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Tom Perez B/K/M? This poll is closed. |
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My feeling about this argument about the recent Kansas situation is that you have a bunch of dumb arguments being peddled from both sides (I hate making "both sides have wrong ideas" arguments, but it seems true in this case). On one hand, you have some leftists who are very clearly jumping at any sort of news that could possibly be interpreted as the Democrats loving up and being dumb, and on the other side you have a bunch of people who are obviously starting from the conclusion of "The Democrats didn't make a mistake (because if they did the formerly mentioned leftists would be correct)" and then seeking out evidence to prove a conclusion they've already settled on. I can sympathize with both of these perspectives to an extent. The former, like myself, have great dissatisfaction with Democratic Party leadership, and it is very useful to have clear examples of them loving up, so they're willing to suppress any sort of skepticism and just assume the Kansas situation is evidence in their favor. The latter are basically seeing the former and thinking "these guys are kinda dumb, therefore they must be wrong. let's look for evidence supporting my pre-formed conclusion that they're wrong." On a personal level, the latter people reflexively defending the Democrats annoy me a little more, even though in many cases they're actually more informed than the former group. I think this is because defense of the status quo/mainstream is intrinsically seen by most people as a comparatively "unbiased" position compared with people attacking the status quo. A person who has a bias against the status quo is (often correctly) viewed as a crank, but a person who has a bias in defense of the status quo is just overlooked as having "normal" views. Regarding this specific situation, I think the most useful information to have would be data on how the DNC allocated funds back when we still used a 50 state strategy. If, under that strategy, we still didn't fund races like this Kansas one, the "DNC hosed up and isn't holding to their 50 state strategy" folks are probably wrong. If we did fund such races, it casts doubt on the people trying to defend the DNC. Without that information I don't think it's really possible to reach a conclusion, because a "we can't fund every race" defense is pretty insufficient by itself (since you could use that same defense against any claims that a specific race should have been funded).
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Apr 12, 2017 21:32
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SSNeoman posted:This isn't an Electorial College. The majority chose this. They can live out the consequences. I'm done having pity for these people. I think you underestimate how easy it is to get inundated with a specific narrative when literally every single person you know personally shares and supports that narrative. Think of it this way - if political views were solely the result of someone being born with a "dumb and/or evil" gene you'd see people with such views uniformly distributed throughout the country, but instead we see more people with dumb views in more rural areas, which implies that a person's environment and upbringing contribute greatly to the views they end up having. Obviously on an individual level this isn't universal, but it's an obvious trend and I think it's a pretty dangerous mindset to just say "welp these people are just intrinsically more evil and dumb than I am." I mean, if you think about this for more than a minute it should be really obvious that "conservatives are intrinsically lovely bad people" is loving stupid and that (when looking at general populations) people are a product of their environment. Another element to this is that I find a lot of liberals attribute way too much intelligence to your average Democratic voter. Like, they think that the average Democrat is voting because they also have good, well-informed opinions, when in reality most people, Democrat or Republican, just vote based upon what their environment (people, media they're exposed to, etc) informs them is the "correct" choice. Most Democrats would be just like Republicans if they were exposed to the same environment and experiences, they are not some sort of intelligent ubermensch. edit: One thing I should add is that, despite saying this, I don't think that all of these people are necessarily redeemable. Often the damage done through a person being raised in a certain way and inundated with certain views is more or less irreversible, but opinions can still change over the course of generations. Even if you think that conservatives are trash who deserve to die in poverty, their children are not inherently evil simply by virtue of being born to a conservative parent. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Apr 13, 2017 |
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Apr 13, 2017 16:55
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LITERALLY MY FETISH posted:We don't live in shouldland, as much as I hate having to quote everyone's dad. These people chose what they wanted in spite of all evidence, and in the end there is nothing we can do to stop them. I'm not even sure what point you're making here other than to keep the moral high ground, and, well, look how great that turned out for democrats. Even if you think that every Republican voter is trash that should literally suffer and die, not every single person who lives in Republican areas is Republican themselves. Many are also children (or other dependents like the mentally disabled). Why am I even having to poitn this out. Jesus loving Christ there there is nothing worse than liberals when they get into one of their "trashing the poor rural untermensch" moods
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Apr 13, 2017 17:08
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FuriousxGeorge posted:The problem with cutting the South loose is the same it's always been, there are huge populations of minority people who live there and the majority wants to gently caress them over. If it wasn't for that, I'd be all for the State's Rights you get what you vote for train. This is what really makes it clear that, to many liberals, seeing conservatives "get what's coming to them" is more important than actually helping people. And - surprise surprise - this is very much the same sort of motivation many conservatives have.
