I don’t know if Oakminster is a conservative by any conventional definition, but declaring the experiences of other liberal democracies as utterly irrelevant suggests a determined and unbecoming willful ignorance.
Sorry, but it IS irrelevant to these sorts of discussion. The thread is about what makes Dems left or far left…not where we compare to Europe. Why does it matter where Europe stands on an issue when we are talking about Americans and American voters? Again, does Europe use the US as it’s yardstick? Answer…not a fucking chance. Canada doesn’t use the US as it’s yardstick either. Nor should they. Why should we? Answer…we shouldn’t. And, frankly, most Americans (who aren’t American members of this board) don’t. They don’t give a shit where our middle stacks up against Canada’s whatever, or that our left wing is right wing in Europe. It’s irrelevant. No one gives a shit. What matters is where it stacks up in our own system and with our own voters who, you know, actually vote in America.
Not sure why this seemingly simple and obvious thing is so difficult for people, or why there is this dual standard. I DO see willful ignorance in this, but it’s not on this particular point wrt Oakminster.
ICE was part of a restructuring that happened in 2003, incorporating duties once held by US Customs and Immigration and Naturalization Services. Before 2003, we got along just fine without them.
US Customs and Border Protection is the agency actually entrusted with securing the border. No one I know is in favor of eliminating that agency.
Another arm of that restructuring is USCIS, US Customs and Immigration Service. No one I know is in favor of eliminating that agency.
Ignorance fought.
By definition, ICE doesn’t work within 50 miles of the border. Basically, I feel they are too heavily militarized for a mission conducted within civilian communities and that their tactics are too heavy-handed. I would like to see their duties re-examined and absorbed by other agencies.
Hardly a far left position.
For example, Poland’s two parties are both conservative-one being a Catholic nationalist party and the other a liberal conservative free market party. It seems to me it’d make sense in that example to compare the Polish party system internationally rather than just arbitrarily deem one of those parties left and another right.
Many Europeans have done so, especially when we at the forefront of such policies as abolishing property qualifications for voting.
How about comparisons to America’s own past then? I’d be less concerned with international left/right comparisons (which I do agree can be overblown) if those people wouldn’t make arguments about the inherent virtues of centrism.
I suggest that it can be relevant if you want to extend the discussion beyond just applying labels to things, i.e. it’s fine to consider the United States a closed system with a well-defined boundary and attempt to classify all political views held by its citizens (and only its citizens) in an effort to arrange them on a scale from most right to most left, for what that’s worth, like you were sorting jelly beans by colour or something. Maybe this is a mildly entertaining intellectual exercise, as far as it goes.
I suggest a broader knowledge is useful when it quickly goes beyond merely arranging political views on a scale to declaring, for example, that people who hold views at coordinate X on the American spectrum are eagerly looking forward and indeed working toward the construction of a vast network of concentration camps for the re-education and as necessary liquidation of undesirables. If one can point out that several other functioning democracies have policies in place roughly equivalent to coordinate X but don’t have concentration camps, one has a basis for calling the claim specious.
Is AOC really “loony” ? What are some of the things she has actually said that seem particularly lunatic? Is she describing implementing something in the U.S. that, say, Canada already has? Would that make Canada a lunatic place? Are you comfortable sharing a long undefended border with such a place? Or maybe it’s just easier to say Canada’s policies are irrelevant by definition if that avoids the mental dissonance of having to rethink one’s opinion of AOC.
By way of disclosure, I don’t have any particular knowledge of AOC’s stated goals, but the political rhetoric in the U.S. has degenerated to such a degree that calling her or anything “loony”,“socialist” or “ultra” in any sense has lost all meaning.
If you don’t want to care, feel free not to care. No skin off me.
Both of you - knock it off. This is personalizing discussion way beyond what is permissible in this forum. Have a discussion. Provide examples. Whatever floats your boat. But dial back the hostility.
[/moderating]
[Off-topic] Qin! Long time, no hear from, kid! How did you fare at Brandeis? [/off-topic]
Because we’re ALL sitting on the same blue marble. When the USA gets it OWN blue marble, we can ignore the Earthlings.
Cool. I’m sure this works both ways then, yes? Every other country uses, say, the US as their yardstick to measure where their political parties are and what they should be doing, right? :dubious:
Sorry, but while I’m not saying we ignore what everyone else is doing, wrt to how our political system works and how we measure left to right, what they do is less than meaningless. Know why? Because they don’t live here. They don’t vote here. Yeah, we all live on the same blue marble, but that means nothing when it comes to how voters in individual countries vote for their local political parties. The French don’t say ‘Well, how did Joe Biden vote on this issue? We should really look into what the Democrats are doing to judge where we should be on issue X!’. It doesn’t happen, nor should it.
