General US Politics

[Tryhard]

24 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Most of the far left leaning liberals believe in the destruction or reduction of many of these rights.

Liberals aren't far-left. Actually, the far-left aren't too fond of liberals.

All you really need to read is the first sentence on wikipedia about Liberalism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

Liberalism is a political philosophy or worldview founded on ideas of liberty and equality. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas and programmes such as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free markets, civil rights, democratic societies, secular governments, gender equality and international cooperation.

I'm sure wikipedia is a liberal biased conspiracy though.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Tryhard

[Lushen]

5 hours ago, Tryhard said:

<snip>

I said far left leaning liberals.  I even made a point to say not all liberals.  And wikipedia is a very bad source on this because the definition of liberal from a global standpoint is very different than the definition of liberal in the United States.  At this point you're trying to convince me to use the metric system (which we should, but that's not the point).    Generally in America we have a left/right system where the left is considered more liberal and the right is considered more conservative.  I am well aware this is not technically true, but we can argue grammer all day.  The fact is that political definitions mean something very different depending on where you are.  Hell, from a global standpoint Trump is considered a liberal isn't he?   

Heck, here's another quote from wikipedia

In the United States after Reconstruction, the phrase "the Left" was used to describe those who supported trade unions, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.^[19][20] More recently in the United States, left-wing and right-wing have often been used as synonyms for Democratic and Republican, or as synonyms for liberalism and conservatism respectively.^{[21][22][23][full citation needed][24]}

Don't get me wrong, the definition of words matter, but we can spend all day talking about how messed up American political definitions have become or we can talk about politics.

[Sias]

17 hours ago, Lushen said:

Homosexuality should be accepted in society is only held by 50% of core conservatives, which is sad to see.  Most other conservatives have moved past this, but my broken down political affiliation is lagging behind I think.  To be fair, I am also fairly libertarian and think if someone wants to consider homosexuality a sin, they are free to do that.  They'll just receive a gentle scold from me.  I also think transgenders should be discouraged from society, but for moral reasons not hate reasons.  So I guess I have some core conservative values on the subject.   EDIT:  Actually - country first conservatives are the problem here.  Only 13% of them say that homosexuality should be accepted in society... One of the liberal parties has the same ~50% as core conservatives so I guess it's not that bad.

To be honest, I wouldn't call 50% acceptance of homosexuals "not that bad", but rather terrible, no matter what political group may hold that view. Also, what are your moral reasons against trans people?

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

So you can complain about how privileged I am meanwhile you had a larger advantage over me. 

When someone accuses you of speaking from a position of privilege, they don't try to invalidate all hardships in your life. They attempt to tell you that you're likely underestimating a problem because you've never been personally exposed to it and that your life would've been even harder if not for said privilege you possess.

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You think I don't understand that?  But let me tell you something, my background doesn't make me any more naive of the real world than yours does.  You can say that because I was born in a rich family, I don't understand what it's like to be poor.  The thing is, I've been saying, identically, that the poor don't know how to be rich.  I've been saying that the best way to get them out of their situation is to teach them how to be successful.

"The poor don't know how to be rich" is probably the weirdest accusation of poor people that I've ever read. Like, really. Also, I'm preeetty sure that your 3-step-plan to success doesn't actually work.

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Remember "Ask not what your country can do for you; but what you can do for your country".  The government exists to serve it's people.  People don't exist to serve government.  Not believing in capitalism means not believing in american ideals.   If you don't believe in capitalism, you are against american ideals.  That's fine, you have a right to do that, but that is not what America is or has ever been.  There are plenty of socialistic countries that believe in this form of gov't, you can go to if you think it will be more fair to you, but might I suggest the reason you don't is because they all suck?

You might have missed the part where social democracies still have capitalism. And you're grossly oversimplifying how easy it is to move from one country to another.

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There's nothing wrong with anecdotes.  Feel free to share them.  The danger occurs when the anecdote is not specific.  But if it can be shown that the anecdote works in the general sense, then it is no different than a scientific experiment (which are all anecdotes).

There's quite a large difference between a random anecdote and a controlled scientific study, but sure.

30 minutes ago, Lushen said:

We can no longer have freedom of speech because some of it is "Hate Speech". 

Congrats, there have been dozens of restrictions to free speech since eternities ago. Mainly because people recognized that it may actually not be that healthy to society as a whole if everyone can just say whatever they want. Also, you might be mixing up freedom of speech and freedom of consequences.

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We can no longer bear arms because "guns kill people, people don't kill people". 

What.

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They even go against the 5th amendment because they believe the gov't should take capital from private owners who haven't committed a crime (in order to have gov't run production). 

Did you miss the part where the 5th amendment clearly does allow taking capital from private owners?

