Quote of the Day – “very, very Concerned”
A comment from Kentucky State Senator Rand Paul on voter turnout. Paul who has falsely claimed the election was “stolen” from President Donald Trump (without any evidence), warned that increased voter turnout in Georgia could cost Republicans the Senate majority and urged Republican state officials to stop encouraging people to vote.
Senator Paul is actually very worried about the mailing of absentee ballots for the senate vote given what took place during the 2020 Election. His concern is Democrats still may win in Georgia even with all of their fumbling around.
Senator Rand Paul:
“I’m very, very concerned that if you solicit votes from typically non-voters, that you will affect and change the outcome. I am very worried the Democrats will control all three branches of Government and they will very truly transform America and not for the better.”
Now isn’t that what many of us had hoped would happen in November?
If you do not like to read or can not imagine how concerned Rand Paul is, here is the Maria Bartiromo Fox Business News of Senator Rand Paul as captured in a tweet by Eric Kleefeld.
Perhaps Rand Paul has forgotten that nothing lasts forever, nothing and nothing else. We still have federal legislative elections every two years for the entire House and about 1/3 of Senate seats. The Democratic Party has no intention of changing that. From what we hear about Donald Trump the same cannot be said of the Republican Party. One other thing that the Republican Party forgets at their own peril is that 2nd Amendment rights extend to every US adult that is not a convicted felon, not just reactionary conservatives. The electorate rarely gets the change that they were looking for from government, yet the electorate continues to change that government’s representation. Republicans need to know that it is better for them by voting than the alternative.
Sometimes it is better to state the obvious lest others forget how this nation was really founded. It was more a matter of muskets and bayonets than either pens or swords.
Was that nice enough :<) ???
The problem with so many Republicans casting doubt on the electoral process has me wondering if they know something that the rest of us don’t. Now, I am wondering if the process as easy to manipulate and the manipulations as easy to hide as they say? If it is and they know it, perhaps this means that their own electoral positions are questionable. How many Republicans were actually elected as opposed to having obtained their positions through vote fraud? A naive Democrat asks.
It’s the old story of the blind man and the boy sharing a bunch of grapes. They agree to each take one grape at a time, but the boy realizes that he can take two and believes the blind man wouldn’t notice. When the blind man calls him out, the boy asks how he knew. “You had to be taking two grapes at a time. I’ve been taking three, and you haven’t said anything.”
My guess there is plenty of fraud. I am sure in South Carolina, they committed fraud(and in Florida with the mail, though its harder) and unnecessary it was fwiw.
Fraud was typical with the southern democratic machine. Republicans didn’t even bother with the south until the 1962 election, with one of the most important Senate races in US history via Alabama(which showed a lot of bourbon democrat strains still resided in the state, which was the real key for Republican entrance. They just finally did,what all the Democrats did down there for years and whip up bigotry) heavily due to voter fraud.
fwiw, Rand is really a Wolfram and that tells us alot about him. His ties to the ancient banking system are pretty stout. He like his father is a con man and serves his masters well………..as long as people don’t call in his scam. Then the sweat and panic start to build.
before we get to guns and bayonets can we try paper ballots put in a box in front of witnesses, and counted in front of the same witnesses in the same place. easy enough to send each polling place’s totals to a central counting station which can’t be rigged because every polling place knows it’s own total.
somebody on the web is claiming mcconnell’s vote was rigged. i have no real doubt it was. but then what becomes of the “most fair election in history”?
rand paul is an obvious liar. if people can’t tell that, they get the government they deserve… if the rest of us can’t do something about it.
coberly;
They are already paper ballots. fill in the oval with black ink, put in an envelope, and fed into a ballot counter by a person holding the ballot sight unseen and in front of people. Afterwards and after being counted, ballot canvassers review the results. The paper ballots can also be reviewed also. This occurred in Antrim, Michigan too. The Republican County Clerk caufght the mistake she made and corrected it , changing the votes from Dem to Repub. She had failed to update the software in several machines.
She caught her error and corrected it. As a Dem, I was satisfied. The Repubs wre trying to make more of it. I offered them a rope, they declined.
A substantial portion of voters prefer split government at the national level, regardless of party.
The largest partition, almost all, votes local issues first and spend their time on understanding local issues. This is especially ru in the large states, the great bulk of politics in California is about propositions and local taxes or bonds.
Then after these come party badges. This last group cost a lot of money to educate from the national level. We are, both R and D, asking people o swear to something at the national level that is third place in their priorities.
