America's Broken Social Contract. The Why in America's Decline, A Self Inflicted Wound.

[DEFCON Warning System]

I am locking thread.

I was just about to. You beat me to it.

 

[NuclearID]

I just deleted like... 36 posts that where all off topic about FIFA and other BS. Anyways. I would like to (after a month of it being locked for being off topic) get back to this very important and current issue. Plus if Theology gets a third chance I'd like to see this topic get at least a second chance. So we trying this again. Don't fuck it up.

Please. Keep it on topic.

 

[DarkNoon]

I want to add something to my original argument here now that another couple months have passed, because if anything watching the Iran war continue has changed how I look at part of what I originally wrote.

My basic argument has not changed. HOPE both sides, right or left read closely.

America once had a self reinforcing system where we taxed the winners, used those resources to build both the country at home and overwhelming military power abroad, and then used that military power to protect the global economic system that allowed American businesses and Americans generally to keep winning. Feedback loop I keep talking about.

Domestic legitimacy funded national power. National power protected the conditions that produced prosperity. The two fed each other.

What I think has changed somewhat is how harshly I blame ordinary Americans for no longer wanting to carry the burden.

Iran is probably the best example.

You can believe Iran is a serious strategic threat. You can believe Iran should never possess nuclear weapons. You can believe allowing a hostile state to eventually hide behind a nuclear deterrent would be dangerous as hell. AND at the exact same time say "nah. I don't want to fight this fucking war. I have enough problems at home."

Those positions are not contradictory. One is a threat assessment. The other is asking whether ordinary Americans are still willing to personally absorb the cost of dealing with that threat.

And after watching this for the last two years... I increasingly can't blame them. How do you ask somebody to accept economic pain from a trade war overseas when rent at home is already insane?

How do you ask somebody to accept the costs of another major military confrontation when healthcare can financially destroy them?

How do you ask somebody to sacrifice for American global primacy when education, housing, utilities and basic life increasingly feel unaffordable?

Hell I live in an ordinary house in Florida and somehow get a roughly $500 electricity bill. Then we wonder why Americans hear "another overseas strategic commitment" and respond with "that's somebody else's fucking problem."

The threat did not suddenly become less real. The willingness of the population to keep paying for dealing with the threat did. And I think that distinction is extremely important.

Maybe the problem isn't simply that Americans became selfish, weak, isolationist or unserious. MAYBE after decades of hollowing out the social contract, we should have expected people to eventually ask what exactly they are personally getting back from the system they are constantly being asked to sacrifice to maintain. Anyways........

 

[DarkNoon]

The threat did not suddenly become less real. The willingness of the population to keep paying for dealing with the threat did. And I think that distinction is extremely important.

After some thought, this reminded me of something my grandmother told me when I was probably 12 years old.

Essentially she said "We fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here and we have a good life."

Pretty blunt explanation of American foreign policy for a 12 year old. But... there was an unspoken second half to that bargain that I don't think people talk about enough.

Life here was good. Yes we were an empire in everything but name.

Yes maintaining that system sometimes required ugly, questionable or morally gray things overseas.

Yes it required an enormous military and sometimes required Americans to accept sacrifices for events happening thousands of miles away.

But ordinary Americans received something tangible in return.

The system worked well enough at home that most people didn't spend every waking moment asking why the hell we were paying to maintain it.

That is what I mean by the dividends of empire. Not mailing everyone a government check.

I mean infrastructure that works. Affordable basic necessities. Education. Healthcare. Housing. Utilities. Industrial capacity. Decent wages. Retirement security. Communities that actually feel like they are benefiting from living inside the richest and most powerful country on Earth.

If you want Americans to fight trade wars, sustain military competition, finance deterrence, accept temporary economic pain and maintain the global system... Then people need to feel like that global system is working for them too.

You cannot privatize the dividends of empire while socializing every sacrifice required to maintain it and then act shocked when eventually the population says...... Fuck it. Let somebody else deal with it.

 

[DarkNoon]

You cannot privatize the dividends of empire while socializing every sacrifice required to maintain it and then act shocked when eventually the population says...... Fuck it. Let somebody else deal with it.

And this is probably where I have politically changed the most over the last two years.

People keep treating these things like opposing political philosophies.

The left says tax the winners and build the social contract.

While the right says build the military and maintain American power.

