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Well, there are group psychopathologies which seems to penetrate an individual's psych to become worthy of restraint. How long before one's rants gets one into trouble? Well, with rapid transportation and guns available, we may see this come to pass.

‘Traitors Need To Be Executed’: ‘Stop The Steal’
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alan-hostetter-capitol-attack-arrest-fbi_n_60c27653e4b0e6bab7a5a0be

jedrider wrote:Well, there are group psychopathologies which seems to penetrate an individual's psych to become worthy of restraint. How long before one's rants gets one into trouble? Well, with rapid transportation and guns available, we may see this come to pass.

‘Traitors Need To Be Executed’

It already has come to pass.

People forget that in 2017 a D fanatic traveled to DC and attacked a group of R Congressmen, Senators and staffers playing baseball in a DC park. The D nut job got off an estimated 50 shots, and injured Representative Steve Scalise badly, but fortunately, the assailant didn't kill anyone before he was shot and killed by police.

I wonder what the ongoing drought in the American West is going to do to this problem. This year may be the year that the "call" is made upon the Colorado River. That would mean that there isn't enough water to go around and it has to be proportioned out according to whatever situation underlies the current water pact. I don't know if this sort of emergency would galvanize people around stranger and stranger conspiracies, or cause them to come together?

It could pit states against each other. It could inflame localized tensions. Under such a situation, what the Federal Government did would become important. They would be a unifying voice among many voices of dissension. They could become a bogeyman because of taking on that role. Otherwise, there isn't an apparent bogeyman.

It seems like I should expect a coming together because of the absence of an apparent bogeyman. People only have God to blame for a drought. But there is the whole reluctance to admit how much man can influence the climate. It feels related to the same sort of thinking that imprisoned Galileo. It's as if, in order to defend other important tenets of thought, folks engage in deliberate denial. I think you see it on both the left and the right.

Gosh, we could be going through a time like that. Maybe every time is a time like that? Isn't it good to be a witness to history?

evilgenius wrote:I wonder what the ongoing drought in the American West is going to do to this problem.

Don't know, but I suspect most of the inaction on mitigation strategies is due to the nascent political extremism that pops up whenever 'government' is mentioned.

evilgenius wrote: Isn't it good to be a witness to history?

I think thats the best attitude to take.

Everything is going to get worse and worse as the planet gets hotter and weather goes crazy just about everywhere.

We might as well enjoy the show!


Oh boy! Its the climate change disaster show again!

Plant is looking for laughter. I don't quite get why he isn't more even handed? Because I feel picked on. I've asked myself if that was because I just failed to notice when he agreed with me. I think Plant's humor, therefore, better represents how far to the right, in comparison to a more European example, that America is.

I should be a moderate who can't find a party. I find the selective adherence to specific definitions by the right to be absolutely abhorrent. It leads to excluding people for things they have no control over, while excusing the same only because of place.

This seems like it adheres to the standard of right of way, which I find to be the basis of morality. The finding of right of way being, in most cases, temporal in origin. Only, right of way always requires the element of standing to operate. You need to know which operators can possess it. What sort of right of way do we assign a more abstract thing, like nature?

Anyway, selective adherence allows an attack upon certain person's standing. When that becomes official, it only continues along one direction. Plant, apparently, wants to live in a world where it used to be illegal to be gay, for instance, wasn't illegal anymore, then became illegal again. He seems to long for a world where people of color go back to taking it on the other cheek.

I don't know if he presents this in his cartoons so much because he is actually making a statement about human nature or not? I think he could be making an anarchist like statement, when he just says to accept what it is futile to resist. He could be commenting on the entire capitalist example.

All that aside, I am a bit more liberal than most Americans. I also made the mistake of looking for truth where a lot of people on the left think they will find it. Communism as they envision it is not a solution. European socialism does work, but it also costs a lot more than people think. It costs a whole class of people a leg up into entrepreneurship. It makes it too expensive to go into business for yourself. If you are not a well connected person it is harder to get started than it is in the US. The US is always arguing about how to make that easier on people. The Europeans are not. In the UK, at least, they use the black market of the ubiquitous car boot sale to make up the difference.

