so we care more because you are a minority, you are this, you are that, etc. I care about a merit-based society, and social injustice would be not judging based off of merit; and, ironically, the liberal form of social justice is a form of social injustice under this view, because they are judging people on the basis of their skin, sexual orientation, gender, etc. and not their skills.

Holy sh*t. You left me speechless. It is true that my country is poorer, but honestly, here reigns more common sense than there. I guess it is the luck of being born in Europe.

I wasn’t saying that socialistic healthcare can’t pan out fairly well, and in fact it pans out relatively well in most European countries, but it isn’t the best—the best is a free market economy; and the US doesn’t even have this in terms of its health care.

Now, bearing arms is more important, although health is also very important, because, like I said, who cares if the government holds all the power? One day, they could just decide to take your healthcare away from you, enslave you, send you to a concentration camp, etc. and what are you going to do about it? Try to stab them with your kitchen knives?!?

A US citizen has, at least, a fighting chance: they can legally buy fully automatic weapons, high caliber rifles, SBRs, shotguns, body armor, RPGs, etc. Now, the US government, especially the ATF, is always trying to ban them and red tape them; so there’s regulations that are in place relative to how dangerous the ATF views it (e.g., true SBRs require a gun registry, which is unconstitutional); but my point is that we can own the stuff that actually could put a dent in a tyrannical governments attempted coup.

Again, seriously, what can you do in your European country if this were to happen? I guess you could try to manufacture improved explosives; but without the proper training you are going to risk blowing yourself up.

I've recently developed an appreciation for American gun laws.

Two months ago my downstairs neighbor decided to go batshit insane and after I complained to the landlord the neighbor started threatening me.

Here, you're not allowed to carry any type of self-defense weapon and the police shrug their shoulders until something serious happens.

Bans on weapons perhaps worked well here in the past, when the police showed more teeth and people in general were more decent and functional.

As society becomes more dysfunctional, with dangerously unstable people everywhere as a result of drug abuse, crime, poverty, etc. either the police needs to step up their game, or people need to be allowed to defend themselves. Neither of which is probably going to happen here where I live..

Yep, it's all fun and games until people start threatening you and you realize the system leaves you utterly vulnerable with no way to protect yourself.

Do you mean liberals or left-wing politics?

I don’t know what the difference is; and, full disclosure, I am not familiar with Scandinavia but I will do my best to elaborate.

1. How does that come

I am thinking of things that I would assume liberal and left-leaning countries would support—e.g., abortion, identity politics, etc.

2. This is also not coming into

I am thinking of the policies of liberal and left-leaning people—e.g., persecuting people that do not believe homosexuality is morally permissible (although they agree that homosexuals should have equal rights), “canceling” people that do not agree with the liberal agenda, etc.

3. If we're looking at actual statistics of this

I am not familiar enough with Scandinavian countries to determine what kind of politics they really have there. I can tell you the US on that map is .93 and I can tell you that the left have been censoring information constantly; so I am guessing that these metrics are taken and calculated in a weird manner.

You definitely could not, and still cannot, post whatever you want, so long as it is not violating someone else’s rights, on major liberal social media platforms.

4. This right is better followed in Scandinavia than in the US

I don’t know. Perhaps.

This one is the only thing that differs, because it actually has nothing to do with human rights

The 2nd amendment is an inalienable right, which is fundamentally the right for a person to defend their own and other peoples’ rights with weaponry.

it's a constitutional law based on types of weapons that aren't remotely alike what exists today.

This is utterly false. There were machine guns, advanced muskets, cannons, explosives, etc. during the time that the founding fathers wrote the 2nd amendment; and, coupled with the fact that, they were not stupid and obviously could anticipate more advanced weaponry being developed and that they were very clear in their letters and literary works about giving people the right to bear military or better graded weapons to combat the government; so there is really no wiggle room for any sort of historical and contextual argument to be had that weapons of today were not intended to be covered under the 2nd amendment.

The problem with this is that the research is clear on the connection between amount and availability of firearms and deadly violence

Although you are right that the homicide rate is higher in the US per capita than countries that ban guns, it is not true that violent crime is significantly higher in the US per capita. E.g., Great Britain still has major crime issues and has a very similar crime index to the US: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/crime-rate-by-country . There is absolute not evidence to support that banning guns actually helps innocent people stop violent crimes.

Likewise, banning guns doesn’t necessarily equate to less crimes either, especially in countries where other parts of it can legally own them, such as Chicago: they have the strictest gun laws and it obviously is not working. Of course, one could try to attribute it to the fact that it is easy to cross into Chicago with legally obtained guns; but most of the guns they use in violent crimes are given to them illegally. However, I can anticipate and grant, to an extent, that it would be much harder for them to get those guns illegally if there wasn’t the possibility of straw purchases.