See, the reality is that when Europe gets to own the US (and has their shit together enough to actually be an actual unified polity in any case themselves, which they aren’t) THEN they get a stake in where and how we should judge left/right and center wrt the US. Currently, they don’t. It’s exactly the opposite of how you and others are making it out to be, and, sadly, you don’t even seem to see it. The disconnect in saying ‘When the USA gets it OWN blue marble, we can ignore the Earthlings’ is literally so vast I don’t even know where to start. You are saying, essentially, that US voters, and Democrats should measure our political system against other countries because the US doesn’t own the world. What…the…fuck?? 
Grok, to grow closer. From a book by Heinlein, the Stephen King of sci-fi.
Well, she is goofy. I make allowances for her being young, but her NGD was…loopy. And misguided. And, frankly, on the fringe of US voters except in very narrow voting regions, such as the one that elected her. Broadly, she doesn’t really connect with the average Joe voter in the US, certainly not on most of the issues. Where she falls wrt European voters is, basically, irrelevant…they won’t get to vote for her.
Loony though…that’s going to be in the eyes of the beholder. Sorry, but wrt US politics, she is not mainstream. She isn’t even mainstream liberal, and, frankly, that’s all that matters. How Canada and Canadians view her, or view socialism is perhaps intellectually interesting, but has zero impact on how US voters view her in the US system. My caring or lack of caring is irrelevant…what matters is where she falls on our spectrum and with our voters.
Let me give you an example. I often hear Europeans say that this politician or that one who they consider right wing would be liberal Democrats in the US. Ok. So, in practical terms wrt their political system, what does that mean to the average voter in their country? Dick all. It means nothing because, by and large, their voting citizens don’t give a flying fuck where right wing politician falls on the US spectrum…they care how they fit in in their own system. And because Americans don’t live in their country, and don’t vote in their system, and so have zero impact or say in it.
I’m sure you don’t sit there thinking to yourself when you are going to vote in Canada ‘hm, wonder how these two candidates fit into the US political system and fall on their political spectrum’. If you DO think that way, well, you’ve been on this board too long.
No, that isn’t the point at all. To say that American voters should pay attention to voters in other countries, or vice versa, is dissembling from the real issue. What is pertinent for all voters and politicians everywhere is how the enactment of specific policies has played out in the past – what the results were in comparable environments and situations. And for that, it can be instructive to look outside the confines of one’s own political backyard and learn from what has happened in other countries.
Those who refuse to do this are frequently those pushing absurd fairy-tale agendas that are not grounded in reality and are doomed to failure, or worse, are being pushed for mendacious reasons to covertly serve their political base: opponents of universal health care, homophobes, opponents of reasonable gun laws, absolutist opponents of abortion, opponents of corporate accountability and industrial regulation, climate change deniers, and so on. Their bumper-sticker mantra is called “American exceptionalism”, which is basically a short way of saying “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, and that’s just the way I like it”.
I’ll try to make it less personal but I stand behind my assertion that if someone views someone else that is espousing very common values and policies as part of the lunatic fringe then they most be so severely polarized the other way it must be they who are actually in the lunatic fringe.
Further, I will note the very, very angry and aggressive language used in almost every post by the other person in question.
When six people tell you that you’re drunk, lie down.
–Russian Proverb
The Overton window has moved very far to the right over the last 40 years, so I’m not all that concerned with what barking mad conservatives say about people on my side.
That level of purity is just flat out ridiculous. In fact it is the very thing that tends to screw this country( “Trump looks like an unhinged loon but, hey, he’s the Republican and I have to vote for my party” ). I’m well out on the left side of the political spectrum, but I have occasionally voted for R candidates( though not since 2006, I think )and I don’t rule out doing so in the future. If voting for some random Republican Insurance Commissioner or something makes me a true blue Republican, even if every other vote I cast is for a Democrat, then this system is deeply fucked.
Unthinking party loyalty should be anathema to any reasonable adult.
These are not reasonable times.
President of the NC Senate Phil Berger is coming after teachers, guns a-blazing, for rallying in Raleigh this coming Wednesday. He’s seen the same polls that I have, showing a solid majority of Tarheels support the rally and almost all of our demands, so his schtick is that we teachers are gullible idiots being led around by the “Far left NCAE.”
Our demands are absurdly milquetoast, though:
- Apply the minimum wage that applies to all other government workers to education workers as well, and give educators a 5% raise.
- Expand Medicaid in the same way that 37 other states have done.
- Increase staffing of student support positions (e.g., nurses, psychologists, etc.) to nationally-recommended levels.
- Reinstate pay for advanced degrees, as nearly every other state does.
- Reinstate retiree health benefits for those hired after 2021, the same benefits our state has offered its employees for decades.
It’s reasonable to debate these propositions, of course–but it’s absurd to characterize any of them as “far-left.” My proposed far left chant for the rally is:
I think Euphonious Polemic has it exactly right.
It’s not about party loyalty; it’s about the eradication of the Republican Party. Once that’s been accomplished, the Democratic Party can fragment, for all I care (and I fully expect it to).
Sorry I wasn’t more clear about that.
You made an assertion. Where did you ‘show’ anything?