Illegal migration to the U.S.A. has been a problem for quite a few decades

 Immigration was an issue during the Reagan administration. Out of control borders concerned U.S. citizens even then- they make a mockery of political self-determination and make congressional controls over immigration irrelevant. Therefore the U.S. congress attempted without much luck to fix the problem in 1986 with legislation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986

I was concerned myself with the illegal immigration problem because I repainted home exteriors and illegal aliens were direct competition. U.S. winters put an end to painting seasonally in the north so I rode a bicycle across the southern states look for homes to paint.

I would see hundreds of illegal migrants on street corners in Phoenix and couldn’t get any work myself even at labor ready where I could sit around all day if I wanted. In South Carolina I repainted a home that had a new paint job on it the year before with the best Sherwin-WIlliams exterior paint (Duration I believe it was) that had failed and the paint peeled off in sheets. The problem was that a contractor had hired five illegal aliens to prep and pressure wash the structure that didn’t know what they were doing and worked cheap. They washed the building and it was smooth yet the heavily sub-oxidized dusty paint remained on the house and the contractor sprayed over that so it came off. I did all the work myself in fixing the mess, and used emulsa-bond paint additive to soak through the dusty paint and let new self-priming paint from Lowes that I used adhere well.

Illegal aliens were a problem going back at least to the 1980s when I worked for a while in Oregon and was a member of the national guard for a time. Down the highway in central America there was a civil war or two going on and the threat of communist travelling north was present. Of course President Reagan probably sought to balance the issue of allowing in communist guerillas to the U.S.A. through lax border security with the tradition wish of capitalists to make a profit exploiting cheap labor- and what is better than illegal labor that can’t agitate much for pay increases or unionizing.

Oregon was saturated with illegal aliens and ICE would make some large scale arrests now and then such as one underground mushroom growing factory that had 30 illegals arrested. There were sensational crimes such as when one illegal alien strangled to death a pair of nuns with their crucifixes that brought some public notice of the presence of illegal non-citizens free to wander across the border, commit crimes and disappear into the shadows and jungles of who knows where.

My concern today isn’t much about direct competition with illegal workers so much as the overpopulation of the nation (320 million). I remember when it had 160 million citizens and I liked it better. I had Mexican friends growing up in school and it really isn’t about racism with me at least- it is about too many people, too much cheap labor and the failure of the government to adapt to the declining ecosphere and limited natural resources and work for an ecological economic transformation to sustainability. There needs to be coordination with repairing the social structure of the nation so there are no people forever oppressed to live in poverty structurally without medical, dental or cheap patenting prospects.

I should stipulate that at this point in history I think that the U.S. democracy is largely dead. What seems to have replace it and made it into an economic platform without nationhood is the Chinese Communist Party and Corporate Plutocrat Collusion. Those CPCs pursue materialism in an inhuman sort of way with repression of civil rights and individualism useful tools for their empowerment.

The U.S.A. with protracted foreign wars and debt probably won't evolve like the F.S.U. did

 Probably not right away. The F.S.U. gave way to a new state named Russia and a few other independent countries yet interestingly hadn’t much public debt to complicate matters (I believe). The United States has a ton of public debt and if it went out of business it would have the opportunity to eliminate its debt directly without it passing on to a few new nations that emerge from the break-up. With global capitalism being what it is I am skeptical that investors in the debt would allow it.

There are challenging international issue that obviously present a cost to the U.S.A. Foreign wars have often been costly affairs that are harmful to national budgeting (for the British Empire for example in the war against the states). Conflict with China hasn’t much potential in conventional terms; in nuclear and other terms a war would be over quickly and probably destructively for demographics and economics- I think few who realize what that would be want it in China or the U.S.A.

The United States and China (as well as Russia) were more or less on the same side in the last great planetary war and will continue to find ways not to become as adversarial to one another as were the Nazis and Imperial Japan to all three. Since China is allowing a mixed economy and capitalism while Wall Street is heavily investing there as well the greatest battle probably will be in propaganda in the U.S.A. to divide the electorate upon itself so it can never reform economics far toward national ecospheric recovery, elimination of public debt or basic income, free education through graduate school and good public health care inclusively for all citizens.

China may have political leadership problems because of its rising standard of living and great population that drives it to seek to expand over proximal lands and nations that would require containment from the international community, yet it would be ore interesting to try rafting down the upper Yellow river than to watch news about drifting radiation clouds, contaminated areas and starving people, plagues and so forth.

