My Apologies.

Actually, more than progressive, it's a mainstream smear word. How DARE you take up positions that the vast majority of the American People(or any country's people) believe in! The mainstream politician is supposed to have these things called 'differences', not a powerful platform that most people can agree to. That's why it's the independent who runs the 'populist' platform, and you have the two dirtbags telling you it can't be done.

In the sense that Trump ran on shaking up the system, he's a populist. In the sense of a populist(or nay, any platform) Trump didn't have much of one.

However, let me say this: If there were a populist, in the true sense of the word(IE: With most positions that the Swedes would agree to), Mr. Sweden would probably vote for that said populist without realizing the hypocrisy.

 

As political as democrats have made science I am not surprised by your post.

 

In the U.S., the "chaos" that has ensued has been ensuing in earnest at an ever-increasing rate since the mid-60's...but especially rapidly since the early 90's.

Clinton was the anti-Bush 41....Bush 43 was the anti-Clinton, followed by Obama who was the anti-Bush 43...and now Trump who is the complete synthesis of all those antis!

Trump is the big ol' middle finger shoved right in the face of the weak-kneed, politically-correct, overly-sensitive lemmings in this country who have so willingly allowed themselves to be coerced into such a sad state of nanny-state dependency that the only course of action they can undertake is to keep voting for more and more dependence on big daddy gub'ment to solve their every ailment and belly ache!

The biggest problem with that: we are running out of other peoples' money! Our dependent class is now larger than our production class....and that can't possibly be anything but B-A-D!

Trump played the left's own game and handily beat them at it. They are now in such a tragic state of tear-fueled denial that they cannot imagine living in a world without that teat of entitlement milk to suckle.


I'm no big Trump fan, but I have to admit a couple of things:

1- Trump was (unbelievably!) the lesser of the two evils; and,

2- Trump did what he had to do in order to get elected - just as Clinton was doing (but doing so quite poorly).


I'm one of the ones who didn't support Trump until I realized what he was doing was out of necessity.

I'm much more of a Constitutional Conservative -- but I must admit that I sincerely believe Trump WILL restore much of our national pride here at home. He'll be obstructed every step of the way, because the left has no intention of losing their nanny-state without a fight.

I think, however, that America has finally decided it has had ENOUGH of allowing ourselves to be flushed down the drain in the name of "social justice" - which is simply another name for "socialISM"!

I also believe Trump will restore something the rest of the world has been sorely missing: faith that America will once again have our allies' backs. We have lost that faith - especially during the past eight years. How anyone can deny that is beyond me.

America needs to get America back!

We cannot forget though -- the rest of the world needs to get America back!

 

Careful. Taking away established entitlements from millions of people is how rebellions are started. When people feel they've no future and get desperate that's truly dangerous for any country.

 

we don't need any arbitrator. just go to twitter, read what trump says. it is childish what he says. A child should not run a nation.

let me be clear: to say that trump is better than hillary is one thing. perfectly legit. But to say that trump, not in comparison to anyone else, but by himself, is a good candidate... that is wrong. that is what I have an issue with. You can always say, "trump is bad, but he was the lesser evil". WHY do you have to pretend that trump is actually a good candidate?

answer this, yes or no: is what trump does on twitter childish? if you don't think so, you are delusional, and I don't have time for you.

 

If will pass for sure, our emotions got the best of us in 2016. I am visiting a country next week that trump disparages yet is an important trade partner for us. It will be interesting how I will be welcomed this visit. Of course, I will avoid talk of trump, but if brought up, I will downplay his childishness and talk more of the racism of his voters.

 

You are correct.

That's why, like a doctor who has to get someone off narcotics, we have to WEAN ourselves off the entitlement teat!

It's doable. (I hope!)

One thing is for sure, friend....we cannot keep going at the same rate we have been!

 

Then it's assumed we're in the same boat because the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, and not even the Libertarian Party that I resigned from last year represent the "limited government, the "Constitutional" government, or the "Declaration of Independence" style of government that America was founded upon.

Since the "progressive statists" of the Democratic Party have been addressed then we can turn our attention to the Republican political ideology, that to some degree is also embraced by the Libertarian Party today.

Let's start with Limited Government that was one of the First Principles.

This is not the "minimalistic" government of Henry David Thoreau that stated, "That government is best which governs least..." in his essay Civil Disobedience that Republicans and Libertarians support. It is the "necessary" government of Thomas Paine that stated, "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one" in Common Sense.

The size of government is determined by the violations of the unalienable/inalienable natural rights of the people/person.

For example pollution and/or the destruction of nature violates the unalienable/inalienable natural rights of the people/person and government is mandated to address these violations to either eliminate them or to reduce them to the level that nature can accommodate by recycling the pollution or regenerating the nature that is destroyed.

The unalienable/inalienable natural rights of the people/person apply to everyone and not just US citizens. The Mexican worker that wants to immigrate to the United States for employment or to be with family has a Natural Right of Liberty to do that and our government, by limitation, cannot infringe upon that Right of Liberty and instead must support and accommodate that unalienable/inalienable natural rights of the people/person.

