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All is not lost. Countries have gone off the rails before and recovered. The financial corruption in the US today is not all that different from the Gilded Age. The bad news is it usually takes a leader coming in who saves the day. Teddy Roosevelt was the leader who helped bring an end to the Gilded Age. Roosevelt started the process of breaking up the trusts, but he didn't reform everything. FDR was the one who shifted the scales to help the "little guy" more and started shifting wealth more evenly.

Lincoln started the 3rd Party System, Teddy Roosevelt kicked off the 4th Party System, FDR the 5th, and Reagan the 6th. Party systems start when the old ways of doing things are no longer working and the ills that developed during the last system need addressing. There are problems with each party system and corruption does often creep in as time goes on.

Long ago when I was trying to get my own head together, I observed humanity could be divided into two groups: givers and takers. It seems to be an inherent thing in a person's wiring. At least some people can be trained to be the opposite and I think everyone should fight their nature at least a bit to come to a balance. Givers who only give often end up burned out and ill. Takers who never give usually end up hated by everyone. The people who seem to be healthiest are those who give all they can when they can, but know when they are overextended and pull back when needed.

The 6th Party System has largely been about the takers. "Greed is good" is the mantra from the 80s that has characterized this era in American politics. Collectively we are becoming aware of the terrible things that can come out of a taker mentality. Many of us have been aware of the lobbyist culture in Washington, the corruption in the prescription drug business, the corruption with defense contractors, and all the other graft going on.

But there is a fairly large segment of the population who don't get upset until they experience it and feel it. And that is beginning to happen. The greedy jerks have also been able to distract those who were feeling it and getting upset and blaming someone other than them for their predicament. Most of those people voted for Trump.

This isn't just happening in politics, we also have things like the Me Too movement and Black Lives Matter bringing attention to abuses that have been going on for decades under the radar. The givers are beginning to get the upper hand again and we're waiting for the seed crystal of a leader to emerge and make it all happen.

This isn't just an American phenomena. Other countries have reformed too. Oliver Cromwell stepped into the void created when England got rid of the monarchy and he rigged parliament to be a rubber stamp on anything he wanted to do, but eventually parliament acted to stop him. It was a moment in British history equivalent to the Republican party in Congress rising up en masse to get rid of Trump. Nobody thought it would happen until it did.

The Catholic Church split with two popes at one time for almost 40 years in the late 1300s to early 1400s. An earlier split saw the Eastern Orthodox Church split away from the Roman Catholic Church, but in the later split the western church figured out how to resolve the schism and get the two factions back together again. But in the Reformation, new churches split off from Rome.

So sometimes these things end with factions splitting and new groups forming. Other times the factions figure out how to get along together. Sometimes the system collapses, which has happened too. In the case of the US, it's pretty much impossible for the factions to split permanently because of the way they are distributed. One faction is primarily urban and the other primarily rural with the suburbs leaning towards the rural for much of the 6th Party System, but now leaning the other way. The suburbs would also have to side with the urban in a real split because most people in the suburbs make their living off the nearby urban center.

The US can't physically split into two countries along urban+suburban and rural lines. It would be unviable. Some other solution has to be found. There is the possibility that the US could devolve into a de facto civil war with the more violent factions fighting the government which will probably be in the hands of the urban+suburban faction. But I doubt there would be enough extremists in the rural areas to carry out more than a short insurgency campaign.

There is talk of another New Deal and if that happens, a lot of the upset people who are supporting Trump now would be happy because they would see their lot improving. Ultimately economic factors are what drives most Americans' votes these days. If the economy really is lifting the lower part of the population, even just a little bit, it will settle a lot of the instability.

That doesn't answer all the problems. You mentioned gun violence, which is a problem that is not purely economical (though the gun lobby throwing money around has made the problem worse). The issue may take care of itself as the NRA is in serious financial trouble and so are gun makers. Gun makers raked in huge profits during the Obama years with the "the black man is going to take your guns" scare tactic, but now with Obama gone, all those people who spent their life savings on guns have quit buying. The gun industry is collapsing.

That doesn't solve the gun violence problem directly, but with the lobby fighting against any changes weakened, rational heads my prevail.

