Peterkin

Of course; everyone except sociopaths have a conscience. Rejecting the idea of free will is a purely intellectual exercise - theoretical. In practice, we act and think as if we did control our actions; feel and are affected as if we were responsible for what we had done. And since we know only what we can do, not what we will do, we think as if we had meaningful decisions to make. We may be intellectually aware of how all the billions and trillions or past events led inevitably to the present moment, but we don't experience life that way. We are formed by our biology, animal instincts and early nurture and all that we learn through life through interaction with members of our society and the environment. We absorb the world-view, morals and values of our culture. While we may be able to put all that aside in favour of pure logic in an essay, we can't do it in our living rooms, public squares and work-places. You live as if you had a will and a conscience, whatever words you substitute.

A stroke or fall downstairs can render you helpless in a second, at any age. In that case, if you don't want to live in that condition, you'd need assistance. Governments Countries that allow medical assistance generally set conditions and limits.

I doubt it. While I absolutely believe that neither church nor state should have the power to take away people's control of their on bodies, their own lives, there is only so much we can control. Our circumstances are affected by so many external factors, we have only a limited range of choices. We don't decide whether we're born healthy or compromised, talented or dull, rich or poor, into the dominant or a minority ethnic/religious group. We don't decide our formative environment or early education. Even in the most fortunate circumstances, external conditions may change from one day to the next: a political coup, a tornado, an inflamed appendix, a traffic accident, a wrongful conviction or frustrated mugger can take the power of decision out of our hands. Deciding that you will shoot yourself on a certain date in the future may give you an illusion of control. If that makes you happy, sure, make the decision - you or your neighbour or your government or a random tile falling off a roof can always change your mind.

Until the regime takes absolute control of social media - which they're half-way to accomplishing already. In the US, too, mobility is more of an issue than in the Arab countries: trucks laden with flags and machine guns can patrol the highways and prevent planned gatherings. Much depends, too, on which side local police forces and state militias take. Without them, the revolution has very poor odds.

Ethical right doesn't come into it; nobody has the power to issue mandates. The UN is not going to send a peacekeeping force to prevent either oppression or civil unrest in the DUSA. If the majority of voters knowingly elects such a government, and the armed forces recognize its authority, the minority of voters and majority of citizens will passively accept it, one way or another. How knowingly this election happened, I'm not sure. While Trump voters had plenty of evidence from his own mouth and by his own actions, of exactly what he is and what kind of president he intends to be, I don't think most of them understand the issues, the policies or the regime; they don't appreciate the extent of its agenda. Many still believe in The Constitution, in checks and balances, the legal system and Santa Claus. There will be no meaningful resistance until the present supporters become opposers through bitter experience. There will be a great many casualties in the interim. (I wonder when the current statistics on sexual assault and domestic violence will be tallied and published - if ever.)

What Corporation for Public Broadcasting? This is no longer a threat to funding; it's an existential threat. T***p has been threatening to revoke licenses and close schools. It all depends on how much damage he can do before the Ides of March and what V***e's real agenda is.

By this time next year, there will be no NPR or PBS.

Not Canada alone; UK and Australia, I think too, but it was most pronounced in the US. My point was that group identity comprises far more than economic situation. I recall when working people had some pride in their skills, in their social organizations and mutual support, anchored in the unions and the communities. Yes, they fought for better wages, working conditions, benefits, safety and job security; trade unions offered scholarships and bursaries for the most promising children of their members and often held lecture series and discussion groups. "That they remain "working class" even when they succeed in this?" It wasn't a pejorative: it was a description of people of people who work with their hands and produce real things. Winning at negotiation, improving their standard of living or broadening their knowledge didn't shift them into a different category. Welders and dock-workers, streetcar conductors and orderlies did not hob-nob and certainly did not identify, with lawyers, accountants, executives and surgeons. (Nor vice versa, as you probably know.) When one of the workers' children got a degree and got a white collar job, he (and later, she) would move out of the neighbourhood and change their manners, customs and speech to fit in with lawyers, executives, etc. They would join the middle class. In between, there is a layer of more or less socially mobile self-employed tradesmen and crafters, as well as foremen and supervisors promoted from the shop floor as a buffer between labour and management. Some skilled, clerical and technical workers fit into this group, which was never clearly defined. From FDR's and Truman's presidencies to JFK's, the Democratic Party lost interest in the working class and was instead deeply engaged in civil rights (which alienated much of the South) and foreign affairs (which alienated the classes most affected by the draft). A vacuum of attention and representation into which Nixon-Reagan-Bushes whoomed, deregulating business, finance, industry, kneecapping unions, and inflaming the resentments and disappointments of working men, all the while pointing the blame-stick at 'liberal elites'.

