Progress is inevitable.

Wait and see.

 

I never said anything critical of real progress. My criticisms are with the so-called "Progressive" political Left that is anything but when it comes to equality and inclusivity of people who hold different views from them. Your condescension here, that I must just be a scared white male who is upset by the decline in power of white men, is a demonstration of this. You have to resort to insults rather than debate the issue.

Define "sensible" firearms laws. Whether most Americans actually want them is debatable as most people don't know much about what the proposed laws actually entail (they are actually not very sensible).

What are the consequences of climate change? All we know is that the planet is warming and it is being caused by humans. No one knows what the effects will be.

On banning Muslims (I assume that is what you are referring to), that is not religious discrimination. Religious discrimination means banning someone just because you don't want their religion in the country. The argument for banning Muslims has to do with their propensity towards violence, not dislike of their religion. If they were violent Christians or violent Jews, many people would support the same policy.

Regarding the wall, nobody really believed Mexico will pay for it or that it will be 100+ feet tall and go from end-to-end of Mexico's border with the U.S. They just liked Trump saying that because it was so "in-your-face" to the political Establishment.

 

Define "going backward" though? Change is not always good. Trump wants to bring lots of change:

1) Border wall
2) Defund sanctuary cities
3) Ban Muslim immigration
4) Reform immigration period in terms of ending Diversity Visa Lottery Program and Chain Migration

I suspect that you consider the above bad. Or maybe "going backwards." To a lot of people, that would be going forwards. "Change" is not always good as "forward" and "backward" can be arbitrary.

 

I think if we're going to be honest, neither Party is like the Party was years ago. The Democrats of the 1800's and early 1900's are more Republican now, although it seems that is about to change too with the big migration of Blacks moving back down South. The Democratic Party of today is nothing like it was even back to Kennedy. They are more interested in power than helping the American people. It's no surprise that this younger generation is more Liberal. Many have been brain washed by very bias professors. There is a lot of truth of that old saying, If you young and not a Liberal, you have no heart. If your older and not a conservative, you have no brain. There is a reason many older Americans are no longer Liberals. All five of my siblings were Liberal years ago, none are today.

 

True, I consider most of those good.

 

And yet with all these advances of equality and inclusiveness, people are unhappier, at least over the past 50 years.

Social surveys confirm that women are unhappier. Black people certainly seem to be no happier given all the riots and bitching and moaning over microagressions and systemic racism. White people are unhappier, too, (witness how they elected Trump) although this particular unhappiness seems to be a source of satisfaction for the progressives.

Rich people are happier because they are getting richer. Despite all this equality and inclusiveness economic inequality is increasing.

How much more progress can we tolerate before this nation is ripped apart by all these unhappy people?

 

It seems to be progress toward a completely stratified society where the rich (who are still overwhelmingly white and male) lord it over the masses who are now equal in poverty and unhappiness regardless of race, color or creed.

 

False equivalence!

Hardworking Americans are not happy because they are not being paid for the wealth that they are producing for the wealthy elite 1% that own the GOP.

That hardworking Americans includes blacks, women and yes, those who voted for your BLOTUS is evidence that Bernie was 100% right.

The Wall Street Casino conspiring with the GOP to steal from hardworking Americans is what is making them unhappy.

 

Worth noting that historically when wealth gaps reach the levels we see today that revolutions occur.

 

I have not commented upon your so-called "Progressive" political left. I have noted the relentless progress in realizing America's ideals of equality and inclusivity over its history.

Specific legislation is pending, but the People speaking truth to power will no longer allow a political lobby to dictate the permissiveness that has resulted in the obscene level of firearm carnage in the US.

Actually, the adverse consequences of rising seal level are already apparent, and the devastation caused by that one aspect can be predicted, even if the precise timetable is not possible. The civilized world has recognized the need to confront the reality.

Yes, it is.

No, that is not the definition of "religious discrimination."

That is precisely what religious discrimination is about. Treating an individual adversely based soley upon the faith he professes, not his personal conduct. US courts recognized that Trump's calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” failed to pass legal muster.

Your noting that Trump lied in this matter and his worshippers do not care is hardly an isolated instance. He captured their blind devotion when he scoffed that they would not care if he shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

 

You appear to be very unhappy with the progress that has been and continues to be achieved. If you measure progress by "happiness", the progressive nations of Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland must be the models to which you aspire.

