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Teriyaki Koinku posted:I'm enjoying the discussion so far, but here's a specific question I'd like to propose for the thread: what do you think of the lack of voting in the 2016 US Presidential election? Was it pure laziness? Unless you were a wedding guest in the ME, there wasn't too much from the Obama presidency that rocked your world. If you were lucky, your 401k started going back up, or you held on to your house, or you were able to get married now or get healthcare. The successor just wasn't energizing enough and the relative stability was taken for granted, since the populace has this feeling that Good Times Keep Rolling and the President has a negligible effect on anything. With both sides, there was trouble with faith in the institution. The left got burned by Sanders coming up short, the GOP old guard couldn't feel comfortable pulling the lever for Trump. Cerebral Bore posted:All of the brain geniouses ITT who are defending lesser evilism are either dumb or liars, because in reality lesser evilism doesn't loving work. But you are right that it's the hardest of sells for an election. I think there's also a recognition that Lesser Evil is unweildy and so mutable that it's troublesome to begin with. Because anyone can pull a policy or position and turn it into The Worst Ever, it becomes this giant nebulous term that changes according to the individual. (See: Hillary is bad because she doesn't have principals/ no, she's bad because she's a warmonger/ no, she's too in bed with Wall Street/ no, she's Neoliberal) quote:So the only logical reason why people make the argument is either because they're completely out of touch or because it lets them feel smugly superior to people who've been driven away from voting by the failures of the parties of less racist neoliberalism. FilthyImp fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Feb 14, 2018 |
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Feb 14, 2018 19:26
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quote:For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. This seems to be particularly apt.
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Feb 14, 2018 19:30
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Žižek pointed out that Obamas, Clintons and Macrons are the way you get victories for Trumps and Le Pens. Not an american, mind you, but I made up my mind in 2015 to stop voting entirely, because there's no path to actual good results within a representative democracy.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:16
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Neurolimal posted:Wow, you really got him there. Is it or is it not evil to provide Obamacare benefits to the people who need them to live?
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Feb 14, 2018 22:30
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Baron Porkface posted:Is it or is it not evil to provide Obamacare benefits to the people who need them to live? No, but it is evil that Obamacare provides so little for so much, in order to feed the greedy maw of a bunch of billionaires.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:36
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Baron Porkface posted:Is it or is it not evil to provide Obamacare benefits to the people who need them to live? It's evil to provide something useful but in a way that will inevitably be torn away from people who need it because you put it together in the most easily destroyed way.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:40
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Why are you holing Obamacare Democrats responsible for the actions of Republicans who blocked any more robust healthcare reform and the future actions of republicans who will attempt to destroy Obamacare?
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Feb 14, 2018 22:48
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Kemper Boyd posted:Not an american, mind you, but I made up my mind in 2015 to stop voting entirely, because there's no path to actual good results within a representative democracy. Primaries, actually. Dummie.
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Feb 14, 2018 22:51
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Baron Porkface posted:Why are you holing Obamacare Democrats responsible for the actions of Republicans who blocked any more robust healthcare reform and the future actions of republicans who will attempt to destroy Obamacare? Because at the time they held large majorities in the House and Senate and could have pushed for a stronger bill instead of the watered down compromise we got. The Limbaugh's, Hannity's and the groups that made up the Tea Party would have been apoplectic regardless if the Democrats had tried for Full Single Payer Now or the watered down Heritage Foundation tripe that we got. So the political cost was the same no matter what, but by going with the weak bill we got, a lot more people are dying or financially struggling than otherwise, and as the ACA repeal has shown, it would have been politically impossible to get rid of once the right regained power.
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Feb 14, 2018 23:00
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Kemper Boyd posted:Žižek pointed out that Obamas, Clintons and Macrons are the way you get victories for Trumps and Le Pens. I stopped voting once I realized that we don't live in a Democracy.