We can address labor compensation where the labor of the person is their own and non-transferable but that which they produce is transferrable. What they produce is equal to the "value" of the labor based upon their unalienable/inalienable natural rights but Republicans and Libertarians confuse "value" with "price" and the two are not the same. Compensation must be based upon the "value" of the labor as established by natural rights and not the "price" that's determined by the market.

There are other First Principles for consideration:

This is included in the Declaration of Independence so who are the "governed" this refers to? Any and every permanent resident living within the jurisdiction of the government, and subjected to the authority of that government, is governed by the government. They are the "People" of the nation and the "People" includes everyone that's a permanent resident. It is not limited to just "citizens" that are a subgroup of the People, that have special privileges and immunities, while all of the People have the identical Rights and that includes the Right to Vote in providing the "consent" to the powers of government.

Republicans, Libertarians, and probably most Democrats oppose this "First Principle" upon which America was founded. Instead we have laws that are beyond the "limited government" definition that deny this Right of the Person to consent to the powers of government.

Here are all of the First Principle established for the federal government that are the basis for the "Limited" government, the "Constitutional" government, and the Declaration of Independence" government that we don't find the Democrats, Republicans, or Libertarian political parties supporting today.

http://www.americassurvivalguide.com/americas-first-principles.php

Knowing these First Principles makes it easy to identify when a political agenda is outside of the scope of the First Principles. Legislation against unions and organized labor. Legislation against abortion. Legislation denying voting rights to any permanent resident of the United States. Lack of environmental protections and protections of the species. Lack of laws protecting the minimum "value of labor" of the person as well as limiting the maximum amount of value of a person can accumulate based upon a lifetime of labor. Elimination of federal governments function outside of the scope of the First Principles that, in many cases, are because the government wasn't enforcing the First Principles to begin with.

So yes, if you support "limited govt, constitutional, declaration of independence style of governance" then we're in the same boat because we're not a member of any political party because none of the political parties support the First Principles that provide the "limited govt, constitutional, declaration of independence style of governance" that we both desire.

 

I leave personal judgements about people to you. I am concerned with public policy, not personality. IMO, the longing for a messiah, with charming speech, charisma, & perfect teeth is a danger to a nation of self rule. As an American, i prefer a transparent candidate, warts & all, in a system of citizen representative govt. Trump is no messiah? He is not the perfect, PC, polished politician jewel? Good. Give me an honest person with straight speaking over a mealy mouthed politician & fast talking salesman chameleon who just says what he thinks people want to hear.

Your trump hate is making your leftist slip show.. no need for insults or threats.. if you have a point to make, make it. I'll rebut it, if i wish, & you can rebut me, too. Insults are for ideologues, not philosophers.

 

Funny, it's actual roots are in the principles of mother nature- and they have worked incredibly well for millions of years for millions of species. Marx had nothing to do with it at all, and Darwin didn't write the rules- he just observed them as best he could, and despite the entire world of biology confirming he was exactly right, we as humans still blow it off as having nothing to do with our particular species, because after all- we are so much smarter than all the others.

I've wondered about that- because everyone of those millions of species can do what you and I cannot do, which is to thrive with only what nature gave them, and do it on a grand scale without damaging the world whatsoever. The basis behind it obviously works, we have results to prove it.. IF that is such a bad idea, and our so superior- why aren't we doing better?

Let's see you strip naked, abandon your house, your car, your money and thrive on your own.

 

Don't forget -- we aren't a democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic.

We practice democracy by electing leaders to make decisions - supposedly on our behalf.

If we know what's good for us - we'll do everything we can to keep it that way...and start making better, more informed decisions about exactly whom we elect.

Hillary Clinton was simply NOT a good choice. Her "qualified" resume was full of abject diplomatic and personal failures - and as imperfect as Trump is...as much of a loudmouthed, bloviating cad as he is...I agree with others when I say that he was the lesser of the two evils from which we had to choose.

With Clinton, we knew what we would get - and it wasn't very appealing.

That's why - if you take away California's "popular vote" from both sides - Trump wins even the "popular vote" nationwide by roughly 1.4 million votes!

California has so many of their own problems to solve, they have no business being such a prominent deciding factor in who is elected to lead our Nation.

California is THE perfect example of why we have the Electoral College...and why we'd damned-well better make sure we keep it!


So - no..."democracy" didn't fail miserably.

Our system worked the way it was intended!

 

Seriously, seeing the collapse of the once great Golden State is an absolute misery to behold for America. The only State in the union that can't use its own water supplies.

 

We never should have become basically the lone world police force. If others in the area(s) of concern didn't want to help in their neck of the woods, we should just leave them be.
But, we did so for our multinational corporations. Mostly the oil companies. Most of our focus has been in the quagmire of the ME. The quagmire the west set up in the 1st place.
So I agree, we need to get our house in order and let each corner of the world worry about their own well being.

