Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[hack]

As for nationalism, I believe you have said that the nation-state is a good form of political organization. I agree. But virtually every nation has its own myths and its own history. In the US some of our myths involve the wild west, "give me liberty, or give me death" or "...I cannot tell a lie.. ". These are by in large good things.


Agreed. IMO creation myths have served the US well, but in most places they are bullshit, and run that risk here too. As with anything, you give up xx because you want yy. In the case of nation states there are tradeoffs just like with anything else.

[hack]

But the exit polls show, and the only pollster who called the election correctly (49-47 Leave) says, that Brits wanted their government's every-day decision making back. If their hair dryers were too powerful for Brussels, too bad. Wattage of lightbulbs and height of ladders is really no one's business, and should not be dictated from the continent. I suspect this holds true in France, Italy, and Germany.


Convenient excuse for racism. Again, the regulations aren't going to change. If anything apart from the racism, it was the idea that they could immediately channel all EU dues into the NHS, which Farage admitted basically immediately was a lie.

[hack]

People of my age view socialism as including the Soviet Union, North Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba along with Denmark and Sweden.

Which only furthers my contention that the use of the word socialism is almost completely disconnected from its actual meaning.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Criticize Donald Trump and you will be banned from his events

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/25/donald-trump-media-ban-guardian-denied-entry-campaign-event

[hack]

``And as I've said many times to you, you cannot believe that man is evil and that power corrupts and, at the same time, believe in socialism.''

I don't. You may recall that I've said that I don't believe any ideology transcends the rule that all choices come with tradeoffs. They will all bring some good, some bad, and eventually need to be replaced regardless of the underlying ideas because when deployed they will become riddled with loopholes. So as far as I'm concerned Bernie Sanders can call himself whatever he wants as long as he attacks the legal bubble Wall Street built around itself.

[hack]

What is now taught is anti-capitalism ... I definitely don't think the youth of today think for themselves ... I suspect that what seems to you to be "thinking for yourself" to me seems to me merely spouting ideas learned from a government education system."


Look -- I agree that there's a left-leaning bent in a liberal arts education, and I agree that criticial thinking skills have atrophied. But even if you disagree with the texts chosen or what the students are exposed to, they are still asked to intellectually engage with some material. They discuss it and are supposed to challenge it and write essays and read critical takes, etc. Whether they pick up on the idea that probably the safest thing to do is to read the professor's word back to them on exams is a problem, but this is whole different thing than what I'm talking about -- using the school system to block out inquiry and replace it with straight-up indoctrination. Turks aren't asked to write essays critiquing the catchphrases of Ataturk, like US kids are capitalism. They just repeat the thoughts of the great leader over and over again until that stuff is baked in. They run roughshod over actual history with a sanitized version, whereas in the US there is much less whitewashing. That's what I mean when I say at least Americans had the opportunity to have an education rather than an indoctrination. We can both identify very grave issues in the educational system, especially in Kansas or Texas and wherever else people have no excuse, but even in those cases none of it even begins to approach the social engineering so common elsewhere.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Socialism and communism are not the same thing...and North Korea, the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Vietnam...those were/are all communist.

[Ghengis Jon]

This is interesting - own a gun and get placed into a criminal database.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-hawaii-gun-law-idUSKCN0ZA3IP

[Da Geezer]

DSL: what is the difference between communism and socialism?

Hack: You might recall that I said last week that the outcome of the vote wouldn't really matter because, to paraphrase Hillary, "what if they make the wrong choice":

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/24/petition-second-eu-referendum-crashes-house-of-commons-website

This is classic statist thinking. If the proles make the wrong choice, we let them vote until they make the right choice. This happens all the time in MI with millage elections. If the voters reject a 30-year obligation, the question will be put to them again in about 3 months. The process repeats itself until the millage passes, and then the long term obligation is locked in.

[Da Geezer]

About all I can say about the Brits and whether they were primarily concerned with the flow of migrants is that Frank Luntz called the election in the UK correctly, and he found that the migrant flow on the continent was not one of the drivers of this election. He found that resentment of Brussels was the biggest factor, and that intensity of feeling was also the highest.

As far as the word "socialism", we have agreed that this means government control of the means of production. As for "racist", I understand what you mean when you say that is "the other" in terms of appearance, or values, or religion. I again recommend The Silencing.

[hack]

``Resentment of Brussels'' is a great cover. European pols can point at Brussels all they want, but the fact remains that no population in Europe is hitting the replacement rate in terms of fertility.

Anyhow, I see your point on letting them vote until they get it right, and it very well might happen. I'm not sure the way you suggest it applies given that Cameron has already resigned. Somebody's paid a price for this.

Bottom line here is that we're in uncharted waters -- the kind of adventure I would rather avoid, no matter how ideologically appealing, because of unintended consequences. But, for whatever reason, it sure does look like this isn't over. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexitvote/20...-further-vote/.

[iam416]

Gotta agree with Geezer...IMO folks labeling Brexit "racist" are merely attempting to de-legitimize the vote and the numerous reasons that drove it. I hope, for the UK's sake, they actually exit.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Sorry for the big image, but these were interesting comments

[entropy]

WaPo poll: Support for Trump plunges. WSJ poll: Support for Trump dips slightly. Take your pick.

Saw that on Twitter this morning..


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[hack]

It's going to be interesting to see what the pound does Monday morning. Overall, this is of course terrible. Uncharted waters; guaranteed unforseen circumstances. Some of the most cynical politics ever when in the minutes after the vote is counted the winner admits the some of the campaign's key points were lies. Interesting split of people between ``do-over please'' and ``respect the result''.

Overall, for a person whose collegiate education was pretty much based on Fukuyama's End of History, it's amazing how interesting the developed world suddenly looks vis-a-vis the developing. :::Grabs popcorn:::, as they say on the internet...