The mariner has put aside mass extinction for the time being. He and the reader will have to watch related news for the next 3 or 4 years to see if humanity is responding to this important issue.

In a search for insight into the extinction issue, among other things the mariner researched is how large groups of people, nations’ economies, religions, and political advocates behave and how they have an effect on larger groups.

As an over-simplified example, the extreme right in the US pushes for a Christian theocracy. Other religions or social positions will be suppressed and the line between church and state will be smudged until it is useless. Israel is a good example of this approach.

Again oversimplified, libertarians press for freedom from everything. Regulations are an unnatural imposition on free market economics, which means all entitlements will disappear, business loopholes in tax law and favored status, economic regulations, including those for banks, will disappear, and individual states will be left to their own devices. The Federal government will back the currency, fight wars, deal with foreign governments but with a libertarian posture, and make it illegal for any special interest group (like the theocratic right) to impose on the national citizenry.

The mariner will assume that by now readers know these examples are oversimplified.

Capitalists, regardless of political party, are similar to libertarians except each capitalist wants to leverage profit and market expansion at any cost; loopholes and favored status will stay – including treaties, trade arrangements and control over all costs including labor, for which a minimum cost is the best cost. In short, the only notable difference between capitalists and libertarians is capitalists are less ethical and play a rougher game while libertarians adhere to the ethic of a level playing field and carry guns to assure levelness.

Switching from the conservative side to the liberal side (in the US), socialists press for an enforced level playing field. Unlike the libertarians, the ethic is one that incrementally protects the citizen first, providing for “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” The success of the private sector primarily will be for the benefit of the citizenry. Entitlement programs will multiply considerably. Agencies overseeing environment, health, military, science, and other issues that affect the citizen will multiply as well.

Democratic socialists, often called populists, believe in the absolute authority and right of the citizenry. Democratic socialists are susceptible to current hot button issues and governance by referendum and recall voting will be common. A democratic socialist government will be more under the control of bureaucrats because elected officials, unlike today, will come and go more frequently. A common plea by democratic socialists is the right to vote on budgets and military proposals. Jane Fonda is a well known democratic socialist for obvious reasons. Still, we must consider the likes of Hugo Chavez, Eugene V. Debs, John Dewey, Albert Einstein, Erich Fromm and Bernie Sanders.

Liberals are all about fairness in society. Fairness does not have a specific definition. Liberals believe the primary goal of government is to protect all citizens from abuse, especially from the wealthy and from corporate shenanigans; they also believe that there is a minimum financial status for the proletariat. Liberals expect the government to behave like a giant cultural scale, protecting both supply-siders and demand-siders. Corporations likely will require unions and a COLA compliant with Federal law.

The silent majority is ill-defined – even among themselves. On the one hand, the silent majority is created by pernicious gerrymandering and licentious political campaigning. On the other hand, the silent majority has a low advocacy factor. In great part, the silent majority is comprised of individuals who don’t vote. Their interests are a conglomeration of all the other groups: leave me alone, I have a little league game tonight; leave me alone, the Lakers are playing; just keep my paycheck coming; no new taxes; whatever it takes to have cheap gasoline, kill those bastards in the Middle East or, conversely, let them fight it out – what are we doing over there anyway, etc.

Finally, there is, for want of a TV political pundit’s imagination, the center right. The media often claims that the US is a center right nation. This is a phenomenon rather than a legitimate political position. The center right is comprised of the silent majority when they decide to vote. Insecure about change of any kind, whether out of ignorance or fear of losing the toehold they have on personal security, the center right voter will vote for the conservative candidate and support conservative referendums. However, they are not an accountable, unified group. The left also has its centrists who decide to vote occasionally. It takes a great deal of energy to stir these mostly young nonvoters to become voters. Kudos to Obama for that achievement.

So how does the reader want to improve the US? The mariner has written about political groups but he has not introduced the groups’ reactions to immigration, taxing the wealthy, bank domination of the economy, military philosophy, government funding for infrastructure – including new technological solutions that will help the environment, and, for that matter, avoid extinction. How will each political group address these issues? Answering that question certainly is more entertaining than jigsaw puzzles….

Ancient Mariner