A brief quote from Leon Wieseltier in White Rose Magazine:

“After everything that liberalism endured and survived, after the unimaginably savage assaults of fascism and communism, we must steadfastly fight for it all over again, and we must begin again at the beginning.”

Wieseltier defines liberalism as the antithesis of authoritarianism. Liberalism can be conservative or progressive but it exists as a willingness to let things evolve naturally and to stay within sight of individualism. In his article, Wieseltier takes a different view of the terrorists and racists and includes the opposite side of Black Lives Matter and protests against police brutality. All of them, he contends, are starting at the beginning to recapture the individualism that has disappeared more and more rapidly in the last fifty years.

He fears that it will get worse before it gets better. The reader can imagine the cost to individuality from the Internet and its many homogenizing activities; the psychology of orderliness is no longer a person-to-person experience rather it is a form of compliance with the status quo – the path of least resistance, the easiest way to comply with social norms.

Mariner often has cited the 1980 Reagan shift that separated profit and national commitment into the wealthy and their corporations while letting go of obligation to the citizenry at large. (Mariner is not alone in this opinion; it is a very popular assumption among economists and sociologists.) In a vague manner, the common citizen had to take what the plutocrats offered – top down instead of bottom up. Between automation of the soul and oppression of life’s rewards, liberalism has largely disappeared.

The ideological collapse of the Republican Party is a symptom of these times. So is the progressive democrat charge into socialist solutions. Lost in between are liberalism and the importance of individualism. Expressed in Constitutional terms, there is no right to freedom of speech.

Perhaps Wieseltier has it right: we must begin at the beginning, perhaps not in open violence but in rearranging the ethical core of our nation; fighting need not be abusive but it must take physical action.

Ancient Mariner

֎ From NEWSY:

“A White nationalist movement that fueled a new rise for Europe’s far-right continues to gain momentum around the world and is helping to lure in and radicalize new recruits, according to terrorism experts. The French government dissolved the world’s first major “Identitarian” group in February, but not before its underlying ideology spread to at least 16 countries, including the U.S. White nationalist groups have become increasingly emboldened in their efforts to recruit. An explosion of propaganda, stickers and banners warn of a coming “invasion” of immigrants.”

The article documents the growth of far-right vigilantism around the world – perhaps because the numbers of immigrants grow due to collapsed economies and shifting climate and aided by social media. Here in the United States there is enough economy at the moment to curtail the use of field artillery and military assaults. Still, the political force is growing. The target will be the democratic concepts of any government: the government itself (January 6), voting (GOP?) and civil liberties (elect Donald again).

Mariner doesn’t believe that within the United States there will be a collapse of democracy – which already has happened within NATO and middle-eastern nations but for the US it will be a thorn in the side of progress through these difficult times.

֎ GOP: When is it time to put the ol’ horse down?

Here’s the current breakdown of all Senators by age:

80s: 7
70s: 24
60s: 38
50s: 19
40s: 12

So around a third are aged over 70 and around two thirds are over 60.

Term limits would solve the problem. A maximum of three six year terms should be enough to make a decent contribution (mariner believes there should be an age limit as well). The point is this: The GOP perception of conservative government hasn’t changed since 1980. It hasn’t changed because the old fogeys, who grew up and established their career in a time that no longer exists, are still in charge of GOP politics. The turtle is 79; mariner’s senator is 87. Don’t forget our Presidents: Donald left office at 75 and Joe is 78.

The entire Senate is over the hill; of 100 senators, 69 are over 60! What saves the democrats from the same extent of criticism is that the democrats always are trying to change something rather than defend the status quo.

The coronavirus, introduced by godly forces tired of lagging progress, has short-sheeted the GOP. The GOP quickly must remake their bed – much more quickly than the normal evolution of economics and culture would require.

In case a reader doesn’t know how to put the ol’ horse down, it is quick and bloodless: don’t vote for them. Not only that, vote for someone under 55.