You don't have to go very far into a world dominated by robots at every level to see that working for a living will become a dying art. Well, not being well enabled to own would then be crippling for a whole class of people. Because human beings can still own ten self-driving taxis, or the packing machines that take all of those little things from the shelf and sort them into other packages for delivery. They could own those factors of production and lease them to other, more overarching organizations. Or they could compete independently, where that is appropriate. There will also be social media darlings. People will have online stores.

People will still do things that contribute to the economy. It will be harder on them doing it, if they have to also run the gauntlet of satisfying a guildish style opportunity restricting system. The Europeans will probably wind up advocating for some form of guaranteed minimum income rather than face these biases. They will not be able to resist knowing everything about everybody. Already, the UK has more cameras than anywhere.

This is a great time is history for observing the relationship between the individual and the state. I think, ultimately, that is also where Plant is coming from. I tend to cut him some slack.

evilgenius wrote:Plant is looking for laughter.

Yes, thats right.

I often think....."i wonder what my laugh of the day will be" when I open up PeakOil.com

And sure enough, there is usually some post about a politician or a political policy that makes me laugh.

Or, if I think a politician has done something funny or absurd and no one else has posted about it, then I'll post about it myself.

Personally, I don't see what's wrong with laughing at politicians.

If we can't laugh at politicians then the world is in a terrible mess.

I guess if you identify with a certain politician and feel compelled to support them no matter what then it might upset you if someone made fun of that politician, but thats kind of a stupid way to look at things IMHO.

Politicians inevitably do dumb things.

Obama did dumb things, Trump did dumb things, and now Biden is doing dumb things.

If you can't see the dumb things they do then you aren't paying attention.

evilgenius wrote:This is a great time is history for observing the relationship between the individual and the state. I think, ultimately, that is also where Plant is coming from. I tend to cut him some slack.

A very good point, evilgenius.

And for the exact same reason I try to cut you some slack as well.

In fact, everyone should cut everyone else some slack.

What in heck are people getting so wee-wee'd up about anyway.

Making fun of politicians is a key part of the American character.

Everyone should laugh and then make their own jokes.

Getting angry about a joke about a politician is just, well, not very American.


Making jokes about politicians is an American tradition and an all around good thing to do in this difficult time we are living in.

Cheers!

Plantagenet wrote:Politicians inevitably do dumb things.

Obama did dumb things, Trump did dumb things, and now Biden is doing dumb things.

If you can't see the dumb things they do then you aren't paying attention.

They are only dumb things if you think the politicians work for the benefit of the majority of citizens.

They lost, and are demonstrating a resolve that could lead to unimaginable outcomes, not seen since 1859.

Their willingness to "burn down the house", in order to subvert and derail the fair elective outcome frightens me to the core.

The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the “vital few”).[1] Other names for this principle are the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity.

Lefty Loonies
Right wingers
Anti-vaxers
Climate deniers
Flat Earthers
Etc.

There is always some extreme group that is sold on their position and unwilling to countenance any disagreement.

They are only a big problem when they take charge. But they are always a PITA.

Newfie wrote:

The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the “vital few”).[1] Other names for this principle are the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity.

Lefty Loonies
Right wingers
Anti-vaxers
Climate deniers
Flat Earthers
Etc.

There is always some extreme group that is sold on their position and unwilling to countenance any disagreement.

They are only a big problem when they take charge. But they are always a PITA.

I think it is pretty much a natural law following the S curve. You have flat out extremes at both ends and the broad middle is every shade in between. It doesn't just work for technology, it works for all other ideas too. Reactionaries at the bottom left, wild eyed radicals at the upper right and the rest stuck in between.