This is an efficiency issue is Paul’s true libertarian point, where does voter attention have the best pay off. Bur Rand gets his do-re-me from R. So one has to reverse his code to get back at the logic.
Ron
that is just not transparent.
and what does “sight unseen in front of people” mean.
and who the hell knows what the “ballot counter” is really doing?
and who are the ballot canvassers.
and if that works why are we having all this fuss about fraud?
and if there was no fraud, what about Mitch?
mark your paper ballot with pen pencil or sharpie. put it in the box. watch the box opened and the balots counted by people you know.
apparently there are about an average of 800 voters per precinct. i could count 800 ballots myself in an hour. why do we need the machines, or the mail… give people the day off. voting day ought to be as important as columbus day or “presidents’ day” (now that Trump and Bush are the equal of Washington and Lincoln).
coberly:
It is transparent. Indeed if you get a mail-in ballot, you also come up on a list for in person balloting. When you check in to vote, they check your name off. If you were sent a mail-in ballot, you must sign an affidavit that you did not use it to vote. At the end of the night, the in-person ballots and the mail-in ballots are counted and matched against the machine records for discrepancies. The Township/city clerks do this. After that, the results go to voting canvassers who verify the results before the vote results go to the county clerk for verification. All the paper ballots are kept till the vote is certified.
We are talking about fraud because Republicans refuse to accept the results even when they have made the mistake and another Republican corrects it. They lie just to cast doubt and confusion. PS, our township cast approximately 7600 ballots. It is not a short walk in the park to correctly account for the votes.
still can’t get new system to remember me (autofill my email) .
It will not yet
Coberly,
The muskets and bayonets were what it took to secure our right to vote, etc. If Republicans want to take our right to vote away on the shoulders of fake fraud, then it is back to the future time. If you are not up to that then others will fight for your freedom. The rest is between you and Run.
Ron out.
Ron
i might be more up to that than you suppose…if the other side insists. but war is pretty ugly and all the wrong sorts of people get killed. so why not try a little voting transparency first (see reply to run below).
Ron
i might be more up to that than you suppose…if the other side insists. but war is pretty ugly and all the wrong sorts of people get killed. so why not try a little voting transparency first (see reply to run below).
“duplicate comment detected” but not as far as i can tell posted. speaking of transparency.
run
we appear to have very different ideas of transparency.
sounds like your township needs about eight more polling places. that would solve some other voting problems as well.
There are 4 polling districts in the Township. The polling places take the votes and the Township Clerk counts the vote totals, certifies the count and the number of ballots, maintains the paper ballots, and reports the count to the County Clerk. All voters are checked at each polling place to see if they are registered and checked to see if they had a mail -in ballot. If there are issues they can sign an affidavit or they can vote with a provisional ballot.
There are no delays other than what Repubs put into play. The township and county are Repub controlled.
Keep in mind that each state which voted Repub (MI, PA, and WI) in 2016 and Dem in 2020 has a Repub Legislature which can add days to count all of the mail-in ballots or start the count of mail-in ballots before election day. GA has a Repub legislature and a Repub Governor as well. The Repub legislatures purposely chose not to add days or start early.
Coberly,
I am good with honest and fair elections, which I believe we are mostly having more so now than when we were young men. If all else fails that is one thing, but all else has not yet failed as far as I can tell.
…all Trumped up excuses aside.
[With Republicans still in control of the Senate then impeachment would still be just for show. Plans to make elections more transparent cannot cover this shortfall.]
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a35030462/trump-martial-law-oval-office-michael-flynn-sidney-powell/
Is It Time to Impeach Now That the President Is Reportedly Discussing Martial Law in the Oval Office?
Seems like we could have seen this coming based on every single thing Donald Trump has said and done in public life.
On November 19, we suggested the president may need to be impeached and removed from office in the lame-duck period on the basis he will never stop trying to steal the election and, even if he fails, that he will do untold damage to the country leading up to January 20. This kind of thing was considered alarmist by the Calm, Savvy Observer crowd, who seem to have been asleep for many years, or who at the very least refuse to see—perhaps as a sort of defense mechanism—what is right in front of them, and who certainly lack imagination with regard to what still may come screaming down the pike. It seems bad, for instance, that the Secretary of the Army just felt compelled to issue a statement declaring the U.S. military won’t be doing Coup Things.