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Apr 13, 2017 17:29
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^^^ But you're (or rather Democrats in general) not powerless to change it. Maybe you can't change the result in the next few elections, but you can still gradually influence some of the people in those areas. And it's not like conservatives don't live in blue states; we're often talking about maybe a 10-20% difference between a state being solid blue and solid red. Heck Yes! Loam! posted:I don't agree with this. I don't want any GOP voter to get whats coming to them. I want them to improve their situation with higher taxes, spending on social programs, development, etc. The problem is, THEY DON'T WANT TO loving DO IT. When you try and rationally explain hy its a good idea, you get called a libtard or something else stupid. Most actual Republican voters are not the people who post online comments calling people libtards. My dad's side of my family, minus my dad himself, are very stereotypical Southern conservatives, and they don't really think about this stuff. They just feel that they identify more with Republicans because of the various cultural identifiers conservative politicians throw out there (plus cultural inertia). It really isn't possible to understate how much of an impact it has if someone spends their entire life surrounded by people and exposed to media telling them "these guys are good and looking out for you and these other guys are terrible." Even if they start to realize that maybe the Republicans aren't looking out for them, they've been invested for so long in the idea that Democrats are terrible that they ultimately still vote R in the end. Most people, Democrat or Republican, do not vote based upon facts/information. And of course there's the aforementioned point that it's an obvious fact that conservatives aren't intrinsically dumber and more evil than their liberal counterparts, because if they were you would see conservatives evenly distributed regardless of location, demographics, etc. It is an inescapable conclusion that the environments people are exposed to drive their voting behavior and unequivocally wrong that a bunch of people just arbitrarily make worse decisions in conservative regions. While it's probably too late to change the minds of most of these people, change has to start somewhere and ideally the next generation will be a little less conservative if you put more effort into improving conditions and education for people in those areas. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Apr 13, 2017 |
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Apr 13, 2017 17:54
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steinrokkan posted:You are making poo poo up. The only anger at Hillary was that she spent so much money in blue states and robbed resources from states that were reporting they could use additional resources to tip the balance. Eh, I think I remember some people making fun of Hillary for spending money in Texas. But I think there's a difference between investing at least some money in most places just to make sure Democrats have some presence and allocating money in transparently stupid ways. Like, even under a 50 state strategy Democrats should still probably invest more money in swing states than in solid blue/red states. I also think there's a difference between the presidential election and trying to improve Democratic presence in state legislatures, etc. I think the main issue with Hillary (or rather her campaign) spending money in Texas is that it was reflective of them being too confident and not putting more resources into places they thought were secure (which turned out not to be).
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Apr 13, 2017 23:21
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One issue I think the DNC has is that it makes a lot of the same mistakes some corporations do, in the sense of focusing only on short-term returns (in this case being "the result of the coming election"). Because investing in a solid red area is highly unlikely to yield results in the coming election, they don't do it. But the problem is that even if a Democrat loses, investing in their election still helps communicate their ideas and increase their presence int he area, which could yield returns further in the future. It's not like blue/red states are literally permanently a specific color; they can change over the course of several decades, but that change will be very difficult if the Democrats have little to no political presence. To be clear, I obviously still think that we should invest a lot more in close races and swing states, but that doesn't mean more money and effort can't be put into regions that are currently more or less abandoned by the party. Matthew Yglesias posted:The DCCC mindset is based on the premise that the top political operatives have very good judgment about which races are winnable, which candidates are strong, and which consulting and campaign teams are effective. This premise is critically important because no matter how strong the abstract case for targeting is, it only really makes sense to narrowcast if you can target effectively. This is an important point many people don't seem to understand, and it doesn't just apply to the political sphere. Making decisions based upon the analysis of "big data" is only useful if the analysis is reliable, and can even be counterproductive if the analysis makes some wrong assumptions. I think that many people who defend the actions of the DNC in the previous election are just sort of assuming "making decisions with the help of Big Data is good because it's better to 'scientifically' make decisions." And this is generally a reasonable assumption to make, but the problem is that an analysis done incorrectly or using the wrong assumptions can quite literally be worse than nothing at all (because it basically lends extra authority to an incorrect conclusion). If you're not sure how sound the assumptions/logic used in your analysis are, it is often a better idea to make decisions using more subjective methods (like the personal experience of someone experienced in campaign strategy). It's a tricky issue, because people outside of the campaign often don't have any way of determining how sound the analysis guiding their strategy is. If it's sound it definitely is better than subjectively making decisions, after all. I guess the main point here is just that "guiding decisions using data analysis" is not inherently a good thing, since you can't always rely upon the analysis in question being accurate. I think some liberals who aren't actually scientists/statisticians themselves tend to fetishize this sort of thing and assume that any sort of data analysis is useful, regardless of quality/accuracy. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Apr 14, 2017 |
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Apr 14, 2017 22:30
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readingatwork posted:It's not that complicated so I'm not sure what to tell you. Money in politics is deeply corrosive and probably the #1 problem in American politics today (do you disagree?). I think it's a lot more complex than that. In many (probably most) cases politicians aren't voting in ways that benefit corporate interests only because said interests gave them money. There's also the problem that politicians generally get most of their information from said interests. An example is politicians getting information on finance and how to write financial legislation from current or past employees/executives in the financial sector. At the end of the day, it's difficult for people outside of those "wealthy urban professionals" circles to access and influence politicians, even if you remove money from the picture. There's also an inherent issue where most people with expertise in (for example) the financial services industry probably will have experience working there, so you end up with a situation where the most knowledgeable people are most knowledgeable because they're heavily invested in a particular industry. I mean, I would definitely agree that reducing money's influence in politics is a good idea, but I don't think it will fix things as much as many people think it will.
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Apr 15, 2017 18:05
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WampaLord posted:Majorian, it's okay, you can just hate them, you don't have to constantly white knight them by claiming this bullshit I used to "swim in those pools" so to speak (in this case referring specifically to "liberal wealthy business/financial professionals"), and in a way the fact that I realize they're not openly maliciously actually makes me feel more disgusted. They realize stuff like poverty is bad and genuinely want to end it, but there's no real emotional sense of urgency involved. It's easy for someone who isn't affected by issues like that to say "well, maybe it's not really necessary to increase taxes so much, if we let a bunch of Really Smart People study the issue maybe there's a more ~elegant~ solution to this problem." In a way I find "sort of caring about an issue but ultimately not being willing to make any real sacrifices to fix it" to be more off-putting than a rich person who actively wants to gently caress over the poor. A big reason that you see a lot of effort put towards social issues from younger wealthy people is that they usually personally know a bunch of minorities/women, so they have more direct empathy towards them (and it's also a nice side benefit that fixing their issues doesn't really require them to sacrifice anything). This is undoubtedly a good thing in and of itself, but I feel like it really demonstrates the disgusting tendency of humans to usually only care about the issues they're forced to directly encounter. Either way, Majorian doesn't seem to be "sympathizing" with these people so much as understanding that they aren't evil caricatures and their harmful views and actions are largely a product of their experiences and environment. This certainly doesn't excuse them, though. Majorian posted:Not a terrible idea. I've been reading Thomas Frank's Listen, Liberal, and one of his big points is how too much emphasis on meritocracy has hurt the Dems. Rich people go to Ivy League schools, Ivy League schools pump out politicians, those politicians swim in the same schools as other Ivy League alums, rinse and repeat. Yeah, liberals in general seem to focus more on equal opportunity than equal outcome, which will ultimately accomplish nothing but shuffling around who lives in dire poverty. I mean, it's certainly better for people to have equal opportunity than for them to not, but it doesn't come close to solving the real problems.
