USA Politics

[arpeggio]

From a few years ago, this article shows that both parties have their issues with science.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/02/25/most-democrats-dont-know-it-takes-a-year-for-the-earth-to-go-around-the-sun/%3foutputType=amp

Really, you think I am so ill informed that I am unaware of those situations were there are some liberals who are nut jobs?  I am tired of being accused of being something I am not.

Let me guess.  Because there are some liberals who think the world is flat I can not have problems with those, and this includes some Democrats, who think the world is only ten thousand years old.

I will tell you something negative about me that is truthful and you can have a field day with it.

I consider myself an agnostic socialist.  And as a socialist I can tell you that most Democrats are not socialists.

[JBS]

Lol, if we shared a border with Ireland, had an astronomical amount of immigration from it and had the history of a controversial war over land you might have legitimate reason for concern. Calexit is still a troubling precedent, one that could lead in 15 or 20 years time in an attempt not by one state but by several with hispanic majorities that no longer feel a cultural, social or political attachment to other parts of America, especially so if our government continues to act dysfunctionally, our institutions continue to weaken and/or a major economic colapse occurs.

Having one of the two major political parties ground a major portion of its agenda on the idea that immigrants  are bad and we need to curb immigration as much as possible certainly does not help.

But  you are forgetting that Hispanic is a term that includes a lot of people who are not Mexican and for whom Reconquista on behalf of Mexico has no special charm.

[SimonNZ]

I'm guessing "Reconquestia" and "Calexit" are Brietbart scare words, considering I haven't read them anywhere else.

<google search>

Confirmed.

[JBS]

Not so much about legal immigrants being bad but illegal aliens and the undocumented causing the mischief.
True, but most Hispanic people in America are of Mexican descent. I think if we adopted a sensible immigration policy most if not all would assimilate, see English as their rightful language, fully embrace American culture while issues over identity would gradually go away, (in other words join the melting pot).

The GOP agenda is the very opposite of a sensible immigration policy. Trump embraces an extreme version of it which no one in the GOP seems to mind.  If they really liked legal immigrants, they would  make it easier  to get in here.

[arpeggio]

... as I am by the atheists and left wingers who use those issues to push for an aggressive agenda.

You are half right about me here.  Even I do not think socialisms is the universal answer to all of the world's problems.  Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

[SimonNZ]

The link earlier was to Wikipedia so saying I linked to Breibart is untrue. In fact, while here I don't know if I've ever linked to Breitbart. 

I really don't care what a guy from New Zealand feels about my political beliefs and I don't know why you come here to be offended and report everything you don't like to the moderators, either.

I haven't reported anything to the moderators.

You've quoted and linked to Brietbart on a number of occasions, and on others the "opinion" could easily be traced back to them.

[Karl Henning]

Really, you think I am so ill informed that I am unaware of those situations were there are some liberals who are nut jobs?  I am tired of being accused of being something I am not.

Let me guess.  Because there are some liberals who think the world is flat I can not have problems with those, and this includes some Democrats, who think the world is only ten thousand years old.

I will tell you something negative about me that is truthful and you can have a field day with it.

I consider myself an agnostic socialist.  And as a socialist I can tell you that most Democrats are not socialists.

Looks like projection on his part, he's snowing you on this point,  because he's a Trumpkin with no qualms about any of the far-right wingnuts.


Typical Trumpian dodge.

[Todd]

Lol, if we shared a border with Ireland

You misunderstood.  I am truly more concerned about actual leprechauns than I am about Reconquista.  The latter is just silly.

As to Calexit being a troubling precedent, ask South Carolinians how well secession pans out.  Or ask supporters of the formation of the state of Jefferson how easy it is to create a new state, just 'cause.

[Gurn Blanston]

Lol, if we shared a border with Ireland, had an astronomical amount of immigration from it and had the history of a controversial war over land you might have legitimate reason for concern. Calexit is still a troubling precedent, one that could lead in 15 or 20 years time in an attempt not by one state but by several with hispanic majorities that no longer feel a cultural, social or political attachment to other parts of America, especially so if our government continues to act dysfunctionally, our institutions continue to weaken and/or a major economic colapse occurs.

What I find amusing as a Texas resident is that the on-again off-again push for secession is driven here by right-wing anti-government militia types. We have been much further down this road already than California has (I looked into it seriously when I lived there).

Texas Secession Movement on Wiki

I think that for California to leave would be a bigger blow for the country, but the point is that there are different reasons for wanting to break up the country, and while Texas has a huge Mexican population,  they haven't yet taken part in any of this. I know it would be nice to blame the Mexicans, it fits so nicely with 'Build the Wall' rhetoric...

[drogulus]

     We have as much reconquest as we need, the kind that works best. The conquerors become us. As a Texican by birth and inclination I know all about it.

[drogulus]

     The NYTimes has failingly panned Boltons book. Apparently the author is an aesthetic klutz, and offers nothing much in the way of excuses for refusing to testify in the impeachment hearing.

"Had I testified," Bolton intones, "I am convinced, given the environment then existing because of the House's impeachment malpractice, that it would have made no significant difference in the Senate outcome." It's a self-righteous and self-serving sort of fatalism that sounds remarkably similar to the explanation he gave years ago for preemptively signing up for the National Guard in 1970 and thereby avoiding service in Vietnam. "Dying for your country was one thing," he wrote in his 2007 book "Surrender Is Not an Option, "but dying to gain territory that antiwar forces in Congress would simply return to the enemy seemed ludicrous to me."