It isn't guaranteed, but in 10 years or so we might collectively be in a much better situation than today. There are a lot of ideas out there about how to solve the problems, all it takes is a good leader to make it happen.

In chemistry you can have a thing called a super saturated solution. That is a solution that is holding as much dissolve solids as it can. For example take water and dissolve as much table salt as possible in it. Crystals won't form yet out of the solution, but when it is in that saturated state, all it takes is a bit of a jolt or a seed crystal to make the whole thing crystallize. We are at that state politically right now. The 7th Party System is past due.

Here is an example of what I'm talking about:



The Twitter comments have been withering. Some people pointed out San Antonio once had a wall, at the Alamo, and it didn't stop the Mexicans.

Over the last week he's been talking about such "great" ancient technologies like walls. I would point out that spears were used as weapons of war for thousands of years, but how many spears to we issue to the US Army today: 0. Why? They are an obsolete weapon. Walls are obsolete as a barrier for this kind of job. Just like spears are still used for fishing, walls have uses, but not the best option along a border anymore.

If Trump is obsessing about something, the question to ask is how he's going to profit from it, or how will it make him look better. At this point I think even Trump is realizing the whole wall thing isn't making him look better, so how does he profit from it? Here is the probably vector:
Letter: Who will profit from Trump’s border wall?

The mill in Portland is the only one in the country that can make the specific slats for Trumps steel fence.

The way Trump is obsessing, I think he owes some kind of debt and the oligarch who owns the steel mill is taking a border wall in payment. When Trump restarted the Keystone XL project he gave a no bid contract for the steel to a Russian oligarch (possibly the same one, I don't remember at the moment).

If Trump was just going to get a kick back from this, I think he would have dropped it right now. I think he's being threatened with something, possibly Russian cooperation with Mueller if he doesn't give them what he wants.
wdolson,
I just really have a problem with waiting for a savior to come in and fix things when we are the things that seem to need fixing.

As social animals our herding instinct is augmented by following a leader. You are absolutely right we now have a bad "leader" who is leading the herd to destruction. History always cries out for good leaders to clean up the mess. Like rating agencies and polls, history is at best an ex post guide. There is a saying from Wordsworth for this.

Maybe its time for us to learn from elephants rather than stubborn donkeys. Time for a matriarchal society? Odd that should be more common in Scandinavia.
 
You know what would be great - more data on gun violence. Ofcourse, Republicans don't want more data. They have banned the federal government from funding any studies on gun violence. Wonder why.

Trump removed the ban in the Omnibus funding bill in March 2018. They are free to do research but cannot use government funds. Perhaps start a GoFundMe? I'm sure theirs some rich Democrats that would donate.
 
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Trump removed the ban in the Omnibus funding bill in March 2018. They are free to do research but cannot use government funds. Perhaps start a GoFundMe? I'm sure theirs some rich Democrats that would donate.
Pretty sure Government agencies can't use outside funding for such things? Removing the ban by saying they just can't use government money doesn't really change anything ...
 
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One of the interesting traits demonstrated by the voting public is attribution for the economy to the President. I can not tell you how many Obama haters defend Trump because the O word destroyed the economy in 08. What actually happened is monied interests had successfully watered down government's control of the financial institutions (both in law and oversight) allowing them to place gambles with the mortgage system by wrapping it up in securities. Demand for mortgages goes up to the point where anyone with a pulse can get one so as to feed the sausage factory churning out the securities. Viola, a collapse follows. The collapse happed on Bush Jrs watch but it was not all his fault. O inherited it and did the only thing any responsible person would do, he put his whole agenda on hold and devoted his life, energy and political capital to avoiding the next Great Depression.

This might have had something to do with the last savior saving us. That is not to say your points are not valid.

My point is that we are the root and placing a fancy star at the top of the tree does not change the roots or foundations. If we are willing on a large part to mortgage our houses to the hilt when the value of that house doubles for no apparent reason beyond demand to feed a bubble just so we can buy a new flat screen tv and we do not learn from the subsequent collapse, it really does not seem that a new "topper" on a tree who's roots are rotten is really going to keep the tree standing in a gale. Lots o metaphors mixed in there but you likely get the point. We need to talk to each other and get on the same page despite the influence of the Roves and Carvilles of this world.