It should now be blindingly obvious, and really has been since Donald Trump started yelling that the election would be rigged months before it took place, that he will never concede defeat and acquiesce to an orderly transfer of power. You don’t need a PhD to see the president is a degenerate narcissist constitutionally incapable of processing a fresh L, but even putting armchair psychology aside, he simply has never accepted responsibility for anything in his life. He has never even accepted the premise that there are features of observable reality he cannot twist and bend to better serve his interests. Why would he start now, particularly when he believes he and his family face enough legal jeopardy when he’s stripped of the protections of the presidency that he’s considering leaving a pardon under everyone’s seat at Christmas dinner? Nobody ever went broke betting that Donald Trump will attempt the next most deranged and dangerous stunt on the sliding scale of depravity that forms the backbone of his earthly existence, all in ceaseless servitude to his own pathological self-interest. The president, on the other hand, has gone broke many times and never paid the piper….
ron
not impressed with trump excuses myself, but since i have my own doubts about the honesty of elections, i’d like to see the kind of transparency where it’s hard for anyone to imagine they have been stolen.
not sure what the all else was in your above that has not yet failed.
we have Biden, and that’s better than trump, but it sure looks a lot like the old boss to me.
and then i’d like to ss the end of gerrymandering and the disenfranchisement we have seen so much of recently.
and then, smarter voters.
I really do not believe that we are the verge of either martial law or civil war. Existing institutions will handle this. Impeachment is just silly. Our political system produced the 2016 general election. There is no help for us there. The Secret Service and DoD will do what they need to do, but no more and no sooner than that. Trump really needs to be confined to a mental hospital, but he may not end up that lucky.
i don’t believe we are on the verge either, but you were the one who brought up muskets and bayonets.
the horror of the 2020 election is that after four years of Trump 70 million people still voted for him. and the real crazies were given encouragement to believe they could be taken seriously. and that’s not even counting the ones in congress and on fox news.
gotta go get some work done.
ron
too late to impeach now. best play is to let him run his course so the people have a chance to see what he is. and we have a chance to see what they are.
not a good idea to make a martyr of him. i hope we can fix whaever he breaks. if we can’t we may have to rethink this democracy thing.
“plans to make elections more transparent would not cover this shortfall”
of course not. neither would plans to take your car in for a checkup.
different remedies for different maladies.
Coberly,
Merry Christmas.
I am glad that you are out there too.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2018/10/24/chicago-and-rigged-elections-the-history-is-even-crazier-than-youve-heard/
Chicago And Rigged Elections? The History Is Even Crazier Than You’ve Heard
These days, suspicious voting is incredibly rare — but that was not always the case.
Published on Oct 24, 2018 7:50AM CDT
This story was originally published by DNAinfo Chicago in 2016. It has been updated by Block Club Chicago.
CHICAGO — You can still vote early in Chicago, but “voting often” is pretty much a thing of the past, some experts say.
Chicago is famous for its history of people voting from the grave and for helping President John F. Kennedy “steal” the 1960 election. (JFK beat Richard Nixon by 9,000 votes in Illinois by capturing what some considered a suspiciously high 450,000 advantage in Cook County.)
Officials insist voter fraud has largely disappeared in Chicago, but Donald Trump, the Republican president, has said voter fraud and “horrendous” things happen in Chicago.
The city’s election history is even crazier than most people realize, though, with Republican feuds leading to homes being bombed and names being stolen from tombstones just to get extra votes for the “Democratic Machine.”
The city’s old “reputation is true, or at least partially true,” said Dick Simpson, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago…
*
[Clearly much more at link…]
Ron:
Much of what you say is true. I grew up there and remember the news and tales on the politics and elections. Roman Pucinski was our Alderman who became a Congressional Representative first. Nor a bad person.
Depending upon one’s POV (IOW, in whose eyes) then computers may have made the election process a lot less transparent, but in the eyes of election officials then computers made voter fraud infinitely more transparent.
All this voter fraud talk seems like an ironic inversion of Sun Tzu “Art of War” applied to politics. This is to say, that fraud in US politics is rampant, but in voting not so much. So, we are attacking fraud where it is not. IOW, Sun Tzu might say ROTFLMAO.
ron
yes, and also to you.
fraud is the dominant business model in america today. remember this country was built by snake-oil salesmen.
not much hope of changing anything by now. the French had a revolution when the rich got too stupid to care about the poor. egypt on the other hand, as far as I know, has endured for five thousand years with no real change.
not much point in my saying again and again…not especially directed at you… that the electoral college and the size of congress are meaningless distractions you can’t do anything about even if you should, but you shouldn’t.
some tiny chance youcould get enough people active in politics at the local level, with committees of correspondence, to affect who actually gets elected and what they do.
but the reason the poor are poor is that they are incapable of organized, well thought out, action.
