DocWatts

If pointing out obvious injustices in our society is 'complaining' in your book, I sincerely hope you never end up filing for bankruptcy because you get sick, or end up losing your job and falling into poverty; you might have to develop compassion for other people if you yourself are ever on the receiving end of some of these injustices. The 'pull yourself up by your own bootstraps' philosophy you seem to be espousing would almost certainly have seen you on the wrong side of the Civil Rights movement, the crusade to end child labor, basic workers rights like a 40 hour work week... shall I go on? Because people who make it a matter of pride to obstruct Social Progress almost always have that same mentality.

I'm sure those dictatorships we love to prop up are happy to have a bloated military budget behind them that they don't have to foot the bill for. Much wiser use of our resources than funding education or healthcare or infrastructure; you know, the things that actually help ordinary people?

The Covid-19 death count is 250,000 deaths over seven months, and for as much as Trump brags about how great he is at everything, he'll certainly go down as responsible for more avoidable deaths in America than any other administration over the last century. To put that in context, that's more than the Vietnam and Korean wars combined...over the course of just seven months. By estimations I've seen, at least half of those deaths could have been prevented by a reasonably competent administration who took the pandemic seriously, rather than trying to politicize it for personal gain. Anyone who tries to claim otherwise is just an unwitting sycophant for a sociopath.

Not sure if anyone else here is a Terry Pratchett fan, but his satirical Discworld series comes to mind. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ “The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes 'Boots' theory of socioeconomic unfairness.”

As for John McCain, I wouldn't have voted for him, but show me a Republican presidential candidate in the last 40 years who's not hawkish on foreign policy, and I'll buy you lunch (the only exception I can think of is Ron Paul, who was more of a Libertarian). Yes he was a military interventionist and I'm not defending that, but nationalism kind of comes with the territory for politicians at stage Blue. He was also willing to work across the isle on issues like campaign finance reform, was relatively moderate on social policy, wasn't a Climate Change denier, and wanted to reform many of the worst excesses of the Bush regime (torture is the most obvious example). He conceded his 2008 presidential campaign with honor and humility, recognizing how momentous an occasion it was for African Americans across the country (and calmed the crowd down when they tried to boo Obama). He wasn't an obstructionist trying to steer the country down the road to fascism, which is something that can't be said for a majority of the Republican Party in 2020.

Of course, I'm not denying any of that. Let's also make sure not to conflate 'exceptional for his time' to someone we would find morally praiseworthy by our standards today. But he was probably as conscious and ethical as it was possible for someone in his time and place to be, considering he was at the helm of an enormous stage Red Empire constantly at war with its neighbors.

Off the top of my head, I can come up with some positive examples of Blue that exemplify this: - Marcus Aurelius : arguably one of Rome's best Emperors, who exemplified Plato's ideal of a philosopher King. He took his duties as Emperor very seriously, and was a wise and just ruler for the era. - John McCain : one of the last principled people in the Republican Party, I'd argue. Saw his political career as one of Public Service, and was an honorable person. Was able to work with people of differing beliefs than his own, and was someone who was generally respected by people on both sides of the political isle in Washington (his opponent in the 2008 election, Obama, was the one to read the eulogy at his funeral). - Hank Hill (King of the Hill) : Conservative guy who was raised by an emotionally abusive father, who nonetheless turned out to be a halfway decent person who works hard, and loves his family. While the comedy of the show comes from Hank being confounded by people of different beliefs that he has trouble relating to, at the same time he is able to respect different beliefs if he discovers that they're coming from a place of personal Integrity.

I wonder if the Libertarianism of the Tea Party movement was really just a smokescreen for Birther-ism and other White Nationalist adjacent ideologies. When I think of the most high profile Libertarian figure in America in recent memory, Ron Paul, there's no way in Hell he would have sat back and blithely accepted the blatant Authoritarianism of the Trump era (regardless of my other disagreements I have with the man, he was definitely principled in his opposition to Authoritarianism, at least within a Libertarian context). Also Ron Paul had no problem working with Progressives on areas with which they agreed; such as protecting Civil Liberties from things like the Patriot Act, and dismantling the American military Empire, to name a few. At least he was operating from a position of Good Faith, something that can't be said for Trump or any of his Cronies.

I think Trump has amplified something ugly in the American psyche that's always existed, but has come more to the forefront in recent years for a host of reasons. I do wonder though that even if Trump never existed, whether something like the MAGA Cult would have arisen eventually as a result of societal trends over the last half century. I refer here to trends such as a collapsing middle class due to Late-Stage Capitalism, racial anxieties dues to changing Demographics, the emergence of online echo chambers, and the like.