To put into perspective, if you flip this and instead say "the right to not be a victim of gun violence", which is more akin to an actual citizen right as a protection, then such a right is fundamentally broken by the status of deadly gun violence in the US

That right already exists, and it is called the right to life. The point of the right to bear arms is, among one other reason, to allow people to who are victims to protect that right to life—to, viz., protect their right to not be a victim of gun violence. Banning good people from having guns does not result in securing that right, because then you are relying on the government to protect them—and statistically it is way easier to stop an attacker if you have a weapon on you than to wait for the police to arrive. I am not just talking about defense against a perpetrator with a gun—this also includes brass knuckles, knives, bats, and sheer physical strength (most of which are legal still in countries that ban guns). You can’t just analyze it in terms of the increase of violence with guns—it needs to be relative to violent crimes in general.

The arguments for it are arbitrary and does not have a fundamental impact on the freedom of the people.
…
The only notion of freedom it is connected to is within the context of civil war and uprising, so at its core, the importance of it is only valid when all other constitutional laws are broken.

I am assuming you meant to say 2nd amendment (as opposed to the 6th amendment), and I will tell you what I told another person:

It takes a lot less training to use a gun for self-defense than melee fighting (like boxing, mma, using a knife, etc.), significantly safer for the victim to use (e.g., a knife fight ends with both parties at the hospital), it deters criminals from committing the crime in the first place being that a gun is the great equalizer (e.g., that scrawny women my be strapped), and can de-escalate situations (e.g., brandishing a firearm).

Exactly how many times a citizen lawfully “uses” a firearm for self-defense variously significantly depending on the agenda of the group putting out the study. At one point it was anywhere between 600,000 – 2.5 million times per year in the US; then it was 60,000 – 70,000.

The CDC came out with one that when to upwards of 2.5 million per year in the US, but then discreetly removed that study due to political pressure. The sad truth is that we probably won’t know the real numbers because one side wants to use the most liberal of numbers and the other the most conservative of numbers to the point of exaggerations. Liberals don’t want you thinking guns are used very often for self-defense, and conservatives want to think it is constantly happening.
…
Now, bearing arms is more important, although health is also very important, because, like I said, who cares if the government holds all the power? One day, they could just decide to take your healthcare away from you, enslave you, send you to a concentration camp, etc. and what are you going to do about it? Try to stab them with your kitchen knives?!?

A US citizen has, at least, a fighting chance: they can legally buy fully automatic weapons, high caliber rifles, SBRs, shotguns, body armor, RPGs, etc. Now, the US government, especially the ATF, is always trying to ban them and red tape them; so there’s regulations that are in place relative to how dangerous the ATF views it (e.g., true SBRs require a gun registry, which is unconstitutional); but my point is that we can own the stuff that actually could put a dent in a tyrannical governments attempted coup.

Again, seriously, what can you do in your European country if this were to happen? I guess you could try to manufacture improved explosives; but without the proper training you are going to risk blowing yourself up.

The beauty of american values—in Jeffersonian politics—is that it takes a cynical approach to the nature of the government and of the people and tries to come up with a balance—a friction—between the two that keeps them in check. As Jefferson wisely said:

Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree, and in our states in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies and in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the 1st. condition is not the best. But I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty and happiness. It has it's evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.

– Jefferson to Madison, January 30, 1787 (underlined portions were added by me)

Would you say that Scandinavia has more social justice than the US?

I don’t know, because I do not pretend to know about politics in Scandinavia specifically. I am not well-versed on that.

In what way do you define social justice?

I would define it as justice as it relates to persons—viz., a subbranch of morality which pertains to how to treat other persons with proper respect and fairness.

How come Scandinavia have more left politics while still having more freedom of speech and protections of citizens rights?

What do you mean by “left politics”, and what does that look like in Scandinavia?

Fundamentally, in what way do you connect actual left politics with limiting those core values?

I am talking about liberalism as it relates to what I am seeing in Western societies. I noted them briefly at the beginning of this post.

The US could have a major welfare overhaul and mitigate economic inequality, protect workers rights, free education etc. and still have strong protections of the constitution

The problem is that liberals try to do it in an unfair way: they try to just tax the rich or more well-off people in the community to pay for other peoples’ mistakes.

The whole idea that left politics try to destroy the constitution is just fiction.

In my country, liberals are trying to censor speech, persecute people, take away our 2nd amendment right, mutilate children, overly-sexualize children, put men in women’s bathrooms, put men in women’s sports, etc. These are not fictions, my friend.

If you listen to both sides... where's the actual politics?

Yeah, that’s generally fair; but not completely true.

Depends on what you mean by "make an economy thrive." Liberal urban enclaves in the US certainly thrive in terms of aggregate GDP figures. In terms of inequality they are the worst places in the US or Europe. In terms of social mobility they are matched only by the abysmal showing of the Old South. In terms of having a "racial caste system," they are in many ways even worse than the Old South. In Alabama or Kentucky, one might at least find white citizens driving an Uber, selling shoes, etc., and the largest inequality tends to be between the marginally employed and the small town dentist or car dealership owner, not between the similarly poor and billionaires.

