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The threat from loneliness

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ant

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Re: The threat from loneliness

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When it comes to his rise from one of many Republican candidates to the only alternative to Ted Cruz, I don't think an urge to practicality played much role. We had Kasich, we had Jeb Bush, we had Marco Rubio, and Carly Fiorina, all of whom had much stronger claims to practicality.
I completely disagree.
The political zeitgeist was that the politicians you listed did not represent practicality. Rather, they represented "business as usual." Hence, their message did not resonate with people that were essentially desperate for change - likely radical change. Radical change does not always necessarily mean bad.
Mind you, I am not attempting to justify the underlying reasons that caused people to rationalize Trump would steer the business of politics in a more suitable direction. I'm attempting to practice the principle of intellectual charity with those I may not entirely agree with.
But for the sake of internal battles, many Democrats have been eager to equate Trump with racism, anti-Semitism and Putinism, and they have distorted the picture in the national election in an effort to do this. As a result, instead of focusing on the places and people who are hurting, Dems are fighting over how radical to be. "Piercing their tongue," as one pundit put it in response to the anti-Kavanaugh swarms.
I think you're correct here. And, in my mind, ultimately that can only be a sign of desperation. Which is one of a handful of reasons why the democratic party has been such a turn-off of late. At least for me. The message from the mouths of desperados is to be scrutinized with an abundance of caution.

Well, I have no doubt which end of the spectrum has been more dedicated to spreading fear in the last 25 years.
Its effectiveness is limited, though, relative to actual information, strategizing and implementation. Turnouts have been so low that firing up the base has been a viable strategy, especially in the primaries, relative to trying to appeal to reason and problem solving.
I don't think one side has a monopoly over the other when it comes to spreading a culture of fear. Fear mongering tactics go back to Machiavelli. And, it works, to be honest, with or without the confirming data. Why? Because when "your guy" says you should be very afraid, the most common response is to believe your guy simply because he's YOUR GUY. The same guy that's in your confirmation bias bubble.
The turnout has been low because the left has been in power for most of the decade. They are just now being aroused to do something about all this "evil and injustice" when ironically a lot of these same evils have been going on under the care of their chosen administration (ie see my posts on the neglect of immigrant children by the Obama Admin).

Sorry, I don't understand this.
I'm surprised.

It's been about 9 (?) since Obama's promised an end to military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

We're still involved.

Our citizens do not understand what it means to be at war unless a formal declaration of war has been declared against us. But if the community you live in with your wife and children experienced the every day reality of foreign military occupiers in your neck of the woods, or drone strikes killing the neighbor you just spoke to last week, the first hand flesh and blood experience would likely convince you a war was taking place that with real casualties connected to it.

We were at war with "other people" for the entire 8 years of Obama's presidency.

Look at the final drone casualty tallies courtesy of "The Drone President"

542 Total drone strikes

3,797 estimated killed

324 estimated civilians


https://www.cfr.org/blog/obamas-final-drone-strike-data


What were those people in your eyes, casualties of politics, or casualties of a war? If China drone striked my neighborhood because they believed a threat to their national security resided there, I'd think we were at war.

Anti-immigration or anti-deportation?
Anti deportation of long time residents. sorry.. that was confusing.

I don't mean to be flip. I fully believe the stories you refer to are a reasonably accurate view of things there. But you should have some awareness that Los Angeles liberalism is heavily social and environmental, and much less a matter of economic concern for the less privileged. Bill Clinton cemented California's Democrat status for national elections by endorsing free trade, but it was already moving that way as a reaction to the Evangelical Right. So when you observe racist liberals (perhaps sometimes due to implicit racism, but overt seems quite likely to be part of the mix) I don't find it strange at all.

That's interesting. I'll have to give this some more thought.

Even so I would bet your boss came from a big city or from West Texas rather than from Waco, Brownsville, Beaumont or other smaller places in East Texas.
Nope.. small town in Texas

the discussion about Galileo some time back, and your awareness of emotional intelligence.
I'll refresh my recollection.

Thanks
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Harry Marks
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Re: The threat from loneliness

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ant wrote:I completely disagree.
The political zeitgeist was that the politicians you listed did not represent practicality. Rather, they represented "business as usual." Hence, their message did not resonate with people that were essentially desperate for change - likely radical change. Radical change does not always necessarily mean bad.
Well, you might be right. Many of us have not known what to make of the "either Sanders or Trump, but not the old guard" part of the electorate, rejecting business as usual. I have never been convinced it was that big, but I could be persuaded of 10 percent of the voters being in that category, and that's far from nothing.

