OK, Tinkerbell is gay? Fine, no sweat. But not by God Davy Crockett! Nosir!
I OTOH have no trouble arguing with him, though I’ll stipulate to the second of his three sentences I’ve quoted.
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I think many politicians (let’s save which party does it most for another thread) pursue the interests of rich corporations, often including rent-seekers of dubious value. Yes, some may sincerely think kleptocracy is somehow in the country’s best interest, but I’ll guess the notion of “higher truth” may be irrelevant to the thinking of many politicians.
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As in the parenthetical in (1.), one party is worse than the other, but again we’ll save that discussion for the other thread.
Sam Stone wrote: “Conservatives don’t like playing the identity politics game.”
Isn’t trump’s victory partially attributable to the fact that at least some whites are starting to perceive themselves as members of a minority group and acting and voting accordingly?
Conservatives don’t mind playing identity politics as long as they are conveyed using dog whistles and codewords.
Dog whistles are out, bullhorns are in. (Emphasis on the “bull”.)
I disagree.
I don’t concede to you the ground to define what’s reasonable.
Should an individual provide for himself? Or does society have a role to play? If my neighbor falls off a ladder and needs first aid, should I drop what I’m doing and help charitably? Or should I look at his urgent need as a profit-making opportunity for me?
Optimality lies somewhere between the extremes of socialist utilitarianism and Ayn Rand-libertarianism. I consider myself a centrist and can see pros and cons on each side. In a hyper-socialist society I might root for a right-wing society. In America, OTOH, the choice is between a centrist party and the party of lying kleptocrats — this is an easy choice to make. As just one example, I might be a fan of school vouchers if such a program could be trusted to help all schools. (And there seem to be some places around the country where vouchers are working well.) But it’s foolish to endorse vouchers in the general U.S. when the focus (mostly but not exclusively by one major party) is on increasing inequality and pandering to fraudsters who make campaign donations.
First of all, I note that you write “government” instead of “society.” In another thread we might explore why you prefer the former term! The visceral hatred many right-wingers have for “government” — and their failure to understand that government is just the agency through which society acts — is one reason Americans can no longer communicate well with each other.
I am not an ancient historian, but let’s explore your question a bit with Google. Mesopotamia was the locus of many well-organized ancient societies:
[QUOTE=Herodotus]
No one [in Mesopotamia] is allowed to pass by a sick person without asking him what ails him.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Medicine in Ancient Mesopotamia - World History Encyclopedia]
[In ancient Mesopotamia] Fees for [medical] services were on a sliding scale depending on one’s social status. A doctor presiding over the birth of a noble was paid more than for a common birth. Prescriptions were on this same sliding scale and, whereas a doctor might be paid in gold for mixing a prescription for a prince, the payment for doing the same for a common person might be a bowl of soup or a clay cup. There is no evidence, however, that doctors refused to treat the poor and the same prescriptions were given, with the same ingredients, without regard for a patient’s social status.
[/QUOTE]
I hope these accounts of ancient Mesopotamia dispense with the idea that society helping its sick and injured is some 20th-century Marxist development.
While conservatives find moral lessons everywhere (“Am I responsible for him?” “Does he deserve medical care?”) I have more utilitarian values. It’s better that 250 million people have insurance than that only 200 million do. Getting the same value for less money, e.g. with judicious use of public policies, would make any health system more efficient. (If Obamacare has ruptured health-co profits, someone forgot to tell the Wall St. investors who have bid share prices to record levels.)
Rising inequality of wealth and income is central to many economic questions facing the U.S. today. Projected shortfalls in Social Security revenue has been attributed to the fact that well over half of income is now no longer subject to S.S. tax — it’s beyond the $118k ceiling or untaxed altogether. The top 00.1% of 2014 IRS returns reported 11.2% of the adjusted gross income. Almost half of that was reported by the top 00.01%.
I am a centrist. When a vast collective services all the country’s medical needs, and rich people are unable to pay for better service, I will march with you on the Right, holding a sign that says “Free the Koch Brothers! Let them pay for medical care if they wish!” But this is not the direction politics needs to move to redress today’s problems. I am especially astounded that some think it is.
