Hardkill

Shapiro and Peterson may not have nearly as high of consciousness or intelligence as someone like you do, but they are still smarter and more educated than most ignorant conservatives in America. You even mentioned before about how that the more education you have and the more effective of a knowledge worker you become the more free you are able to use your mind to see the injustices in the world, become more skeptical about the cultural traditions of your society, and demand freedom for greater self-expression and greater democracy. https://youtu.be/_8kybdrx1Xo?t=7231 Is there something that I am not understanding from what you're saying about that?

Oh wow! This looks like New Age gospel for the youth. It definitely looks very welcoming to all people of all races/ethnicities and other backgrounds.

The Republican Party has continuously shifted to the right both economically and socially since the 70s, while the Democratic Party has continuously shifted to the left socially since the 70s and to the left economically since the early 2000s. Considering that most Americans are still more appealed to fear, tradition, ideology, dogma, security, and status quo than they are to logic, science, open-mindedness, advanced policies, and reform, then why haven't most Americans always voted for Republican politicians since around the 70s?

But I don’t think that they both achieved the kind of top educational level they each got by simply regurgitating concepts and knowledge. They also had to constantly use and enhance their critical thinking skills. Also, why do higher educated individuals tend to vote more for liberals and Democrats?

Well, both Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are well-known religious conservative intellectuals, which is probably why they resonate with each other. However, I've never fully understood why guys like them who are much smarter, much more educated, and less scummy than most conservatives and Republicans are, are still totally on side of conservative Republicans. If guys like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro are undoubtedly smarter and more educated than the average American then why haven't they been able to question both their own religious dogma and all of right-wing politics?

I actually made a mistake when I previously said on this forum that Ron DeSantis could be the next Ronald Reagan of the GOP. According to this recent New Yorker article, DeSantis doesn't have nearly the historic levels of Charisma that someone like Reagan had. I am not trying to downplay the threat of DeSantis at all. I am still very very worried about him becoming president. However, he seems to be more like a Trump clone who like Trump would be considered incredibly popular within the entire Republican Party, but in the grand scheme of things only appeals to a relatively small slice of all Americans throughout the entire country. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/06/27/can-ron-desantis-displace-donald-trump-as-the-gops-combatant-in-chief I am really frightened by the idea that DeSantis could be very capable of finding more ways to erode our democracy by being able to find a lot of loopholes that neither Trump nor W. Bush were able to find. Perhaps he could become an extreme right wing version of Nixon.

I understand why those two countries had to be authoritarian 100-200 years ago and I am not expecting these countries to become democracies within the foreseeable future. Also, the US has actually always been one of the most ethnically heterogeneous countries in the world. But why did US already granted full freedom of speech and press right around the beginning of the 1800s and throughout the entire 19th century, America had actually much less developed technology, lower level of access to quality education, and poorer economic living conditions per capita than citizens in Russians and citizens in China in the late 1900s and 2000s have had? I am kind of surprised that there haven't already been some kind of mass revolt or widespread protesting for freedom of press and expression on all of the corruption that they have in their countries. Btw, allowing greater freedom of the press and speech provides government leaders the honest feedback and knowledge they need to improve their leadership capabilities. Why do you think that Putin has been constantly misinformed by everyone working for him and by the media in Russia? Because of how authoritarian Putin has gotten, all of his advisers and the media in Russia are all too afraid to tell him 'full truth' about the numerous failures his military has made and the mistakes that he and his military have made in their war against Ukraine.

Oh yeah, that makes sense. Thanks.

Ahhh! So, just like how the profoundly horrific Civil War finally lead to the enactments of the 13th, 14th, and 15th constitutional amendments...... just like how the Gilded Age which was full of widespread corruption, scandal, and intense political polarization led to the Progressive Era..... just like how the Great Depression in the US led to the New Deal era, and just like how the nonviolent resistance, civil disobedience campaigns, and mass racial violence during the mid 1900s Civil Right era led to end of segregation, full voting rights and full citizenship for all racial minorities, and the rest of Great Society era..... another few decades of this culture war that we’ve been in will ultimately usher in another era of some kind of fundamental structural reform of government and society to the degree of what was accomplished during each of those above mentioned historic reform eras.