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Apr 17, 2017 02:29
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mcmagic posted:What we learned from Obamacare is that the enemies of expanding the social safety net will call even modest reforms radical, might as well go big or go home. There is no political benefit to restraint. Yeah; Republicans will paint literally anything Democrats do as being outright socialism, so it's not like the message received by right-leaning Americans will change much.
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Apr 17, 2017 22:20
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axeil posted:The good news is that most everyone has a comparative advantage at something and most people want to be productive members of society. If we work to eliminate how crucial your parents' starting wealth/race is more people will find success in areas they are good at. First off, almost no one (especially on this subforum) is advocating for a system where everyone is given the exact income, etc. You seem to be a really big fan of these bizarre strawmen (like the "Full Communism Now!" stuff, which is extremely condescending and just makes you look like an idiot). Very few people posting in this thread are actually communists. Second, it is almost impossible to divorce talent from environment/upbringing. Someone who has better conditions and opportunities growing up (which isn't only tied to wealth, but also stuff like how stable their family is and how much emotional stress they're subjected to) will generally be genuinely smarter and more capable by the time they become an adult than someone who doesn't have those same opportunities. There's no way to really remove the huge advantage people with wealth have in this regard; even if you give a basic standard of living to everyone, people with wealth will still be able to afford their children more opportunities. As a result, creating equal opportunity without also giving more or less equal outcome is literally impossible (unless you take children from their parents as babies and send them to government camps or something equally silly). So, with very rare exceptions (like people who are prodigies or something) people don't really have identifiable special talents, and it's certainly not the case that "everyone has their own special talent" (there is no rational reason to think this is the case outside of blind optimism). A key point that many people who say things like you do don't understand is that under a capitalist system, only a small percent of the population will ever be able to earn much money. This is an undeniable fact, because most jobs required for society to function are relatively low skill and will never provide a significant income to the people who work them, but they still need to be worked (and likewise, the demand for high skill and/or high paying jobs is far, far smaller than the population of working age people). So massive wealth inequality will always exist unless wealth is greatly redistributed (unless you assume some bizarre post-scarcity society with an economic and political system that doesn't resemble our own). I think that many people make the mistake of thinking "well, as an individual I can learn to do X and make more money; therefore, anyone can do the same thing and if everyone worked hard/smart they could also make good money  " which is pretty stupid and ignores the big picture.My feeling is that people should be allowed to accumulate wealth and earn higher incomes, but only to the absolute minimum extent necessary to stimulate competition and motivate people (which is almost certainly far, far below where things stand currently). There is absolutely no ethical reason why people with special talents (which, again, often translates to "people who were lucky enough to have a better upbringing) should be rewarded with a higher quality of life - the only reason is a pragmatic one (which I agree exists). I can virtually guarantee that people would not be significantly less productive even if you reduced the rate at which they could gain additional wealth (beyond a certain point) by 90%, because money isn't directly tied to hours worked for most high earning professions in the same way it is for the working class (and in practice we don't exactly see lower productivity links to higher tax rates on the upper class). What I find the most bizarre is when fortunate people make this sort of argument. I was better at school than most people growing up and more or less effortlessly got into a good college with a big scholarship. I was then able to get a decent job as a programmer after graduating. I know many people who work far harder than me and are rewarded less. I can't comprehend the sort of terrible person who would think "I deserve to make more money" in my position. Like how does someone even end up like that? I can sort of understand it if it's coming from someone who went from being poor to being rich, but it makes no sense to me coming from someone who started out middle class (or, god forbid, upper class).
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Apr 18, 2017 19:55
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frakeaing HAMSTER DANCE posted:I think the real question is "does plasma give more value to society than selling derivatives" and the answer is "no" Well, derivatives actually are really important, since stuff like futures are derivatives. Finance in general is, in fact, really important, but the financial sector as it exists now causes a massive amount of harm. It's sort of like how the pharmaceutical industry is important but it would be a big problem if they started to randomly include poison in their medications.