When it comes to Bolton's comments on impeachment, the clotted prose, the garbled argument and the sanctimonious defensiveness would seem to indicate some sort of ambivalence on his part — a feeling that he doesn't seem to have very often. Or maybe it merely reflects an uncomfortable realization that he's stuck between two incompatible impulses: the desire to appear as courageous as those civil servants who bravely risked their careers to testify before the House; and the desire to appease his fellow Republicans, on whom his own fastidiously managed career most certainly depends. It's a strange experience reading a book that begins with repeated salvos about "the intellectually lazy" by an author who refuses to think through anything very hard himself.

     

[SimonNZ]

At the library tonight I discovered that James Shapiro has a new Shakespeare book. Had it been anyone else i might have not given it a second look. But here's a Guardian reviewsuggesting I was right in grabbing it and taking it home:

Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro review – how the bard found his greatest stage
A timely, clever analysis of why Shakespeare continues to cast a spell over American politics

[Todd]

Yeah, the Nullification Crisis in SC paved the way for the Civil War. There was a long chain of historical circumstances but it was a precedent, as was Calexit, which might turn bloody at some point if the issues surrounding it aren't resolved properly.

The point in selecting South Carolina was that it was first to secede.  The Nullification Crisis and Calexit are not analogs.  Calexit is as silly as Reconquista.

[Todd]

'I think Putin thinks he can play [Trump] like a fiddle': Former national security adviser John Bolton in exclusive interview

Pornstache is finally getting some love from the MSM.  Some lefties will no doubt extol his virtues now.  The enemy of my enemy, and all that.

[Todd]

It seems silly or far fetched now as does most secessionist talk, yeah. Only mentioned it in reference to the post about America breaking up at some point into various sections because of divisions and irreconcilable squabbles so if that were to happen, it would probably be less of a Calexit and more a Mexexit of several southwestern states, whose Latino population has exploded in the last 50 years or so.

Regionalism and secession will not cause the demise of the US.  Reconquista and Calexit are silly, even if regionalism and secession were more probable.  Reconquista is the sillier of the two concepts given the obvious racism underpinning it.  Mexexit is an even goofier construction.

[drogulus]

Biden's tax proposals are considered quite progressive, as it will affect the top 1% the most (their payments will be 65% of individual revenue streams) according to this study, with corporate rates increasing and several trillion added to the budget over the next 20 years or so.

https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/an-analysis-of-joe-bidens-tax-proposals/

     I understand some 1 percenters pay taxes. We should probably not worry much about it.

     My concern is the real tax on spending, not a quasi-fictional tax on saving. That's tax theater. Liberals and conservatives alike are theatrical about the tax return.

     To the extent taxation really does something it would be good to decide what that is. What's it for? It's for a few things, but the first is to extinguish excess money. Government spending adds fast money and taxation makes room for it by taxing back slower dollars. Progressive taxation does that, but the same thing can be done on the spend side with flatter taxation, the so-called Nordic model.

     The point is to get a good result by normative measure, not to satisfy a group you like. Though I may not particularly like a group, I still think it's good for them to spend up to their ability and desires.

     Having goals in mind for spend/tax decisions is better than having a spend or tax target. Budgeteers think a budget is a good thing to fix, everything else is in last place. Think "entitlement reform", if you call that thinking.

[Todd]

Isn't that what Lincoln said famously though?

That was ~160 years ago.  That had to do with the unresolved issues of slavery.  Grant took care of that.  Also, there was still a possibility of the army splitting in two.  Today, not so much.  One must adjust historical analogies to contemporary facts.

Concern about Reconquista is entirely racist.  It is a very scary idea uttered by white folks who wring their hands about Hispanics.

Antifa, BLM, Occupy, and the host of right wing rabble protesting with varying levels of violence are just continuing a proud American tradition.  We haven't even seen 1960s levels of violence this year, let alone 1930s or 1910s levels of protests mixed with targeted terrorism.  Maybe we still will.  Protests are already starting to peter out in Little Beirut, so I don't hold out hopes for any fireworks locally.

[drogulus]

Is the book as juicy as Omarosa's?

     There will be overlap on the juice. Bolton knows more about policy decisions and writes about what he experienced, and if you can handle long stretches of tedium and ridiculous justification of his refusal to testify, you'll get an undoubtedly accurate picture of Trump turning the US into a Stan. That's what the reviewer said and others who've read the book say that, too.

     Since Trumpists and many on the left will hate the book, the target audience is people who want to know more details about Trump's love of dictators and his desire to emulate and please them, and get election help from them in return. Bolton complains that the impeachment investigation was not thorough enough to satisfy him, a pathetic excuse for his noncooperation but otherwise a reasonable criticism.

[Todd]

Calling people names for expressing fear or legitimate worries won't help.

I am simply pointing out that concern about Reconquista, like concern about the "browning of America", is racist. 

Also, the disintegration of the US along amorphous ethnic lines is not a legitimate concern.

[drogulus]

The Walrus was an odd choice for Trump. Bolton defended the president at the Oxford Union last year (you can find it on YouTube) but apparently getting fired for wanting wars in North Korea, Venezuela and Iran will make you bitter, want to write a book and crave acceptance by the liberal MSM.

     As the excerpt I quoted points out, Bolton can't reconcile his conflicting wants. I think acceptance from liberals is less important than dollars from lots of paying customers, some of whom will be liberal. Bolton can get wretched reviews from the MSM and get by just fine, because people are going to buy the book for the good parts.

     Since it's certain that Bolton is trying to stay on the good side of warmongerish Repubs, why would you think he craves anything from liberals other than dollars and fanatical opposition?