Originally Posted by
Einzige
I take great delight in noting that the self-same poster who most vociferously denies the very existential possibility of a left-winged libertarianism is the one who cried and whined about a Fourth Turning being a 'Quenching' and bitching that the results of the 2012 elections had 'suppressed' his political philosophy. Intellectual co-existence: it's good for me, but not for thee.
Almost everyone on this board has an agenda that the 4T could solidify. A 4T can be a time in which a nation or a civilization coalesces on the best and noblest objectives in the name of survival or in which it reaches into a never-quite-discarded legacy of the worst demons in its history. America has its demons in cruelty, greed, superstition, bigotry, inequity, and militarism. America is one Hitler away from being the greatest nightmare that humanity has ever seen. It's also one effective, principled leader away from serving as a model for long-term solutions for ecological distress and social inequity.
We have no immediate "Red" menace, at least in the old sense of Marxism-Leninism. But that said, we have more of a fascist menace. Fascist regimes have typically arisen when those who have little are so scared of being left behind economically that people with greatest wealth turn them against the middle class (especially if it is somehow different), organized labor, and the very poor 'losers' with the prompting of big landowners, tycoons, and business executives.
Were it not for the non-white, non-Anglo, non-Christian, and non-straight parts of the American middle class, America would probably be deep into a right-wing ascendancy. In normal times the non-white, non-Anglo, non-Christian, and non-straight parts of the American middle class would be assimilating into conservative politics. Maybe fifteen or so years from now those people will redefine what 'conservative' means, and that could imply a classicist approach to culture -- back to Shakespeare, back to Mozart, back to Cezanne, and altogether back to sanity. For now, American 'conservatism' has become an alliance between those who want to whittle away the middle class and those who want their superstitions imposed upon us all as an exercise in alleged patriotism. I don't hide my opinion; I have contempt both for people who see virtue only in what enriches and pampers them irrespective of the human cost to everyone else and to people who insist that anyone who accepts the fossil record and astrophysics as truth instead of Biblical literalism is going to Hell.
The non-white, non-Anglo, non-Christian, and non-straight parts of the American middle class seem to have more virtues than the Economic and Religious Right. Those people generally have nothing that they have not earned. They are intelligent (they had to be to get ahead, and they generally had no powerful political friends to accelerate their rise in the American economy) and they are generally either small businesspeople or degreed professionals. They are the American dream, although they see the elitist dreams of selfish people and the resentment of economic losers who would rather tear others down for being non-white, non-Anglo, non-Christian, and non-straight parts of the American middle class. Their position is shaky because of such bigotry that arises in economic distress. Model minorities can become pariahs quickly -- just think of German Jews -- when people think that by helping rob them on behalf of a political and economic elite they elevate themselves. (The fools!)
We Americans choose a rational, moral course in politics and economics or lest we ultimately bring ourselves defeat, shame, disgrace, and ruin. We are far wiser to promote the better angels of our nature (Lincoln) so that we can have government of the People, by the people, and for the People (again, you know who!). If we fail and chose evil madness we may find this Crisis ending with some foreign general dictating to a physically-wrecked nation of mass graves and destroyed property what is possible and what isn't. So it was in Italy, Germany, and Japan nearly seventy years ago.
A 4T is a quenching -- but it can be a quenching of evil. Those who see some temporary advantage in aligning themselves with evil will find themselves assimilated into that evil, and most likely be destroyed with it. We Americans must choose wisely. It has always been wrong to murder, rape, steal, torture, do injustice, and betray those who deserve loyalty. Right-wingers need recognize that economic exploitation is itself theft.
The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" (or) even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered... in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by (those) who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters