Quote:
Originally Posted by scottw
when you are competing in the arena of Bread and Circus...I think that is the point...noone seems to mind lies and false promises if they are made by talented liars and cult personalities....the next 2 and 4 years will be spent expanding and reinforcing the welfare state and entitlement mentality....republicans will always be portrayed as those who will take away the goodies if elected...it's a no win...as in Eurpoe we will end up with parties at election time arguing over who is better equipped to manage the collapsing welfare state, the only way to win at this point, is to simply promise more...it's not the parties, it's not the system...it's the people  |
Exactly. It is that Spencist trajectory/vector thing in which we are trapped. I might go a little easier on the people, though. Most are, always have been, and will always be, followers. Most are beneficiaries of or prey to systems of government created by leaders or masterminds. And most are informed by the education and media created by those leaders and delivered through those systems. That is the reason why most systems eventually fail. Most rigidly manage top down in a world of never ending change. There will always be social and natural wars for which they have no micromanaged answer. And the more they micromanage, the more rigid, intractable, they become-- and the less they can successfully respond to evolutionary forces. Socialist systems are symbiotic relationships between top-down powerful, to all powerful, central managers and their dependent "people."
Market systems create a "spontaneous order" among "the people." And the markets and people agree to various limited regulations (government) to make the spontaneous system more orderly.
Most people in either type of system "follow" the order created by leaders. The difference lying in how governance and direction is dispersed. Either a top-down one-directional (collectivist) administration or a bottom-up multi-directional (individualistic) system of self-governance.
The Democrat Party has transformed a once dispersed bottom-up market driven system to a top-down central one which depends on the socialistic means to power and its mainainance that you describe. It exists by distributing "needs" and maintains that existence by promising more in the following elections. It has essentially co-opted the public and higher educational systems and most of the major media which all inform the people. In that it has not figured a way to create the wealth that it distributes, it still relies on a market to do so. But it must control the market to the extent that it distributes the created wealth. The more it distributes, the more the market shrinks. And the greater the amount of centrally distributed wealth that is required, either the more the market must shrink or the more the government must borrow or inflate. And the more it gets in debt, the more onerous is its requirement to distribute. It is as much a slave to the "people" as the people are to it. This "mega trend" process is irreversible, no do-over as Spence would say, if this top-down system of government is to survive.
It doesn't have to survive. And it won't. What eventually takes its place is a question we might ponder. Or not. It will eventually happen either way. But we might make the eventual change less destructive if we do think about it, rationally and with respect to past experience. My personal suggestion, no surprise, would be to reinstitute governance on the lines of The Constitution. It is a framework for a fluid system that is open to necessary and evolutionary change but still maintains the dispersed power to create that change and maintain optimal individual freedom and "unalienable rights."
It is telling that those who argue with this and with well thought out and lengthy posts such as yours, respond with quips and one-liners which usually are shallow or make little sense. Or intentionally try to ridicule or provoke rather than discuss.