Who decides “should”?
The framers of the US constitution decided the PotUS would appoint Supreme Court justices. Unfortunately those Presidents put religious fundamentalists on the court and they now dominate.
But we elected a President who we knew would do the bidding of the most extreme far right religious fundamentalists.
That’s on us.
We decided.
The good news is, now, if we want to change our minds, we can reverse course and elect far more egalitarian Presidents.

nt

how Wrote:
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> nt

Of the 9 justices, 6 are conservative Catholics.
One Jew and one Protestant.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_States

And if they go too far, people will not obey them.

America is not like Iran.

Millions will resist, and their like-minded comrades in government won't be able to enforce their will.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2023 01:50PM by anybody.

It looks like that question has been answered. Both historically and currently, there were/are many countries where a small group of fundamentalists controls the behaviors of everybody else. It is certainly true in many, if not most, Muslim countries, and Israel may now be sliding in that direction with fundamentalist (for lack of a better term) Jews running the show. The U.S. is on the borderline with this, and we'll have to wait and see which way the decisions ultimately go here.

Here's what I worry about:

Trillions of Americans' savings & wealth lost to inflation.
Sudden rise in interest rates putting home ownership out of reach for many.
More people living pay-check-to-paycheck. Most of us cutting back.
Ascendent China: buying US farmland, playing chicken with the US Navy in international waters, selling us defective solar panels, spy balloons, overflying Taiwan airspace, stealing our technology, surpassing us in shipbuilding, etc. etc. etc.
US Military moral in serious decline.
US Military recruitment VERY insufficient for our needs
Military reenlistments plummeting, especially the middle ranks (E-4->E-7; O-3->0-6).
We have seriously depleted our munitions in Ukraine, especially 155MM shells and HIMAR rockets. 81mm mortar is woefully insufficient: much of our inventory has unreliable detonators.
Frightening escalation in the Ukraine quagmire, with M1A1 Abrams tanks, cluster munitions, and F-16s on their way.
Somewhere between 3.5 and 5 million illegal aliens recently brought into the country, none of them vaccinated or vetted, and now in need of housing, food, placement and $ervice$. Even "sanctuary cities" are groaning under the strains.
Among those illegal aliens are upwards of 20,000 military-age Chinese men.
US academic standards continue to fall precipitously, especially since the Covid lockdowns. Many college students need a semester or two(!) of remedial work before they begin college-level studies.
Thousands of rioters responsible for major damage (arson, looting, vandalism--largest insurance payout in US history--& assaults on police) were never investigated or prosecuted. Of the few that were, little if any jailtime was meted out.
Shoplifting and looting are rampant, with many stores forced to employ merchandise lockdown or close locations entirely.
The streets of our cities overflow with homeless addicts and mentally ill.
A spike in "unexplained deaths" among the non-elderly.
Low fertility rates + increased miscarriages
China & the Mexican cartels flood our streets with Fentanyl.
Lawlessness is increasing, as evidenced by increased carjacking, rape, homicide and even auto insurance rates.
This just in: Honduran cartel agents praise San Francisco "sanctuary" policies which allow them to move drugs at zero risk.
We are now learning (or getting confirmation) that the government dictated what news the MSM was to distribute, and what was to be suppressed. (Gov officials "retired" and took powerful positions with Twitter, Meta, Google, others.)

Now, on other threads RfM members have gloated over studies that show decreased church and religious observance. Yet you fear a theocratic takeover? To take over a government, you need a loyal, determined, even ruthless cohort of supporters. And maybe a few F-16s? Where will these theocrats get such--from those empty pews? Or maybe Costco?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2023 10:32PM by caffiend.

"US Military recruitment VERY insufficient for our needs"

Outsource it to China, like everything else.

Are you saying you want a Mulligan, caffiend? Do it better the second time?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/11/2023 11:23PM by Lot's Wife.

Odd, isn't it? A year ago Caffiend was concerned about Putin "leveling Ukraine" (his words). Now he's worried about the US continuing to aid Ukraine's resistance to Putin.