Yes indeed, sir.
well, no cess to them.
as Will Rogers said, I belong to no organized political party.
“no cess” is an irishism i think i heard used this way. possibly i got it wrong.
i think it means something like not their fault. from “bad cess”: bad luck.
for more on this, try
https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/democrats-and-ruling-by-fear/Content?oid=85065430
author sets out all the good reasons not to vote for democrats. i almost agree with him, but hope better men and women can hold democrats feet to the fire once Trump is gone. they have in the past. we won’t win it all at once, but we can make progress. and if we hold on maybe some new genius Roosevelt or Lincoln will come along and save us…for a while.
thing is Dems really ARE the lesser evil. and progrssives are not always deep thinkers.
Coberly,
There was much to agree with in that article you linked to, especially the liberal selling out to corporate America stuff. However, what I agree with much more is “thing is Dems really ARE the lesser evil. and progressives are not always deep thinkers.” The so-called utility maximizers are even worse. Their calculus does not include the impact on real human lives. Us ants are just supposed to move where we are needed as they remake and relocate institutions in the quest of greater efficiency. When the unintended consequences of change architects are so profound then conservatives have an easy job of recruiting new voters.
The problem with politicians is when they try to screw us then we get screwed and when they try to help us then we get screwed too.
Coberly,
You have mentioned in the past effective policy recommendations that would be very effective and popular. I have some too, with public daycare and social security benefit expansion at the top of the list. Killing gerrymanders is also a biggie, but does not impact lives directly enough to have the same voter traction. Neither party seems interested in that stuff though and because it takes human beings into account the utility maximizers do not like them either.
Of course I would also like to see ranked/preferential voting to replace first past the post, but that steps on transparency with a heavy foot. If we must first trust the system to create a system that we can trust then we are really screwed.
Ending all private campaign financing seems like a great idea, but most taxpayers do not want their tax money paying for those televised food fights. Neither party wants to have term limits for federal government legislators, which by itself testifies what a good thing that would be. Citizens need to be able to petition for the reversal of any SCOTUS decision placing it on the next federal general election ballot for a popular vote confirmation, but fear that one’s own ox will be gored might prevent voters from supporting such. Federal legislators love having SCOTUS as the fall guy wherever their own cowardice prevents them from acting.
Ron
it encourages me to have someone agree with me.
but without a large enough group of people with different backgrounds and interests, but also honest and careful thinkers, to explore the things we agree and disagree with, either nothing can come of it, or we end up pushing through ideas with unintended consequences.
i claim to know only one thing with enough certainty to insist upon it… and that thing is that Social Security needs to be paid for by the workers themselves, as Roosevelt designed it, and (second thing?) the cost to them of doing that is essentially zero.. about one dollar per week in today’s money and income levels, which they get back when they need it most with effective interest of about 5% depending on inflation, growth of the economy, and how much they end up needing the insurance built into the system.
“expanding” social security usually means “making the rich pay for it.” this would kill socil security by turning it into welfare as we knew it.. if it could get past “the rich” in the first place, who would see it as proof of what they have been saying all along: “we–by we they mean the rich–can’t afford it.”
as to the rest, i am leery of any good ideas to reform the Constitution to correct the “errors” of the last election. the problem we have is the eternal problem of corruption by the rich to maintain their advantages in controlling the poor, who cooperate with them by being unable to cooperate with each other, much less agree on anything with enough thought behind it to have a chance of working. Nothing you can do with the electoral college, ranked choice, money in politics… will change that.
not that i wouldn’t try some of those ideas… if you could get there from here.
“utility maximizers” an example of people taking the thoughts of a “philosopher” and running with them without ever pausing to see what the consequences are.
a utility maximizer is perfectly happy to add one peny to the income of 300 million people if they have to kill one person to do it. the rich are a little more generous, if they can add one nickel to their income, they are perfectly happy to starve a hundred million real human beings.
money has been the mother’s milk of politics since long before “citizens united.” it failed spectacularly 1n 1789, but the winners of that particular encounter soon made up for their success with the blood of thousands of mostly innocent people.