The war in Afghanistan might evolve toward lower costs and military sustainability through various treaties and relationships that allow a continuing U.S. troop presence to defrappe tyranny. Radical Muslims that become terrorists because of hatred for the west have some extreme indoctrination yet also meaningful points in some cases concerning the excesses of decadence that typically emerge in a prosperous culture. There are also great cultural difference between Afghanistan and the U.S.A. that make social progress toward equalization impractical because of the limits of the Afghan economy. Afghan radicals would like the U.S.A. to equalize toward their culture and the U.S.A.- especially Democrats, would like Muslims to move toward their culture. Non-heavy lifting, non-college graduate full employment for females at at a high minimum wage with income equality between genders requires a very prosperous nation to achieve- some Americans don’t understand that and don’t realize the relationship between economics and culture forms well enough to avoid conflict sometimes.

Non-violent gender-based redistribution of income and female independence appear to be long term global trends that are simpler to achieve in corporate and communist bureaucratic economic systems, so I would think that various planetary struggles will flow in part at least stimulated by those policy conflicts. Environmental issues are another source of conflict, and free market disruptions to political ideology that might be regarded as in conflict with market efficiency may complicate the reasons why conflicts are occurring even to those abstractly in support of various conflicts.

Intelligent design of a new reform of government

 I.M.O. a reform of the existing democracy-capitalism synthesis that is heavily biased to ecological economics would be the better try. There may be continuing fusion of a few other systems that would lead to regular, classical economic continuity that likely will be maladapted toward future demographic and environmental challenges.

It could be that social organizations of scale at a certain size merge evolve toward a common form with similar sorts of personnel leadership. In the modern post-industrial economy the majority may value social position roles more than individual ability. That is one could be a great pianist, philosopher, humanitarian etc. yet what really counts is what one’s salary is and how many people one has below oneself as manager. A restructured capitalism with limits on the top % of a nation’s income one could own, and a return to free enterprise and individualism with a new foundation that seeks to actualize the potential intellectual production and creativity of every citizen could become an ongoing political-theoretical project useful for responding to worldly challenges.

Hierarchical organizations such as one find in the corporate world and vast bureaucratic government structures tend to become dominant social organizations difficult to reform and resistant to fundamental change. A practical example is the vast highway system and fossil fuel vehicles; there are newer alternative transport infrastructures possible yet with so many organizations bought into it the prospects for change are dismal and grim for restoring the global ecosphere to a healthy, sustainable degree.

Those with a rosy view from above can rationalize away poverty and the harm it does to individuals and society overall. Generally that is done with the belief that the present system is fine and not in need of radical change and that it will evolve and adapt existentially as if the corporate-government synthesis was the best of all possible worlds striving for perfection.

Capital is known to naturally increase faster than wages and has done so for centuries. Without substantial correction wealth concentrates so far that the individual enterprise of the masses becomes repressed or trickles up to the rich through a number of means including the better ability to afford patents, lawyers and patent defenses, relocate factories abroad for cheaper labor etc. individuals in a nation and culture are minimized in value to the government-corporate culture that also owns or controls mass communication media.

Some have written in support of a basic income for all U.S. citizens that would fade away if earnings surpassed a certain minimal threshold; that and free public education through graduate school, a reduction in the cost of patents and length of their exclusivity with 10% royalties to patent holders after three years in would alleviate some of the problems and structural impediments to individual actualization. A society that is 100% supportive of all humans to rise to their greatest potential in knowledge and creativity rather than the greatest place in a social organizational hierarchy might need to vet businesses that are allowed license to assure that they conform with ecological conservation criteria that aren’t harmful.

If corporate employment was limited to 30,000 employees maximum then more corporations could arise as need to generate extra production, yet also fade out without much social disruption if not needed and neither would they have such size as to compel their continuity with publicly less than optimally efficient products in regard to the environment.

I would think that ideally people of a nation would not be so desperate for a job or income that they would do anything or manufacture anything possible for income. That paradigm tends to reduce ethics and ration political choices from the ,marketplace of ideas. If society could afford to have more discrimination about what businesses do in economics so they can just allow ones that aren’t too harmful to the ecosystem to go forward, and they can afford to keep 20% of the population out of work and into non -profit self-employed research, education and so forth, the overall efficiency of a nation might increase a lot and reply to several ecological, economic and social challenges of the time.

Not all corporations are bad

 I do not have the opinion that all corporations are bad. Too large of corporations and networking have concentrated wealth and power. I would like to downsize corporate size and stimulate competition perhaps with more corporations.

Social organizations tend to develop characteristics at scale that brings them toward similar behaviors and personnel in my opinion. They exist and prosper because they have concentrated power and are overly determinative on national economics and political goals.

I have written elsewhere about new forms of government organization that would reform capitalism for the modern era so it functions well with democracy in a directed environmental economic paradigm. I have dismissed socialism and communism as other dysfunction social organizations that inhibit actualizing intelligence, innovation and free enterprise.