EdwinSm wrote: Maybe people should consider North Korea as a model- it is Isolated and in the minds of the ruling few it is Great, and nobody is allowed to say otherwise.

North Korea is a communist hellhole.

No one in their right mind would promote it as a "model".

Cheers!

Biden administration violates Hatch Act

psaki-hit-ethics-complaint-over-hatch-act-violation

More deliberate incompetence from the Biden administration.

When there were Hatch Act violations during the Trump administration I just assumed the Rs were too stupid to understand the law.

But when the Biden administration violates the Hatch Act one has to assume they understand the law but just don't care if they violate the law.

Frankly, I'm not sure which is worse.

Cheers!

I guess the next issue is going to be over redress of grievances? People are going to push for the court of public opinion to allow for that determination, over that of the tried and true actual courts. The Supreme Court is stacked Republican, so there will be a push from the left. The nature of conspiracy is to seek that, so there will be an equal push from the right. Yeah, there are left wing conspiracy nutters, at about a ten, or twenty, to one ratio.

EduardoP wrote:They lost, and are demonstrating a resolve that could lead to unimaginable outcomes, not seen since 1859.

Their willingness to "burn down the house", in order to subvert and derail the fair elective outcome frightens me to the core.

Right on!

think it is pretty much a natural law following the S curve. You have flat out extremes at both ends and the broad middle is every shade in between. It doesn't just work for technology, it works for all other ideas too. Reactionaries at the bottom left, wild eyed radicals at the upper right and the rest stuck in between.

Only making excuses. It is outright frightening how many people supported Donald Trump the second time around.

jedrider wrote:

EduardoP wrote:They lost, and are demonstrating a resolve that could lead to unimaginable outcomes, not seen since 1859.

Their willingness to "burn down the house", in order to subvert and derail the fair elective outcome frightens me to the core.

Right on!

think it is pretty much a natural law following the S curve. You have flat out extremes at both ends and the broad middle is every shade in between. It doesn't just work for technology, it works for all other ideas too. Reactionaries at the bottom left, wild eyed radicals at the upper right and the rest stuck in between.

Only making excuses. It is outright frightening how many people supported Donald Trump the second time around.

True. OTOH, it's downright frightening how many people support those like Bernie Sanders and Liz (the whiny screecher) Warren. Either end of the spectrum, re denying reality, is a very bad thing.

Outcast_Searcher wrote:Either end of the spectrum, re denying reality, is a very bad thing.

They all are one reason why I am what my son calls, an "optimistic cynic" -- I'm optimistic that things will not turn out well.

^. I like that “optimistic” quip.

rangerone314 wrote:

Outcast_Searcher wrote:Either end of the spectrum, re denying reality, is a very bad thing.

They all are one reason why I am what my son calls, an "optimistic cynic" -- I'm optimistic that things will not turn out well.

Funny, when people would ask me about myself I would describe my philosophy as "realistic optimism" i.e. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

jedrider wrote:

EduardoP wrote:They lost, and are demonstrating a resolve that could lead to unimaginable outcomes, not seen since 1859.

Their willingness to "burn down the house", in order to subvert and derail the fair elective outcome frightens me to the core.

Right on!

think it is pretty much a natural law following the S curve. You have flat out extremes at both ends and the broad middle is every shade in between. It doesn't just work for technology, it works for all other ideas too. Reactionaries at the bottom left, wild eyed radicals at the upper right and the rest stuck in between.

Only making excuses. It is outright frightening how many people supported Donald Trump the second time around.

I'm worried that Trump is coming back. It is exactly the 80/20 thing, but an example of how any 20 can be enough of a bowling ball through all of our institutions and ways of doing things. They demand a level of selfishness that can only exist in dreams of utopian capitalist economic states, not in the real world. Their level of society comes without the basic trust in others that we all need. It is bound to wind up hunched around some central figure. That person, or thing, doesn't necessarily have to be Trump. Somebody worse than him could come along. All of the pieces are in place. Death from within, you know.