Appropriately, the ad that popped up when I clicked on this thread was a picture of badly damaged underground pipes. All of that, yes. The working-class has been systematically disappeared over the last half century. It was done by a center-drifting left as well as the rightward-shifting right. It was intentional on both sides, for different reasons: the right wanted to deprive the proletariat of its solidarity; the left mistakenly assumed that everyone aspires to the middle class. That was their single greatest strategic error, failing to realize that class identity was not experienced as a tax bracket - back then. Working people didn't understand exactly who took away their voice, their dignity and power, but they sure didn't see the Democrats acknowledging or addressing their loss. It was easy for the 'job-creators' and their lackeys to destroy livelihoods by the million and blame some nebulous elite to which they could later attach faces and names and targets.

The records were never compared by voters and only sporadically by news media - the ones most Republicans don't listen to. He's been campaigning non-stop since 2016 and has more megaphones than any candidate ever has before. The Trump megaphones call him a great businessman (Untrue. So what?) and the fans buy his vastly overpriced made-in-China merchandise. "See, he's a businessman, so he knows what to do about prices." Mostly, he's leading them in a decade-long tantrum. No graphs or statistics can rival "I am your retribution!!!" I don't expect him to stop campaigning just because he's won - he didn't last time. But I do - in fear and sorrow - expect a great many casualties. I expect both domestic and hate crimes to go through the roof in the next few months.

Under a Trump-controlled government and judiciary, I would not take that for granted.

Yes, I see this all the time. Also single-issue voters who, if it's not about their pet peeve, don't hear what they're told, and if it is, hear only whoever promises to fix their issue, whatever else they might wreck in the process. Interesting point about about 'Cosmos'. The 1980 series with Carl Sagan was very popular. The 2014 version, even though it had cartoons and shiny special effects, didn't capture so many imaginations. There was a huge cultural and technological shift in the intervening period. Not the least of its effects was the accelerated dumbing-down of the population. This was a concerted political and economic reaction to the first three decades of the 20th century, when public education, libraries and culture had the support of governments and philanthropists. A well-informed populace is too difficult to manipulate. So, we're all getting burned, drowned or blown away.

I can't afford to start a business. This candidate offers to help me; that candidate wants to deport the only workers I could afford. I can't afford to buy a house. this candidate offers to build more houses and help with the down payment; that candidate doesn't. We have another baby coming; I don't know how we'll cope without the wife's income. This candidate offers me a tax exemption, that one doesn't. It ain't rocket science. The media largely ignored it and sanesplianed Trump's 'weave' in a way that sounded good to the gullible. Yes. And one of those fears is losing control of their wimmin. Yup, and it will continue to be, unless and until something quite drastic happens.

I'm pretty sure most laymen can understand tax exemptions and support for trade unions. No, they tried to make it about an improved future... and unfortunately, that vision of future included tolerance and women's autonomy. Plus, it started too late to counteract the toxic waste already so thick on the ground.

Yes, but at least we're all doomed together. The climate will do for many of us; the territorial, refugee and water wars will take out more; then we just wait for the prehistoric virus to come up one of the Arctic oil wells and Kennedy's Department of Health to handle it. In the sense that they failed to take advantage of it. They could not, given their principles, exploit the racism and sexism Trump has so well exploited.