Well racism and bigotry is both morally and logically wrong and of course that approx. 40% of white christian Americans who vote Democrat are fully aware of that. However, wouldn't the idea of keeping the status quo of white ethnic homogeneity and the hegemony of white America appeal more to the emotions and base instincts of those same white christian Americans than the idea of creating more equal opportunity and equal rights for all races/ethnicities would?

Okay, I got that. I guess that's true in a lot of ways true with regards to Democrats standard campaign strategy. Though, James Carville, one of the top campaign strategist for the Dems, says that many large areas of America unfortunately perceive Democrats as too urban, coastal, and intellectually condescending, which has really significantly damaged the party's brand. In fact, he pointed out how the progressive wing of the party have really hurt the Democratic Party's appeal a lot with their stupid wokeness and faculty lounge rhetoric. He said in an interview in a Vox article last year: "You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people? They come up with a word like 'Latinx' that no one else uses. Or they use a phrase like “communities of color.” I don’t know anyone who speaks like that. I don’t know anyone who lives in a 'community of color.' I know lots of white and Black and brown people and they all live in ... neighborhoods. There’s nothing inherently wrong with these phrases. But this is not how people talk. This is not how voters talk. And doing it anyway is a signal that you’re talking one language and the people you want to vote for you are speaking another language. This stuff is harmless in one sense, but in another sense it’s not......We have to talk about race. We should talk about racial injustice. What I’m saying is, we need to do it without using jargon-y language that’s unrecognizable to most people — including most Black people, by the way — because it signals that you’re trying to talk around them. This “too cool for school” shit doesn’t work, and we have to stop it. There may be a group within the Democratic Party that likes this, but it ain’t the majority. And beyond that, if Democrats want power, they have to win in a country where 18 percent of the population controls 52 percent of the Senate seats. That’s a fact. That’s not changing. That’s what this whole damn thing is about.......Wokeness is a problem and everyone knows it. It’s hard to talk to anybody today — and I talk to lots of people in the Democratic Party — who doesn’t say this. But they don’t want to say it out loud.......Because they’ll get clobbered or canceled. And look, part of the problem is that lots of Democrats will say that we have to listen to everybody and we have to include every perspective, or that we don’t have to run a ruthless messaging campaign. Well, you kinda do. It really matters. I always tell people that we’ve got to stop speaking Hebrew and start speaking Yiddish. We have to speak the way regular people speak, the way voters speak. It ain’t complicated. That’s how you connect and persuade. And we have to stop allowing ourselves to be defined from the outside."

So, just because a non-white person in America may be tradition-oriented, it doesn't necessarily mean that they want the all or even many of the specific cultural traditions of America and the status quo of the US government to be preserved. Correct? But how do you explain why there are about 40% of white christian Americans who vote for Democrats when they know that the Republican Party is always whole heartedly committed to fighting for ethnic homogeneity of white Americans and the dominance of white christian American cultural?

You make a valid point about the Republican Party. But why don't most non-white Americans who are tradition oriented aren't more emotionally appealed by the Republican party's rhetoric that's based on fear, tradition, ideology, dogma, security, and status quo than with the Democratic party's rhetoric that's based more on logic, science, open-mindedness, advanced policies, and reform? Most people vote base on emotion and gut feeling and less on higher level thinking and compassion. Also, most Democrats tend to project more weakness than Republicans do, except in the cases of Bill Clinton and Obama. So, why are the Democrats have often been able to compete electorally with Republicans when the Republicans almost always have stronger emotional appeal and come off as stronger than the Democrats?

So, you think that perhaps the main reason why the country hasn't gone through such radical reforms like it used to about every 10 to 30 years including the eras of Jackson, Lincoln, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, FDR, Truman, and JFK/LBJ, etc. is because the late 1900s and 2000s haven't been nearly as painful or as traumatic as the early 1800s to mid 1900s were?

Do you think that its possible that maybe a majority of Americans actually are okay with having the rich, corporations, and right-wing authoritarianism taking over our country? How likely do you think we will have another Progressive era like around the 1890s to early 1900s, where most Americans will finally get so enraged by the wealthy, corporations, and right-wing extremism in America, that the people will finally decide that it's time to elect leaders who will bring historic progressive reform both socially and economically like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and the early 1900's Congress did?

Apparently, not enough Americans seem to either not care or realize how much both the corporate lobbyists and the Republican Party have been continuously eroding our democracy. Do you think that that means that maybe a majority of Americans actually are okay with having the rich, corporations, and right-wing authoritarianism taking over our country? Do you think that we will one day have another Progressive era like around the 1890s to early 1900s, where most Americans will finally get so enraged by the wealthy, corporations, and right-wing extremism in America, that the people will finally decide that it's time elected leaders who will bring historic progressive reform both socially and economically like Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and the early 1900's Congress did?