If you believe that reverting to power being wielded exclusively by White Protestant, propertied males with Black Americans owned by them, and women denied participation in self-governance, would result in greater happiness, please do not expect your paradise lost to make a come back anytime soon.

 

Absolutely! They were overwhelmingly white and unicultural. It is all falling apart now that they are embracing refugees and multiculturalism.

I don't expect it to come back. It is easier to destroy than to create.

But you still have not addressed the point that people are now unhappier because of all this "progress."

 

Quite so. I do expect so sort of revolution to occur. All this "progress" seems to have exacerbated unhappiness and economic inequality.

 

The "progress" is not the cause of the wealth inequality. That goes back to plain old greed, avarice and political skullduggery by the GOP.

 

Do you believe that racial and ethnic purity would make you happy?

Is your Rx for the US both ethnic cleansing and the adoption of the successful progressive political philosophy of the world's happiest nations?

 

I am already happy. I have been successful in my career, married a wonderful woman and raised two fine children. I am wealthy enough to live in a 98% white community so the social dysfunction of diversity doesn't reach me.

I have no prescription for the US. The progressive political philosophy of the world's happiest nations are destroying their success by promoting multiculturalism.

 

Your view of history is unfortunately far to truncated to allow to understand how bad how truly dangerous to society most of that so called inclusivity especially regarding the perversion of the moment.actually. Ancient Israel adopted that sort of anything goes life style around 800 BC, they got it from the Canaanites whom they were supposed to have wiped out but never did and 100 years later both were gone, carried off into captivity by the Assyrians, never to be heard from or of again. I have no problem at all with other Races other cultures tend to be problematic so is the idea that we ought to treat sexual dysfunction as a protected species. Our inner cities are destroying themselves because of the destruction of the family in those areas. It matters little whether that family has a white or brown face destroying the family destroys the roots of the people and gives them nothing with which to replace it. White privilege to the extent it actually exists is largely a function of a greater likelihood of having been raised in a two parent home, one male and one female. And please note children with two biological parents one male and one female are generally far better off than those with only one parent.in there lives, regardless of the color of their skin.

 

Enjoy your monochromatic bliss.

The proposition that all men are created equal is a harrowing one for some, but the American experience is furthering that noble goal. The nation has been enriched by its diversity.

 

As I noted, the proposition that all men are created equal is disturbing for those with a parochial perspective, yet America's progress in equality and inclusivity has been admirable.

Self-centered righteousness in matters of personal sexual orientation has largely been overcome in the ineluctable course of progress.

Are two-adult households generally superior to single-adult households in rearing children? That is often, but not always, the case. Allocation of time is a major challenge for many.

Younger, better-educated Americans are determined to further the cause.

Progress is often impeded, but never destroyed.

 

They are indeed younger they are not better educated instead they are more fully indoctrinated into the cult of death that is the modern American left,that counts destruction as progress, and it is not self centered it is society centered. The real me generation were those sixties radicals screaming, "If it feels good do it." What does it mean to be a woman if in the end anyone can be one and that is treated as being every bit as valid as having been born with ovaries? There is vastly more to being a woman than feeling and far more to being a man than how you woke up feeling that morning.

 

Thank you. I shall. I am sorry, though, that your are not able to gloat over my unhappiness.

Not harrowing. Just demonstrably false. Actually, I see diversity as impoverishing the USA and not merely economically.

Diversity reduces social cohesion, not only between groups but within groups. When our neighbors don't look like us, we stop trusting our neighbors, even the ones who do look like us.

http://thealternativehypothesis.org/index.php/2016/04/15/ethnic-diversity-and-social-cohesion/

Political correctness has forced us to closely monitor our speech, lest we offend via microagressions, and there are so many ways in which we can microagress. And given this notion of "cultural appropriation" it is unclear whether or not I am allowed to enjoy the supposed richness diverity is supposed to bring.

I understand that is bogus notion of "all men are created equal" is a foundational aspect of your identity. But you ought to keep it to yourself and stop hectoring people who see through the BS.