I am always reminded of this when I have to travel to major cities or recall my time living in Manhattan, and consider how virtually 100% of the people who worked menial jobs there (which pay absolutely abysmally compared to the cost of living, comparatively far worse than in poor rural areas even) are immigrants from the developing world. During the height of the 2008 recession I worked as a dog walker in Brooklyn's affluent Park Slope neighborhood and encountered the bizarre world of "the help," in these neighborhoods, all the nannies being women from the Caribbean taking care of other people's children 14+ hours a day and leaving their own in publicly funded, overcrowded childcare facilities; all the cleaners and drivers, and my fellow co-workers from various parts of the globe, many without a leg to stand on for fighting back against rampant wage theft because they weren't citizens.

It's like Musa al-Gharbi says in his new book, the urban elite simultaneously like positioning themselves as saviors of the world's poor while ruthlessly exploiting them. For a long time I pushed back on conservative claims that urban elites favored foreigners to the native poor, but I'm starting to think it's absolutely true. They constantly draw flattering parallels between the "hard working," (i.e., appropriately desperate and pliable) new arrivals versus those pesky natives who refuse to "get with the 21st century" (the century where their wages and life expectancy have stagnated, or as often declined, for half a century straight.) And now that Trump has won a majority of male Latinos a predictable distinction between "deserving new arrivals" and those recalcitrant second and third generation Latinos is being drawn.

Of course, the people who see migration as something of a black and white "human rights issue," are also never going to house said migrants in their communities or schools in meaningful numbers. "Not in my backyard."

I could say more, but I think the best summary is that the "economy of the future," of places like NYC, Boston, LA, San Francisco, etc. starts to look a lot like the Gulf states and much of Latin America.

E.g.,



At the same time, Ukraine has given me grave doubts about these economies ability to defend themselves. They are far more a Carthage than a Rome. Surveys show a marked decline in their citizens' willingness to countenance fighting for their country and the service economy doesn't produce the prerequisites for defense. We can see this in the absolutely gigantic GDP disparity between Russia and the EU, and the fact that EU arms production remains absolutely anemic despite this advantage. North Korea seems better able to ramp up production than some of the world's largest economies.





By way of contrast, in most of the world, which offers far less by way of standard of living or political freedom, and where large minority populations that want to break away from their government are fairly common, the norm is still on more like 2/3rds to 3/4ths. The map sort of undersells the gap as well, because in the urban hubs of the "new economy," willingness to make personal sacrifices to defend that wealth is dramatically lower than outside the cities.

Can isolated pockets of vast wealth survive in a world dominated by scarcity while their citizens are unwilling to fight and while also being reliant on a steady stream of outside goods for the basic necessities of life? Maybe, such mercantile societies have existed before, and while they are often targets of conquest they sometimes managed to last for long periods. Can such societies survive long term in a modern context while continuing to have ever higher levels of inequality and ever lower levels of social mobility? Perhaps. Automation is changing warfare and security in the same way the stirrup did at the dawn of the Middle Ages, such that small elite cadres of well-equipped soldiers are more effective than mass mobilization. But most of the masses' rights were won precisely because they had leverage due to how their buy-in was essential to winning wars. What happens when they are increasingly irrelevant?

I am left thinking the "economy of the future," is more a sort of globalized neo-fedualism, although lacking religious checks on elite behavior, rather than anything admirable.

Policies doesn't really matter, it's how the politics are communicated to the people. Democrats don't understand how to do that and get lost in how to talk to people. — Christoffer

As I noted, I like Sanders. I think he'd make an... interesting president. I'd certainly vote for him. I still think centrist candidates have a better chance of winning.

The fundamental problem in the US is that no center or right wing policies will fix the actual problems that the US is facing. — Christoffer

I'm not sure any policies can solve the problems we've got coming up over the period of my children's lifetimes. As I've said, I think Biden and his policies were the best choice for the US.

How do you expect to convince people of your Democratic views if you are incapable of defending them? — Bob Ross

This thread was not aimed at convincing people of my Democratic views. See the OP.

We’re talking about Trump, not anti-gay, anti-abortion zealots. — Joshs

I think Trump is the glue that holds Republicans, who hate each other, together.

I'll be interested to see what happens when Trump is finally gone - whether the Republican party can hold on or whether it will fall apart.

If you believe that, do you realize you’re making the same claim about the basis of MAGA that they make about the basis of your support for liberal candidates? Trump supporters like to argue that a small cabal of progressive zealots (Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Bill Gates) and the liberal press under their control manipulate Democratic voters for their own ends, that support for Trumpism is vastly wider than the liberal press claims it to be because of tampering with the vote by Democratic operatives. — Joshs

That's the whole point of my OP - to stop treating our political opponents with disrespect. Whatever I think of the political realities of where Republican support comes from, there's no need to put that on the table when we talk with them.

I think the Democratic Party would find this essentially impossible. First, because the primary system in the US, where candidates are selected by relatively quite small numbers of older/wealthier/more radical voters invariably pushes both parties away from the views of the median voter and towards the fringes.