Governments and nations aren't useless though the USA supported people first and the F.S.U. the state first

 A reductio ad absurdam (arguing for the opposite to show enfilade the remainder) would indicate that all right-minded citizens should revolt against the state- any state, and destroy it so far as possible as the most evil oppressor of humankind. There should be a perpetual revolution against social organizations that have the potential to become states. Individuals should war ceaselessly and never give up, fighting against the slings and arrows of statism to their last breath. In every hollow and every nook and cranny let anarchy reign.

States are primarily at the start shared culture and value. The Soviet Union failed because it killed off Lenin with poison most likely causing him to have three strokes and out so he could kill off about all of the original communist revolutionaries in keeping up with contemporary social Darwinism theory. Tremendous subsequent purges and mediocre bureaucratic led industrialization coupled with a repressive state authoritarianism helped keep the multicultural society together than eventual happily broke apart without the governor of tyranny. Atheists and Muslims tend to be an antipathetic cultural mix.

The United States had a common culture to start with and repressed minorities outside of the political system although liberating black slaves as soon as it became practical. Different cultures have tended to war upon each other. As the United States brought in more people they tended to merge into a common national culture- today made more challenging because of the technological advances that allow people to keep in touch with their home cultures. In a sense immigration into the United States has stopped, although people keep arriving, because they can talk to home on a cell phone or have live internet face-to-face chat.

The United States had the blessing of developing in a sparsely populated continent with vast natural resources while the Soviet Union developed in a more modern era closer to nations that would war on it because of its political system. China was a problem to the east- forever eyeballing the vast underpopulated regions of Siberia, and of course the Nazis and Germany to the west were always trying to bite off the Ukraine or take the entire country altogether.

In a sense virtually all of the free world of capitalism were locked in a planetary ideological cold and hot war against the Soviet Union. The decline of the F.S.U. and victory of Wall Street is res judicata, stare decisis and all that. The west and capitalism out-produced the Soviet Union and in time made better weapons with deficit spending.

It is somewhat difficult to say though that the Soviet Union ‘lost’ if its people actually were inclined to improve their standard of living with a move toward free market economics. After the death of the Dictator Joseph Stalin the aborted socialist experiment killed by Stalin was on a clock ticking down to the end of its existence in my opinion. It wasn’t an easy course yet one that the hearts and minds of the people themselves probably moved toward.

Why and when America stopped being great

 President Ronald Reagan was the creator of the phrase ‘making America great again’. With the end of the Vietnam War a strong recession struck the U.S.A., unemployment was high and inflation rampant. Iran had seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran and held the Americans there as hostages. The price of oil was very high per barrel- the Carter administration had created a synthetic fuels pilot program at parachute Colorado that wasn’t yet productive; making America great again without debt and with the economy going well was an appealing idea that the great communicator sold rather easily.

President Trump exploited the Reagan slogan that few remembered to contrast himself with vast left-leaning changes the Obama administration brought, or at least perceived changes. Many of those changes were offensive to naturally conservative American blue-collar workers yet were fine with Democrats. So the phrase was naturally contentious to start.

It was a simple reply to the changes brought about by prior administrations that had exported U.S. manufacturing to China, permitted too lax of border security to prevent millions of illegal migrants to enter the nation, allowed legalization of dope in some states, created a number of ‘sanctuary from U.S. immigration law’ cities, piled up trillions and trillions of dollars of U.S. public debt, ended marriage as strictly heterosexual etc. The United States had allowed the 9–11 disaster to happen, had a perennial public debt, trashed its ecosphere and destroyed its wilderness areas generally, declined in its comparative international standing in education achievement by students. It had great military expenses and protracted foreign wars. In short there were many challenges that President Trump thought he could correct.

The total 90 pound weakling defense and restoration of wilderness- especially in Alaska, that Mr. Trump proved to be in regard to environmental protection made a few people disappointed with his ability to ‘make America great again’ On some other points he did work to return to a stronger America with a dose of nationalism. His lack of a savoir fare regarding education, philosophy, science and so forth were other disappointments with the Trump administration. Yet his one redeeming factor was making SCOTUS somewhat conservative again. It is too bad he did not make the Bush II court appointments.

Speculating about when a global Republic or Evil Empire might occur

 Maybe a galactic republic or alternatively, an evil empire, if it occurs someday will happen instantly through quantum computing shortcutting space-time barriers of three-dimensions to place tax collectors and bureaucrats at all-possible worldlines of locations with valuable materials within the galactic habitation zone.

Hypothetically a galactic republic or alternatively, evil empire may have formed retroactively at some time in the distant past as the timeline of the present is happening within the four-dimensional space-time Universe and I suppose that theoretically if one disassociated 3-d mass from the subluminal entanglements of the Higgs field and could send the information via quantum computer mapping to a state of 2-dimensioal massless Higgs field existence then one might relocate the data when it is once more downloaded into quantum entanglement and three dimensions of mass at a place in the past.