֎ Make note of the term XR (extended reality – a term from gaming corporations that has become a term meaning take as much human activity and responsibility as possible and put it on the Internet). Many corporations are redefining their dream income model to be completely online and, this is the interesting part, be the sole owner of entire segments of society. AirB&B sees itself as the Department of Housing and Urban Development for all homes in the US; Uber imagines that all cars – repeat, ALL cars – will belong to Uber. Already Zuckerberg is challenging antitrust lawsuits by saying the Internet is the competition. All money, too, will be bitcoins. A big question: which corporation will own all the banks and credit card companies?

So the government will have a lot less to worry about since corporations will automate everything using proprietary software. Who will own all the votes?

Ancient Mariner

Mariner submitted a post yesterday warning of a political tendency toward authoritarianism saying that it was a prominent movement in local jurisdictions across the nation. In this morning’s mail Nate Silver at 538.com wrote the following:

“Republican state legislators spend the early days of this year’s legislative session proposing laws that would make it harder to vote — especially in ways disproportionately used by Democrats and voters of color — under the pretense of preventing large-scale voter fraud (which doesn’t exist).

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a pro-voting-rights advocacy group, more than 165 bills restricting voting access have been proposed in 33 state legislatures — more than four times as many as had been proposed in February 2020.”

The founding fathers left voting procedures to the states likely because of poor communication in those days. That decision, however, has led to disproportional representation in the Senate, the Electoral College and biased practices in gerrymandering. Whichever party controls the state legislature, controls voting. In Georgia there is a bill that would allow the legislature to overturn an election because it didn’t like the outcome.

What makes this movement important to watch is that polls all along have shown that 40 percent of republicans favor Donald and authoritarian practices that discourage democracy. In the last Presidential election 70 million citizens voted for Donald. At 40 percent, that’s 28 million votes against democracy already on record.

Nationally, the United States is democratic. At the State level, 22 states are consistently red states versus 14 blue states; the rest are close to even but unpredictable. At the county level, well, the reader saw the county results in the last post.

The point is this: Benjamin Franklin’s comment that the US will be a democracy only as long as we can keep it has come to a critical point. Around the world democracies are falling like flies to authoritarian governments. This century has begun an era of hardship that has tossed stable governments in the air like confetti.

The next holocaust will include blacks, Hispanics and Asians as well as Jews.

Ancient Mariner

Do you have a degree in theology? Do you have a degree in history, sociology, and political science? If you have these degrees, you have the tools to fathom the depths of world and U.S. circumstances.

Mariner was watching his bird feeder the other day. It is quite popular with many kinds of birds, squirrels and rabbits. He observed the gluttony and crude eating habits of the larger starlings. They literally gulped chunks of all the peanut butter, cookie crumbs and nut treats before other species could have their fair share. The starlings left only after the ‘profits’ were gone, leaving only a scattering of sunflower seeds.

This behavior reminded mariner of how capitalism works. Profit is the ethic. If profit disappears, capitalism will go elsewhere to find still profitable resources. Don’t get mariner wrong, conservatives; he understands that the combination of an entire continent’s untapped resources, combined with a new public form of Christianity, the profit capacity of capitalism and little in the way of civic restraint – allowed the United States in a few scant decades to be the powerhouse nation of the whole world.

Something has happened recently. The capitalists have flown away to other nations where profit can be sustained at high levels; only information scavengers remain gleaning what can be had. The United States isn’t destitute. In fact, the U.S. still is the richest nation in the world. However, this is a relative statement because the majority of other nations aren’t doing as well as they once did. What’s left in the United States is a disarray of sunflowers shells and no investment in sustaining the life of the rest of the birds – er – population.

This is where your profound collection of degrees comes into play: How do you fix this situation? It is part economic, part cultural, part circumstance, and part government.

For example, the nation is very, very short on birdhouses. There aren’t enough to go around. And some bird varieties – the darker kind – can’t have one in any case. Will you please fix this?

Some birds have become predators and carry guns and clubs. They are confused and joined the political party that is responsible for their circumstances. Will you please fix this? Birdseed is becoming scarce; some birds have none. Do you know where to get more?

Fortunately, mariner maintains the birdfeeder. It’s a role akin to being the government. Does the U.S. have a government? Not one that can fix anything. Will you please fix the government?

Ancient Mariner