But also because the Democrats core wealthy urban constituency, who make up most of its leadership class, have come to frame almost all of its core issues as continuations of the US Civil Rights movement (similarly, in Europe decolonization is the mold). There is no compromise here. Opponents are simply on the wrong side of history. Unpopularity is sort of irrelevant if you think your issue is a replay of allowing black citizens to vote in the 1950s. The Civil Rights Movement was also initially unpopular, although it was still the right thing to do.

The problem is that it isn't clear that issues like migration fit this mold, at least not in the wider public's view. Increasing migration currently polls worse for the US as a whole then Harris fared in many rural, overwhelmingly white Southern counties... yet elite opinion is at total variance here, and this is the common thread of success for the far-right across the Western world.

Anyhow, I can't help but think that feelings on these issues are sometimes extremely self-serving. Migration can only ever directly benefit a vanishingly small percentage of the population in the developing world. Remittances, people sending money back to their home countries, do more (they absolutely dwarf aid flows), but realistically something like defense level spending on aid (or what defense spending should be, a meaningful % of GDP) which helps people in their home countries is the only way to benefit the vast majority. Yet elite opinion has gravitated towards the option for helping the world's poor that just so happens to help a small select few while also giving them an endless pool of exploitable labor, continued upwards pressure on rents in urban areas, and continued downward pressure on prices for people with the excess wealth to consume.

And sometimes this cynicism is right out in the open. People will praise immigration for all the great restaurants they get to eat at regularly, while ignoring that the food services industry is particularly brutal and wages there totally unable to provide a decent standard of living in urban locales with high rents. Or they will point out how illegal immigrants are such a boon because they pay into Social Security and Medicare without being eligible for benefits, which is the very height of cynicism (and at any rate, it will certainly hurt society to have millions of mostly low wealth seniors who are ineligible for benefits in the long run, with the costs simply falling on their children).

I think the Democratic Party would find this essentially impossible. First, because the primary system in the US, where candidates are selected by relatively quite small numbers of older/wealthier/more radical voters invariably pushes both parties away from the views of the median voter and towards the fringes.

But also because the Democrats core wealthy urban constituency, who make up most of its leadership class, have come to frame almost all of its core issues as continuations of the US Civil Rights movement (similarly, in Europe decolonization is the mold). There is no compromise here. Opponents are simply on the wrong side of history. — Count Timothy von Icarus

There is truth in what you say and maybe you're right. That doesn't change my prescription, even if it turns out to be unrealistic. I just get so furious listening to my liberal friends spewing their contempt on people we have to figure out a way to get along with.

The problem is that it isn't clear that issues like migration fit this mold, at least not in the wider public's view. Increasing migration currently polls worse for the US as a whole then Harris fared in many rural, overwhelmingly white Southern counties... yet elite opinion is at total variance here, and this is the common thread of success for the far-right across the Western world. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This is something I left off my list that I should have included. I think Democrats have to figure out a way to walk the line on immigration. Biden tried to do this over the past year, but the Republicans put the kibosh on that.

I’m a liberal Democrat. I don’t like losing elections and we shouldn’t be. Democrats govern and Republicans destroy. We should be the majority party, but we’re not. Here are some suggestions about how we might go about fixing this. — T Clark

Frankly, I don’t think the current state of affairs allows significant fixing. Democrats will have a comeback after Trump/Republican policies destabilize the economy, there’s a downturn, and Americans look to the alternative party to get out of the hole. Rinse and repeat.

Anyhow, liberal parties world wide have a wider "male problem," that cuts across other demographic categories. This seems to be a particularly pernicious problem because of how it seems to be effecting family formation (and in turn, civic engagement).

Anyhow, I can't help but think that feelings on these issues are sometimes extremely self-serving. Migration can only ever directly benefit a vanishingly small percentage of the population in the developing world — Count Timothy von Icarus

There’s a fairly clearly articulated position right there. Now, let’s see if we can figure out where you get your view of migration from in a philosophical sense. You see, I’m not interested so much in determining a correct approach to migration as I am placing the views of someone like yourself in the context of the appropriate family of discourse on the subject. To be more specific, would you say that you tend to view political analyses of immigration put forth by conservative think tanks like the Hoover institute to be more persuasive than those of left-leaning think tanks? I’ve read nuanced discussion on the subject from both sides, and some overlap too, but overall conservative tend to be less enthusiastic about the overall social benefits of immigration.

I don't think these analyses actually tend to differ that much, they just focus on different things. Your classical neoliberal advocates, along with your political liberals, tend to focus on immigrations effects on national level accounting. They do this because immigration looks overwhelmingly beneficial in this context.