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Feb 14, 2018 23:21
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Baron Porkface posted:Why are you holing Obamacare Democrats responsible for the actions of Republicans who blocked any more robust healthcare reform and the future actions of republicans who will attempt to destroy Obamacare? That's on them, but if it's obvious they will attempt to do so, and you do 90% of their job for them, that's on you. The Obamacare democrats didn't HAVE to make the entire thing rely on a few unpopular or easily sabotaged pillars. That was 100% their own decision.
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Feb 14, 2018 23:39
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Instant Sunrise posted:Because at the time they held large majorities in the House and Senate and could have pushed for a stronger bill instead of the watered down compromise we got. I don't remember the legislative history of Obamacare but i seem to remember it needed to be filibuster proof and there were some Democrats ACA repeal was defeated by one or two votes. It obviously isn't impossible to get rid of and I have no idea why you would believe that.
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Feb 14, 2018 23:54
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reignonyourparade posted:That's on them It obviously isn't "on them." Voters in Republican districts reward Republicans for opposing health care; while posters ITT punish Democrats for not making the very large number of Americans who oppose healthcare disappear.
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Feb 14, 2018 23:55
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Baron Porkface posted:It obviously isn't "on them." Voters in Republican districts reward Republicans for opposing health care; while posters ITT punish Democrats for not making the very large number of Americans who oppose healthcare disappear. Nah, when you make it so that republicans can focus their ads on the really unpopular parts of it so the republican voters think they can get the "can't deny for preexisting conditions" part without the "I personally have to pay a fine if I don't have insurance part" it's entirely predictable that elected republicans will support that delusion.
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Feb 14, 2018 23:59
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So it's the Democrats fault Republicans are capable of fabricating lies?
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Feb 15, 2018 00:01
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Baron Porkface posted:So it's the Democrats fault Republicans are capable of fabricating lies? that they chose to push the version most susceptible to those lies, out of the illusion that health insurance companies would have their back in exchange for doing so, is most definitely their fault it turns out accepting failure is an unproductive strategy for progress
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Feb 15, 2018 00:02
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There's no policy that can exist where a lie can't be told about it. Are you capable of understanding that? Just consider how often Republicans lie about canadas healthcare.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:02
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Baron Porkface posted:There's no policy that can exist where a lie can't be told about it. Are you capable of understanding that? indeed. so choosing to deliberately make healthcare policy worse, for fear republicans might say mean things about it, is a hopelessly pointless act of cowardice. which should be punished.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:03
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Funny how Republicans are never punished by this rubric.
Baron Porkface fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Feb 15, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 00:05
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Nevvy Z posted:Primaries, actually. Dummie. Primary challenges weaken us to the greater evil in the general.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:10
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Teriyaki Koinku posted:
This has more to do with the electoral college than almost anything else:  voter turnout are generally pretty high in competitive states, but lower in non-competitive states
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Feb 15, 2018 00:11
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Baron Porkface posted:There's no policy that can exist where a lie can't be told about it. Are you capable of understanding that? Some lies are easier to get people to believe than others. If you're not a dumbass you won't feed your enemies the exact lies that are most useful to them.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:20
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Baron Porkface posted:Funny how Republicans are never punished by this rubric. the "make the world worse" party does not and never will care what people who want to make the world better think, that people focus their efforts on trying to get the nominal "make the world better" party to actually do so instead of simply making the world worse more slowly, is because that way they've actually got a chance of accomplishing something.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:23
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Condiv posted:those are the only outcomes because lesser evilism is rewarded with votes. you can't expect things to change if the lesser evil can always count on your vote as long as they're a hair away from the greater evil. that's why macron and co feel free to implement lepen's fascist policies. OTOH you can easily point out that anti-immigration sentiments are strong with the majority of the French electorate and Macron is simply carrying out their will, it's not the lesser of two evils so much as the French electorate getting exactly what they want. Which are anti-immigration policies without the overt fascist rhetoric overtures of Le pen. The real issue isn't "we are enabling centrists", the real problem is the "left" position has lost popularity and trust with the majority of the electorate.   