He also doesn't appear to be concerned with the Marines being without a Senate-confirmed commandant since 1859 because a single senator is blocking all military promotions. That lack of support is precisely the kind of thing that affects morale.

And *now* he's worried about vaccinations? The Proud Pureblood?

caffiend is all over the place in terms of principle. The only unifying theme is the importance of the right-wing savior du jour, usually TFG but sometimes Ron DeSantis and once or twice even Tucker Carlson.

It's frustrating because many of the issues on his list are valid and deserve discussion. But it's impossible to engage on them when his positions keep changing: Putin good/Putin bad, Ukraine bad/Ukraine good/Ukraine bad, vaccines bad/vaccines good, and military important/military unimportant. This is unfair, but the instability recalls to mind Robert Musil's classic novel, The Man without Qualities.

I wish he were more consistent.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2023 04:28PM by Lot's Wife.

But, but there is an ugly temple in my city.

Seriously, caffiend. The issues you lay out are what we should really be tackling.

I spoke to a PhD student in economics at George Mason University and a 2021 Mises Institute Summer Research Fellow. He explained inflation to me. Inflation is an increase in the money supply. As a result of too much money following too few goods, prices rise.

But we hear on the nightly news that inflation is caused by greedy corporations. It's not. Prices rise as a result of out of control printing.

Keep posting common sense. We need more of that here.

"Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary phenomenon."

--Milton Friedman, 1963

But what that aphorism underemphasizes is the connection to the real economy. What matters is the volume of credit versus the underlying supply/demand balance.

If demand surges after, say, the COVID lockdowns, prices will rise even if the money supply remains constant because people insist on satisfying their pent-up demand. Conversely, if supply shrinks because of an OPEC oil embargo as in 1973, prices will rise even if the money supply is the same because people need energy at any price.

Friedman made this clear when he devised his idea of quantitative easing to fight deflation and depression. The whole point of "helicopter money," meaning his idea of flying over the US and dumping money on poor people, was to increase demand. The rationale was that rich people would just save the incremental windfall and hence not increase demand and prices whereas poor people would spend almost all of their windfall gains because they need food and other staples. Expanding the supply of credit was a great way to stimulate inflation if and only if demand for goods and services rose. In other words, you needed a combination of monetary stimulus and demand stimulus.

Consider the Equation of Exchange, MV = Py, which Friedman had on his car's vanity plate (see below*).

M = supply of money
V = velocity of money, which is how fast it changes hands
P = price level, usually measured as the CPI
y = GDP

If you rearrange the terms, you get P = MV/y, meaning that any change in the money supply, the velocity with which money changes hands, or GDP will influence the price level. It's not just money. It's the balance between money and spending.

Does that qualify as "common sense?"



*Here's the license plate.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CglN45qXEAAm9AH.jpg



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2023 02:40PM by Lot's Wife.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Inflation is everywhere and always a monetary
> phenomenon."
>
> --Milton Friedman, 1963

I don't trust Keynesians.

https://mises.org/library/milton-friedman-unraveled-0

Of course, I would not be surprised if you dismiss anything from the Mises Institute as nonsense. And that's where the disconnect comes in. If you're a Keynesian and I'm a Misesian, we're not going to agree on much, except that the LDS Church is nonsense.

Cheers!

Are you calling Milton Friedman a Keynesian???

I assumed that you knew enough to follow what I was saying, particularly because your student acquaintance was paraphrasing Friedman. But that is apparently not the case.

Milton Friedman is the most important conservative economist the United States ever produced; he is the anti-Keynesian, the Nobel-winning father of monetarism and hence of supply-side economics. He was economic advisor to Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan, who awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The arch-conservative Cato Institute named its biannual economic award after him. Steven Moore in the WSJ called him "the most-revered champion of free-market economics since Adam Smith" and said that quoting him "has become a little like quoting the Bible."