Immigrants tend to be young so they lower your dependency ratio. This is a boon when transfer payments to seniors dominate your national budget. They might not fix the problem of a tsunami of retirees expecting to cash in on underfunded benefits, but at the very least they help to "kick the can down the road," (and we can also cynically appeal to the "benefit" of undocumented workers who are forced to pay in to benefits they cannot receive.) Defense is the other major national level expense, and it doesn't cost significantly more to run the US military if we add even tens of millions more people. If anything, it gives us additional manpower if a major war starts. Everything else at the national level is a pittance compared to these, so immigration comes out looking very good, and it boosts GDP growth.

However, if you shift to state and local budgets (which for the US is actually larger than federal spending, once entitlements are taken out), things look dramatically different. This is why nativists look here for their data. Immigrants sometimes represent a huge drain on the resources of local governments, particularly school districts. They bring a lot of new students into a district, generally with dramatically higher levels of special needs (which tends to mean dramatically higher per pupil expenses if you actually give them the support they need), while at the same time not offsetting this expense with higher property tax revenues, since they tend to be low income. And of course, immigrants tend to be crowded into already low income areas and low performing school districts. As liberal as elite suburbs might be, they are not going to take more than a token proportion of resettlement, so the costs overwhelmingly fall on the municipalities housing the very same people who are competing with new arrivals for jobs and housing.

In terms of inequality, the picture looks even worse. Obviously, adding millions of low net worth, low income (at the very least in the medium term) residents spikes inequality. And high immigration also seems to tank support for unionization and social welfare spending, even as an oversupply of labor reduces wages. I have written about this before: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/10332/page/p1

In particular, immigrants impose congestion effects on other immigrants, meaning that prior immigrants have an economic incentive to see lower immigration in the future (something we seem to see at play in exit polling data).

So, I think the West absolutely could sustain much higher levels of immigration, if people didn't act like they actually do, particularly if the well-off didn't shift the costs primarily on to the lower classes while having most of the benefits accrue to them. But realistically, I don't think this sort of self-sacrifice is ever going to happen, which means ideal levels of migration are probably much lower. Particularly, I don't think it's at all beneficial for people in the developing world to have this issue leading to far-right regimes dominating the West.

Anyhow, we saw what happened when labor force growth was significantly constrained during the pandemic (in part due to a precipitous drop in migration, and also an exodus of older workers). Suddenly McDonald's was offering $18 an hour in rural areas, where that amount can actually make people homeowners. Real wage growth for the lower half of the income distribution was the best it had been in a half century. Meanwhile, in a radical reversal, inflation was actually making the top worse off.

And it's not surprise that during this period the NYT, WaPo, etc. were full of op-eds ringing the tocsin re inflation and bemoaning how the stimulus had "gone too far," and how we had a "massive labor shortage." Then, when things reversed to their usual trend, with the top capturing almost all real wage growth and the bottom half seeing their real wages actually fall again, you had op-eds bemoaning how "these stupid plebs don't get how good the Biden economy actually is and what a great soft landing we are experiencing." It's almost comic.

So of course people gravitate towards a dictator who claims to want to protect them from recalcitrant elites. This is how the monarchs gained their power in the early modern period, how the Roman Republic died, etc. It's a sort of historical cycle of sorts. And sometimes it even works out, e.g. it's hard to claim that Octavian wasn't a massive improvement over the self-serving nobility battling for their own prerogatives, but often it doesn't.

Edit: anyhow, my main point was simply that I wouldn't necessarily hold liberal cities up as shining examples of some "new 21st century economy." If America's largest cities are the model for that new economy, then Saudi Arabia or Qatar seem like they might be the paradigm for what that economy looks like writ large

:up:

Exactly. Trump is extremely incompetent and is hiring an entire clown car of other incompetents, so I imagine he will face another mid-term disaster. It's actually good that he won the popular vote, since he no longer has a personal incentive to try to further enshrine minority rule into our electoral system (nor do I think he cares too much about actually helping other "conservatives" win in the future).

Unfortunately, it's not prima facie clear that holding huge popularity contests is the best way to achieve good governance. Democracy is often held up as a "good in itself," and it well might be one to some extent, but it seems that its biggest benefit is that it gives leaders some incentive to make voters happy and removes particularly bad leaders on a regular basis. However, in the US case, the electoral system pretty much guarantees a two party system, which then leads to the possibility of voters continually shifting back and forth between parties to punish whoever is in control during any period of long term decline.

↪Joshs

Depends on what you mean by "make an economy thrive." Liberal urban enclaves in the US certainly thrive in terms of aggregate GDP figures. In terms of inequality they are the worst places in the US or Europe. In terms of social mobility they are matched only by the abysmal showing of the Old South. In terms of having a "racial caste system," they are in many ways even worse than the Old South. In Alabama or Kentucky, one might at least find white citizens driving an Uber, selling shoes, etc., and the largest inequality tends to be between the marginally employed and the small town dentist or car dealership owner, not between the similarly poor and billionaires — Count Timothy von Icarus

The urban-based economic engine of the 21st century will mainly benefit those with enough education and the right skills, which leaves out much of the urban poor, regardless of race, and most of those with the right skills and education still struggle with college costs, childcare and housing prices. I suspect most of the reason for the huge disparity in income in the cities is because, as the source of our economic engine, they just happen to be the places with the highest concentration of super-rich.