On Earth the present humans may destroy their ecosphere and themselves before they can destroy Mars or other planets very well as they plunder the natural resources available so the best hope may lie in the past or perhaps distant future if survivors find a way to detour around the global economic inertia of the present. Maybe there is a Tattler tabloid that has better information on the topic.

Globalization is a potential ghost ship fire

 Globalization is the easy, undisciplined way to go with economics. Physical facts tend to supplant any kind of philosophical reasoning in economics.

There are great dangers in the global approach to economics with the risk of collapsing national sovereignties and properties of human rights. With planetary human overpopulation seeking to consume natural resources like a plague of locusts and some few environmentalists seeking to defend dwindling remnants, the 18th century free trade capitalist point of view of Adam Smith dominates reinforcing present maladaptive economic habits.

Globalization reminds me of that ramshackle converted warehouse firetrap in Oakland California (the Ghost ship fire) that caught fire and killed dozens of people inside. It was a great somewhat unplanned funhouse to be in until the lack of reasonable planning and the risks inherent in constructing such a ramshackle evolution caught flame. A nation should have secure borders and disciplined ecological economic planning to transform classical economics to ecological economics with minimal disruption to individuals and organizations on the way.

What exists instead of rational national ecological economic reform and planning is loose borders, cheap illegal immigration to replace labor supply and a quest for $15 minimum wage without much thought about the effects of that. It probably would send the remainder of any national manufacturing jobs overseas as far as possible because for each U.S. worker at $15 one could hire 7 foreign workers abroad at $2 hourly- and perhaps a couple besides with the extra costs of social security, unemployment etc. That global relocation of manufacturing and cheap labor pursuit is classical liberal economics of course, yet it is on a scale that can destroy nations as well as increase profit margins of global plutocrats trickling down the lowest common wage denominator and greatest planetary environmental cost possible.

Inventions of technology that are in some ways too great for the natural resources of the world to contain or host have shrunk those natural boundaries and limits to the size of vestigial abstractions safely ignored. Communists and the corporate plutocrat class and managers can simply consider abstract velocity of money, material, labor costs and personnel factors without regard to the externality of the natural ecosphere. Until the fall of mankind.

Basic elements of a modern nation-state

 This is an interesting question with many ways to expand it, and I won’t go far into that. I liked reading Toynbee’s ‘A Study of History’ with the S/R or challenge-response paradigm concerning the development of civilization and the stage it goes through (about four) as part of a cycle of civilization. There are many other theories though- too many to sort through the best for simple answers for a course question unless one knows what they are looking for.

Toynbee believed (among other ideas) that a creative minority stimulates the existence and culture of a state and the uncreative majority follows those values. If the creative minority of founders fades away the uncreative majority’s ideas and culture may evolve obsolescence.

The main point of a modern state seems to be that of a common culture promoted by the state. The U.S. government in the past few decades seems have put some effort into dissolving that common culture in preference for multiculturalism- and that seems apropos of the Universal phase of a civilization aka globalism.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-hccc-worldhistory/chapter/introduction-to-nation-states/

One may of course discount that point about culture and place the being of a modern state in institutions, financial structures and laws. Developing nations famously tend to lack adequate non-governmental institutions or to have weak ones. Consider the value of Universal free public education to the intellectual capital of a modern nation-state and the perpetuating poverty of nations with weak educational institutions.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2017/07/26/why-developing-countries-get-stuck-with-weak-institutions-and-how-foreign-actors-can-help/

Some may believe that the world culture is a modern nation-state that has transcended national boundaries. The heterodox global financial structure might support that thesis.

The U.S.A. as a superpower might not be in decline yet morality may be

 Probably the U.S.A. isn’t in decline, except in the sense that the entire world is in environmental decline because of overuse of resources and a population of 8 billion that want a higher standard of living preponderantly that requires more use of resources.

One could argue that the nation is in moral decline, yet if the majority are actually immoral there aren’t enough people to convince them, as they might believe it requires a majority vote.

In my opinion the Augustinian paradigm of original sin and complete human depravity of nature may be that humans have no good about them except as goodness is a reflection of God. A decline in morality would then coincide with a decline of faith and quantitative eclipse of spirit

Science and technology can increase well being yet human character may use it badly to harm people and the ecosphere.

