“We need to confront the former group with real life experiences they can’t deny and then make them scramble to adapt their ideology. We need to crack their certainty.”

I find that the best lessons are taught by cold, impersonal reality. Otherwise, people tend not to learn the lesson (or proper lesson) when they have somebody else to blame. Call it the “bad parents” excuse: doesn’t it feel good to know all your problems were laid on you, man?
Conversely, when a hurricane hits you never see anyone shaking their fists at the sky and blaming God/Nature/Reality because they know that wouldn’t do any good. (Anthropogenic Global Warming in this case would be another “bad parents” excuse)

The Obamacare debacle is a rare thing in this light: a moment of clarity, unobstructed by bipartisanship or credible mitigation. This is wholly on the Dems, and they had both the time and money to make their dreams come true. Obamacare was the result.
Since it turned out to be a disaster, it ends up being an indictment of liberalism itself.

We need to point out the liberal disasters that we had nothing to do with. Then, explain how liberalism inevitably led to that end. Detroit would be a good example. California is and ongoing example, and soon NYC will be another.

We need to confront the former group with real life experiences they can’t deny and then make them scramble to adapt their ideology. We need to crack their certainty. This maybe happening among some of the young who are now being confronted by lack of jobs, horrendous student debt, and Obamacare costs.

I once read a discussion of lightning bolts and quantum physics. Classically, lightning is a stream of electrons which are particles. The stream somehow knows the macroscopic path that minimizes resistance in the air in order to reach the ground. This is odd from a classical point of view because at any instant, the electrons can only see the electric field immediately adjacent to them. Sometimes, this field will be lower resistance in some directions than others, however these lower-resistance directions end up being “dead ends” in the wider scope. The electrons don’t take these paths…almost as if they “know” they aren’t optimal.
When one switches to a quantum physics perspective, this makes sense. In quantum physics, electrons are not discrete particles, but smeared-out clouds of probability. The electrons actually exist in all states, in all locations simultaneously. Those locations that “dont work” for getting the bolt to the ground are weeded out. Only the path that works remains, and BAM!…lightning bolt.
After hearing that, it occurred to me that the same phenomenon was at work in the other most successful theories:
— Evolution: Through random mutation, all paths are explored simultaneously. Given any environment, there are better and worse solutions for survival/reproduction. The paths that don’t work are weeded out.
— Economics: In capitalism, a great many more paths are explored than any other system. The market has selection criteria, and the solutions that don’t work are weeded out.
— Democracy: Many more paths are explored (especially with federalism) than other systems. Solutions that don’t work are weeded out.

Etc., etc.

You could say that the most successful systems in any field are those that maximize information, usually through an almost randomized process that covers all possibilities. When coupled with selection criteria that weed out failures, these systems produce optimal results.

This, for me, is the crux of the failure for all centralized planning. The rejection of this in the founders’ vision is why America kicks ass.

If someone can come up with a widely successful example in any other field that doesn’t follow this pattern, I’d love to hear about it.

A republic is defined as:
“1. a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them.
2. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.
3. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.”

Unfortunately, the definition says nothing about the need for informed and engaged citizens to properly exercise their supreme power.

I was thinking of this:
“Alexander Tyler, a late 18th century Scottish history professor, had some comments on Democratic government that seem well placed today. His comments were not about the new American Republic that had just come on the scene, but about the rise and fall of the Athenian Republic some 2000 years prior.”
He suggested the following:
“….that true democracy is temporary in nature, and follows a sort of life cycle seen in the Athenian fall, and many other civilizations if you think about it. The life cycle includes the following stages:

1. Bondage to Spiritual Faith .
2. Spiritual Faith to Courage.
3. Courage to Liberty.
4. Liberty to Abundance.
5. Abundance to Complacency.
6. Complacency to Apathy.
7. Apathy to Dependence.
8. Dependence to Bondage.”
We seem to be somewhere in the 5-7 stages depending on one’s point of view. 🙁

Not republics, democracies. There’s a difference. The US government was designed as a republic with a very sluggish process for passing legislation to prevent tyranny of the majority. The Senate was supposed to enforce this since it didn’t represent the people directly, but represented the State governments. The Senators were selected by the State legislatures which have somewhat different priorities than the public at large, especially paying for and managing State government. The States, through the Senate could act as a brake on the Federal government. The 17th amendment killed that brake. For example, without it the Federal government wouldn’t be able to pass unfunded mandates like Medicaid, which is very costly to the States. Here in MA it’s nearly half the budget.

With that kind of government it’s hard to ram through legislation fueled by momentary passions and that doesn’t have very broad support. Obamacare would never have stood a chance.

The Founders were very afraid of pure democracies which operate by simple majority rule. They spent a lot of time reading Aristotle’s Politics with its histories of all the 154 Greek constitutional democracies. Historically such states tore themselves apart quickly, first going full socialist and then devolving into a tyranny.