You might be intrested in the WIKI version of Shay’s rebellion and the later Whiskey rebellion.
Plus ça change..
WIKI says Washington pardoned those condemned to hang. I was sure it was Adams. but, well, you know, fake news..
the role of Hamilton is interesting. I don’t know if that bit was in the opera.
But, you know, Hamilton is on the money, Jefferson and Washington are on Mount Rushmore, Aaron Burr was a traitor, and Daniel Shays died poor.
Turns out Adams pardoned John Fries of the Fries rebellion, an exact copy of the Whiskey rebellion three years prior. But there was Hamilton again calling for someone to be hanged.
I just MUST see that opera.
interesting that Aaron Burr as president of the senate presided over the impeachment trial of Justice Chase who was not liked for a bunch of reasons including his conduct at the trial of Fries. Burr was said to be very fair in presiding and Chase was acquitted
Coberly,
“….i claim to know only one thing with enough certainty to insist upon it… and that thing is that Social Security needs to be paid for by the workers themselves, as Roosevelt designed it,…”
[Agree totally. There are plenty of other ways to soak the rich. Punitive tax on capital gains for assets held less than 5 years, higher top marginal income tax rates, and an infrastructure with carbon control budget paid for by the first two. The net is job makers which become wage makers which pay for SS.]
“…(second thing?) the cost to them of doing that is essentially zero.. about one dollar per week in today’s money and income levels…”
[Depending upon where one lives then median household income is in the ballpark of $1,000 per week or more giving a social security payroll tax of $62 per week or more. If wages were improved and the SS tax rate doubled then people could retire with dignity even if they were not well enough educated to invest wisely or living in childless households. Median income households with more than two children plan on their children taking care of them when they are old because setting aside for a 401K is daunting and kind of crazy for anyone. People generally gamble on dying young and regret living to old age. That kind of makes heroic measures to prolong life a bit nuts too, but mostly one cannot afford to have a long life if one cannot afford to live a long life.
Although I do not worship dead people in general there are a few that I respect greatly, chief among them John Maynard Keynes and Frederick Perls. Desmond Morris and John Lilly were kind of kool too. As far as 18th century politicians and philosophers go then the shade of my ambivalence towards any of them may change over time, but it never grows into anything more than that save for Thomas Paine, who has always been a bit of a hero to me. As a boy I did admire Burr and Jefferson, but grew out of it later on. I have no further interest in disturbing the dead. Even though I think somewhat better of Hamilton than I once did, I thought celebrating him with that play was pathetic.
Merry Christmas.]
More @Ron,
“…Punitive tax on capital gains for assets held less than 5 years…”
[Rather than just soak the rich we really want to make the rich be what they already pretend to be and a few actually are, job creators. So, to this end a dividends tax credit from the issuer for the amount of the corporate taxes paid on the dividends is a twofer. If shareholders get the money back that their equity holdings paid in taxes, then shareholders will not want to finance corporate political investment in tax dodges. Part deux is that better returns on dividends and much lower returns on capital gains not only kills speculation but also incentivizes internal investment instead of M&A to consolidate wealth and eliminate competition.
There was such a dividends tax credit from 1913 until 1954 except for the Democratic Party brain fart from 1936-1939. Was it a coincidence that the first two leveraged buyout occurred in 1955?]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leveraged_buyout
…History
Origins
The first leveraged buyout may have been the purchase by McLean Industries, Inc. of Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company in January 1955 and Waterman Steamship Corporation in May 1955.[2] Under the terms of that transaction, McLean borrowed $42 million and raised an additional $7 million through an issue of preferred stock. When the deal closed, $20 million of Waterman cash and assets were used to retire $20 million of the loan debt.[3]…
probably not best to talk about “soaking” the rich…however you feel about them. they need to pay more taxes for sure, but the taxes need to be seen as “fair” and not punishment for being rich. and the very very rich need to be kept from becoming a danger to the republic. i think better laws,and enforcement, of predatory business practices would go a long way toward limiting their wealth to a level safe for the country, and should be agreed to by the honest rich who don’t like to be robbed any more than the rest of us.
