John Boyega Joins Black Lives Matter Protest

In America?
That's not going to happen.

There's two patterns possible: A) Everyone forgets because the whole thing stops being provocative, and loses entertainment value on the news (and I'm dead serious about that...just look back at the whole Occupy movement). B) Everything goes off the rails (see 1968 riots and American Civil War).

Looking at this data (which I've summarized in a chart)....



Basically, the ideal score on here is a blue value that's below the white line, and a red dash value that's above the slate blue line.
That means people liked the President, and didn't change their mind about that very much.

A good example of that is, to no real surprise, President Kennedy.

A good score for the public making decisions based on the situation and not based on their party allegiances, you will see the blue value above the white line, regardless where the red dash value lands.
A good example here is Truman, and both Bush's.

Our current situation is 49 for red dash and 15 for the blue line.
That means the highest rating of aggregate polling for public approval ratings for our current President is 49%, and the most it moves is by 15 points down from that.

That is the least moved in our history of collecting public opinion records, and the lowest high in our public opinion records.
That's effectively half the country disagreeing with half the country, and no one really much changing their mind about anything.

I'm serious about that. Compare the current aggregate approval rating over time against, say, Truman, a President who had amazing highs and lows in public opinion because people changed their minds a few times based on what was going on.


Or Clinton, who was fairly well liked for the most part, but had some shortfalls in public opinion, and prior to Obama, Clinton was one of the most flat approval rating line in our history (the other being Reagan).



What that translates to is absolute division. No one's talking and listening. It's locked in. The only thing left at this point is a question of who will win, who will lose, and what will the side who loses do when they lose?

Based on the current climate, it could get pretty bad. That's actually possible.

That approval rating might change in the near future, but if it does, it will likely be more because more people jump in and get involved - not so much because people are changing their minds, unfortunately.

So yeah...I don't think we're looking at things going well over the next few years.
People have already started social breakdown, such as some families cutting each other off, friends have stopped being friends, people are actively passing around tools to scrub your friends on Facebook for who they politically support so you can defriend them....so....yeah.

It's going to be rough.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Also.
Speaking as veteran, police forces should not be armed or trained as paramilitary forces.

I was trained in the military as I was because the context is assumed that I would be facing enemies.
Those tactics and methods are not intended for use on fellow citizens. Citizens are not enemies.

They are citizens.

The two should be handeled with radical difference from ethos on up.

As it stands right now, I - as a soldier - would rather die than see a citizen harmed, yet I witness a regularity in police forces of just the opposite approach to citizens.

The citizen, to my soldier mind, is the most sacred object of our country. Not a soldier. Not a police officer.

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Yes.
It pissed me off, but I already knew of this.

When I was exiting the military, police recruiters circled and tried to talk it up as if it was a replacement for being in the military and tried to brag about their military training and gear to me.

That didn't go well. Usually I just told them no thank you, but if they were pushy, I let my thoughts out and would tell them, "You don't deserve those, and you shouldn't have them."

Cheers,
Jayson

 

Ideally, the libertarian philosophy is, "Everyone just keep to yourself and stop being d***heads and telling each other what to do".

It's essentially minimalized government with a difference from Republicanism (which also pro-minimlized government) in that it doesn't want options restricted (e.g. Libertarianist views aren't inherently pro-life or pro-choice by the party's philosophies), but instead wants to have a society where the choices are up to individuals rather than the State.

It is, in some regards, similar to Republicanism in that it wants limited government, few laws, but strong laws which are nearly absolute.

The challenge with Libertarianism is in application.
State to State it's different.

Californian Libertarianism is quite different from Texan Libertarianism.

For example, here in Alaska, the Libertarian party is effectively Republican 2.0.

Libertarian party candidates are effectively Republican viewed canidates and end up most frequently as Republican nominations rather than purely Libertarian.

So you have to check locally which way the party leans, or how it functions. Some are more independent than Republican, or Democrat. Others are Green Party (effectively the environmentalism leaning party).

A lot of people think Libertarianism means "independent", but it doesn't.

Even "Independent" isn't "independent" in all States.

For example, here in Alaska it refers to THE "Independent Party" and does not mean you are free to do whatever you want in voting choices (fyi. a lot of States have rules about who can vote in which primary, and/or which ballot they get for voting).

Here, if you want to have free mobility politically in a lot of States, like Alaska, you have to file as "unaffiliated" since the "Independent Party" usurped the term "Independent" from meaning independent anymore.

So when you meet Libertarians, you basically have to ask what they mean by that because if you make assumptions about their right or left leaning based on that, you could easily be wrong.

It's also why the party tends to be a bit weak in singular ideal momentum ... there is no singular ideal on several topics.

Cheers,
Jayson