Should an individual provide for himself? Or does society have a role to play? If my neighbor falls off a ladder and needs first aid, should I drop what I’m doing and help charitably? Or should I look at his urgent need as a profit-making opportunity for me?
Optimality lies somewhere between the extremes of socialist utilitarianism and Ayn Rand-libertarianism. I consider myself a centrist and can see pros and cons on each side. In a hyper-socialist society I might root for a right-wing party. In America, OTOH, the choice is between a centrist party and the party of lying kleptocrats — this is an easy choice to make. As just one example, I might be a fan of school vouchers if such a program could be trusted to help all schools. (And there seem to be some places around the country where vouchers are working well.) But it’s foolish to endorse vouchers in the general U.S. when the focus (mostly but not exclusively by one major party) is on increasing inequality and pandering to fraudsters who make campaign donations.
First of all, I note that you write “government” instead of “society.” In another thread we might explore why you prefer the former term! The visceral hatred many right-wingers have for “government” — and their failure to understand that government is just the agency through which society acts — is one reason Americans can no longer communicate well with each other.
I am not an ancient historian, but let’s explore your question a bit with Google. Mesopotamia was the locus of many well-organized ancient societies:
[QUOTE=Herodotus]
No one [in Mesopotamia] is allowed to pass by a sick person without asking him what ails him.
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Medicine in Ancient Mesopotamia - World History Encyclopedia]
[In ancient Mesopotamia] Fees for [medical] services were on a sliding scale depending on one’s social status. A doctor presiding over the birth of a noble was paid more than for a common birth. Prescriptions were on this same sliding scale and, whereas a doctor might be paid in gold for mixing a prescription for a prince, the payment for doing the same for a common person might be a bowl of soup or a clay cup. There is no evidence, however, that doctors refused to treat the poor and the same prescriptions were given, with the same ingredients, without regard for a patient’s social status.
[/QUOTE]
I hope these accounts of ancient Mesopotamia dispense with the idea that society helping its sick and injured is some 20th-century Marxist development.
While conservatives find moral lessons everywhere (“Am I responsible for him?” “Does he deserve medical care?”) I have more utilitarian values. It’s better that 250 million people have insurance than that only 200 million do. Getting the same value for less money, e.g. with judicious use of public policies, would make any health system more efficient. (If Obamacare has ruptured health-co profits, someone forgot to tell the Wall St. investors who have bid share prices to record levels.)
Rising inequality of wealth and income is central to many economic questions facing the U.S. today. Projected shortfalls in Social Security revenue has been attributed to the fact that well over half of income is now no longer subject to S.S. tax — it’s beyond the $118k ceiling or untaxed altogether. The top 00.1% of 2014 IRS returns reported 11.2% of the adjusted gross income. Almost half of that was reported by the top 00.01%.
I am a centrist. When a vast collective services all the country’s medical needs, and rich people are unable to pay for better service, I will march with you on the Right, holding a sign that says “Free the Koch Brothers! Let them pay for medical care if they wish!” But this is not the direction politics needs to move to redress today’s problems. I am especially astounded that some think it is.
Kudos to Velocity for coming up with a nice starting point for discussion.
Here’s one guy’s opinion as to WHY Republicans hold onto fictitious beliefs.
Republicans want to perpetuate the myth of Horatio Alger, that any of the great unwashed can make it to the middle class if they only expend the effort. If you accept this logic, then you have to conclude that people are poor by their own fault and if they weren’t so lazy, they wouldn’t need government assistance. This allows them to perpetually attack the safety net, pushing the false narrative instead that tax cuts for the rich create jobs.
Republicans simply don’t want to acknowledge their dependence on bigotry. Since Nixon’s Southern Strategy, Republicans have made it clear in ever increasing clarity that bigots are more than welcome in their tent. Capitalizing on the fear of “the other” has enabled them to capture increasing shares of white working class voters and make them vote against their economic self interest. It’s painfully obvious that many of the supporters of Hillary’s opponent were disgusting bigots, but Republicans don’t want to associate themselves with the more unsavory parts of their electorate.
This is a proven fact, every time we try it it does nothing more than blow a hole in the deficit. But Republicans exist for the sole purpose of cutting taxes for the wealthy and perpetuating the myth of trickle down economics is their only rationale for continuing to bankrupt the government.