There is a racist element in this country and an uber anti-Democrat element in this country. They came together to hate Obama. I don't know which percentage of haters is which, but they are both virulent in their hatred. I have seen some of these people convinced Obama was president on 9/11 and they go on about where was Obama on 9/11/2001? The answer: at his job then, which was state senator in Illinois. They also will rant about the 2008 crash being Obama's fault when it obviously wasn't.

"Leadership is an interesting area of Psychology that is hard to nail down exactly. One person can mimic all the positions and characteristics of another and get nowhere. In this age of Trump, there have been other Republicans who have tried to mimic Trump and failed even with Trump's base. Trump is overall an awful leader, but he has an instinct of how to sell BS to a certain demographic and he is a master at it. Imitators fail trying the same thing to the same people."

People will follow their core. They do not do this at a high level in their thought process but more using the lizard brain to interpret the person they are following. Thus it is the leaders ability to understand and focus that "current state of the core" that permits her/him to lead. Identify or define the common goal(s) that resonate and then request/canjole/require those around you to pull on the rope to achieve those goals.

One of the single largest lessons I learned is that, when you are responsible for a bunch of people, you are not the big boss that just gets their way. Your sole job is to identify and remove the impediments that prevent those you work with from achieving their goals. They do not work for you; you work for them.

Leadership focuses all the energy in one direction. Or that is what it's supposed to do.

As an example, probably the largest project I was ever involved in was developing the Boeing 777. There were somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people at Boeing working on this and another 20K or so outside contractors. There were also some people at various levels who were responsible for getting everyone working together on the same project. I had some latitude about exactly how I went about doing my part of the job, but I also had a specification I needed to deliver on. My manager's job was in part making sure I had obstacles removed from my path, but also it was to ensure I delivered what I was supposed to deliver.

I worked on a couple of different parts of the project. Once the first part was done, they threw me at another sub-project. There I was to work with two hardware people and I was to write the software. Both were new to hardware design, one fresh out of school and the other a technician recently promoted to design. They had some big screw-ups that I had to jump in and help fix. I spent most of a weekend violating union rules rewiring the prototype circuit board because it was laid out wrong.

Things got to that point because their leadership was too hands off (the manager was overloaded trying to handle a group 3X bigger than he should have been managing) and wasn't watching when they screwed up and allowed big mistakes to go further than they should have. Better leadership would have caught the problem early and fixed it before it became a fiasco.

The 777 project was full of problems caused by people who's efforts were not properly managed. It ran 2 years late and over $1 billion over budget because of it. I personally know where 10% of that over budget came from. Just as the program was starting a couple of us identified a piece of test equipment we were going to need. Our manager kicked it up the food chain and a guy who was seeking to make a name for himself and was otherwise a complete jerk grabbed the reigns and decided to make it his project. We got shoved out and he turned it into his private kingdom. We estimated it would cost $1-$2 million to make our vision of test equipment happen, but this guy turned it into his private empire and it ended up costing over $100 million and was a complete shambles. It didn't even work right after all that money spent.

Again lack of good leadership allowed one rogue to run up a huge bill. Good leadership would have redirected those efforts more productively.

Leadership is important to make the whole thing happen. Otherwise you have some rogues off doing their own thing and the rest sitting around wondering what to do.
 
Prof,

I've diagnosed my problem.

"As social animals our herding instinct is augmented by following a leader."

I'm not terribly social. I like a few persons but not much of one for people (word choice on purpose).
I've also found that, when I follow, the view never changes. I'm not a big follower.
 
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Not true. CDC raises external funds.
Interesting, I didn't think any government entities could get outside funding of the sort. Public-Private Partnerships and CDC|Gifts to CDC

Public-private partnerships help federal agencies do more with less, build on the capabilities of others, and leverage collective action. CDC has delegated authority from the Assistant Secretary of Health, HHS, to accept outside gifts. This authority was first given to CDC on March 29, 1983. Specifically, Section 231 of the Public Health Service Act (42 USC 238) authorizes acceptance of unconditional and conditional gifts “…for the benefit of the Public Health Service or for the carrying out of any of its functions.”
FY18-Gifts-Bubble-Web-medium.png


I would still question whether money gifted to the CDC then becomes "government money" or if the exact language only prevents them from using that big giant blue bubble to do gun related research, but perhaps CDC actually can be funded externally for such purposes.

