Reader Stille asked a very important question as to what the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is at this point.
I believe that underneath all of the empty sloganeering aimed at people who like to hear familiar and comforting sounds all of the time, there is a single yet crucial distinction:
Republicans believe that if you’ve got to cut a dog’s tail off, it’s better to do it in a single clean cut instead of dragging out the painful process indefinitely. They want to roll back the nation-state ‘ s caring government* now and let the post-nation – state sweep in immediately.
Democrats, on the other hand, believe that the transformation will be painful and there is still time to soften the blow.
This contrast can be easily observed in Obama’s extremely proactive SOTU last night and the Republican insistence on tinkering with the boring issue of abortion in the newly Republican congress. The Congress chose to concentrate on this matter precisely because it’s so irrelevant to the voters. The downside of the caring government was always its obsessive need to control and legislate morality. It is no longer possible for a government to do that, and the Republican Congress is reminding us (not consciously, of course) what we will be gaining when we let the nation-state go.
It’s time to stop clinging to our old party allegiances** and reevaluate them in view of the new reality. Do you believe that the transition away from the nation-state should be softened? Or do you believe that it makes no sense to drag the process out?
I obviously believe that it should be softened as much as possible.
* As we have learned in our discussions of the nation-state, such a caring government is both a wonderful and a horrible thing.
** An incapacity to let go of old systems of belief and change one’s mind is a symptom of intellectual caducity.
Clarissa's Blog 
I’m with you on this. I have yet to figure out the difference between Democrats and Republicans.
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I believe the distinction described is between trying to do something (albeit ineffectually) and being in denial.
In visceral terms, a mob with pitchforks and guns is not going to go after the Walton family, they’ll come after professors and doctors and engineers or even the people who own those small businesses on Main Street that you mentioned in another post. Doubly so if they’re “not from around here.”
So soften the blow. I suspect the same calculus governs the approach to environmental issues.
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The window cut off my second paragraph. I wanted to say:
The chaos of a broken nation state provides opportunity. However, masses of desperate people (with little or to no options) are not so dangerous to the truly rich but are incredibly dangerous to the highly educated professionals who earn most of their money through work.
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Honestly, I’m not even remotely seeing desperate people or mobs with pitchforks. Why would anybody be desperate in a society like this one? Food is abundant and spectacle is better than ever. The only people who are less than happy are the ones who want more than bread and circus. But those people are incapable of organizing into a mob. 🙂
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I know this wasn’t the point of your post. But I don’t think the issue of abortion is irrelevant to voters at all. The Republicans are representing an entire base of people whose only waking, breathing thought is repealing abortion. They run on abortion because it’s a virtual guarantee for votes. It is an issue very very dear to their hearts. Obsessively dear. And to be honest, it’s not an irrelevant issue to me. If Roe v Wade were overturned, I confess that I would have a conniption.
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Well if you observe carefully the republican leadership has gone to some effort to keep RvW from being overturned. At lower levels, those in a permanent state of agitation about it have some sucess (maybe they’ve figured out the republicans don’t want it to be gone).
The last thing a political party wants to do is win on an issue that keeps large sections of the population in its electoral pocket.
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Every poll before and after the election showed that abortion was barely even on the radar of the Republican voters. People care about the economy right now. Nobody cares about abortion to the extent where people want it to be issue number one discussed in Congress.
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FREDDY KRUEGER NEEDS A NEW WORLD ORDER CHAINSAW
🙂
Tune in next time when we find out whether Freddy Krueger ends the nation-state swiftly or whether he drags out its end with extended misery …
[inserts the announcer voice from Rocky & Bullwinkle for enhanced comedic effect]
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To return to your original metaphor Clarissa, I see that neither party believes it’s actually a bad idea to cut off a dog’s tail. Known as ‘docking,’ the removal of dogs’ tails is now illegal in the UK (with a few exceptions)…
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It will have to be cut everywhere. This is unavoidable.
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