The final straw for us is when we decided to be the aggressor nation and attack another sovereign nation, basically unprovoked. We did it to ourselves.

- - - Updated - - -

Yep. We went the way of Britain. Although, not sure Britain was ever in it for freedom and democracy to other nations.

 

Very interesting post.

I've never read a take on things quite like this.

Definitely worth a deeper ponder!

 

Not always. And I'd say the US used some strong arm tactics to get others to fall in agreement.
And Iraq was near unilateral. But for a bit of strong arming as well.

 

I think that was done on purpose. Get the folks fighting amongst each other. See my sig line.
A nation divided is not focused on the important things, and the elites in power could do what they want. They would periodically change the good cop bad cop role to let each partisan hack feel like they have a chance.

 

I've yet to study geopolitics in whole. I've only taken stabs based on history, present reality and observation. And I'm happy to say I feel I have an understanding and yet, I want to watch a lot more videos on geopolitics. And I want to understand the philosophy of America's political elites in full, in orde to better conceptionalize my viewpoints.

But what I do understand and conceive, is that Manifest Destiny was not wrong. Had we not expanded to the 50 States, we would have eventually been overtaken by either of the other two countries on the continent(Canada, Mexico), and/or other powers(IE: If France held Louisiana to the modern day, with highways then it's foreseeable that they could invade the US through Louisiana-held bases.) Manifest Destiny was thus actually defensive, to ensure there is no passageway into the US.

The only problem with Manifest Destiny, is that the growth of the Nation-State was not met with an increasing political-cultural awareness of 'America'. In the "evolution" of our country, we became a ragtag of a country, that had been a 'melting pot' in name only. It forced the social catalysm. Our lack of politicl awareness defines our country in not so favorable terms in comparison to the rest of the world.

We know about Russia's doctrine, in large part because Russia has held its positions. But in America, we couldn't even openly voice the two-state solution. We couldn't voice our support for Taiwan. In large part because of political cowardliness and unawareness of where we want to be.

So the Trump Election, and the years proceeding from here is a new discovery of a hopefully United American Philosophy. And the awareness that philosophy cannot come from racially divided Democratic America. That country will swallow the red, white and blue whole.

 

Can't be Mooshell, she's far more ruthless than that!

 

Swedens problems, US problems, and the West problems in general are in the effort to globalize.
IMO, the reason for globalizing is that brings more consumers into the arena to sell to so it means more profits for the corporations. But it also means more job losses to lower wage countries. Until the whole world basically evens out in wages and pricing.

I don't know if it can be stopped.

 

I agree. We should have stayed out of WW I and WW II.

 

Exactly, as mentioned in Madam Hillary's book(chapter 12). If there was a wider Global Middle Class, that would be good. But this Middle Class cannot be accomplished through the extortion of the developed countries. That just means the hollowing out of wealth in the developed countries, and eventually the vast majority of countries will be poorer with the exception of a few and of course the people therein.

And the vast poverty caused by the class warfare will express itself in the national warfare. In reality, we should have pursued a positive economic model of the self-development of each and every country in the world. It's still not too late to promote this growth policy towards the Americas, and ideally the leading nations in their hemisphere follow suit.

 

At least, we should have spoken more strongly against the Treaty of Versallies, and/or joined the European Powers in WWI. After all, England was a historic adversary of the US. A weakened England would lead (later) to the prosperity of the US. That could have happened several decades earlier by siding with Germany.

Equally, it would have suppressed and contained Russia and thus no USSR, which means no Cold War, which means no Terrorist problem.

 

Hippy Liberals like Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld....I see..

 

My following statement runs afoul of the intent of the OP, but I have to post this anyway:

All your statements directly point to a glaring fact that I realized a few years back: Humans are NOT indigenous to Earth!

We were put here...but only after Earth was made suitable for our existence.

"Terraformed" is the term I believe most apropos.

Mankind did not "evolve" from fish...nor lizards...nor apes.

We are a hybrid species - a combination of the DNA of our creator and a previously-planted inferior species of hominid - created through an adaptive process to ensure our survival on this planet.

The belief in evolution (essentially "micro-evolution") depends on the belief that a species can somehow make self-induced "jumps" in the DNA chain. Those "micro" jumps have been shown to be hypothetically possible.

However, in order to achieve the kind of DNA "jump" humans purportedly made, it would involve actual major changes in the genome, constituting a "macro-evolutionary" leap.

There is belief now that this is possible....however, it is also only theoretical.


Bottom line: I believe we simply do not belong on this planet.

I also believe we will likely destroy ourselves before we can actually create a truly harmonious existence between ourselves and our environment.

"It's in our DNA!"

 

It's statements like that that leave me scratching my head. Whether you are serious or just being dramatic.
We just had a record 75 straight months of job growth and you think Trump has saved more jobs.
So is it drama or hatred of obama or just being a partisan hack?