Of course, you'd still need sufficient funding. I guess someone needs to start a proper non-profit to collect funding (from gofundme or whatever means, perhaps multiple means) and then make the money a conditional gift (which I take to mean you can state this money is to be used for X, where X in this case is research on gun related stuff). That is all non-trivial to do and is still a rather large barrier to allowing gun research.

It might be possible to outside fund the research but practically it's still a relative non-starter due to the hoops that must be jumped through, and it's nonsense that gun related research is blocked in any fashion.
 
Prof,

I've diagnosed my problem.

"As social animals our herding instinct is augmented by following a leader."

I'm not terribly social. I like a few persons but not much of one for people (word choice on purpose).
I've also found that, when I follow, the view never changes. I'm not a big follower.

I'm fairly independent too, but the vast majority of the population aren't. We are a species of dogs (socially) with a few cats thrown in.

The Milgram Experiment is one of the breakthrough studies on just how sheep-like most humans are:
Milgram experiment - Wikipedia

When my SO was a freshman in Psych, her professors redid the Milgram experiment on her class. To get into her school (Whitman College Whitman College - Wikipedia) you had to be up there in the academically and many graduates went on to become leaders in various professions. She was the only one in her entire class who completely refused to participate at all. Even when threatened with failing the course, she refused. There were about 20% who balked early in the experiment and refused to continue, but she was the only one who refused from the get go. The other 80% would have tortured the test subject to death or near death if told to.

My SO is very cat-like. No matter what the situation, she never loses herself into the crowd, but most people do to at least some extent. I'm more independent than most, but my SO is a whole order of magnitude beyond me. She has a very solid ethical/moral compass and never compromises in her own behavior (other people can do what they want as long as it doesn't harm her).

The thing is, you're mostly an outlier in the overall population. Most people are not like you. Nothing wrong with that, some of the biggest thinkers and biggest innovators in history were also outliers.
 
Trump removed the ban in the Omnibus funding bill in March 2018. They are free to do research but cannot use government funds. Perhaps start a GoFundMe? I'm sure theirs some rich Democrats that would donate.
Doesn't make any sense. We spend trillions - but can't spend a few million getting needed data ?

What are Republicans afraid the data will say ?
 
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Trump removed the ban in the Omnibus funding bill in March 2018. They are free to do research but cannot use government funds. Perhaps start a GoFundMe? I'm sure theirs some rich Democrats that would donate.
Trump just banned bumpstocks too. This was with the help of some of the parents of the Parkland High School victims. In all fairness, it was a bipartisan bill. The reason why there has not been more done in the past is because the NRA has influence over both Dems and Reps. Some people incorrectly only say Reps though.
 
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Trump just banned bumpstocks too. This was with the help of some of the parents of the Parkland High School victims. In all fairness, it was a bipartisan bill. The reason why there has not been more done in the past is because the NRA has influence over both Dems and Reps. Some people incorrectly only say Reps though.
Absolutely - ever since Gore "lost" in '00 - Dems stayed away from gun issues until the shootings, including of pre-school children, became too regular to ignore.

Dems did vote for assault weapons ban in the committee but didn't pass filibuster in '13.

Federal Assault Weapons Ban - Wikipedia
 
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Absolutely - ever since Gore "lost" in '00 - Dems stayed away from gun issues until the shootings, including of pre-school children, became too regular to ignore.

Dems did vote for assault weapons ban in the committee but didn't pass filibuster in '13.

Federal Assault Weapons Ban - Wikipedia
It is easy to talk about gun control and put forth bills that everyone knows do not have a chance of passing, for political purposes. However, the fact is that no modern president, or possibly president ever, has done more for gun control than Trump. Others have talked about it, but did not get anything done. He has done it. And has more coming. I say this only because of all the Trump hatred on this forum.
 
Prof,

I've diagnosed my problem.

"As social animals our herding instinct is augmented by following a leader."

