We should probably start another thread, or take this to PM. I'll let you respond further, but I won't follow up in this thread. I might move some quotes to another I'll start.
Nice. You appear to be very well read.
I'm middle aged. I didn't have kids. It's afforded me a lot of time to read a lot. I only have an engineering degree and some post-grad in education and business, although we engineers do study more microeconomics and management (both with calculus) than a few, select business majors too (and definitely with more calculus, and theory/proofs while we're at it**), let alone virtually any other science degree.
**Backstory: As I always kid my colleague who was a finance major,
"I had to prove those past/future-value money functions you learned to do on your calculator, hence why I understand them better." It's the one thing I'm a bit arrogant about, largely when some HR puke is telling me that he/she knows more what qualifications an IT professional needs than I do, the hiring lead, someone with an EE (computer option), and why he decided the company requires a college degree, let alone CS or engineering, to do IT (when a HS degree + relevant experience is more important to me). If I see an HP 12c on his desk, or an equivalent app on his computer or phone, that's where I start on,
"Okay, since you know more than me on technology, let's see if I understand more than you in finance."
In the end, we really all rely on each other to be objective and experts in our own areas. If we are always second-guessing and not trusting one another, then we are screwed as a society. I'm all for challenging authority, but if you already entrust someone some a role, why does it have to be so confrontational with an expert, when you're not an expert in the same field? I say this to both pro-"abortion safety" Conservatives as well as pro-"gun safety" Progressives too.
I guess what I see as the difference between statism and authoritarianism is that a democracy can be both statist and authoritarianist, but not necessarily both. It just depends on who is doing the dictating. A country can have a select group of leaders dictating, or it can be done through the majority rules system i/e populism. The former would be a statist, authoritarian society, while the latter would be a populist statist society. To me, libertarian is opposite authoritarian and populist is opposite statist. To that end, you could have a populist libertarian society which is essentially anarchy, or a populist authoritarian society which is "majority rules" , a statist authoritarian system which is essentially what the kings had , or a statist libertarian system which is kind of what the founders established (the government protects your rights to do what you want).
Libertarianism is the opposite of Authoritarianism, but I see Statist intertwined with Authoritarianism, while Popularism is opposed by Pluralism.
The US has traditionally been a Pluralist Republic, heavily thanx to Washington (directly) and Jefferson (indirectly), with great exceptions. Starting in Washington's administration, and definitely during the Adams administration, Americans were pro-French and anti-British, which was incompatible with the Washington doctrine. Adams, still a Washington type Pluralist, made it worse by squeezing some Libertarianism, encroaching on Authoritative. Jefferson could be considered the biggest Populist of all-time in the US, with a massive bias in the US media. Unfortunately, his administration was exposed for what he was too.
The US media hated Washington, and were just as irresponsible then, as they are today -- so much so that we have the 1st Amendment because the British had enough of the US media by 1770. But I won't revisit that entire history of where the 1st and 2nd Amendments come from, and why they are written the way they are (individual right to assemble into something the crown can never be allowed to define).
Which brings me to Hillary Clinton. I would strongly argue there has never been a more biased US media than in 2015-2016. She was a massive populist.
The reason she lost, is because she was not the most popular candidate in the primary, Bernie Sanders was, by far 1) polled better against Trump than Hillary did, 2) won when the "superdelegates" were removed, and 3) overwhelmingly won primaries in "open record" states versus "closed record" states. But the DNC, unlike the GOP, has a system to maintain control over candidates via the superdelegate solution, whereas the GOP can have candidates they don't even want or fund still win their primary (Gary Johnson in New Mexico is probably the most famous in that state for completely by-passing the GOP's process and taking their primary for governor, Roy Moore in Alabama and well known thanx to the US media, among others, et al.). This is what the GOP was founded on in the mid-19th century too, ballot access, so they won't change, despite the Moores and others.
Hillary also lost because, unlike Adams with Jefferson (let alone the Electoral College wasn't decided by the people back then), Trump was a populist in reverse. In fact, as even Bernie Sanders points out, in 2016, Trump went from 4% (lower than even Gary Johnson in 2012, before the Republicans had CNN violate their own rules and kick him out of the debates, as they didn't want another New Mexico on their hands) to the White House. A lot of that was backlash in the US media, especially when there was a populist candidate.
I also mentioned Nixon earlier, who was more Pluralist, who suddenly found himself Populist 8-12 years later, because of the backlash against Populism too, especially the US media. Nixon is a bit of a misnomer though, because he was never popular as a person, and that kinda led him to pluralism. At the same time, his desire to win big in '72, really showed how much he valued popularism, at least by then.
Beyond that, any populist or statist system can be either liberal or conservative, but can also derive the basis for their beliefs from either morals (God's code) or ethics (man's code)
The problem with the "morals (God's code)" is that it's still really "man."
BTW, if you read the Supreme Court's dual-ruling on the Ten Commandments, it exposes this. The Anglo-American legal system is, indeed, a Judeo-based system which includes the adoption of the Ten Commandments as its foundation. So in a historical context, the Ten Commandments are valid, such as when displayed in a historical context with other documents. But in a religious context, it is not, which is why the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed on their own, or referred to them as 'God' (and exclusive) in the court, outside of the legal term of what 'God' is (inclusion of all, the all-seeing truth) from the eyes of the court, of course.
I try to explain this to anti-Christian, anti-religion people all-the-time, especially the "Freedom from Religion" Totalitarian 'cult.' They have utterly failed civics, and why clergy get a $50K exemption. They seem to be unable to differentiate everyday clergy from televangelists (don't get me started). The latter do pay taxes, and have gone to jail for not doing so as well.
It's too complex to chart. Maybe that's why the 2 dimensional or even 1 dimensional political spectrum charts are used. Ugh.
I still stand by my view that statist and authoritarian is far more similar, and the 3rd dimension should be left to popularist v. plurialist. I'm a big time plurialist, and I see Washington, Ataturk and Mandela as major leaders who influenced countries early. The US would be very different without Washington, Turkey without Ataturk and South Africa without Mandela as their first leaders.
Unfortunately popularism seems to be undoing all three (3) as well.