I'm going to resort to my usual conclusion, which is that more than one thing was going on.
ant wrote: I'm attempting to practice the principle of intellectual charity with those I may not entirely agree with.
Generally worth the effort, in my experience.
ant wrote:
"Piercing their tongue," as one pundit put it in response to the anti-Kavanaugh swarms.
I think you're correct here. And, in my mind, ultimately that can only be a sign of desperation. Which is one of a handful of reasons why the democratic party has been such a turn-off of late. At least for me. The message from the mouths of desperados is to be scrutinized with an abundance of caution.
We have a very interesting friend who said, before the 2010 surprise sweep, that Obama should have concentrated on getting the economy straightened out instead of going for the ACA while the Dems had the votes. I sometimes wonder. Coverage for pre-existing conditions, which requires mandated high-cost policies to work, is now accepted by the electorate in general. But at the time it was easy to scare people with "death panels" and get everybody riled up about it.

The party is really not desperate. They are close to locking in 50 to 55 percent of the electorate in the Trump re-alignment. A divided government is quite capable of producing pragmatic compromise as a way of avoiding either party making itself look worse. Rather the "intellectual wing" based in universities, who tend to see their mission in life as tearing down -isms such as racism and homophobia, are throwing a little temper tantrum. Over the next four years the issue of global warming will be more and more salient and the suburbs be more and more fed up with McConnell-style obstructionism, and you will see the Republicans become quite desperate. They hope to hang on to their tax cut like the Dems hung on to Obamacare, waiting til it becomes acceptable, but the math is not in their favor.

The interesting question will be whether a Democratic House and a Republican Senate can pass a budget. Stay tuned for more entertainment.

I don't think one side has a monopoly over the other when it comes to spreading a culture of fear. Fear mongering tactics go back to Machiavelli. And, it works, to be honest, with or without the confirming data. Why? Because when "your guy" says you should be very afraid, the most common response is to believe your guy simply because he's YOUR GUY. The same guy that's in your confirmation bias bubble.
Agreed.
ant wrote:
Sorry, I don't understand this.
I'm surprised.
It's been about 9 (?) since Obama's promised an end to military involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.
We're still involved.
Okay, I think I get what you were saying. Not sure why you said you were afraid because of it. All volunteer army, and all that. I'm not too surprised that Obama could not extricate us from Afghanistan. I think everyone is at least a little afraid that the next ISIS or Al Qaeda will breed there if we let the Taliban back in power. We are basically out of Iraq. If not for ISIS, we would be completely out. But it does represent one of his promises that he may not even have intended to keep.
ant wrote:What were those people in your eyes, casualties of politics, or casualties of a war? If China drone striked my neighborhood because they believed a threat to their national security resided there, I'd think we were at war.
I would expect most people think the intended targets were actual threats to America, and that the collateral damage was unavoidable. I am somewhat skeptical of the whole campaign, but I feel glad that I can trust my military not to be attacking, say, human rights advocates or journalists. Not such a big ask, really, but these days I am trying not to take basic stuff for granted.
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Robert Tulip

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Re: The threat from loneliness

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Harry Marks wrote:David Brooks, at the New York Times, is definitely on my wavelength. It has been a long time since one of his columns captured my take on things as effectively as this one: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/opin ... ssion.html In this view, it is not Fox News or Rush Limbaugh or Dear Leader who are fanning the flames of division, it is the loneliness of men.
Reading Finding Purpose in a Godless World made me think of this thread. I am now reading Lewis's chapter on ethics and empathy, where he reflects on the roles of chemical imbalances and social drivers in mental health. I'm sure Australia and the US have much in common in this regard, with a steadily expanding atomisation of individual identity due to the collapse of traditional models of local community interaction.

In the past people dealt with their immediate neighbours because they had to. Abandonment of human contact seems to be a frequent result of living in atomised virtual reality. Lifestyles today often provide no opportunity for what Lewis calls 'emotional synchrony and mood convergence', except in the virtual realm of electronic communication. It seems people are physically training themselves into forced isolation. That cannot be healthy.
Last edited by Robert Tulip on Wed Nov 07, 2018 9:22 am, edited 2 times in total.
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