PILOT SPIN
Spin Zone => Spin Zone => Topic started by: PeterNSteinmetz on January 21, 2024, 04:48:36 PM
-
I have been reading through this book over the past month. (It may have been suggested to me by a poster here.)
I find it a very interesting exploration of the evolutionary basis of political behaviors and the preference for freedom.
One quote that struck me today - “Therefore a rational citizen will pay much more attention to deciding what kind of car or breakfast cereal he wants than to who he prefers for President.”
This has always struck me as true and a primary reason to limit the effect which politicians have on our lives.
-
Voter apathy has gotten us to where we are today.
People can quote sport stats, tell you details about sports players and celebrities. Ask them who their representative is? No clue. Ask them who the state senators are? Who? Many don't even know who their governor is.
And they vote. They go in, look at the ballot and see a familiar name, vote for them and get outta there.
Surveys show congress with approval ratings in the single digits. Yet, when someone is asked about their congressman, they say "Oh, he's OK".
Career politicians have sank this country. Congress is filled with people that are totally worthless as humans. These people couldn't get hired to run a Slurpee Machine at a 7-11, yet there they are in congress working against us every day.
-
Voter apathy has gotten us to where we are today.
Basically agreed. One of the points Rubin would make is that there are good evolutionary reasons for this and it is not likely to ever change.
-
Basically agreed. One of the points Rubin would make is that there are good evolutionary reasons for this and it is not likely to ever change.
The founding fathers never intended career politicians. IMO that was one fatal flaw in not putting term limits in the constitution. But at that point in time the intent was the states would control the majority of the government with the federal government taking a minor role.
At this point, it's too far gone.
-
The founding fathers never intended career politicians. IMO that was one fatal flaw in not putting term limits in the constitution. But at that point in time the intent was the states would control the majority of the government with the federal government taking a minor role.
At this point, it's too far gone.
The FF also did not intend on everyone voting.
I agree with the FF on this. Voters need skin in the game.
-
They also never envisioned a full time Congress. Meet for a couple of months get the real work done and go home.
-
Our Republic has been batardized by those who want to profit from it through corruption and The People have lazily sat by and let it happen.
-
Our Republic has been batardized by those who want to profit from it through corruption and The People have lazily sat by and let it happen.
It’s unavoidable. You start with freedom which brings prosperity which brings comfort and plenty which brings complacency. All it takes is a generation born into plenty. They’ve never known what it takes to maintain freedom and produce the prosperity they take for granted. Naïveté and laziness ensues. Because food seems to magically appear in the grocery store and is endless they have no motivation to defend the system that produces it. They have no idea of the substructure underlying it: Free market economics and strong defense thereof. So they ignore the corruption rotting it all out from the inside.
-
It’s unavoidable. You start with freedom which brings prosperity which brings comfort and plenty which brings complacency. All it takes is a generation born into plenty. They’ve never known what it takes to maintain freedom and produce the prosperity they take for granted. Naïveté and laziness ensues. Because food seems to magically appear in the grocery store and is endless they have no motivation to defend the system that produces it. They have no idea of the substructure underlying it: Free market economics and strong defense thereof. So they ignore the corruption rotting it all out from the inside.
That really describes us, the kids of the men who fought in World War 2. We were of course aware that our fathers fought for America and freedom, but it was history, not something we actually saw, and somehow was regarded by us unconsciously as something that “couldn’t happen again,” and we grew up not worrying about our next meal or feeling that our freedom, opportunity and prosperity were in any way threatened. All subsequent wars and skirmishes seemed distant to us and unable to penetrate our safe bubble, except for Vietnam, which was seen as a political disaster and not an actual threat to America except for the loss of blood and treasure it exacted.
Until 2001, we felt “safe.” It always was an illusion, and I can’t imagine really what all that has come down over the past few years and prior looks like to the younger generations, whose reference points to history and freedom are more distant than ours.
-
It’s unavoidable. You start with freedom which brings prosperity which brings comfort and plenty which brings complacency. All it takes is a generation born into plenty. They’ve never known what it takes to maintain freedom and produce the prosperity they take for granted. Naïveté and laziness ensues. Because food seems to magically appear in the grocery store and is endless they have no motivation to defend the system that produces it. They have no idea of the substructure underlying it: Free market economics and strong defense thereof. So they ignore the corruption rotting it all out from the inside.
Totally agree. Many of our parents went through the Great Depression and WWII where rationing and men going off to overseas combat was the norm, not the exception. My parents were about 15 years older than most of my friends' parents, so they were WWII generation, born in the early 1920s. They saw hardship and strife and battled through it. Not so for the Boomers and later generations, although Nam was certainly a hardship for many Boomers. But most stayed comfortably at home and the mainland was never threatened.
-
They also never envisioned a full time Congress. Meet for a couple of months get the real work done and go home.
Our present congress is supposedly republican controlled, but you would never know it.
They've had the gavel now for over a year, and no accomplishments. McCarthy was a disaster, and so far Johnson has shown he's under the command of the establishment.
I expect congress to go back to the democrats in November, and then we will have Jeffries as Speaker. He's a very ignorant individual, and is nothing more than a useful idiot and sock puppet for the establishment.
The spending sprees will continue as well as the CR's. It's imbedded now and no one in congress is willing to do the work of the people.
If we had a functioning congress, the border would be closed, spending would be checked and the shenanigans of the executive would be stopped.
-
Until 2001, we felt “safe.” It always was an illusion, and I can’t imagine really what all that has come down over the past few years and prior looks like to the younger generations, whose reference points to history and freedom are more distant than ours.
um, no. We lived with the very real threat of nuclear war. Let's not forget at least some of us did not feel "safe" before 2001.
-
Our present congress is supposedly republican controlled, but you would never know it.
They've had the gavel now for over a year, and no accomplishments. McCarthy was a disaster, and so far Johnson has shown he's under the command of the establishment.
I expect congress to go back to the democrats in November, and then we will have Jeffries as Speaker. He's a very ignorant individual, and is nothing more than a useful idiot and sock puppet for the establishment.
The spending sprees will continue as well as the CR's. It's imbedded now and no one in congress is willing to do the work of the people.
If we had a functioning congress, the border would be closed, spending would be checked and the shenanigans of the executive would be stopped.
I fear you are correct.
-
I fear you are correct.
He is correct. The Establishment no longer needs "We the People". We've been replaced by voter fraud and Illegal Aliens (foreign operatives here to undermine the former United States).
-
um, no. We lived with the very real threat of nuclear war. Let's not forget at least some of us did not feel "safe" before 2001.
True but it was an existential threat. I remember it also, it caused a pervasive background angst rather than worry about immediate danger. And you could do absolutely nothing about it (other than build a bunker), as opposed to immediate situational threats such as food rationing, fuel shortages, where you could search for resources, do with less, band with neighbors, etc.
Perhaps it was the combination of spoiled plenty plus the background threat of nuclear holocaust plus the useless (as opposed to justified) Vietnam war, that created the boomer generation hippy culture: Hedonism while you can, nihilism in the end, meanwhile expecting to be supported by taxpayers. Ironic that they embraced leftist ideology even as it was leftism fully implemented (communists) that posed the ultimate threat.
-
I agree with most of the sentiments expressed here. I would recommend the book in terms of understanding the reason many of these cognitive distortions arise. A lot of them make sense when one constrats the way we evolved, tribes of 25-50 people, with the societies we have today, up to 1 billion people in a nation state.