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I'm not against the entirety of the left.  But it's been clear to me for a while that the far left has been calling for a complete betrayal of American ideals and American society. 

American ideals and American society as you would like to have them.

[Lord Raven]

3 hours ago, SullyMcGully said:

Can I just say that the poverty line is a bit of a joke? My family lives under the poverty line. But we own our house. We have plenty to eat. We stay warm in the winter. We have a nice TV. I have a cell phone. We run a small farm. Yet we could get thousands of dollars in government assistance if we wanted to. We don't, because it would be kinda immoral to take money meant to help people who can't survive on what they have and use it for ourselves. But we could. 

Welfare reform is a real need. The moment someone (usually a Republican) says that, they immediately get people screaming "but what about the hungry people on the streets? You want them to starve?" But welfare reform (done right) would actually be better for those people, because people like me wouldn't be getting aid that they didn't need. 

Can you source these claims that it's a real need? Because 3% of households claim to be abusing welfare -- and that's a very low number considering there's a 97% who need it. Your evidence is highly anecdotal, once again, compared to the larger aggregate.

Welfare reform "done right" is a myth. The best way is to define a poverty line, but make the benefits more gradually decreasing as you go above the poverty line. The reason the line is a joke is because it's a hard line. As it stands, the "welfare reform" promised by Republicans cuts welfare for the 97% who need it and not just the 3% who don't.

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

So you can complain about how privileged I am meanwhile you had a larger advantage over me.  My school was paid entirely by my parents, it's true.  But you also got a MS degree which requires a lot more time, effort, and money and it was paid for by taxpayers (including my parents).  How can you believe in the liberal ideology that giving free education to people makes them successful?  That happened to you and now you're complaining about your situation.  You are literally living evidence of why conservatism represents the real world.  

What are you talking about? My parents literally could not afford my school.

fyi I'm a graduate student so I naturally make 18k/year, and it's fucked up because I basically work for minimum wage (even though I'm technically on the hook for 20 hours a week, I end up working 60). The point is this: your three step plan has failed in my anecdote and that of many others.

I could probably even tell you how my dad used to work 100 hours a week as a small business owner but his salary was around 20k/year. He didn't knock someone up until after marriage, and he graduated high school.

At any rate, I didn't say anything about free education. Affordable != free, because our parents' generation did not have to live through massive tuition rates. Getting college paid for you is exceedingly rare and lucky, is my point; I'm one botched interview away from major student debt and a significantly worse situation than I am in now.

If you botched an interview for a merit scholarship, your parents would still be able to pay for your education. I would like to note that other applicants did botch their interview and they did not obtain their scholarship, and many would probably kill to have that opportunity. It's luck and individual big things rather than a slow climb that has characterized the success of successful people. There's nothing wrong with that or acknowledging it, since even with a safety net you need to work hard; there are many wealthy folks who have kids who do not work hard and fail just as there are poor folks who work extremely hard and struggle to barely pass (only to really have nothing but futility ahead of them).

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

You think I don't understand that?  But let me tell you something, my background doesn't make me any more naive of the real world than yours does.  You can say that because I was born in a rich family, I don't understand what it's like to be poor.  The thing is, I've been saying, identically, that the poor don't know how to be rich.  I've been saying that the best way to get them out of their situation is to teach them how to be successful.  I have a friend who grew up in your situation.  He graduated as a Mechanical Engineer and is making 80k/yr as a first time job.  He graduated with no help from the gov't at all. He paid for his degree through part time work, work as a technician before college, internships, and a co-op.  He worked his ass off not just in school but in his free time and I have a tremendous level of respect for him, more than I do in myself.  In one year, he now has more money than his mom has ever had before.  Liberal ideologies gave you college.  Conservative ideologies gave him college.  Look at the results. 

A few things.

1) The poor don't know what it's like to be rich? What the fuck does that mean?

2) You don't understand the struggle of living paycheck to paycheck, nor do you understand the struggle of parents being jobless for factors out of their own control, nor do you understand what it's like to be unlucky.

3) I don't care if your friend is making 80k/year as his first job, when he's one of hundreds of millions of people in this country. Who's to say that others did not put in the same effort and get as much out of it?

4) Okay, and let's make things clear really quickly: I graduated with a 3.91 GPA, plenty of research experiences, internships, including published work, and I also had to work plenty per week while juggling 19 credit semesters quite a bit. It's not like I didn't work hard because I got government assistance; 60k of my college funds were a merit scholarship and around 20kish (it varied by year) were government assistance. I've made full use of my time, thanks.

So what are liberal ideologies vs conservative ideologies here? Because "liberal" ideologies mean you work hard for what you want, whereas "conservative" ideologies mean you work hard to get by, based on what you're saying.