 

But you have, because you claim that "conservatives" (and referring to the modern definition of right-wing conservatives) as being those against progress. My point is that what is labeled a "conservative" doesn't mean someone against progress. The definitions change over time and things get intermixed as well.

The NRA is not a political lobby in that sense, it is a grassroots lobby of the American people. Politicians doing its wishes are just doing the wishes of the American people and their constituents. The irony in all of this is that the actual political, special interest lobby on this issue is the Gun Control Lobby, as they severely lack the grassroots support the Gun Rights Lobby has. They instead have to rely on money from very wealthy people such as Michael Bloomberg (who alone repeatedly outspends the NRA for example).

The NRA is not a gun manufacturer lobby. Gun manufacturing is a tiny industry in comparison to many other industries. Your defense, oil and gas, banking and financial, retail, tech, etc...industries are exponentially larger than gun manufacturing. There is no way such a small industry would be able to give an organization like the NRA the kind of influence that it has in Washington. What gives it its influence is its power to bring out votes.

I don't deny that global warming can be a problem, but for too many it has come to be a religion. The human brain is hardwired for religion, and for many left-wing liberals who sneer at conventional religion, global warming has inadvertently become their religion. And so the claims about the "world ending" and all of that become increasingly extreme.

Nope. A President can restrict entry into the country by a group if it is a threat.

Very left-wing judges on specific courts that the political Left purposely sought out to stop the implementation of the law have said such.

He never lied because nobody ever believed that part. They loved that he was saying it. If you want to get into someone lying and having worshippers, take a look at Obama, whose campaign in 2008 was like a cult.

 

conservative: 1) disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional
ones, and to limit change; 2) cautiously moderate or purposefully low; traditional in style or manner;

progress: 1) a movement toward a goal or to a further or higher stage; advancement in general;
2) the development of an individual or society in a direction considered more beneficial than and
superior to the previous level.

Conservatives, by definition, oppose change. Progress, by definition, necessitates change. Thus, the examples I mentioned - the United States declaring independence, the United States ending the practice of slavery, the United States empowering women via the vote, the United States ending gender discrimination in marriage law - all instances of progress toward greater equality and inclusivity opposed by conservative forces.

The NRA is a political lobby that frustrates the will of most Americans who support sensible regulation of firearms. That democratic will shall prevail, and be another instance of progress.

Extremism in the form of panicking over the adverse consequences of anthropogenic climate change is as irrational as denial. Nearly all nations on the planet are doing neither, and are undertaking sensible measures to achieve progress.

Obviously, not all change is progress, but all progress is change.

 

Yeah, all that means nothing though, because what get called a "conservative" and a "liberal" has little to do with the above. Look at what get called "liberals" in America. In America, being called a "liberal" means you are of the political Left. In the rest of the world, being called a "liberal" means you are of the political Right. When you look at who opposed the things you mention, it was generally neither strictly Left nor Right, rather people with specific sexist and racist positions. Their positions on government's role in the economy, unions, a welfare state, etc...were separate. For example, unions supported minimum wage laws back in the 1930s as a way to prevent cheaper non-union black labor from being able to get jobs. Those unions were definitely not right-wing free-market "conservatives" as we know them today, yet they were very racist. On the other hand, in America, during the 1930s, the word "liberal" meant right-wing like in the rest of the world. Classical liberals are those who favor human freedom, liberty, equality, inclusivity, etc...and who were against things like racism, but who very much are generally right-wing as far as their economics go.

Your saying that doesn't change the facts regarding what the NRA really is. The NRA's power is from the American people. That is all it has. Also, many would disagree on your phrase "sensible regulation" of firearms. Usually the people using that have no idea about the subject and what constitutes "sensible."

I do not agree with outright climate denial, but the claims and behavior of many who promote climate change does wander into hysterics. That is what causes a lot of people to become skeptical. Look at how so many reacted when Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Accord. You'd have thought we were going to have to swim to work the next day and that he had condemned us all to death.

 

It is such a FUNDAMENTAL aspect of ALL Americans that the Founding Fathers stipulated it in the DOI and made it FUNDAMENTAL to the Law of the Land.

As an American I swore an oath to uphold the fundamental principle that we are all equal. It was true before I was born and it will still be true long after I am gone. No amount of foot stomping denial is going to change it or make it go away since it one of the principles that our nation was founded upon.