The U.S.A. isn't a business partner

 I would add to the pile of comments that the U.S. (a nation) isn’t a partner of anything. The U.S. government has some contracts with foreign entities and those are about as good as those of any other nation that pays off its contracts. The first U.S. president- George Washington, warned in his farewell address about making any permanent foreign alliances. Staying out of those permanent foreign agreements is a useful way to remain nationally sovereign and free. If the U.S.A. cannot make good ecological economic policy domestically for example, it cannot do so with high-sounding international agreements that pass the buck in some respects beyond the borders, sound grand and accomplish little that isn’t reversible by another administration.

Large U.S. corporations are a tip of the iceberg of global corporations that are multinational and owned by the 1% on the planet. When they are listed publicly on stock exchanges even if they are based in the U.S.A. about anyone might own them.

Governments including that of the U.S.A. tend not to be good partners- bureaucrats aren’t as good at business as the private sector. It is a terrible idea in some ways to even consider the U.S. government as having foreign ‘partners’ influencing or levering its sovereignty. That would be some sort of crass corporatism more suitable for communist China that is a big brother so far as it can be in anyone’s business, if I understand that development correctly, and I may not.

Adapting economics to prevent Covid 19 virus mutations would be useful

As I understand it, virus mutations occur more with a greater pool of infected people. Therefore the newer and possibly more lethal variants are of great concern since it takes a year or more to develop a resistant vaccine. Increasing the rate of spread of the virus can promote the opportunity for viral mutations to occur.

Economics is a different topic. Of course its necessary to develop an economics program that can function in a viral contaminated social environment until the virus is nearly entirely eradicated. Loosening restrictions early could be compared to taking a cast off a broken leg too early even though one wants to go jogging. Political leadership that isn’t capable of tailoring an economy to work with virus out there demonstrates the lack of creative thought in politics i.m.o. One cannot morally just say the heck with those that will die from Covid and proceed recklessly without moving into a fascist mode, and there are of course some that are happy with that. In the movie 1900 Mussolini drives over a guy injured in the road and keeps on going untroubled. I suggested adapting Halloween masks for full face coverings so people could work and travel more safely in a contaminated environment. When I was an Army reservist I learned the method of firing a rifle while wearing a chemical mask accurately- it requires some adaptation over normal procedures. Adapting economic procedures too-change is difficult for organizations and establishments that are indignant about it. The results of failing to do so can be fatal for some.

 Dr. Fauci at least seems to believe that wearing masks is a good idea. As states loosen restrictions and variants spread, Fauci warns that the U.S. could be headed for yet another virus spike.

What the USA today would be like if the Berlin Wall had fallen in the other direction

 Great question that would require an alternative history novel to explore meaningfully.

The reason for a collapse of the west and the U.S.A. would have been financial, for that is the main point people bring out about the value of democracy these days. The economy was in something of a shambles after the Vietnam War yet it wasn’t terminally dire. If Hinkley had killed Ronald Reagan instead of wounding him maybe the supply side massive tax cuts and deficit spending wouldn’t have happened and the economy would have deflated.

A George Bush I administration wouldn’t have had Reagan’s ideas about getting rid of nuclear weapons at all- that idea and the ‘tear down this wall’ speech were entirely Ronald’s. Maybe the F.S.U. would have invented a cure for cancer and Yuri Andropov would have remained leader of the C.P.S.U. and not have died of lung cancer before mentoring the soft-on-capitalism Gorbachev.

With Andropov at the help of the Soviet Union during the critical 1980s Soviets might have invented a commie red shave cream that was the best stuff ever made for cold weather shaves heating right out of the can on exposure to air and the prestige of the stuff coupled with the decline of western economics would have brought more investors in the Soviet Union from Wall Street traders looking for a deal.

Gorbachev as a pupil of Andropov might have developed a theory about tolerating capitalist investment in the Soviet economy and given bargains to a flock of investors defecting with their money to build their prompting a run on the dollar and rise of the ruble.

The United States then would have withdrawn its military from western Europe and given them jobs making the U.S. capitol secure digging a moat around it to prevent looters and rioters from taking all of the good furniture during the final phase of decline when apartments with a view of Central Park in New York went for a fraction of the cost of new dachas in Venezuela and Siberia.

Today, if the wall had fallen the other direction., China would be expanding with Gorbachev’s mixed economy and CEOs and the U.S. government would be developing corporatism globally to build a brave new world order with benevolent plutocrats from the west and the former communist party leadership of the F.S.U. finding ways to improve the U.S. National Basketball Association and unfairly try to harm the L.A. Lakers chances of repeating as N.B.A. champions.

In reply to 'How much better off would the U.S.A. be if it were communist'

 A great question that deserves a poet’s answer. I can’t claim to be a poet- yet if I were living in a communist U.S.A. quite likely each book of poetry I wrote would generate tens of thousands of dollars of revenue. If one were on a different planet far, far away yet with a fine telescope and bugs able to surveil the Earth system the changes would be interesting to observe.