You cite, in contrast, Murray Rothbard's criticism of Friedman in the apparent belief that Rothbard was a significant conservative economist. He was not. He was a marginal little man trying to build himself up by denigrating a giant. If you were to go to the Mises Institute and google Friedman by name, you would get 1,645 articles and books on the man. Moreover, what your student friend said to you came from Friedman; it is what that equation on the license plate says. Friedman is the patron saint of the right, of the University of Chicago, of the Hoover Institution, and in fact of all today's conservative economists.

That you could consider him a Keynesian is surprising.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2023 04:18AM by Lot's Wife.

Yes, he is an attorney.

Thanks, Susan.

>> Somewhere between 3.5 and 5 million illegal aliens recently brought into the country, none of them vaccinated or vetted, and now in need of housing, food, placement and $ervice$.

Caffiend, I work with immigrants directly. Most of the ones I work with came over the southern border. Regardless of their status, they are good, hardworking people. They raise their children to be respectful to their teachers and hardworking as well. I would take as a student a kid from an immigrant family over a kid from a native-born family, sight unseen, any day of the week. What does that tell you about their overall behavior and work ethic?

Second, since I actually talk to these people on the daily, I can tell you that vaccines, including the Covid vaccine, are on the top of their "to do" list once they cross the border. As a group, they are most assuredly *not* anti-vaxxers, and kudos to them for that. Otherwise, they are no more or less sick than you or I.

Third, yes, we do, under law, provide public schooling for their children. We do that because as a country, we have made the decision to not punish little kids for what their parents have or have not done. Oh, and there have been court decisions on that very point. Any argument about that from you?

And last, apart from schooling, they are really not a drag on public services, because...wait for it...they are not citizens, and are not eligible for most or all of those services. The families I know get their housing, food, etc. on the private market. They do sometimes benefit from private charitable efforts, but that is voluntary on the part of the donors. For all its faults, the Catholic church does a fantastic job of providing charitable services for immigrant families.

Don’t confuse him with facts.

And I seriously question his “3.5 million” figure, and 5 million is just silly.

Bravo, summer...

So many "right wing" conservative types claim to care about Christianity. And yet, they have some of the least "Christ-like" attitudes I have ever seen toward their fellow man. I have a relative who gave up alcohol and found Jesus some years ago. He's become a total xenophobe, preaching about Jesus and the evils of swearing as he totes around his .45 caliber revolver. He's become a complete idiot and I can barely stand to talk to him anymore. The ignorance and hypocrisy are astounding.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2023 02:20AM by knotheadusc.

or the lives of others?


Or are we going to split up the country so they can have the "Republic of Gilead?"


This is already starting to happen -- socially, if not legally.


Many people are looking for work only in blue states or refusing jobs in red states.


I've already mentioned how teachers and 2SLGBTQIA+ families are in despair trying to flee red states, not to mention legalized discrimination under the guise of "religious freedom."


God forbid if I got pregnant in a red state now.


I was in Arizona in the midst of the pandemic, and fundies and deniers from California were moving to Arizona because they didn't believe the virus was real and didn't want any restrictions.


Just because someone thinks that they will "burn" in the afterlife if something goes on in the world that they don't like while they are alive doesn't give them the right to ruin my life.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2023 11:17AM by anybody.

A: Yes, because it's already happening.

And there are a lot of people who emotionally support them because of tribal loyalty instead of reason and principle —— just like Mormonism.

I think Caffiend forgot to put the sky falling on his list.

His view of the US and the West in general is almost a perfect match for Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping's.

None of them understand what makes democracies strong.

The U.S. is in an odd situation with regard to many other first-world countries. Religion has a much deeper grip here. And yet, religiosity is eroding even here. The erosion is slow, but sure. It will be interesting to see what happens over time.

Nobody is taking over in the US. That being said the US will not be what it was due to all the divisiveness inside it. Americans are passive and lazy and those type of people don’t fight wars with each other. America is also very heavily armed. It’s impossible to have a monopoly on firepower. The US can slowly rot and decay and that’s what it’s currently doing