IMO both are still making the exact same mistake I originally started this thread over. You need both. Tax the winners. Build the country. Build the military. Protect the system. And most importantly... Make the fucking system worth protecting.

Because an empire can have all the aircraft carriers, nuclear weapons and military superiority in the world.

If the people paying for it eventually stop believing they receive any of the dividends from it, sooner or later the empire loses the political ability to use any of that power anyway.

That's the feedback loop I was talking about when I started this thread.

After watching Iran play out longer, I think I understand the broken half of that loop considerably better now.

 

[DarkNoon]

Anyways........ If you want the much less academic version of everything I just spent three posts saying..........

I think both parties are a fucking cancer. There. Said it. And no, before somebody starts, I am not saying Republicans and Democrats are literally identical. They aren't.

I am saying both parties have become incredibly good at convincing us that the asshole across the street with the other bumper sticker is somehow the reason our lives suck.

Meanwhile the people actually winning just keep winning.

We scream at each other over red team, blue team, woke, MAGA, socialist, fascist, whatever the fuck we're mad about this week while rent goes up, healthcare costs a fortune, utilities are insane, education costs a kidney and somehow nobody can figure out why ordinary Americans are pissed off.

Gee. Real mystery.

Maybe stop telling me my neighbor is my enemy while somebody is stealing the fucking floorboards out from underneath both of us.

Because here's the funny part. The Republican guy and the Democrat guy still need the same house. They still need the same roads. They still need the same hospitals. They still need jobs. They both want their kids to have a decent future.

And if the country ever truly gets punched in the mouth, they're both gonna be standing in the same fucking line anyway. So maybe, just maybe, stop letting two political parties make us hate each other long enough to notice the social contract disappearing.

Because eventually there isn't gonna be much of an empire left to argue over who gets to run.

Not saying Democrats or Republicans are bad. Just saying both sides have become infected. And we the people need to take BOTH our parties back.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I believe both parties are a cancer.

 

[DEFCON Warning System]

Essentially she said "We fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here and we have a good life."

That first part is something I head a long time ago in history class. Fight over there so they don't come over here.

 

[GBS61]

You must ask yourself this question: What is the biggest threat to the USA today?
Without a doubt, China, especially economically. China buys everything; the land you live on might belong to China.

China is patient, silent, and, unlike the USA, doesn't get involved in conflicts (Venezuela, Iran... and maybe Cuba...) that aren't so important. The USA is turning against its allies (Canada, the 51st state, Greenland... and what else?).

Furthermore, the USA has a colossal debt:

$40.047 trillion

The total amount of the federal debt will reach $1 trillion in August 2026.

The astronomical cost of the annual interest payments alone to service this debt.

30 years
The yield on long-term Treasury bonds has jumped to its highest level since 2007, increasing the cost of each new loan for the government.

In my opinion, Iran does not pose a threat to the US.

The economy is the lifeblood of any war; without enough money, the US will have a weaker military.

DANGER TO THE US = CHINA

 

[MonaD]

Anyways........ If you want the much less academic version of everything I just spent three posts saying..........

I think both parties are a fucking cancer. There. Said it. And no, before somebody starts, I am not saying Republicans and Democrats are literally identical. They aren't.

I am saying both parties have become incredibly good at convincing us that the asshole across the street with the other bumper sticker is somehow the reason our lives suck.

Meanwhile the people actually winning just keep winning.

We scream at each other over red team, blue team, woke, MAGA, socialist, fascist, whatever the fuck we're mad about this week while rent goes up, healthcare costs a fortune, utilities are insane, education costs a kidney and somehow nobody can figure out why ordinary Americans are pissed off.

Gee. Real mystery.

Maybe stop telling me my neighbor is my enemy while somebody is stealing the fucking floorboards out from underneath both of us.

Because here's the funny part. The Republican guy and the Democrat guy still need the same house. They still need the same roads. They still need the same hospitals. They still need jobs. They both want their kids to have a decent future.

And if the country ever truly gets punched in the mouth, they're both gonna be standing in the same fucking line anyway. So maybe, just maybe, stop letting two political parties make us hate each other long enough to notice the social contract disappearing.

Because eventually there isn't gonna be much of an empire left to argue over who gets to run.

Not saying Democrats or Republicans are bad. Just saying both sides have become infected. And we the people need to take BOTH our parties back.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I believe both parties are a cancer.

I don’t normally agree with you but this time you are spot on