The Disappearance of Virtue From American Politics

[Badger]

Typical conservative. Virtue has often been a minority in American politics. Andrew Jackson, anyone? The Senate's refusal to regulate lynching? Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter? Well cultivated individuals have generally been a minority.

Ben Sasse is the poster boy of the GOP's economic nihilism wing. What is virtuous about cutting my brother's Medicaid to fund wars abroad?

Not to pick a fight, but you DO realize that is part and parcel of TRUMP'S budget, right?

[Badger]

Ahhh...Ben sASSe, another all talk do nothing Senate seat warmer who complains about the discourse of our politics but drops to his knees and approves anything daddy Trump wants.

Yeah...I'm sure all these kids watching your president and party are really gonna come away with upstanding virtues.

In fairness, wasn't he among the hardcore #NeverTrump-ers during the election?

[Badger]

"What's the matter with these darn kids of today?", installment # 34,806 since the dawn of civilization.

[Badger]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Well, that's an interesting question. Avoiding the inevitable debate over the Great Society's benefits/harms, what since then has the boomer generation passed of historical note? Reagan's tax cuts are debatable, but more importantly the boomers still were largely newcomers rather than leaders of Congress and the government. The Americans with Disabilities Act? The Clinton Administration's balanced budgets? The ACA?

I may slap myself in the forehead when someone points out something obvious I'm currently missing, but for now there appear to be slim pickings for a contender.....

[Badger]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

I know that. The point is their has been a lot of legislation with very great consequences under Boomer-dominated government.

Such as?

[Badger]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

I know that. The point is their has been a lot of legislation with very great consequences under Boomer-dominated government.

Such as?

[Badger]

Ahhh...Ben sASSe, another all talk do nothing Senate seat warmer who complains about the discourse of our politics but drops to his knees and approves anything daddy Trump wants.

Yeah...I'm sure all these kids watching your president and party are really gonna come away with upstanding virtues.

In fairness, wasn't he among the hardcore #NeverTrump-ers during the election?

Yeah...because he figured Trump would lose and he would look good and then he could act holier than thou like he put his morals before politics.

Now that Trump won, Sasse literally dropped to his knees overnight. At this point, he's wearing out his pair of complementary Trump knee pads. Sassee will rubber stamp everything Trump wants...just like Flake, McCain, Lindsey...all of them

Well, let's make it clear that other than a few neoconservative (God I hate using that word) foreign policy issues (one can count the Muslim ban under that category) almost no Republicans opposed--or oppose--Trump's actual (professed) policy positions, Sasse included. The opposition was primarily for the nasty visceral overt level of crudeness and prejudice Trump exuded (exudes).

Call it a character check Trump failed for many Republicans. None of that would ever change Sasse or others from supporting a wholesale slashing of the social safety net and upper income taxes, keeping barriers up for illegals from getting citizenship, etc.

[Badger]

Millennials are basically narcissistic bourgeoisie brats with mental issues and an extreme sense of materialism (seriously, every study of their social attitudes has shown they have terrible yuppie values). Their lack of "embarrassing" behavior is more the result of living their lives on screens than anything else. I mean let's be real.

This sounds more like Boomers

The most useless generation in American history...haven't legislated a single thing of significance.

What's "significant" in your eye? Is it a fancy way of saying Great Society type measures?

Uhhhh... does anybody want to tell this person that the Great Society was created by members of the Greatest Generation?

I know that. The point is their has been a lot of legislation with very great consequences under Boomer-dominated government.

Such as?

-Family Leave Act
-NAFTA/WTO
-Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (i.e., "the crime bill")
-Telecmmunications deregulation
-Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
-Defense of Marriage Act
-S-CHIP
-Copyright Term Extension Act
-Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
-USA Patriot ACt
-Homeland Security Act
-Help America Vote Act
-Homeland Security ACt
-Medicare Part D
-Bank and auto bailouts

We could also include the legislation of Obama's first two years as the Congress was largely Boomer-dominated. While I don't approve of most of what I listed, they were all certainly of significance.

Did you just Wikipedia "Major" legislation passed since 1990? Most of that stuff is pretty small beer in importance or impact compared to most of the Great Society (again, whether you disagree or agree with it). "The Copyright Term Extension Act"? Really?? Yeah, Head Start is practically forgotten under that legislative behemoth.

The only one of these that might go beyond being an asterisk in a history book is maybe the Family Medical Leave Act. Even though most of the Congressional leadership was still very much Greatest Generationers, I suppose it being backed and signed into law by the first boomer president gives them some credit for passage.

Beyond that, these are mostly nothingburgers relatively speaking. The Homeland Security act, for all the post-911 shakeups in government, was mostly about administrative and government reorganizations rather than actually creating something new.

I know I cautioned against judging the debatable merits rather than the impact of legislation, but I question whether The Patriot Act (or at least some of its provisions) will be well-regarded by history. And I'm definitely calling BS on the Defense of Marriage Act. That odious piece of homophobic legislation was crap. You might as well include the Anti-Slave Fugitive Act on such a list. And like said ACT, DOMA was of minimal long-term impact considering it was undermined by state statutes and found unconstitutional barely 20 years later.

No, for good or ill the boomer's most influential legislative "accomplishments" beyond FMLA I guess would be the post-911 authorizations for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus arguably the ACA (the greatest expansion of healthcare coverage since 1965, which would've approached universal coverage in Lieberman hadn't turned his back on long-claimed support for such coverage and single-handedly killed the public option).

Wow, that's a pretty lacking list compared to their forebearers.

[Badger]

I don't want to buy this book, but I wish that I could have have a closer look at its core argument, which simultaneously intrigues and repulses.

That said, for nowI'll gawk at its more pornographic highlights, without context, as they reveal themselves:

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is a simpler - and less controversial - way of making that same point.

But doesn't really catch the true nature of Sasse's lassiez-faire attitude.