I don’t think either the left or the right has a fix for this. There may be only patchwork, temporary forms of assistance. The left can offer a safety net and support for education, and some on the far left would offer policies like a sweeping redistribution of wealth and a guaranteed living income. But the right , given its focus on personal autonomy and character, would be reluctant to interfere with the wheels of capitalism.

, the urban elite simultaneously like positioning themselves as saviors of the world's poor while ruthlessly exploiting them. For a long time I pushed back on conservative claims that urban elites favored foreigners to the native poor, but I'm starting to think it's absolutely true. They constantly draw flattering parallels between the "hard working," (i.e., appropriately desperate and pliable) new arrivals versus those pesky natives who refuse to "get with the 21st century" (the century where their wages and life expectancy have stagnated, or as often declined, for half a century straight.) — Count Timothy von Icarus

Now there’s a nice unbiased view for ya. I especially like the phrase “ruthlessly exploiting them”. That’s a nice touch. My 102 year old father has 24 hour caregivers , who tend to be Nigerian, Philippine or from a Slavic country. Are they naive souls being “ruthlessly exploited”? Most of his helpers have been in this country for decades, are savvy about their options in the economy and what they can do to improve their career situation. If they are willing to take jobs that native-born residents reject, who is being exploited? When did your ancestors arrive in the U.S. and what jobs did they take that others didn’t want? Was Ellis Island a plot to exploit naive foreigners?

Of course, the people who see migration as something of a black and white "human rights issue," are also never going to house said migrants in their communities or schools in meaningful numbers. "Not in my backyard — Count Timothy von Icarus

My neighborhood in Chicago was deluged with Venezuelan refugees that the governor of Texas kindly bussed our way. The local police station and Armory were used to house them temporarily. They immediately began trying to find work , selling flowers and candy at intersections with their children in tow. It was a lot for our neighborhood to handle , but we’ve been here many times before. A substantial part of our community consists of Bosnian immigrants from that war, and Vietnamese boat people. We have seen them establish themselves over time and are now an integral part of our home, as our new Venezuelan arrivals will soon be. As the neighborhood becomes wealthier, we do see a slow reduction in transient hotels and homeless shelters, but we are still a supportive community who appreciates the need to continually open our arms to such persons. In fact I would say it’s one of the main reasons many of us choose to live here rather than in a suburb.

I am left thinking the "economy of the future," is more a sort of globalized neo-fedualism, although lacking religious checks on elite behavior, rather than anything admirable — Count Timothy von Icarus

I noticed you said nothing about values systems and their relation to urban culture. Instead you focused on wealth disparity and defense. A simplistic calculus based on who has money and who doesn’t isnt going to tell you anything useful about the social and political dynamics at play today in the era of Trumpism. This has much less to do with where the money is than it does with social values rooted in philosophical schemes. My concern is to see the range of related philosophical value systems concentrated in high density urban areas and universities thrive. I see the result of this election as demonstrating that a majority of Americans don’t identify with these ways of thinking, which doesn’t surprise me. It suggests to me that the cities need to form alliances to support each other in the absence of political support coming from the rest of the country. People like myself who derive great value from this urban culture will continue to be loyal to its ways regardless of the economic challenges.

Is there a connection between the philosophical value systems that have become dominant in universities and urban society and the great divide in wealth? Perhaps, in that the kinds of skills that the new social and bio-material-digital technologies brought into existence shut out the workers who in the past could make a living with a minimal skillset.

The urban-based economic engine of the 21st century will mainly benefit those with enough education and the right skills, which leaves out much of the urban poor, regardless of race, and most of those with the right skills and education still struggle with college costs, childcare and housing prices. I suspect most of the reason for the huge disparity in income in the cities is because, as the source of our economic engine, they just happen to be the places with the highest concentration of super-rich.

I don’t think either the left or the right has a fix for this.

Yes, this line has been pedalled by folks like Charles Murray for the better part of a half century now. Any day now the sci-fi technology will finally develop and there will be no work for the undereducated masses! They most be content with whatever the "cognitive elite," see fit to bestow upon them via the dole, just like the Latins who were replaced by the "economic innovation" of industrial scale slavery and the superior economies of scale of the latifundium.

And yet, strangely, whenever these segments of the population see their incomes rise the crisis of "llabor shortage!" is proclaimed. These folks are superfluous to the economy of the future, nonetheless, millions more must come lest we face a "labor shortage." Curious.

Now there’s a nice unbiased view for ya. I especially like the phrase “ruthlessly exploiting them”. That’s a nice touch. My 102 year old father has 24 hour caregivers , who tend to be Nigerian, Philippine or from a Slavic country. Are they naive souls being “ruthlessly exploited”? Most of his helpers have been in this country for decades, are savvy about their options in the economy and what they can do to improve their career situation. If they are willing to take jobs that native-born residents reject, who is being exploited?
When did your ancestors arrive in the U.S. and what jobs did they take that others didn’t want? Was Ellis Island a plot to exploit naive foreigners?