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Apr 18, 2017 20:18
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Majorian posted:However, the argument falls apart on two points, IMO. One is the assumption that there's nothing that can be done to ensure that economic justice extends to all Americans, of all races, ethnicities, creeds, genders, and sexual orientations. Remaining vigilant and holding progressive representatives accountable will be an ongoing process. The second problem with the argument is when it does what Submarine Sandpaper did and makes the unfair generalization that white people's privilege exempts them from poverty, misery, and exploitation. As the Vox article that I posted makes clear, this is an absurd perspective. While a poor white person is probably going to have more privilege, on average, than a poor black person, that doesn't mean that both of them aren't suffering from massive injustices that need to be rectified. What annoys me about their argument is that there is literally no defense against it. Even if you say "yes I literally want to do every single thing you also want to do to fight racism (and other forms of bigotry)" they just assume you're lying and secretly want to abandon PoC. And yeah, as you mentioned I feel like it is supremely hosed up to act like poverty is a negligible issue next to racism. Once you're living in poverty, you've basically crossed a threshold where your situation is already terrible to an unacceptable extent, whether your situation is further exacerbated by racism or not. Both racism and poverty cross this threshold and ignoring either is absurd. Also, in Submarine Sandpaper's case, he/she actually does seem to be coming out against $15/hr (or at least saying it shouldn't be a priority), as opposed to just raising the additional concern of needing to address structural racism/sexism. Like, they argued how it is bad because PoC are disproportionately unemployed and increasing the minimum wage would also help poor white people (since, uh, that comes along with the territory of helping poor people in general). They're literally a direct parallel to the "no justice but economic justice" people who ignore everything else (only in this case replacing economic justice with social justice). But they're the only poster I can think of who has really gone to this extent to be bizarrely against economic justice. I think what bothers me the most is that you virtually never see these people actually mention any specific thing they want to do to help the PoC they claim to be championing. They just vaguely allude to fighting racism, and if repeatedly pressed for specifics mention some stuff that like 95% of leftists also support*. It really makes it clear that their main goal isn't actually to help anyone; it's that they feel anger towards a specific type of leftist (the ones that say "all justice is economic justice/only class matters", who admittedly do exist) and want to express that anger. In their eyes, literally every leftist who mentions economic issues is secretly the aforementioned "only class matters" sort of leftist, even if they claim otherwise. *This is also the main reason comparisons to the New Deal/Great Society aren't really valid. Back then (especially with the New Deal) a very large portion of leftists were quite explicitly racist and specifically wanted to exclude PoC from the benefits of leftist economic policy. This is obviously not even remotely the case now with all but a tiny minority of leftists. Even the leftists who are bad with social justice would probably be better for PoC than the status quo, because stuff like increasing the minimum wage, improving welfare, and ending the war on drugs would do a hell of a lot more for PoC than what status quo liberals have been accomplishing, even if they don't solve the whole problem.
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Apr 19, 2017 05:53
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Cerebral Bore posted:I see this repeated often, and it still doesn't make sense. Back in the days of FDR and LBJ the working-class organizations that opposed racial equality were not leftist, they were centrist. The AFL-CIO accepte unions who excluded PoC, while the actual leftist working-class organizations such as the IWW were working to help PoC organize their workplaces and fought for racially integrated unions. So why exactly should history reflect badly on the left? Yeah it would be more accurate if I said "labor" here instead of "leftist", but since the argument is against the people who were pushing for those social programs I felt like it made sense to draw a parallel between them and the people pushing for leftist economic policy in today's political climate.
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Apr 19, 2017 16:41
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You know, Romney unironically is probably more similar as a person to Hillary than he is to Trump.
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Apr 20, 2017 17:13
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JeffersonClay posted:I am talking about the democrats. It depends whether people are actually trying to make the politician fail (and encourage people to not vote for them). I don't really have a problem with centrist citizens in the UK arguing why they don't like Corbyn, provided they aren't actually saying "so you shouldn't vote for leftists!" In the same way, I think leftists who actually wanted people to not vote for Clinton in this election were being stupid/harmful (and I have no problem with attacking people who encouraged that), but not ones who were just criticizing Clinton/centrists (which seems to have been the majority). You can argue "well literally all criticism can potentially increase the chance of losing!" but at that point you're just being crazy and trying to enforce ideological conformity in a way that would intrinsically never allow a political party to change in ways its leadership didn't want it to (because any criticism could always be interpreted as "aiding the enemy"). Also there's a distinction between politicians and voters here. It's inherently more lovely for the more powerful mainstream majority of a party's leadership/politicians to crack down on a less influential movement (assuming the movement isn't something explicitly terrible, like white nationalists or something) than it is for less influential politicians to attack the mainstream/majority ones.
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Apr 20, 2017 20:46
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Railing against centrists because they aren't politically pure enough for you? gently caress you. What you don't seem to realize is that there is a genuine ideological difference between leftists and centrist Democrats. This isn't some minor fiddling over details, where both groups have the same end goals in mind. What you're saying is essentially no different than a Republican saying to a centrist Democrat "railing against Republicans because they're not politically pure enough for you? gently caress you". It's both ignorant and extremely condescending. If you think that leftist policy is bad, then feel free to argue why, but this "lol you just want a political purity test" stuff is ridiculous and indicative of your own ignorance regarding the issues in question.
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Apr 20, 2017 20:57
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JeffersonClay posted:If you look at the empirical record of Corey booker's senate votes he's indistinguishable from Tammy Baldwin and Liz Warren. This isn't really a good measure. More than half of Democratic Senators vote together more than 90% of the time (and like 36 of them do if you sort by all votes, not just "crucial votes"). This is because leftist policy rarely reaches a Senate vote in the first place. A politician's stated ideological goals are more important than their Senate votes, unless their Senate votes contradict said goals.
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Apr 20, 2017 21:04
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:what other empirical data should i look at if not voting record? If you say "His positions" you are loving awful at this. Wikipedia posted:Booker championed “enterprise zones,” a free-market approach to solving urban blight credited to the late Jack Kemp, a hard-core supply-sider and occasional Republican presidential contender who helped raise money for Booker’s first mayoral campaign." loving lol
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Apr 20, 2017 21:08
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DaveWoo posted:So, leaving Booker aside for a moment - who would you guys support as a candidate in 2020? In terms of who I'd vote for, I would even vote for Booker if he were against Trump. But in the primary there aren't that many great options (yet, at least, it's a while until 2020); Warren would be good but I don't think she's going to want to run (and the same probably goes for Sanders). At the end of the day I'd vote (in the primary) for whoever is the most palatable. I disagree strongly with leftists who choose to either not vote in the primary (if they're allowed to depending upon the state's rules) or vote for the Democratic candidate in the general election (if they're in a state that could possibly become a swing state), because at that point voting itself becomes a pragmatic decision. But I consider actually voicing opinions to be a separate issue entirely, and I will likely criticize the Democratic nominee if I don't like them, even though I'll ultimately still vote for them.