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Feb 15, 2018 00:26
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reignonyourparade posted:people focus their efforts on trying to get the nominal "make the world better" party to actually do so instead of simply making the world worse more slowly, is because that way they've actually got a chance of accomplishing something. Posters ITT aren't "trying" anything, they are posting about being proud of not having voted and fiddled while Republicans gained seats and came within a hairsplit of repealing ACA.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:28
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Trin Tragula posted:Sounds convincing. Just one question. How did voting for Jill Stein in Florida in 2000 prevent the Overton window from being shifted towards evil? Ralph Nader dude, not stein
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Feb 15, 2018 00:31
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Baron Porkface posted:Is it or is it not evil to provide Obamacare benefits to the people who need them to live? There's no reason to presume someone critiquing ACA to also be against medicare expansion, and you know that.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:35
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You aren’t just critiquing ACA you are calling it’s supporters evil.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:38
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Typo posted:Ralph Nader dude, not stein Also, Nader voters would have broken equally for either Bush or Gore.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:38
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Baron Porkface posted:You aren’t just critiquing ACA you are calling it’s supporters evil. Not unless you base your entire life around defending every part of ACA. Instant Sunrise posted:Also, Nader voters would have broken equally for either Bush or Gore. Also-also, more dems voted for Bush than for Nader. At the very worst you can consider third party support as a canary-in-the-coal-mine WRT how the main party is doing. Bill Clinton snubbing Nader on climate control gained legs because it fed directly into anti-nepotism concerns and left sentiment. Gore tried to distance himself from Bill after the impeachment, but that just gave him the worst of both worlds.
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Feb 15, 2018 00:43
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Neurolimal posted:
the reason why dems voted for bush over nader is because of left-over party loyalty/registrations from pre-1964 days when the democrats were the segregationists and the south was 90% democrat. 2000 was still early enough in the game that a lot of voters in the south registered as dem and went for democratic blue-dog conservative candidates at the congressional level and Republicans at the presidential because their congressmen are further to the right. that ended sometime between 2010-2014
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Feb 15, 2018 00:46
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Neurolimal posted:Not unless you base your entire life around defending every part of ACA. There are people on this Page who have said supporters of ACA are evil. I've started to think I'm getting punked by Trump supporters. Baron Porkface fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Feb 15, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 01:01
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Baron Porkface posted:Why are you holing Obamacare Democrats responsible for the actions of Republicans who blocked any more robust healthcare reform and the future actions of republicans who will attempt to destroy Obamacare? Joe Lieberman re: withholding the public option? Baron Porkface posted:Funny how Republicans are never punished by this rubric. ...Yes? Because the Democrat and Republican voting bases have fundamentally different ways of judging the world (see: "fake news")? It's plain to see that there is indeed a double standard for Republicans versus Democrats. Teriyaki Koinku fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Feb 15, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 01:31
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FilthyImp posted:Comfort and disillusionment. I think you're portraying the Obama status quo in neutral terms, when that isn't accurate. The status quo under Obama, while better than one under a Republican president, was still extremely bad. Our government continued to enable gross injustice; just to a lower degree than the Republican alternative. To put it another way, I (and presumably many others) firmly believe that Obama (and the mainsteam Democratic Party in general) would never do anything to even begin to alleviate the obscene inequality present in our society. Maintaining the status quo means allowing millions of people to continue to unnecessarily suffer and live under stressful circumstances. It isn't a neutral outcome. It's an evil one, even if it may be less evil than the Republican alternative. As mentioned in my other post, I still think you should vote Democratic in the general election, but that's only because I've never heard a good argument that not voting is actually effective at pushing Democrats to the left. But it's something I do out of grim necessity, and it isn't difficult for me to understand why others don't, especially if voting requires them to take time off of work and/or travel any significant distance. Baron Porkface posted:Why are you holing Obamacare Democrats responsible for the actions of Republicans who blocked any more robust healthcare reform and the future actions of republicans who will attempt to destroy Obamacare? Realistically speaking, there's a good chance Republicans + Lieberman are responsible for not getting a public option, but the Democrats would never