This isn't far off from an intuition I've had for a long time now, that Donald Trump is an amalgamation of everything that's bad about America. Trump is what would happen if you were to condense two and a half centuries of narcissism, ignorance, delusion, incompetence, greed, and xenophobia down into one person, with the aim of making that person an Avatar for a lack of virtue. It's pretty incredible really; you have to be a really special person to have literally nothing that can be considered even remotely praiseworthy in your moral character.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Daryll Cooper's amazing six part Podcast Series on Jim Jones and the People's Temple Cult. https://www.martyrmade.com/martyrmade-podcast-11-gods-socialist-prologue/

In under-developed countries with no Social Safety Net to speak of, having lots of children in the hope that at least some of them will be able to take care of you when you're old is the closest functional equivalent.

Pseudo-intellectualism is something that absolutely exists at Red (look to people who use a shallow understanding of Nietzsche to put themselves on an ego-centric pedestal and look down on other people, or to White Supremacists like Richard Spencer who try to build a veneer of a respectable political philosophy around their fascist views). Their incentive for seeing Climate Change as a hoax can be a simple as wanting to be an Edge-Lord Contrarian and offend people Online, or it could be because they fell down a Conspiracy Rabbit Hole and want prove how much smarter they are than everyone else. Both of these are highly ego-centric and self centered in Nature. Keep in mind that much of Conspiracy Culture is heavily Red. Of course Blue can also be opposed to seeing Climate Change as a serious threat, but in Blue's case it has more to do with Group Loyalty than it does for more personal, egoic reasons. Also with Blue often comes a suspicion of Science, and I would argue that at least some degree of Scientific literacy is required to even understand why Climate Change is a serious problem (i.e. someone conflating weather with Climate, and not understanding why cold weather in their city doesn't amount to a refutation that the Planet is heating up). Blue is also traditional and resistant to societal change, so it's no surprise that the widespread structural and societal changes needed to combat Climate Change would rub them the wrong way (i.e. let's just keep mining Coal forever, no need to rock the boat just because of some alarmist environmentalists).

@AnderzTrump is pretty clearly a stage Red con-artist and sociopath, though he tries to portray himself as a stage Orange business person (similar to how mob bosses wear a front of being a legitimate business person). Compare Trump to someone like Jeff Bazos if you want to see the difference between Red masquerading as Orange, and someone who's actually a successful stage Orange businessman. Every business venture Trump has tried has failed, as he is incapable of the sort of long term thinking necessary to run a successful business. Hell, even his attempts to overturn the Election Results have been impulsive, ham-fisted, and incompetent. Credit to the Never-Trumpers for seeing through this, but unfortunately Trump has been quite successful at selfishly manipulating low consciousness people into thinking of Trump as more than he is. Being able to con and manipulate others for selfish reasons is quite low consciousness; someone at Turquoise would be far beyond such behavior.

I %100 agree that Trump Voters need to be brought back in to the fold of American Democracy, but I don't see pandering to Authoritarian viewpoints as an effective way to do that. The only way I see that happening is to have a relatively healthy Conservative political party that represents their views, without giving them the ability to impose thier will on the rest of the country. Fixing our Democratic Institutions will make it so that the Republican Party has to moderate thier viewpoints and appeal to enough people to win elections. As things stand right now, our system is highly vulnerable to a minority imposing thier will on the rest of country (look to the Electoral College, or 7 out of 9 Supreme Court justices being Conservative). People of integrity in the Republican Party such as the late John McCain need to be encouraged and supported, as the fascist direction the Republican Party has taken is not sustainable in a pluralistic Democracy. Either the Republican Party will have to change to fit Democracy, or Democracy will be eroded to fit an Authoritarian Republican Party.

Maybe we just have a difference of perspective here, but I kind of liken people who believe in the baseless electoral fraud narrative to those who deny the reality of Climate Change. If by this point someone isn't convinced by the decades of solid evidence for human caused Climate Change, they likely never will be, and almost certainly believe what they do for issues that having nothing to do with a lack of evidence. Similarly, credible studies looking at Voter Fraud are easily available, and basically all of them say the same thing: that widespread Voter Fraud in the USA is basically non-existent. Their believing in the Voter Fraud narrative does so for psychological and tribalistic reasons, not because there's any credible ambiguity in the evidence. In either case, spending a ton of effort to mollify either of these groups is a wasted effort in my view, and we'd be better off Unifying and working with the %60 or %70 of the country who's amenable to making progress in this country on a host of very serious issues. Trying to convince people who are a lost cause at this point is an Opportunity Cost that's just not worth it when you consider the time sensitive nature of many of the issues we're dealing with.