Maybe free enterprise would die and marvelous bureaucrats could appear with wisdom and leadership that would get all Americans to follow their condescending tweets. Twitter and Facebook could feature the President for life’s ideas and instead of a federal stimulus check the people could be given a little red book with the leader’s thoughts. Then they could become better servants of Chairman Moloch who is the head of Health and Human Services.

When one passes over beyond the great divide everything of the world is completely lost and as meaningless as if it never existed. When things on Earth are bad, that is good- a built in firewall against wickedness that even Shannon Entropy reversals would have a difficult time in defeating. Everyone in the communist utopia would have transceiver chips installed so they could continuously receive broadcast media condition for happiness and updates 24/7.

About the idea of making all nations the same size

 When great powers have redrawn borders and created nations disrupting the tribal-ethnic character of residents as well as tossing in all kinds of antipathetic religious and economic elements in has tended to produce results akin to placing, large hostile cats in a bag. Wars of succession that eliminate stable leadership have had similar effects.

Africa and the Middle East have suffered more than a little from that kind of experience. Even the trans-Atlantic slave trade was stimulated by the disruptions following the fall of the Songhai empire and chaos in N.W. Africa and the Sahel with the capture and sale of humans ensuing to replace lost economic products like gold.

The U.S. Military- stronger during Ike or J.F.K. admin

The answer is fairly simple with two basic ways to interpret it I would think. One is to regard the meaning of ‘powerful’ as a physics and structure equation, In my opinion U.S. military power tends to evolve with advancing weapons designs and therefore during J.F.K.’s administration there were more nuclear weapons and better technology than before.

The second way to regard powerful is the overall effectiveness of the force. In that case I would say that Dwight Eisenhower had a more powerful military because of his leadership. An example can be found in a video of the Songhai empire of Africa and its history, leadership etc. They had a couple of great rulers and one that was quite wicked slaughtering people without need because he seemed to be inclined to do so and didn’t differentiate between civilians and military. One general and reformer with some wisdom named Askia Muhammed rose to power and defeated a larger army in battle once simply because he was a more experienced leader.

Nineteen Twenties and Thirties Isolationist Sentiment in the U.S.A.?

 There may have been some sentiment in the pre-W.W. II U.S.A. to stay out of European problems, conflicts and social diseases. Britain after all had burned down the U.S. capital in 1812 and the Franco-Prussian war of 1874 was no great thing.

The United States had numerous post-civil war reconstruction problems. Intervention in the First World War had created much turmoil. The United States had plenty of work to do in its own space such as building, roads, electrification, dams and so forth. It was a busy time of great post-war expansion that became a bubble that crashed leading to the depression.

As Americans had spent money bailing Europe out of the vast diagonal trench war by joining on the pile of soldiers and artillery that forced Germany to accept an armistice and levied a bill for damages on them (that in part was a motivation for the second round) they spent the 1920′s chasing national progress. That was followed by the depression. Some Americans made clothing out of gunnysacks (large burlap bags to hold potatoes) and sought work.

A former French Chancellor- Clemenceau predicted that when the allies did not guarantee the peace after the First War that the second war would develop and he turned out to be right. American investors felt that building up German industrialization perhaps an I.B.M. or Henry Ford are examples. was a better idea than entering into more military agreements.

It is somewhat doubtful that in the 1920s Calvin Coolidge or Herbert Hoover would have had the international political skill and military power (the United States wasn’t yet a Super power militarily and had no A-bomb up its sleeve) to keep Europe pacified while containing the extreme communist threat from the Soviet Union. In fact the Soviet Union’s emergency into existence during the First World War when Germany beat up the Tsar’s military pretty readily leading to the revolution and Red revolution of 1917 gave the United States a fair reason to reinforce Germany on the right to defrappe the Red threat from the east.

I also suspect that the rich of the gilded age were somewhat sympathetic to the deposed German royalty that were booted out in the German revolution at the end of the first war. The United States had actually sent some military forces to support the white army battling the reds during the Russian revolution - about 2000, and that hadn’t worked out well.

In order to keep things strait U.S. politicians developed a long range policy of being against Reds and Russians that continued to the present. That single attitude makes it easier for U.S. leaders to know how to play their roles without knowing much about international affairs.

In my opinion the U.S.A. wasn’t very isolated in the 20s and 30s. Jet aircraft didn’t exist and even Pan Am hadn’t started trans-Atlantic flights. People that had immigrated here or were descended from immigrants usually hadn’t the money to afford to tour Europe via cruise ship and then return home to the little house on the prairie. The rich however did travel to Europe a lot. Franklin D. Roosevelt visited Europe maybe 30 times before he turned 18 and that probably helped him manage the Second World War better than if he had just rowed up and down the Hudson River on some kind of rowing team when not driving a taxi.

