Curious. I well remember the 70's when the wildly popular medium for social interaction was the CB radio. I listened with dismay as the friendly chatter was gradually overwhelmed and subdued over the years by a preponderance of nasty, foul-mouthed characters until folks just gave up on it, leaving the channels to that diminished crew which dominates to this day. I had a pretty good base station in Calfornia which was particularly useful for helping enquiring truckers navigate the Bay Area snakepit etc. But clowns took over.
Yeah. It seems that any time you gather a large enough group of humans, the ones that can actually think eventually leave the group for their own sanity. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Much like Foucault's Pendulum - a fascinating example on display at the Museum of Science in Golden Gate Park - it seems each swing of the socio-political forces in our democracy etches out an incremental, permanent progression toward either the left or rght. The motivation behind each movement increasingly appears, especially today, to be a reaction, if not repulsion, to the opposing swing. The inevitable, near future embrace of leftist, or merely liberal ideals seems more extreme than I would have thought possible just a few years ago, but is based on the spectre (true or not) of an ominous authoritarian oligarchy looming on the other side. Swings to the right have followed the same pattern, imo, leaving a changed societal mind-set in it's wake. A politician's selling points these days will largely involve his/her anti so-and-so polemics rather than marketable skills in leadership, management or vision.
How true... Such as the following rhetoric... It is rotten and dismal that a world of so many hundred million people should be ruled by a single caste that has the power to lead millions to life or to death, indeed on a whim...This caste has spun its web over the entire earth; capitalism recognizes no national boundaries...Capitalism has learned nothing from recent events and wants to learn nothing, because it places its own interests ahead of those of the other millions. Can one blame those millions for standing up for their own interests, and only for those interests? Can one blame them for striving to forge an international community whose purpose is the struggle against corrupt capitalism? Can one condemn a large segment of the educated Youth for protesting against the greatest ability? Is it not an abomination that people with the most brilliant intellectual gifts should sink into poverty and disintegrate, while others dissipate, squander, and waste the money that could help them? … You say the old propertied class also worked hard for what it has. Granted, that may be true in many cases. But do you also know about the conditions under which workers were living during the period when capitalism “earned” its fortune?
Having had a severe limp since 4yrs of age (and having been unfairly maligned because of it) i intimately understand that right and left are not mutually exclusive.
My point is that power, once gained, can be mishandled and squandered. The liberal agenda, highlighted by the absurdest notion of a woman's "reproductive rights," meaning not only abortion but taxpayer funded abortion, making abortion a healthcare issue, for openers, follows a conservative majority government that, aside from appointing justices, watched as public response lead to and leads to a fresh liberal takeover of sweeping proportions. While I generally scoff at conspiratorial musings, I can't help but (jokingly) wonder if this inevitable push to the left is not orchestrated by mere inaction or collective ineptness. I'll return to my quiet desperation.
The nature of conservatism tends to be unilateral.... all or nothing, while the nature of liberalism tends to be incremental in nature. If there are 1,000,000 abortions a year, conservatives should be dancing in the streets if, as the pro abortion lobby says, abortion were indeed "safe, legal, and rare." Conservatives should be delighted to work with Planned Parenthood to affect societal change that ris ducked abortions by 75%, but most conservatives would not view that as either victorious or ethical. The body politic is almost always incremental, and by definition that is often a difficult task for the right.
I think much of that thought is driven by theological thoughts on the right that truly believe that God hates sinners.