Just like the folks in Southeast Asia wouldn't make our clothes for a quarter a day unless it was better, an opportunity right? This is also a very old line. No doubt, they are savvy agents as well, so surely industrialists couldn't possibly be exploiting them.

The last time the US had immigration rates this high was the Guilded Age. Does this mean things were good then simply because desperate people kept being willing to come to the US?

Yet surely offering living conditions marginally preferable to being in the middle of a civil war doesn't amount to much. No?

And yet, strangely, whenever these segments of the population see their incomes rise the crisis of "llabor shortage!" is proclaimed. These folks are superfluous to the economy of the future, nonetheless, millions more must come lest we face a "labor shortage." Curious. — Count Timothy von Icarus

They’ll keep coming until they are replaced by automation.

Yet surely offering living conditions marginally preferable to being in the middle of a civil war doesn't amount to much. No? — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think the threat of actual civil war is more wishful thinking than a likely possibility. What is it you want? Who is it you are primarily pointing the finger of blame at? What are you proposing as a solution and which political entity or platform do you see as prepared to accomplish it?

I think the threat of actual civil war is more wishful thinking than a likely possibility.

I was referring to the migrants who are often fleeing civil wars, state collapse, or major depressions in other countries, not the West. That is, offering people marginally better conditions than Syria and Venezuela isn't exactly a high bar. At any rate, I wouldn't call such an outcome as respects the US or EU "wishful." More "disastrous."

It suggests to me that the cities need to form alliances to support each other in the absence of political support coming from the rest of the country. People like myself who derive great value from this urban culture will continue to be loyal to its ways regardless of the economic challenges.

Alliance against what? Surely not military, since these places have been denuded of almost all heavy industry, not to mention that they rely on other parts of the country for food and other resources, while their populations are also by far and away the least likely to say they would fight for their state.

Although, assuredly, if it came to that, we know who would end up being press ganged into doing the fighting. And I'm sure some technocratic case could be made for why it wouldn't make sense to throw the well-educated, with so much investment poured into them, into the infantry.

To be sure, there is much valuable in these urban centers and universities, but I think it's entirely off base to think they are superior in everything. There is also a lot that is critically wrong with these areas. As Musa al-Gharbi puts it, in terms I can certainly relate to:

I cast my first presidential vote for John Kerry in 2004—and not begrudgingly. It’s humiliating to admit in retrospect, but I believed in John Kerry. At that time, I subscribed to what you might call the “banal liberal” understanding of who is responsible for various social evils: those damn Republicans! If only folks in places like podunk Arizona could be more like the enlightened denizens of New York, I thought, what a beautiful country this could be! What a beautiful world! I had already shed a lot of this in the years that followed—but the vestiges that remained got destroyed soon after I moved to the Upper West Side. One of the first things that stood out to me is that there’s something like a racialized caste system here that everyone takes as natural. You have disposable servants who will clean your house, watch your kids, walk your dogs, deliver prepared meals to you. If you need things from the store, someone else can go shopping for you and drop the goods off at your place. People will show up outside your door to to drive you wherever at the push of a button. It’s mostly minorities and immigrants from particular racial and ethnic backgrounds who fill these roles, while people from other racial and ethnic backgrounds are the ones being served. The former earn peanuts for their work, the latter are well off. And this is all basically taken for granted; it is assumed that this is the normal way society operates.

And yet, the way things are in places like New York City or Los Angeles— this is not how things are in many other parts of the country.

For instance, these locales are among the worst preformers in terms of helping immigrants and their children attain eventual parity in income and education with natives. Maine, the Mountain states, etc. do this significantly better. Notably, the places where both migrants and natives are most likely to go from the bottom of the income distribution to the top are North Dakota counties, where the petrol boom has led to a chronic "labor shortage," which has enticed businesses to raise wages and working conditions.

We might also recall exactly where unrest related to routine police abuses has centered.

They’ll keep coming until they are replaced by automation.

Ha, well at least: "they're welcome until a machine can do their job cheaper," is honest.

Looking at that giant ideology gap between young men and women in South Korea made me think of the 4B movement that started there around 2017-2018. I happened to read something about it the other day. The movement is supposedly getting some traction in the US since the election.

And yet, the way things are in places like New York City or Los Angeles— this is not how things are in many other parts of the country.

Pointing out that super-wealthy residents of New York are predominately of certain ethnic persuasions while their servants are of another, and that social mobility among immigrants is greater in South Dakota in the midst of an economic boom doesn’t explain very much. The question is whether and how you can tie such facts to a liberal-progressive social value system. Yes, big cities have problems. New flash: they are noisy, dirty, congested, it’s expensive and tough to find parking, there are big rats. None of this reveals anything about why many like myself are passionate about the attitudes and ways of thinking (the philosophically informed strains of liberalism and progressivism) we find concentrated in urban centers, and why, in spite of the economic hardships imposed on many sub-communities that are a part of the urban fabric, we believe that these ways of thinking produce an approach to social relations, to caring about and supporting each other , that is more satisfying than the alternative we see being put into practice in places with more conservative values.