One result of the chaos in Europe was the decision to limit immigration from Eastern Europe where it was believed many anarchists lived who might bring anarchy and communism to the U.S.A. Because the rich were running government then, as now, the red danger from Eastern Eurasia decisively prevented some immigrants from spending their lives breathing the air of freedom that exists some places west of the east coast, or did then, before pollution expanded from automobiles a lot in urban areas of the as as far as Los Angeles.

Why the decrease in freedom

 The greater the population density the more people there are that can adversely impact one’s ‘freedom’. With the profusion and acceleration of technological developments more people can organize more efficiently to oppress others. Organizations have more surveillance and tracking capability each year, and every dollar one spends can be tracked as well as cars, conversation etc. Global media and spy agencies, government officials and the curious get into everyone’s private space apparently so much as they like. Public education conditions students to think in accord with political correctness preferred by the ruling class.

With a limited area that is the Earth for people to live in, exploit and try to control in some ways with governance, free ranges of motion may continue to decrease for some, in some ways, while increasing for others, in some ways. President Biden recently referred to those states loosening Covid 19 mask wearing and public spacing as ‘Neanderthals’ (who presumably would not understand what germs and airborne pathogens are or how to defend against them). Does mandatory masking wearing impact freedom? In some ways it does, in other ways it doesn’t. If one asked some people not to use talcum powder riding public buses because it makes some people sneeze, they might be offended and cry havoc about attacks on their freedom.

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2021/democracy-under-siege

One could move on to the subject of what is freedom and then determine if that can be quantified and if the amount of it is increasing, decreasing or stable. Regulating people so they don’t drive their environment-tramping vehicles into storefronts or throw people out of the good seats at the basketball game that they didn’t pay for impacts things. I wonder if there is some sort of coefficient between population density and freedom that isn’t environmentally determined that also effects the level of skill specialization possible.

A commune with all things equal for everyone would have a kind of freedom that would not exist in a society based on individual rights and political self determination, strong border security, private property and private business, and the latter would have freedom to be exclusive and develop their own ideas and inventions/products etc that would be lacking in a herd of animals without private property, private space or individual rights.

I don’t wish to take swipes and forced free to be the same as everyone else communes here Instead i wonder if demographics won’t drive the two polar opposites toward some sort of balance given the world population continues to increase and the environmental health continues to decline.

Concentrating wealth and networks of production, distribution and communications globally seems to be the inevitable result of transistors and miniaturization that occurred since the mid-20th century. Maybe leadership more like Casey Stengel or Yogi Berra with degrees in environmental economics, philosophy and a load of common sense and dead reckoning will fix the world if we are lucky.

Causes and phenomenalities of the national splintering

 Public education is universal, as well as television, and it may be that the mass culture drives one to select a brand of social products to go along with. If public education for primary and secondary schools is over-mature, the remedy might be to move about 60% of public school financing to contracts for private schools that anyone could choose to send their progeny to. maybe more diversity would let people develop a better sense of individual and personal interest rather than being indoctrinated with political correctness.

National splintering it isn't a new phenomenon... https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674064362

It could be that Alvin Toffler’s 1972 book ‘Future Shock’ about the pace of change and data overwhelming ordinary people actualized with a sense of the masses being intellectual drowned an at a loss or need to be responsible for the governance of their society, or perhaps relinquishing rule to the 1% and the corporate people at the top.

The United States has gone through a zillion social changes forced from the elites and Wall Street the past 30 years, or since the Reagan administration even, and their may be some cynicism. People have taken to a little trendy neo-nihilism and have tuned out from a degree of belief in the decency of society. People have become emulators of the trends sold by Wall Street, and they know Wall Street has been bailed out by the Federal Reserve. Political economic theory and all else is almost dead as people sig the money fuhrer of the time. None besides Bernie Sanders want to be regarded as socialist or disloyal to Wall Street since corporatism has taken over, the rich have bought the broadcast media and corporate censors control free speech giving the Orwellian epithet ‘hate speech’, hate crimes and stopping just short of ‘thought crimes’.

In the Clinton administration I thought it was disgusting that a fellow showed up for work with pink hair highlight, mascara and a hangover. Eventually the neo-conservative Chief Justice of SCOTUS decided to make homosexual marriage the law of the land. That was a lasting split of sentiments. Instead of busting the old wine skin the homosexual crowd should have established a new institution for themselves that left the old intact.

Abortion did not help traditional moral norms, neither has the Democrat Party preference for illegal aliens (now called non-citizens) that flooded the nation with tens of millions of cheap workers. Republicans developed a cadre of neo-troglodytes that hate science, global warming and mass extinction of the Anthropocene era having decided that they are leftist hoaxes.