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Apr 20, 2017 21:22
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:I think you might be right. I was using as a blanket term to cover the political middle ground between parties. I mean, technically you'd be correct if you define centrist as "in the center of the American political spectrum." People in this thread (and most leftists in general) are defining leftism by a commitment to specific values, rather than where it stands in relation to the surrounding political climate (in the US that is; when compared with other developed nations our definitions are more accurate). For example, to be a leftist a person must, generally speaking, actively support labor rights/protections as well as social issues like race/LGBT rights/etc. Gun rights are an example where it's difficult to clearly assign it a position on this spectrum (which is why a single "left <-> right" axis isn't a very accurate way to represent political views). While Republicans almost universally are against gun control, views on the left are rather split. Being strongly in favor of gun control is very much a mainstream Democrat position, which means it can be called either centrist or center-left. Among more ardent leftists, I would say that there isn't really a strong consensus in favor or against gun control. Another thing to keep in mind is that "far left" is generally defined in two very different ways. When mainstream Democrats think of the "far left" they're often thinking of people like Jill Stein voters, who are motivated most strongly by a somewhat vague "anti-establishment" sentiment and define their views more based upon cultural indicators than actual ideology. For example, someone who is part of this "far left", when thinking of what "defines a leftist" has a certain type of person in mind rather than a certain set of political views. This brand of leftist identifies most strongly with issues like environmentalism and drug legalization and also often holds some bizarre views, like being anti-vaccinations or anti-nuclear power. When people on this forum (and elsewhere) refer to leftists, they're primarily referring to a specific economic ideology (that is usually also accompanied by support for socially liberal policy as well). Most important to these leftists are issues like a strong safety net, universal healthcare, fighting racism/sexism with concrete policy, increased minimum wage, labor protections, strong regulations (particularly in areas like finance, pharmaceuticals, etc where mainstream Democrats are very weak), etc. Most of these leftists describe themselves as either Social Democrats (this would be like Bernie Sanders or what you see in Nordic countries) or actual Socialists. There are a number of views that can fall under the umbrella of the latter term, but most Socialists are also in favor of pushing for Social Democratic policy until their ideas become more palatable to the general public. This type of leftist is also in favor of stuff like environmentalism or ending the war on drugs, but those issues usually aren't quite as central to their ideology as they are the type mentioned in the previous paragraph. I'm sure there are some inaccurate things in this post, but I think it gets across the general gist of my point. Of most importance is the fact that the latter type of leftist mentioned has some very serious disagreements with the mainstream Democratic Party. Until very recently, Democrats were almost universally against significant expansions to the safety net, universal healthcare, significant increases to the minimum wage, or any sort of corporate regulation with actual "teeth." Even now, most are weak on these issues, with some only beginning to get tepid support largely as a result of Sanders' performance in the primary. To many of us, certain issues (like universal healthcare, for example) are non-negotiable.
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Apr 20, 2017 23:36
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:I am not sure this is an appropriate use of the word, but your description of leftist made me think of Identity Politics. Politics not defined by pragmatism of what can be accomplished, but by ideological stances. That sucks becasse it leads to exactly the problem in this thread. People who refuse to support anything unless it meets their identity requirements. I just find that terrible. But that isn't really the case? Most people in this thread would support helpful legislation even if it isn't exactly what they wanted. There's a difference between saying "My goal is X and I would rather Democrats pursue that goal" and "I am specifically against 'less than X' despite it still being beneficial." Also, there's no such thing as a stance being not ideological. Many more centrist Democrats seem to view their own ideas as "evidence supported/pragmatic/scientific/whatever", when in reality they're just as ideological as anyone else. The minute someone tries to define their own views as non-ideological or unbiased they also create a huge blind spot due to falsely attributing objectivity to what is essentially still an ideological position.
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Apr 21, 2017 00:05
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shrike82 posted:Personal anecdote about the Dems being intertwined with the professional/technocrat class (and consequently lost their way with the working class) - Yeah, this is basically the mindset of like 90% of the people I went to college with who now have lucrative jobs in finance, consulting, etc. They usually know on an intellectual level that some people live in poverty, but they don't understand just how many people and how unusually high their quality of life is relative to the average American (I think I mentioned in some other thread how at least several people thought ~60k was a normal starting salary for a young adult to make and anything below that was strangely low). In the case of liberals, they don't have malicious intentions, but they are dangerously naive and ignorant. Another anecdote is this friend of mine who didn't go to an elite school but ended up managing to get a good job with a firm that lobbies the government on the behalf of the financial industry. After working there for a while her views quickly changed to basically assuming that financial professionals knew what they're talking about and everyone who criticizes them clearly doesn't understand the big picture. And it's understandable how this happens; when you know a bunch of people who seem competent and nice and work in a particular field, you'll naturally be biased in favor of them (and against the people who disagree, since it's easy to stereotype them if you don't know them in person). I was sort of like a reverse version of her. I majored in finance and went to parties with JPMorgan Chase employees and stuff while in school (because of my friend who worked there) and thought "wow these people are so intelligent" and basically took the pro-finance side in discussions with leftists (in my defense, this was before the financial crisis). After moving back to Tennessee to work as a programmer at a state university (in a research setting), I quickly realized that the people I knew from NYC weren't exceptionally intelligent; they were just very good at appearing "professional" and competent due to their upbringing. And, like, I'm sure they were competent in many ways, but they also had a strong bias in favor of the industry they worked for and most of their arguments were just dressed up versions of "this stuff is complex, you should leave it to the professionals." Though there was this one nice surprise where this Indian dude who works at an investment bank (forget which one) who I thought was a Republican turned out to be a socialist. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:09 on Apr 21, 2017 |