Republicans push this because they want the votes of the religious right, simple as that. Bible Belters don’t want their kids to engage in pre-marital sex the way that they did when they were young, and if they do they sure as hell shouldn’t “get away with it” and not be punished for it by having a baby. Republican politicians know that abstinence-only doesn’t work but they’re willing to pay lip service to the hyper-Christian right in exhange for their votes.
Republicans have a two step research process for investigating global warming. Step One: Call the bank to see if the check from Exxon cleared. Step Two: Call Exxon to ask them how to think about the issue. It’s just that simple. They don’t want to pay the price for reducing carbon emissions (reduced contribution from fossil fuel interests) so they attack the science. Never mind that the science is proven. The donors demand that their profits keep flowing unobstructed and if that means fucking up the planet for eternity, that’s just the price you have to pay to get those profits and contributions.
Absolutely. Conservatives would have you flutter your eyelashes like Scarlett O’Hara and breathlessly gush “the troops” at every opportunity. We must especially honor Vietnam veterans because without their brave sacrifice we would have lost the war. If there’s anything that Bible Belters love more than keeping kids away from sex education, it’s endless worshipping of the military. Look at the fuss they make every time a Democrat appears in public without a flag pin.
Of course we know that’s true, but denial of this reality keeps the flames of hatred of “the other” alive as well as the votes of xenophobes.
We like our food and drugs to be safe, but we can’t admit that regulations are largely responsible. Republicans’ corporate donors would have bigger profits without these and other regulations, so regulations are always evil and must be opposed at every opportunity.
This all goes back to soldier worship. You can pick up easy votes by glorifying the military, so the military gets glorified.
Acknowledging this fact would belie the Republican axiom that every problem has an easy solution. Difficult analysis is for Democrats, Republican voters want solutions that fit on bumper stickers.
Republicans believe that the debt is an issue only when Democrats occupy the White House. With Republicans in charge of everything, it’s full speed ahead on tax cuts! The debt will be a problem again as soon as a Democrat is elected.
Of course the corporate wing of the Republican Party knows and thinks that. But they can’t let the rubes know that they know this.
Everybody with half a brain knows this. But the working class white voters remember their fathers getting good paying jobs right out of high school that enabled them to buy a house and raise a family on one income and they don’t see why they can’t go back and live in that Norman Rockwell painting. So Republicans make them believe that it’s Democrats that did this to them, or the dreaded minorities, or the unions. Whatever it takes to keep them drinking that GOP koolaid.
Everybody knows this as factual, but Republicans are addicted to the anti-abortion vote so the collateral damage of women who will die in the back alleys is the price they’re willing to pay.
Republicans have spent the last 80 years trying to kill Social Security and the last 50 years trying to kill Medicare. They aren’t about to embrace any single payer system, no matter what it’s called. Those big donations from insurance companies would dry faster than the crocodile tears shed over the victims of the Syrian gas attack.
You are correct that we can lead deniers to the facts but we can’t make them think. But the insistence that it is the fault of the people failing to convince the deniers rather than that of the deniers themselves is ludicrous. “If only you’d presented the facts more nicely. And maybe wrapped in a nice pink bow.” Nope, sorry. Ignorance can be fought. Willful ignorance cannot.
When did education? Police? Fire departments? Sewage systems? Food and drug regulation? Workplace safety? Should we reject these things because they once were not recognized as providing a greater public good? If not, why not healthcare?
(Also, I’m having a hard time believing you think “sex with Helen Hunt” and “healthcare” are remotely comparable, either in level of individual or societal need or in implementation.)
It can be, but it usually isn’t.
Cite. I don’t think 56 percent tracks very well to “nearly impossible”. And the reference to minimum wage is not really on point either, since most MW earners aren’t supporting themselves or anyone else, and don’t live in poor households. And something like three quarters of poor households don’t have a full time, year round worker. I have cited this so much in the past that I don’t feel like doing it again.
Some of the rest -
True. So are some supporters of every other politician and cause in the US and the world.
Too sweeping a statement to be factual - more a statement of faith.
True, but meaningless - in many ways, men’s lives are more difficult than women’s.
