I'm quite surprised at the disdain you've put into my stating of opinion. The TP crowd must be wearing off on you.
No - what I'm trying to do is draw your attention to an apparent inconsistency between two positions you've taken in your responses to me. When I warned that Trump was essentially a proto-fascist, you lamented that this turn in politics may well be inevitable, citing some social historian, but at the same noted that at crucial historical points such as the one we may be in, who's in power could matter a great deal. Here, you've complained that Hillary and Trump are essentially indistinguishable insofar as they serve moneyed interests, so you'll vote for neither. So you're either saying that Trump's being elected and imposing a fascistic order doesn't really matter, or that both Trump and Hillary pose similar risks of this. Which is it?
The hypothetical I put to you was to imagine your reasoning in the context of an election between two money-serving candidates where we could easily imagine the history playing out differently based on who was actually elected. Bush and Gore. Both served money. As such, by the rationale you've laid out here, neither could be expected to be appreciably worse than the other. So we elected Bush and got for it a decade and counting of wars, terrorism, diminished prestige for the U.S., and so on and on. I wanted you to imagine your rationale in the context of the 2000 election and to consider whether your reasoning and hypothetical action, in that context, would have been vindicated by what actually happened afterwards. Did it actually matter who won then?
"Fighting the hypothetical" just means refusing to engage in this kind of mental exercise, which is intended to pressure-test your reasoning and see if it bears the weight of an analysis where we can control extraneous considerations and focus just on your reasoning and its consequences. You "fight" it by not acknowledging those controlling conditions and continuing to bring in extraneous considerations - I wasn't actually in a state where my vote could have mattered, the election ultimately was decided by the Supreme Court, etc. - which means that you never have to acknowledge your position's weaknesses.
"Fighting the hypothetical" just means refusing to engage in this kind of mental exercise ... which means that you never have to acknowledge your position's weaknesses.
I'm not "fighting" the hypothetical. Your hypothetical is strawman scaremongering, with the implicit assumptions that:
Trump is dangerous; and
Any vote that isn't for a viable candidate that can beat Trump is yet another match on the Trump fire.
I know it's such because I used to berate former Nader voters with exactly the same argument. So why indulge it?
And here's a question for you: If the candidate of one's choice is not chosen by one's state's electoral college delegates, and if the Supremes decide to Bush the next recount, why are you putting so much mental energy into getting one voter to reconsider the logical inconsistencies of my, er, "his" vote?
Left unconsidered (as usual): the fact that money is robbing us of a democracy.
(I do apologize if that sounds rhetorical and pat, without detail or substance. I have a lot of mental keyboard abuse accumulated that isn't so thumbnailed, which I would be interested in hearing opinions from others, including yourself. Here is not the forum, though.)
I will concede that your points on the Fourth Turning are worth discussing, but that would go on for some time. I did, in fact, record an interview as a guest to a podcast discussing Strauss & Howe's theory recently. (I'd link, but it's behind a pay wall for subscribers only.)
Nutshell summary: I very much doubt any of the candidates running now could be the next leader during the predicted coming events, based on elements of S&H's theory. If anything, the pres elected in Nov. would likely be the precursor, either immediate or penultimate, to the next Washington, Lincoln or Roosevelt.
No - what I'm trying to do is draw your attention to an apparent inconsistency between two positions you've taken in your responses to me. When I warned that Trump was essentially a proto-fascist, you lamented that this turn in politics may well be inevitable, citing some social historian, but at the same noted that at crucial historical points such as the one we may be in, who's in power could matter a great deal. Here, you've complained that Hillary and Trump are essentially indistinguishable insofar as they serve moneyed interests, so you'll vote for neither. So you're either saying that Trump's being elected and imposing a fascistic order doesn't really matter, or that both Trump and Hillary pose similar risks of this. Which is it?
The hypothetical I put to you was to imagine your reasoning in the context of an election between two money-serving candidates where we could easily imagine the history playing out differently based on who was actually elected. Bush and Gore. Both served money. As such, by the rationale you've laid out here, neither could be expected to be appreciably worse than the other. So we elected Bush and got for it a decade and counting of wars, terrorism, diminished prestige for the U.S., and so on and on. I wanted you to imagine your rationale in the context of the 2000 election and to consider whether your reasoning and hypothetical action, in that context, would have been vindicated by what actually happened afterwards. Did it actually matter who won then?
"Fighting the hypothetical" just means refusing to engage in this kind of mental exercise, which is intended to pressure-test your reasoning and see if it bears the weight of an analysis where we can control extraneous considerations and focus just on your reasoning and its consequences. You "fight" it by not acknowledging those controlling conditions and continuing to bring in extraneous considerations - I wasn't actually in a state where my vote could have mattered, the election ultimately was decided by the Supreme Court, etc. - which means that you never have to acknowledge your position's weaknesses.
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I'm not "fighting" the hypothetical. Your hypothetical is strawman scaremongering, with the implicit assumptions that:
I know it's such because I used to berate former Nader voters with exactly the same argument. So why indulge it?
And here's a question for you: If the candidate of one's choice is not chosen by one's state's electoral college delegates, and if the Supremes decide to Bush the next recount, why are you putting so much mental energy into getting one voter to reconsider the logical inconsistencies of my, er, "his" vote?
Left unconsidered (as usual): the fact that money is robbing us of a democracy.
(I do apologize if that sounds rhetorical and pat, without detail or substance. I have a lot of mental keyboard abuse accumulated that isn't so thumbnailed, which I would be interested in hearing opinions from others, including yourself. Here is not the forum, though.)
I will concede that your points on the Fourth Turning are worth discussing, but that would go on for some time. I did, in fact, record an interview as a guest to a podcast discussing Strauss & Howe's theory recently. (I'd link, but it's behind a pay wall for subscribers only.)
Nutshell summary: I very much doubt any of the candidates running now could be the next leader during the predicted coming events, based on elements of S&H's theory. If anything, the pres elected in Nov. would likely be the precursor, either immediate or penultimate, to the next Washington, Lincoln or Roosevelt.
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