If the Voter Fraud claims were being made by John McCain Republicans or even George W Bush Republicans I might agree with you, but you have to remember that the basis for these claims are coming from a Cult Leader with no interest in working with the other side (or even seeing the country as a whole prosper). While I have no doubt that some MAGA Cult do sincerely believe that the election results are fraudulent, the only way they'll be disabused of that claim is if Daddy Trump tells them otherwise, something he'll never under any circumstances do. You have to remember that these are not rationale or reasonable people we're dealing with here, and there's not going to be an easy way to bring Unity to the %30 or %40 of the country who've fallen under the Cult of Personality of a charismatic sociopath. I would think that a better path forward would to be to focus on reforming our Institutions so that a minority of thr Country no longer has an outsized and undemocratic influence in our electoral system. And Unity would be better achieved by reaching out to moderates, Independents, and Never-Trumpers, and also by expanding Voting Rights throughout the Country.

From what I've seen (at least in America), Red tends to see Climate Change as a hoax, and when questioned about it they will proceed to send you a link to Conspiracy Video on Youtube made by some dude with a beard sitting in a truck.

The Voting Fraud claims made by the MAGA Cult aren't being made in Good Faith, but are instead being used as a tactic to delegitimize an election they lost, and undermine faith in Democracy. Giving credence to their claims by pretending to take their concerns seriously will only be seen to legitimize Conspiracy Theories on the far right, and will do no literally nothing to mollify Trump or his Cult. Negotiating with these people doesn't work; compromise can only happen when both sides are working in Good Faith.

LBJ was a paradoxical figure that I've never been able to wrap my head around; surely someone doesn't commit thier whole professional political career towards helping the less fortunate purely out of pragmatism, right? I always kind of had the impression that his Civil Rights reforms were more of a means to an end to garner support for the Social Reforms and Poverty Reduction Programs that he believed in, rather than out of a sincere desire to help black people. I say this because I don't really have a good way of squaring LBJ's sincere stage Green egalitarianism with his stage Blue personal racism. Interesting to note that he had alot of Orange or Red vulgarity as well (it wasn't uncommon for him to hold White House meetings from inside of the bathroom while taking a dump).

Universal Basic Income Orange : You can't just give people handouts for things they didn't work hard to earn. UBI fosters dependency on the State, and completely absolves people of Personal Responsibility for thier own well being. It's also too expensive. Also Orange : UBI is compromise position we can tolerate if it completely replaces the Welfare State, and is less wasteful than the billions of dollars being spent on inefficient Social Programs that don't work. UBI dollars can be invested back in to the economy through consumer spending, and can be a boon for entrepreneurs. Individuals know better than government bureaucrats how to spend Aid money, and UBI at the very least will give Individuals more autonomy than the Current Transfer System.

"Study: 40 percent are likely to attend a gathering of more than 10 this holiday season" https://www.vox.com/2020/11/14/21565314/covid-thanksgiving-holidays-distancing-masks Keep in mind this is during this is happening during a recent surge in Covid cases that's far surpassed the levels seen in April, which prompted lock downs across the country. I know I shouldn't be surprised anymore by how selfish and entitled a huge portion of the country is, but I have to wonder if America will reach a point where it becomes ungovernable before collapsing in on itself. 40 percent of the country living in a completely different reality from the rest of us is just not sustainable. The head of the Federal Coronavirus Taskforce just tweeted for people in Michigan to "Rise Up" against a series of recent restrictions from the Department of Health and Human Services meant to control the spread of the Virus. The fact that we have people in public positions of Authority more or less openly calling for Civil War is really unsettling, and totally unprecedented in American politics.

But a big difference is that Communism is (at least in theory, not so much in practice) compatible with Democracy, because the radical egalitarianism at its core isn't antithetical to human rights. The main problem being that it's unworkable in Practice, and prone to the emergence of power structures. Fascism on the other hand is antithetical to both Democracy and Human Rights, because its core tenets are ethno-supremacy and a mindset of society being made up of groups dominating other groups. Obviously both ideologies are highly problematic and best avoided, but at the same time it's probably best not to paint a false equivalency between the two.

It's amazing to me that people forget that America was a country founded on dissent. Blindly proclaiming America the best country in the world while being willfully ignorant about the ways that it's failing to live up to its own ideals isn't Patriotism. Anyone who gives a damn about this country wouldn't be obstructing badly needed reforms, and wouldn't bitch and moan about having to pay taxes to fund social programs (or whine about having to wear a mask during an epidemic). Loudmouthed nationalists in America are some of the most selfish and entitled people on the entire planet.