Also true. No school based sex education works. What does work is being raised in a stable family with the long-term presence of a father, religious commitment, and other factors that schools can’t affect.
True. What is also true is that solar and wind can’t scale up to meet the energy needs of the world in the near- or medium-term. Democrats are as much in denial about this as Republicans are about global warming.
Which is why we aren’t going to address global warming in any systematic way. We will deal with the consequences as they come up, if they come up. If it is the end of civilization as we know it, Democrats will have the satisfaction of being able to say “I told you so”. If it isn’t, they will never admit it.
True. And both conservatives and liberals can be laughed at when they go too far.
No doubt they have good intentions behind them. But I wouldn’t say that should prevent us from doing a cost-benefit analysis, and getting rid of the ones that do more harm than good, no matter how beneficial the intent. Do you really think we need a regulationin Massachusetts that children in daycare have to brush their teeth? Should you go to jail in Lake Elmo for selling a pumpkin grown outside the city limits? Etc.
Regards,
Shodan
I hope Ms. Hunt, if she ever became aware of the way I was invoking her name,would understand that I mean only to symbolize just how extraordinary I think she is. So with only a little hyperbole: yeah, they’re comparable.
That’s a very astute observation, IMO. When Republicans advocate something, it’s always instructive to ask who they are actually advocating for and to look for the real reasons that vested interests favor such a position. This is exactly why reasonable people can make reasonable arguments for many right-wing positions in American politics which, if and when actually enacted, would be and are social or economic disasters.
The reality is, for example, that other countries have private schools and/or multiple school systems and some even have voucher programs, but the systems are highly regulated and schools must meet high standards. It is not, as it is in America, just dog-whistle code for “let those with the most money get the best education (or the best health care), and let the others fend for themselves”. School voucher advocates in America are essentially looking to introduce their beloved principles of capitalism into primary education as if our children’s education was some sort of consumer product instead of an integral part of the social fabric, and to them the resulting socioeconomic stratification is not just desirable but in fact a primary objective.
So many things fall into place when viewed from this perspective of self-serving vested interests – the push for repressive voter ID, the inability to enact universal health care, lying about climate change – pretty much the majority of the Republican agenda, really.
This is the problem with listening to liberals - it’s always the same schtick.
Regards,
Shodan
Seems like a cop out to rely on the false canard that conservatives are racist.
(my bold in the second section)
If the scenario is not particularly likely, why is it simultaneously business as usual? That doesn’t reconcile.
As for the population number - it assumes major population growth in Africa with similar population density that China has today, without regard to whether Africa and specifically Nigeria can support this type of growth. It also assumes no change to levels of family planning/contraception initiatives. When projecting over the next 80 years small variations can have big swings in the results.
As for coal use, the scenario assumes technological stagnation and increasing utilization of coal. This doesn’t take into account declining utilization in areas not called China. And even then, while China may not be averse to coal per se, they are averse to air pollution which can drive public policy in China. To assume larger and larger utilization of coal I’d say is hardly realistic and not remotely close to “business as usual”.
I believe in anthropomorphic global warming. I think the US, and all countries should strive to do better to reduce emissions. I think it’s an important issue that deserves more attention. I support greener tech through my own purchases as well. What I don’t think is realistic is painting the worst case scenario as “business as usual”. Conversations around global warming seem to focus on the worst possible outcome as some sort of scare tactic and it’s not only unrealistic, it’s counter productive because it turns into a crying wolf situation that gets tuned out. If the goal is to convince the world to spend up to 1.7% of global GDP on abatement efforts, it’s not going to happen pushing a less likely scenario.
And really, I can’t take seriously any agenda that doesn’t push for nuclear. Solar and wind are great, and I love the direction that Elon is going, but nuclear should be at the forefront of discussion.
It’s not false if it’s, you know, true.
“You need to listen to us when we call you racist” is how Hillary lost the election.
Regards,
Shodan
If racists don’t like being told they’re racists, then maybe they should demonstrate some personal responsibility and stop being racists.
But, of course, personal responsibility is anathema to conservatives.
Actually, Nate Silver says Comey’s interference cost Hillary 3 points. If not for that, it’s a blowout win.
How many points does Nate think the Podesta e-mails cost?