have pushed for anything more than that, even if Republicans didn't exist. And even with the public option they didn't fight much at all; IIRC Obama put more pressure on Kucinich regarding voting for the bill than he did Lieberman. The Democrats have always been genuinely ideologically opposed to any significant move to the left, even including relatively milquetoast social democratic reforms. It isn't just a matter of Republicans stopping them. They genuinely don't want to do this stuff. Obama didn't crack down on the finance industry because he actually likes them and trusts them. You can choose to keep believing that Democrats secretly want to do a bunch of good things and are just prevented from doing so by the Republicans, but you'll find this situation repeating over and over again every single time Democrats get into power. edit: The anecdote of Obama giving Theresa May well wishes against Corbyn's labor is really all the evidence you need that Obama is not aligned with the left. He - and most other mainstream Democrats - genuinely prefer conservatives to the radical left. Baron Porkface posted:There are people on this Page who have said supporters of ACA are evil. I've started to think I'm getting punked by Trump supporters. After reading more of your posts in this thread, I have a question - are you even aware of the whole intra-Democratic debate between the left and center-left/center? I ask because your posts all seem to conflate condemnation of Democrats will being supportive of Republicans, which is something a lot of liberals who are confused by the recent opposition from the left tend to do. I've seen a number of discussions where a liberal person will be arguing with someone on the left and it'll later be revealed that they're genuinely completely unaware that radical left opposition to the Democratic Party is even a common thing. Because the vast majority of people who post in D&D are somewhere on the left politically, most of the arguments here tend to be between the left and center-left, and you can generally assume that criticism of the nature seen in this thread is from that angle. You can generally assume by default that the people posting here do not want Republicans to win and don't want to repeal the ACA (unless it's replaced with something better, like single-payer). People say negative things about the ACA because it's woefully insufficient to even begin to address the problems with our healthcare system, and there is nothing to be gained from focusing rhetoric on defending it (instead of pushing for something much better). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Feb 15, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 03:04
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Ytlaya posted:
This isn't a debate about Democratic positioning. This is a thread where Democrats are called evil by non-voters and that goes unchallenged. And allegedly that evil extends to the state and local offices that non-voters non-voted for; or maybe non-voters are too idiotic to know there are people running other than President and congress. Moreover, ITT no one else challenges the idea that lying is less evil than having a policy position that can conceivably be lied about. That is such a fundamentally morally and logically adrift position that I don't know how to respond to it, other than knowing that such a defective person can never be appeased by any set of policy. Baron Porkface fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Feb 15, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 05:19
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Baron Porkface posted:Funny how Republicans are never punished by this rubric. Well helps when you got an opponent who is willing to run away from even something as weak as Obamacare. As happened in both 2010 and 2014. In 2014 the democrats ran people who wouldn't even defend poo poo like medicaid expansion, but ho also defended wallstreet. The democrats deserve to expire and frankly the sooner America is done with them the better. Cartoon porn link for some reason? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 15, 2018 05:53
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Crowsbeak posted:Well helps when you got an opponent who is willing to run away from even something as weak as Obamacare. As happened in both 2010 and 2014. In 2014 the democrats ran people who wouldn't even defend poo poo like medicaid expansion, but ho also defended wallstreet. The democrats deserve to expire and frankly the sooner America is done with them the better. Emptyquoting before you edit that link Somebody fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Feb 19, 2018 |
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Feb 15, 2018 05:57
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Baron Porkface posted:Emptyquoting before you edit that link Wronng like but then there is this. Also I can see you can't deny that that is a problem. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/29/alison-lundergan-grimes-embrace-of-obamacare-is-at/ Can you actaully deny that that's a problem. Or are you going to act like the type of subhuman like JC?
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Feb 15, 2018 06:02
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Baron Porkface posted:To clarify, is Obamacare evil by this threads exacting standards? *some posters lay reasonable critiques about Obamacare* Baron Porkface posted:You aren’t just critiquing ACA you are calling it’s supporters evil. You were very open minded and willing to engage, and not just out from the get go to paint anyone who opposes you as crazy.
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Feb 15, 2018 06:04
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WampaLord posted:
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Feb 15, 2018 06:07
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