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Apr 21, 2017 04:06
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:I don't think that the war chest made a difference given how many states Sanders outspent in only to lose Name recognition and association with the 90's was a HUGE factor (and is probably a very big reason why Clinton's support was so much higher among older Americans). Almost certainly a much bigger factor than money spent. Most voters aren't exactly that intelligent or informed, so for many people their only thought was "the 90's were a good time for me. Clinton is clearly associated with her husband, who was president during the 90's, so maybe if I vote for her she'll do whatever Bill Clinton did that made the 90's good." I mean, don't get me wrong, there were also low info Sanders voters who voted based upon a vague sense of wanting someone anti-establishment, but someone wasn't going to vote for him unles they were at least somewhat engaged in the race and specifically wanted him, while Clinton benefited from essentially being the default choice. Most people who went into the polls not really having an opinion one way or the other would have voted for Clinton. I think that if the primary had occurred a second time, after the nation was already much more familiar with Sanders, the results might have been very different. WhiskeyJuvenile posted:Because it pisses you off so much This is basically at the core of most liberals who spend most of their effort antagonizing leftists. It was never about some desire to actually make things better; it's because, as long as a non-zero number of dumb leftists exist, they simply cannot repress the urge to express their disgust for people who are (in their minds, at least) so much less intelligent and pragmatic than they are. edit: As an honest response to this, I think you should do some introspection regarding why it is that you feel the need to target leftists specifically. I used to basically be the same as you, until I thought long and hard about why I was doing that and realized that, ultimately, my motivations weren't exactly positive. I would try to dress it up with excuses like "well I don't want dumb people to make my side look bad" but that wasn't the real reason. I just enjoyed laying down burns on people I thought were dumber than me. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:51 on Apr 21, 2017 |
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Apr 21, 2017 22:44
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As a side note, I do want to mention that Sanders' support of that pro-life guy is kind of hosed up and I haven't really seen a reasonable defense of it. The only possible defense that comes to mind is if he wasn't aware of this guy's pro-life views and just supported him after hearing some of his other opinions. Otherwise I think it's important to acknowledge that being pro-life is, in fact, unacceptable for a Democrat.
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Apr 21, 2017 22:54
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VitalSigns posted:Ok good so we've established that if the DNC is perceived as acting undemocratically, there will be people who, out of spite, become indifferent to Trump winning and rationalize their behavior because "my one vote won't make a difference anyway" To be fair, who you vote for President in a solid blue or red state really doesn't matter (where "solid" = virtually zero chance of becoming a swing state). Driving the popular vote numbers down without actually changing the results could be viewed as a reasonable way to protest the current situation without actually aiding folks like Trump.
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Apr 22, 2017 07:05
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VitalSigns posted:Call it what you want, either way it's irrelevant. The argument was that if the DNC overturned the popular vote and selected Bernie Sanders, all Clinton voters would fall in line because Trump is so bad that we don't have to worry about people Oh yeah, for sure, there's no way in hell the DNC throwing out Hillary and making Sanders the candidate wouldn't be met with massive outrage (and rightfully so; even as a Sanders supporter that would have made me feel really dirty). JeffersonClay posted:You see that I'm discussing this with two leftists who believe the false equivalency between Trump and Clinton justifies voting for Gary Johnson in a swing state, right? I'm not sure the burden on me is to prove they're not meaningless outliers. Uh, actually it kinda obviously is? Why in the world would you think it isn't? Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Apr 23, 2017 |
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Apr 23, 2017 04:42
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As FuriousxGeorge himself said, he doesn't consider himself a leftist. He seems more like the sort of voter who is just vaguely anti-establishment and willing to support anyone who gives that impression (though even under those circumstances I'm not sure why someone would vote Johnson instead of Stein; I mean, they're both awful, but Johnson is even worse than her). edit: Generally speaking, there's a minority of Sanders supporters who aren't really leftists so much as they are the same sort of people who voted for Ron Paul. They don't really have a coherent ideology and just back whoever seems like they're an "outsider" candidate (I know Sanders isn't really an outsider, but some people still ended up with that impression). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Apr 23, 2017 |
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Apr 23, 2017 04:57
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Majorian posted:They understood economic populist rhetoric when Obama used it, and they understood it when Trump used it as well. Clinton deliberately refused to speak this way to them, and lost what should have been an easy election because of it. And why wouldn't they understand/care about economic populism? It affects them directly. I wonder why she didn't do that. I don't think it would be because she was afraid of angering her donors (and corporations who support her), since politicians are entirely capable of secretly making their real interests clear to those people/organizations while saying other things on the campaign trail. I don't see any real down-side to doing what Obama did and vaguely sounding economic populist while not mentioning many actual specific policy. I get the impression the Hillary Clinton is the sort of person who is very afraid of saying wrong or incorrect things, which ironically leads her to speak in a lawyer-esque way (where she does stuff like speak in a wishy-washy way in order to avoid promising anything that can't definitely be delivered) that comes off as insincere. I'm actually kind of similar to her in this way, but I also don't want to be a politician and can't imagine how someone could become a politician without also becoming good at public speaking in a way that makes people vote for you. I think this is mainly because, contrary to what a lot of her supporters said, Clinton actually had very little experience as a politician (and what experience she did have involved the massive advantage of being connected to BIll). She never really needed to become good at campaigning until the presidential election.
