@georgeob1,
Quote:A serious question here and I will attempt to answer it.
But you really haven't, george. I asked...
Quote:Please identify a broadly successful and relatively free nation that exists anywhere now or that existed in the past which matches your notion of an optimal governmental arrangement.
And then offered up an option if reflection provided you with no exemplar..
Quote:If you cannot do that, then explain how/why you imagine such a think will work.
On this, you've said nothing. What you have written is a sort of explanation of why you couldn't field those two questions as they were asked.
You insist, again, that European economies are failing. You said that a decade ago. But they have not. This claim is a commonplace in right wing media and ideology. It continues to hold sway not merely because it is repeated but because it MUST be so. A key element of modern conservatism's ideology is invalidated if nations with progressive systems succeed.
You say, correctly of course, that nations are different in values and culture and circumstance. Nations with resources are more fortunate and can afford their citizens with more. Nations with a culture that values work or prudence are more fortunate because those systems will be more productive and gain greater overall wealth. Yes. Nations that experience immigration, of certain sorts, can be advantaged or disadvantaged depending on the nature of that immigration. Sure. All of these factors and others reveal the complexity of any modern state, you say. Indeed.
But none of that answers my questions to you. Implicit in the way you've tried to talk about this is a notion or notions about how the US is unique. I suspect you're suggesting that the "libertarian" tendencies in US culture make acceptance of progressive policies less broadly agreeable than perhaps any other nation. That might be so. Conservatives have said that to me before and usually the attending meaning or claim being, "We love liberty more than anybody else". But that is a very narrow and question-begging definition or perception of "liberty". And also of "democracy". What if the majority of citizens evolve a social contract that accepts and desires progressive policies? Is that necessarily an illegitimate outcome? Is that where democracy must be curtailed or be seen to fail?
I have asked those two questions to conservatives before. The only time I got a direct answer was from on chap at NRO who insisted that there was a clear example of a nation and time where the correct political system was in place - the US before the great depression. I brought up the widespread poverty, children working in factories, pollution, incredibly unsafe working conditions (Triangle Shirtwaist Building fire), great inequalities in wealth and power, the physical repression (including thousands of beatings and murders) or workers trying to organize, etc etc. He was unmoved, not least because he really didn't know much if anything about the period he was lauding.
As you know, I'm very fond of you personally. I think you a good guy with a good heart. But we somehow don't manage, in this area, to speak using the same language. I think I really have no option but to behead you with garden tools.