Then we should definitely get rid of states' right, eliminate the filibuster, and reduce the power of the senate.

According to this Vox article, "In 2013, the New York Times pointed out that the six senators from California, Texas, and New York represented the same number of people as the 62 senators from the smallest 31 states." This in and of itself already is already overkill with regard to balancing to representing each states interest. Not to mention, that most people from all the smallest 31 states combined are stupidier and more bigoted than most people from California, Texas, and New York combined. So, compared to most people in California, Texas, New York, and other big ones such as Illinois, most people in the smaller states are already too underdeveloped to be voting in major elections for the entire country. Besides, as much as I am becoming more and more averse to the idea of states' rights, each of those smaller such as Wyoming could probably pass their own state laws that could to some extent water down any new federal laws enforced in each of their own states. Now that Roe vs. Wade has been overturned, McConnell and the Repubs in the Senate will probably carve out the filibuster to pass a nation wide abortion ban law throughout the entire country if the Repubs end up gaining control of both chambers in congress and the presidency. Take a look at Noam Chomsky said in an interview: "C.J. Polychroniou: Many Democrats wish to eliminate the filibuster — another Jim Crow relic — because with the wafer-thin majority that they hold it is impossible to pass into law landmark pieces of legislation. However, given today’s political climate, and with the possibility looming on the horizon that Trumpist Republicans will retake the House in 2022, aren’t there risks in abolishing the filibuster? Noam Chomsky: It’s a concern, and it would have some weight in a functioning democracy. But a long series of Republican attacks on the integrity of Congress, culminating in McConnell’s machinations, have seriously undermined the Senate’s claim to be part of a democratic polity. If Democrats were to resort to filibuster, McConnell, who is no fool, might well find ways to use illegal procedures to ram through acts that would establish more firmly the rule of the far right, whatever the population might prefer. We saw that illustrated recently in his shenanigans with the Garland-Gorsuch Supreme Court appointments, but it goes far back." https://chomsky.info/20210708/

Obviously abolishing states' rights will never happen within the foreseeable future. However, I think that it honestly might've been a big mistake that our Founding Fathers made. Also, why should a state like Wyoming that has only about a 1.5% the population size of that California have as much of a say about the country as a whole?

Actually, don't you think that there shouldn't have ever been a need for any kind of states' rights in the USA?

The idea of having a minority rule a country might have merit in a second world or third world country because the elite running such a country are actually generally more intellectually and culturally developed than the vast majority of its citizens. However, it sadly kinda of the opposite situation in America, at least on a national level. The minority of voters are actually the ones who are more stupid, more backwards, more racist, and more devious than the majority of voters in America on a national level.

I don't even think that scientists and the medical community have gotten enough test results on the long-term negative effects of vaping.

I agree, especially after hearing your take on Why Bernie Sanders Lost. But I am surprised that Chomsky would make such a statement himself. I thought he was wiser, more shrewd, and at a higher level of conscious than most progressives are. Is it possible that he is not quite at solid stage Yellow himself or perhaps I am taking what he said out of context? Btw, what use are policy polls if they can't even convince enough members Congress or other politicians to pass new good laws? Or are they only useful for simply collecting data for political scientists and social science researchers?

Noam Chomsky says that Bernie is the most popular politician in the US simply because he has the most popular policies. He said in this vid down below that "Bernie would've won the Democratic Party nomination if it hadn't been for the Clinton-Obama shenanigans to keep the party from reflecting its popular constituency...." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP7mt_Ie04Y But why he say that when he is a stage Yellow thinker whom you would expect to know better than that?

Clarence Thomas also said in his opinion that the "landmark high court rulings that established gay rights and contraception rights should be reconsidered now that the federal right to abortion has been revoked." https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/24/roe-v-wade-supreme-court-justice-thomas-says-gay-rights-rulings-open-to-be-tossed.html I know you said that right-wing policies that do get enacted, particularly those that are far right, will inevitably get eliminated because of how unpopular, backwards, and authoritarian they are in general. So, then why haven't enough people been ever been furious with all of the far right economic policies that were enacted during the Reagan, Bush, and Trump eras?