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Apr 24, 2017 17:08
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SSNeoman posted:Okay let's try a different tactic. Explain to me how it's hypocritical for Obama to accept 400k from Wall Street while also making a point about the corrupting effects of money in politics. Especially since this is past his presidency. This is technically your claim so burden of proof is on you. It's basically comparable to politicians who "coincidentally" take lucrative jobs at financial/consulting/etc firms after finishing their terms. It's not illegal and it's technically done after they've finished being politicians, but it's still indicative of the very ethically questionable relationship between the politicians and those firms. steinrokkan posted:I love this idea that by taking scraps from companies with multibillion valuations, politicians are fleecing them. That is such a disgustingly transparent lie. Yeah, it's transparently obvious that it's not something the poster actually believes* so much as them thinking "hm how can I possibly score more points in this argument?" *hopefully Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 17:05 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 26, 2017 17:02
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Mister Fister posted:Lets pretend Wall St. would be cutting Obama big checks if he sent them to prison and signed regulations that had teeth in it. This is the craziest thing about this whole dumb argument. It is transparently obvious that, at the very least, a President would probably not receive financial benefits from corporations if he acted to their detriment while in office. So even if you don't accept that politicians are directly rewarded for acting to the benefit of certain corporations while in office, it is at the very least clearly true that, by not acting to their benefit, they more or less ensure they will not receive these benefits. I can't think of a single logical reason to just not allow former Presidents to financially benefit from certain corporate sectors. It's not like giving people conditions that extend beyond their time working a job isn't a thing; people regularly are legally mandated to not expose information about the firms they work at, etc, so it clearly isn't unusual to make employment contingent on certain behavior after the employment period ends. And, as previously mentioned, it's not like Presidents aren't fully provided for after leaving office. Heck, if it's really important to you that presidents have the option to become turbo-rich after leaving office, there's always stuff like future book deals that don't really constitute a potential conflict of interest while in office. Almost all the other arguments made by centrists in this thread, even if I disagree, I can at least understand where they're coming from and why they might feel that way. But this is just insane. There isn't a single good reason to not condemn this sort of behavior, if not outright ban it as a condition for accepting the office of President (or ideally Congressional positions as well). As mentioned before, making employment contingent on conditions that apply after the employment period ends is not some crazy, unusual thing. It is a tool we have to help minimize the influence corporate interests have on politicians, and there isn't a single good reason not to use it. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 26, 2017 17:42
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DaveWoo posted:Agitation that doesn't go beyond whining about Dems on a message board = apathy Expressing opinions is now "apathy" and somehow also implies that the person expressing said opinions does literally nothing else to support his/her political causes. This is an extremely disingenuous argument no matter how you slice it. "Heh you're just whining* instead of making real change" is basically the response once there's no other defense for a person's side of an argument. *where "whining" literally = "expressing an opinion"
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Apr 26, 2017 18:00
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Ogmius815 posted:No you see morally pure former presidents and their families all take vows of poverty and follow the Rule of Benedict. But Presidents are literally provided for with six figure incomes for the rest of their lives, not even counting the option of book deals and what have you. Like, this argument is something that is explicitly wrong. It is not crazy or extreme to demand that former Presidents not receive money from powerful interests, because they are already fully provided for. No President will be living in poverty after his/her presidency. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 26, 2017 18:15
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zeroprime posted:I don't think it's quid-pro-quo and you clearly do, and I'm sorry for mocking that. What standards should we use when ex-presidents get paid a shitload of money in speaking fees, though, to decide when it's done as a form of influence on politics vs when it's just institutions with too much money blowing cash on the prestige of an ex-President speaking at an event? And do we decide there is intent behind it, or is it a problem of this problem organically arising from the way the political system and financial laws are currently written? My feeling is that it isn't possible to ever prove this sort of thing is specifically unethical, and that is all the more reason to not allow it. Short of a written "I am giving you this money because you did favors for me" contract or something, there isn't really any way to prove whether a politician is being directly (or indirectly/tacitly) rewarded for acting in a way an industry approves of.
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Apr 26, 2017 19:25
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SSNeoman posted:I hate extreme leftists. The right wing gives them a freshly bought gun, claim it's the smoking gun, and the left instantly blow their own brains out. And this really cuts to the core of it, doesn't it? I won't deny that there's a really tiny minority of dumb leftists, but I think you need to take some time and ask yourself why they bother you so much. There are plenty of different stupid people of every possibly ideology, so why is it that ignorant leftists bother you so much? For whatever flaws they may have, it makes at least some sense for leftists to express displeasure at the Democratic establishment, because (by virtue of being the establishment) they hold actual power and influence. But the "extreme" leftists you speak of have virtually no political influence, and generally aren't people who would otherwise be voting Democratic anyways (most of the dumbest leftists either don't vote or vote for people like Stein or whatever). I can't think of any practical reason to be so disproportionately angered by them. Even in the worst cases, they usually generally want good things and just use dumb arguments when advocating for those things. Why attack them when there exist a bunch of people who want actual bad things and/or have actual power? At risk of sounding condescending, I used to have these feelings until I did some soul searching and realized that I was motivated almost entirely by a superficial disgust at the perceived stupidity and naivety of some of the dumber leftists at my college. There wasn't really any rational reason for me to be so disproportionately put off by them, so I finally managed to shake off that mindset after repeatedly reminding myself "it makes no sense for these people to be bothering me so much."
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Apr 26, 2017 22:11
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SSNeoman posted:I am pissed off at these people because we're supposed to be the intelligent side. We're not supposed to jump on every hot take like the right wing do. We don't throw around words like RINO and cuckservative. Our decisions are supposed to be nuanced. Right now we need more political power. Our side is getting its rear end kicked and we're playing leftist musical chairs. The problem is that there does not exist a political "side" that doesn't have people making dumb/incorrect/exaggerated/etc statements. It's not like there are some leftists saying dumb things as opposed to (insert non-existent political faction). It is always easy to find people saying things that are wrong, and different types of wrong are more understandable and excusable than others (for example people being wrong when advocating for something that is generally good and understandable is better than people being wrong when talking about why scientific racism is true or something). You are also free to choose how to respond to other people saying things you think are wrong. Some of the posters, like Majorian and myself, have disagreed on multiple occasions with some of the other leftists in this thread. The difference is that it is really obvious that we aren't openly hostile towards them, while a sense of hostility and condescension is palpable with posts like yours. It's obvious that you personally dislike leftists, rather than just disagreeing with them. People generally behave differently when disagreeing with people who they otherwise consider "on their side", and your speech/behavior clearly signals that you don't just disagree with but are fundamentally opposed to the people you're addressing. As I think I've mentioned before, most people have a tendency to treat stupidity/ignorance in defense of the status quo much more kindly than stupidity/ignorance attacking it. The same people who frequently attack leftists in threads like this are usually silent about dumb pro-Clinton liberals or liberals who voted for Clinton because they thought she'd make it like the 90's again. This is likely because those two dumb/ignorant views are generally intended towards the ends of supporting a mainstream political group (in this case mainstream Democrats). But ultimately such views actually aren't any less dumb than a leftist who thinks Clinton is exceptionally corrupt or whatever. Honestly though, I think the most important point here is that the main problem isn't so much that you disagree with some of the people in this thread, but you do so in a way that doesn't even attempt to hide your bizarre, overexaggerated contempt and condescension. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 26, 2017 23:17
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" and instead of going "Okay yeah so what he's a politician. politicians make money. For your next trick, prove water's wet." we decide to lose our poo poo. He's not a true leftist, he takes money, etc...