Hamilton knew something about money and understood why a nation should pay its debts, but beyond that i can see nothing in his character that i admire. i would be glad, i suppose, to learn better of him. as for Burr, he has been so maligned by “historians” without facts or evidence, that I am inclined to see his virtues and despise “history” and other famous liars.
calling SS a payroll “tax” is not helpful, it is a [compulsory] federal insurance contribution… which might sound like a euphemism until you understand exactly how it works, which is the point. and getting people to understand that they ought to expect to pay for the ordinary expenses of life.. including retirement and medical insurance… would be a step toward living in a sane country. of course that would mean that wages would have to be high enough to be at least a true living wage…including those ordinary, necessary, expenses.
but don’t hold your breath. government has been corrupt, if not stupid, from the beginning.
in case it wasn’t clear: “the cost is one dollar per week” is the additional cost over the 62 dollars per week today, so that they will be paying for the costs of living a longer life expectancy than their grandparents.
this money is paid in advance, which is what you would expect for a retirement program, and not “the young paying for the old” which is what it has been made to look like to those who don’t understand money at all.
including some economists and accountants and “business” people who think they know all about money.
and just so peopledon’t yhink i am trying to fool them, the one dollar per week grows to 20 dolllars per week over time while wages are growing by 200 dollars per week.[that is, by ten dollars per week to an eventual 200 dollars per week, or more, more than current wages.]
but people without thinking compare that twenty dollars to their current income and panic.. even though if it WAS taken out of current income it would still be a bargain… a safe way to pay for necessary future expenses.
and at that the 20 dollars and 200 dollars is misleading: it’s actually one tenth percent per year, vs one percent per year in real dollars… but people have almost as hard a time thinking in percents as they do thinking about the future. so i am not trying to mislead anyone. just trying to give them enough facts to think it through themselves.
the other guys give you cartoon facts to keep you confused. that’s why they are richer than i am.
but thinking about the future has never been humanity’s strong point.
sounds like you could do it all by means of the stock market.
i am doubtful, but i really know nothing about th stock market except that i knew a lot of people who wondered where their money went when they needed it most.
writing about SS, which is simple, is difficult enough… impossible to say everything needful in one breath. no hope people will pay attention long enough to actually understand it, especially as they desperately try to hang on to what they “already know” which is mostly the lies told to them by people who don’t want them to understand.
looking at what i wrote in prior comments i am appalled at how poorly i said it. it could all be corrected and cleared up, but it would take time and attention, which we have not got.
Coberly,
Agreed on your points. On my points then it would be worthwhile to mention the downside consequences that are enough to prohibit it happening albeit perhaps still socially beneficial depending upon whether the status quo has made one quite comfortable or not.
Retirement savers, speculators, and corporate conglomerates that buy out firms relentlessly to offshore and downsize them or just to further insure their own market power all feed from the same perpetually high PE ratio trough. So higher capitals gains taxes bite them all despite 401K distributions are taxed as income since that income still has to draw from share price, which will fall. Dividends income and internal investment will increase, relatively at first and then in real absolute terms. If higher taxes on dividends and lower taxes on capital gains induced M&A, then it is reasonable to expect that over time large conglomerates would spin-off money makers until the umbrella holding company eventually collapsed. There would be more jobs, even more CEO and CFO jobs, but lower CEO and CFO compensation. With increased internal investment would come higher wages and eventually more jobs, but that would be a rocky road as a lot of that internal investment would go to automation. Face it, it will take a long time to get things to where they would have been had we not have started consolidating and screwing labor seventy years ago, roughly a century.
Coberly,
Don’t blame yourself. It is not your fault. Racism seems to be all that people will organize around, whether the KKK, Unite the Right, Black Panthers, or BLM, it seems to be racism that unites and motivates people. When it comes to economic policy then we practically are begging political elites and the rich to screw us over.
I am sure that there is stuff in game theory that explains our mistrust of our own peers and willingness to abdicate authority to our chosen status quo hierarchy, but I just have not taken the time to learn the lingo. I learned personality and behavior attributions from a hybrid of Jung psychotherapy and Perls Gestalt therapy about 50 years ago. They explained enough that I have grown increasingly reclusive and never bothered with the newer theories.
i wouldn’t worry too much about theories.
race or tribe is a powerful factor, but not the only way to move people, who do need a leader, but are as happy with good as with evil. we may mistrust our peers because we know what they are capable of, but at the end of the day family and tribe is all we can rely on. i suppose we could each try to be a mini-leader and point out to our friends as you sow so shall you reap…and try to treat our enemies as we would like to be treated.
very hard, i know.
Coberly,
“i wouldn’t worry too much … ;…as you sow so shall you reap…and try to treat our enemies as we would like to be treated.
very hard, i know.”
[ALL TRUE, Venerable Elf.]