I have to, sadly, agree. The last day or so, I've read comments by normally intelligent Americans along the lines of: The Constitution protects us and the system of checks and balances have always worked. They don't seem to realize that constitution, or legal structure, is only as good as the people sworn to uphold them (Many of whom now already have a record of breaching those foundational principles.) What checks, what balances, when executive, legislature and high court are under the same fat thumb?

The information media are largely responsible for what's happened - and all the very shit that's going to happen. The mainstream media treated Trump as if what he said and did were normal and acceptable; they very often translated his idiotic ramblings into language that resembled policies. They let stand unchallenged many of his lies and diversions. For ten years, they gave him the spotlight he requires to flourish, out of all proportion to other candidates; even covering his rallies while in the White House. They've had an unbalanced set of standards for Trump and everyone else; a ridiculously high tolerance for his toxic rhetoric, and severe judgment of his opponents. (Some of them will regret that.) Worse, the right-wing media have co-opted all sources of 'information' to half of the country, so that the people who have been pre-primed for decades (by previous GOP candidates, by their state governments and propaganda organs) to believe the poison he spews never heard any other side. (Some of them will be richly rewarded for it.)

A very bad outlook. Many Americans still lean on the idea that their constitution will protect them, but a constitution is only as good as the people sworn to uphold it - like the executive, the legislature and the Supreme Court. Those rusty old 'checks and balances' have already been scrapped by many states, and soon will be by the federal government. It's not going to be another term of Trump, with its inconsistency, nepotism and incompetence. It's going to be a Vance government: sane, evil and capable. Read their agenda book and know exactly what to expect. It was, ironically enough, written into the founding documents, erupted in the Civil War and has been festering ever since. Several administrations in the 20th century tried to repair some of the damage, but could not contend with the power of money and political factions ruthless in the exploitation of insecurity, anxiety and suspicion. The Confederate states had the power to entrench it. Nixon's campaign organizers were very good this; Reagan's administration pushed the boat farther out on that high tide; the Bushes took full advantage; Trump surfed into the White house on it. Again. They've always been there, beneath the surface. We had chapters of the KKK back in the 1930's; Britain had a noisy Nazi party before WWII; the ultra nationalists in France and Germany ducked for cover, but never lost the faith. They're all trending rightward steadily - and powerward.

Oh well, the experiment failed. Now, watch the domino cascade; Canada is probably next.

Can you name some other examples? Can you compare the actual intelligence/knowledge of any two of those 'examples' and what was said about them by the other party spokesmen? You know, deploy those dirty words: Fact Check?

I've never heard anyone say that. Given the legislative records of GOP dominated states, both racism and sexism have figured large for some time. As for Trump, I've heard him talk about women and ethnic minorities in ways that leave no doubt as to his attitudes. Since trump has co-opted the Republican party, I guess they're pretty much of the same mind; there need not be any question of which is more sexist and racist. The far more interesting question is, when Trump is gone, will Vance take over as poster boy for the GOP? They'd go on being racist and sexist, but more intelligent and competent, which is a very real danger.

But who are they? Who would be debating? On what platform? According to what rules of engagement? What, exactly, is identified as the 'reasonable compromise - between what stated extremes? Is there a moderator with a fact-checker and a microphone switch? NOTA: it's been a lot of screaming (not to mention violence) and unilateral legislation on the anti-abortion side vs lobbying, litigation and editorials on the pro side. I don't see the foundations of civil debate in the US. What's reasonable is to enlist the expert opinion of Obstetricians in framing a legal structure, and then trust women to do what's right for themselves and their families.

Are you familiar with the "sides" you expect to engage in debate?

I don't remember saying that, or suggesting it. There have been so many nations and systems with which I'm unfamiliar. I could confidently posit that the governance of most North American native peoples was democratic, and I understand Switzerland comes pretty damn close right now. Several proportional or phased electoral systems are more democratic than the American one - even simple majority popular vote is more representative than the electoral college.

The right can never miss with prejudice and greed. Feed the fears and offer bribes. So, who needs a planet to live on tomorrow, if we can oppress a minority and make a couple of bucks today? Very likely. It's been slow, hard slog even to let expensive useless old people die when they want to.