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Heck Yes! Loam! posted:Hey guys, There are a couple major misconceptions I think you have (which I will explain in bullet points just because): - There is a difference between who a person votes for and what opinions/views they express. Personally, I will be voting for whatever Democratic candidate ends up on the ticket, regardless of whether I like them or not. However, this doesn't mean I think those candidates are acceptable, and I won't hesitate to express how much I would rather have someone whose views more closely align with my own. I voted for Hillary for example, despite spending most of my time criticizing her in online discussions. I will always disagree with any leftist who is willing to vote against a Democratic candidate in a swing state, because I consider voting to basically be a pragmatic action (as opposed to voicing opinions/activism, which can depend upon my actual views). Basically, I feel like your argument only makes sense when applied to voting. Voting for Democrats remains the correct pragmatic decision in most cases, but Leftists have no obligation to not express their displeasure with mainstream Democrats in discussions/activism. - You seem to be looking at things from the perspective of there being two primary groups - Conservatives/Republicans and Liberals/Democrats - and there being relatively minor differences of opinion within those groups but with the people involved generally having the same ultimate goals (i.e. "Leftists and Democrats may differ some on the specifics, but they have the same end goal in mind"). The problem is this isn't accurate at all. Leftists have genuine ideological disagreements with mainstream Democrats. Just like Republicans differ ideologically from Democrats, Leftist ideology differs from that of mainstream Democrats. The primary disagreement stems from the fact that mainstream Democrats generally don't want to change much about the power relationships in our society. They may be willing to improve conditions for the poor or fight discrimination (which makes them better than Republicans), but ultimately they aren't willing to cross a line where the wealthy have to make any real sacrifices or risk losing their status relative to the rest of the population. They also have a generally positive view of big business and aren't willing to fight monopolies (the fact that very few Democrats are in favor of breaking up the biggest banks is a good example of this). Also, it's kind of weird that you consider single payer non-negotiable, since there are a hell of a lot of Democrats who are against single payer (or rather universal healthcare in general). That by itself puts you far to the left of mainstream Democrats. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Apr 27, 2017 |
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Apr 27, 2017 01:32
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I think that what a lot of people defending Obama taking money don't realize is that, even if it isn't "payment for services rendered" so to speak (and I actually don't believe it is in the sense of "you did good things for us, now we will give you money"), it is still a direct result of his actions in office. This is easy to understand if you imagine the opposite situation. If Obama had presided over an administration that was relatively hostile to Wall Street and behaved in ways that were to Wall Street's notable detriment, it is extremely less likely they would be willing to involve him in transactions like this. This is why it's impossible to allow this sort of behavior without also basically creating a backdoor for corruption that can't be directly traced. And we fortunately have an easy way to deal with this - just don't allow former presidents and congressmen/women to receive money from certain corporate interests after their terms end and ensure they are otherwise well provided for (which we already do for presidents). And even if you ignore the pension, there are plenty of other ways to make money that lack the same ethical dubiousness, with Obama's book deal being a prime example. So I think the key point isn't so much that a president/politician receiving money in this matter is necessarily corrupt, but that if it was there would be no way for us to do anything about it. If there actually was an unspoken understanding that behaving in a way beneficial (or at least not harmful) to an industry would yield rewards later (and there effectively is for the reasons I mentioned before), there would be no way to stop it if we allow this sort of thing. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 06:18 on Apr 28, 2017 |
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Apr 28, 2017 06:16
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Cerebral Bore posted:It will be one more nail in the coffin of the Dem public image, but hey, at least Wall Street lost an infinitesimal amount of its ill-gotten gains. That is the funniest defense. He's a modern day Robin Hood, you see, what with separating the rich from their ill-gotten money.
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Apr 28, 2017 14:21
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JeffersonClay posted:They're trying to get people to come to their healthcare conference and Obama's a huge draw whether he guillotined a bunch of bankers or not. I understand the intention on the part of Cantor Fitzgerald, and like I mentioned in my post I honestly don't think this is a "we're doing this as payment for you being nice to us" situation. But the problem is that it is literally impossible to distinguish "legitimate" transactions of this nature from a reward* for acting in a beneficial way while in office (unless there's literally a written contract or recorded audio saying "We will give you a lucrative job/speaking gigs if you do good things for us" which is never going to happen). So the main issue is that, if you don't ban this sort of behavior, you effectively create an avenue for untraceable corruption. If the intent really is for Obama to help bring garner interest in healthcare investment, he can always volunteer to do it for free. It's not like presidents don't already receive a large six-figure pension (in addition to other sources of money like book deals). *Or, as also mentioned in my earlier post, the absence of "not getting a reward." While it's not impossible that a president could still get hired like this, it's far less likely if they took actions that effectively burned bridges between them and Wall Street firms. vvv Yeah, that also works, though it would ideally have to be part of the agreement to begin with, rather than the voluntary action of the president/politician in question. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Apr 28, 2017 |
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Apr 28, 2017 16:57
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