I'm not terribly social. I like a few persons but not much of one for people (word choice on purpose).
I've also found that, when I follow, the view never changes. I'm not a big follower.

I like to be alone but without the internet I'd be bat-excrement crazy in one day,
 
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It is easy to talk about gun control and put forth bills that everyone knows do not have a chance of passing, for political purposes. However, the fact is that no modern president, or possibly president ever, has done more for gun control than Trump. Others have talked about it, but did not get anything done. He has done it. And has more coming. I say this only because of all the Trump hatred on this forum.

The right wing media also has a double standard. The biggest is that deficits are the worst thing in the world for a Democratic president, but they don't matter for a Republican.
 
Trump just banned bumpstocks too. This was with the help of some of the parents of the Parkland High School victims. In all fairness, it was a bipartisan bill. The reason why there has not been more done in the past is because the NRA has influence over both Dems and Reps. Some people incorrectly only say Reps though.

This bump stock thing drives me nuts. Suppressors require a Class III tax stamp (license) to posses. Putting an empty 2l plastic bottle on the front of weapon simulates a suppressor and thus is illegal. Putting a bump stock on certain weapons allows them to cycle at the rate of some fully automatics. They become a machine gun in the same way a plastic bottle becomes a one time suppressor. By the same logic, a bump stock is illegal. The courts should have put an end to them using that logical extension. If they fail on review, the legislature extends the definition of fully automatic to include devices that allow semi-automatics to behave as fully automatics.

We behave this way because of monied influence on politics. Ban Money. Unlike banning guns, you only affect the top very small percent of the population that uses money to get their way (you know folks, those rich guys you like to hate.... but at least you are targeting rich people doing bad things instead of tarring all the rich).
Some gun owner advocates will not give an inch even to basic sensible activity like including bump stocks in existing agreed upon legislation. Non-owners must address the fundamental fears of those advocates and, once addressed, the majority needs to push the extremists to the extreme edge and address the issue.
If Non-owner/advocates can not bring themselves to address advocates concerns because banning all guns is the goal, then state so and let us debate that issue instead of pushing it into related issues where the problem can fester with inactivity.
 
The right wing media also has a double standard. The biggest is that deficits are the worst thing in the world for a Democratic president, but they don't matter for a Republican.

Keep playing sides. This allows the Carville/Rove wedge to work and prevents us from acting in unison as the Americans we are.

I could care less who's party you are in as it really does not appear to make a difference on much of anything apart from the talking points. It is what you do that counts.

People give credit to the 11 Rep Senators that "crossed the isle" to vote with the Dems to keep sanctions on Daripaska. I do not. It was political theater. Had four of those Senators actually cared, they would tell McConnell privately that nothing ever happens again in the Senate if the sanctions are removed. No AG for instance. Viola, sanctions still in place. Voting in the absence of the vote changing anything (for these 11 Senators) is "talking" not doing.
 
Keep playing sides. This allows the Carville/Rove wedge to work and prevents us from acting in unison as the Americans we are.

I could care less who's party you are in as it really does not appear to make a difference on much of anything apart from the talking points. It is what you do that counts.

People give credit to the 11 Rep Senators that "crossed the isle" to vote with the Dems to keep sanctions on Daripaska. I do not. It was political theater. Had four of those Senators actually cared, they would tell McConnell privately that nothing ever happens again in the Senate if the sanctions are removed. No AG for instance. Viola, sanctions still in place. Voting in the absence of the vote changing anything (for these 11 Senators) is "talking" not doing.

@AudubonB recommended the book American Nations to me about a year and a half ago. It explains the patchwork nature of this country that goes back to the colonies. The only time all the nations all really pulled together in one direction was in WW II. But there have been two periods in American history where the divisions were at their worst. The first time we were literally shooting at one another and now. The US today would probably be like Canada without Quebec if the South just peacefully left in 1860. The sentiment in the North was largely to let them go until Fort Sumpter.

If they left, the South today would probably be a miserable 3rd world country, or it would have collapsed and been reabsorbed back into the US.

Without the South, the progressives in the North would have some pushback from the somewhat conservative interior west and the parts of Appalachia that remained, but those factions would be out voted much of the time.
 
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