What I’m saying is that the negatives you’ve been pointing out are not the direct result of the value systems I and other liberal urbanities embrace, but exist in spite of them, and are tangential to them. These problems may be a reason for a particular individual to decide to move to South Dakota or Maine, in spite of their fondness for what urban. liberalism stands for. I’d liberal values are impetus r enough to them, they will find a way to remain connected to them by sacrificing certain comforts, or finding an affordable suburb or university town. You said you lived in New York, but I’m getting the impression you didn’t grow up in or near a big city. You write about it like a tourist rather than someone who is familiar with its social dynamics from the inside.

It seems like you don't really want to have a productive dialogue; so I am going to respectfully remove my hat from the pile. If you ever want to have an in-depth, productive conservation then let me know.

Yes, when you outlaw weapons (in general), you just make it harder for the good people to protect themselves. If I were in Great Britain, where they still have outlaws with plenty of guns, I would have to defend my family with a bat or a knife, at best, and end up with permanent brain damage at best. It's nonsense.

Pointing out that super-wealthy residents of New York are predominately of certain ethnic persuasions while their servants are of another, and that social mobility among immigrants is greater in South Dakota in the midst of an economic boom doesn’t explain very much. The question is whether and how you can tie such facts to a liberal-progressive social value system.

Sure, that's exactly what al-Gharbi and others have done. I don't think it is just some "unavoidable problem of urbanization," that the oh-so-progressive residents of the Upper West Side balked at unused hotels in their neighborhoods being used as shelters for Manhattan's homeless during the pandemic. It was the recurrent theme of "yes, progressivism... but not in my backyard." Instead, the homeless were concentrated in poorer, predominantly minority neighborhoods. Nor is it an accident of urbanization when urban school districts have effectively re-segregated their school systems. That was an intentional policy choice. Likewise, an expanding racial wealth gap that eclipses that under Jim Crown (and that between Arabs and Jews in Israel) didn't "just happen by accident."

Likewise, "university towns" (e.g. Chapel Hill) might be plenty progressive, but the residents still often fight tooth and nail against any high-density housing being put up in their communities. Chapel Hill is a great example because, despite being overwhelmingly progressive, it still remains the case that majority black Durham happens to have a county-line (and thus a school district) that neatly wraps around the city limits, so that its students remain segregated from the children of the progressive elite across the border.

What I’m saying is that the negatives you’ve been pointing out are not the direct result of the value systems I and other liberal urbanities embrace, but exist in spite of them, and are tangential to them.

I think there is ample evidence to show this is not the case. There is a wealth of empirical evidence and case studies on the "not in my backyard phenomenon."

You said you lived in New York, but I’m getting the impression you didn’t grow up in or near a big city.

No, I grew up in a rust belt city, so the wealthy had already largely fled the city and settled in the surrounding environs. They were welcoming of new arrivals, so long as they stayed compressed in the city limits. And what a great welcome it was, routinely one of the top 10 worst violent crime rates in the US, where freshman classes at the high schools would dwindle by 75+% by graduation day.

But that's precisely al-Gharbi's thesis (and I'm glad we have someone to be our Ezekiel) Of course the urban elite are sincere. Championing the cause of the marginalized is how they justify they own wealth and status to themselves and society. And of course they see a sort of comradery with what is essentially their servant class. The European nobility felt the same way, even as they had that class continue to pay them an indemnity for "giving up their serfs" (i.e. those workers' parents and grandparents) into the first World War (a policy only stopped by revolution). They're their "benefactors," just a Gilded Age industrialists were able to convince themselves that they were the benefactors of their workers (even after events like Johnstown).

It's the same sort of moral degeneracy that convinces a wealthy middle-aged man who (pre)dates young single mothers who are desperate for support that he is an irresistible casanova.

It seems like you don't really want to have a productive dialogue; — Bob Ross

You and I will never have a productive political dialogue. You propose invading India to force our way of life on them. You support a man you acknowledge tried to overthrow the government of the US. I'll look for ways to have better conversations with you in more philosophical discussions.

T Clark, all of the politicians that have been voted into the presidency have done wrong things. Biden has a history of racist remarks and policies (and most are on tape); Hillary had secret and top secret emails on her own private email server; and don't even get me started about Hillary and her husband together....

Trump, according to Pence, asked him to halt and illegitimize the votes (because, allegedly, they were fraudulent) and that is what you are referring to as "overthrowing the government". I do not support him doing what he did because I don't think there's reasonable evidence to support that it was fraudulent; and if it was, then it needs to be sent to the courts.

What I am trying to do is have a charitable conversation. The moment you try to whitewash your own political figures as angelic and your opponents as demonic is when there will be no productive conversations.