Democrats prefer legal dope and tend toward being antipathetic to Christian values unless the church has secularly conformed and semi-non-faith doctrinal winkyness.

Some Americans seem to be immersed in a brave new world order and just want an interesting, comfortable and prosperous lifestyle, or ample power and prestige, and don’t really care about suffering of others or social change unless it is trendy to do so. In a way the nation is no longer grounded in meaningful standards and has become Darwinist free floating dollars for themselves without sufficient philosophical education.

Possible more and better philosophers writing for public consumption can be the pipers leading the people to unity (joking).

Modern theories of the role of government are somewhat vague and terms anachronistic

The United States has a government where individuals started out free (except for slaves) and government was minimalist. So many of the roles that government needs to fill today didn’t exist when the United States revolted from England.

The government now has 16 areas that it regards as critical infrastructure and those run across public and private sector concerns. There is a roaster at this web site

https://www.cisa.gov/critical-infrastructure-sectors

Governing theory has it that some tasks are needed to assure the defense and well being of the people that live in a nation. Defense is obvious- without adequate defense a nation may be conquered and the rulers destroyed. Sometimes the people want that to happen (maybe the Inca are an example). Sometimes elements of a society may unite with external proletariats or sympathizers from over the border in order to use a myocardial slow-build insurrection that may formerly have been known as sedition slow-cooked.

Public education arose because governments realized that educated citizens were better and more competitive people. Illiterate hillbillies couldn’t fair well in war against tech-savvy weapons users able to read manuals or calculate trajectories for artillery. Hillbillies might be excellent shots with long-guns, yet that was a different kind of literacy skill that wasn’t transferable to alphabet-based instruction.

If private educators had provided Universal literacy and basic education free the government would not have needed to get involved. When, as today, the nation is saturated with public education structures that could be done with private educators and educational facilities given government contracts or student vouchers it is probable that the historical inertia has become so established that it fails to advance to a higher, newer level of support for public education that avails itself of the vast pool of college educated citizens that haven’t enough jobs as educators as it is- that is more people with advanced degrees could enter into educational facilities to work if more private school existed with the same cost as public schools to parents because of government redirection of funding to the private sector.

There are numerous roles for a government that go beyond basic infrastructure that are requisite for keeping a society healthy, competitive internationally and happy. Ironically government in the U.S.A. tends to flunk the basic infrastructure roles and doesn’t show much ability to continue to improve them such that they would be suitable for sustainable ecological economic parameters. Government lacks some of the theorists and think tanks that should exist to discover, invent and adapt newer forms of infrastructure to existing forms seamlessly.

https://www.ushistory.org/gov/1a.asp

The modern world civilization cannot be well supported with anachronistic theories of political economy. When that is what politicians and others writing in the marketplace of ideas offer the nation does in effect cobble together ad hoc structures at great public expense that don’t work very well and tremendous public spending continues that would not be necessary if a better set of infrastructure and theories existed.

An example might be health care for the poor. Obamacare was designed for the middle class and put a tax on younger workers for a product they mostly didn’t need. Some of the poor that travel interstate for climate and seasonal reasons just can’t pass through the state bureaucratic hoops that require fundamentally a sedentary life with a home, phone, street address and residence in triplicate. A federal program with uniform values that worked everywhere for the poor would have been a better idea. It is Bureaucrats have a different view of the U.S.A. from those people that don’t get an easy regular paycheck.

Does a nation need to pay to support the preservation of historic buildings, or to make sure that grizzly bears and good salmon fishing aren’t extinct? Does a society need to prevent people from breathing a lot of carbon monoxide or clean up toxic waste sites. If one could build a great and affordable mass transit system from Petersburg Florida to Petersburg Russia via Alaska yet only the government could get it done and keep the cost of a ticket down, should it go ahead rather than letting nothing happen?

There are people that are against anything a government might do that could be done by private special interests including military service. Some would leave that to oil corporations if their profit margins declined.

The role of government in a time when the private sector has a great amount of wealth compared to the public sector might be to make sure that fairness and neutrality exists socially so individual self determination and free enterprise can exist with equal protection of the law for all citizens. Government might be tasked to secure public goods and developments coordinating ideas, opportunities and avenues for implementation by the public through the private sector. The challenge of keeping a healthy national ecosystem and good social relations that eliminates oppression and dead-end lives with nowhere to go that never allow people to maximize development of their capacity for progress.

It is amazing that the government is somewhat inefficient with the trillions of dollars it does have in its annual budget that also allows public debt because it is underfunded. Government needs to use the private sector better to work to fulfill public goals and policy objectives in a way that brings profit to the private sector while paying for its own existence and functions. Obviously government needs to know what those ideas and goals a priori.