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

Remember "Ask not what your country can do for you; but what you can do for your country".  The government exists to serve it's people.  People don't exist to serve government.  Not believing in capitalism means not believing in american ideals.   If you don't believe in capitalism, you are against american ideals.  That's fine, you have a right to do that, but that is not what America is or has ever been.  There are plenty of socialistic countries that believe in this form of gov't, you can go to if you think it will be more fair to you, but might I suggest the reason you don't is because they all suck?

Actually, when is capitalism an American ideal? News flash: most of the western world is capitalist.

I also said that while I am a democratic socialist, I vote centrist which ends up being capitalist. I believe in evidence based policy too, and the free market has lead to better results than socialism, which is why I would generally avoid voting for a left winger. You missed that entire thing, and that's really emblematic of why you are a crappy debater; you cherry pick and you place my phrases out of context.

You literally just called me unamerican for having an opinion against the grain, at any rate. I was born and raised here, like you, and I have my opinions -- that makes me American as fuck. Hell, I grew up very close to DC, and I was born where our anthem was written -- if you wanna call me unamerican, then what are you? I can become president if I really wanted to, by virtue of being born here.

This is the "no true scotsman" fallacy in effect. You're unamerican because you don't care for your fellow people. I can define my own terms and put you in them too, see?

There are also not "plenty" of socialistic governments. There's few, and the majority are not in good shape. I have acknowledged this. So please, stop putting words into my mouth, and stop ignoring shit I've said, because you saying this means you absolutely don't read what I say and look for buzz words.

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

There's nothing wrong with anecdotes.  Feel free to share them.  The danger occurs when the anecdote is not specific.  But if it can be shown that the anecdote works in the general sense, then it is no different than a scientific experiment (which are all anecdotes).

Scientific experiment is not a fucking anecdote and you're an idiot if you think so. Scientific experiment is thousands of trials, using the central limit theorem to see a convergence and check correlation. I guarantee you that scientific journals see far more review than you think they do and face far more scrutiny before publication than you think. There is a very good reason for the peer review system, and I don't expect someone who stupidly said "I don't believe in research" to really grasp the concept of research.

(And yes, statistically thousands is an incredible sample size, and if it required millions then there would be absolutely no scientific advancement, so it's a matter of practicality and the statistics match the reality.)

Anecdotes are singular occurrences, by definition. You created a general rule from an anecdote, and I contradicted that with my own anecdote; that is the point that I am making, that your point is full of shit because it's one rare situation. Your anecdotes shape your beliefs, and you defend your beliefs with facts which are often done in an aggregation.

I suggest you read a book about the death of expertise so you know exactly what I'm talking about. Scientific research is a collection of thousands of anecdotes, which makes them stop being treated as anecdotes, and allows us to make a significantly stronger statement about the state of things due to aggregation. As I said, you have yet to effectively contradict the idea of scientific research, and the argument of one anecdote vs one thousand anecdotes is statistically heavily in favor of one thousand anecdotes. What if you had one anecdote that was only repeated 30 times in a 3000 population sample?

In order to rectify this, you continue to take data, as pollsters and scientists do, to continue to verify things. A single poll may be one thousand anecdotes, but multiple polls expand upon that quite greatly, and poll aggregations (like 538) give a very full story by using every conceivable poll regardless of bias.

So please, contradict scientific methodology using proper arguments and mathematics before you start spouting shit about comparing your own experience to that of the thousands of being that are often polled for one political science paper. Or actually learn what research entails, because as a PhD candidate I scoff at people like you who think they're better than the scientists who actually have a set methodology to research this stuff.

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

I do disagree with it being more complex than healthcare.  While tax reform is a lot 'bigger', it is a lot less complex in the eyes of conservatives.  Most of the people who voted 'No' voted 'No' because of SALT.  Besides, those 20 republicans are comprised mostly of republicans who manage democratic states (I'll never understand why this keeps happening).  I think the senate is a lot more reasonable/professional than most of the members of the house.  I think in the end it will go through, but it might get cut down a bit.

What makes tax reform more complicated than healthcare to legislate? Because making affordable healthcare means you have to regulate private entities which is significantly trickier than simplifying the tax code (which is actually intentionally made complicated due to tax preparation lobbyists).

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

They don't live in America.  There used to be value in American ideals.

Yeah, like slavery, Jim Crow, and the Southern Strategy! Just an fyi -- this is not an argument, and the values that used to exist in American ideals were a farce and only applied to white people. American ideals also consisted of routing the natives and taking over their land. American ideals are to enforce capitalism throughout the world, in such a way that leads to many jihadist groups terrorizing and destabilizing an entire region of innocent people, then leaving radicals in their wake and demonizing them instead of taking responsibility for them.

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

Slavery was in America and now it isn't.  This wans't betraying American ideals because we used to have slave.  This was moving FORWARD.  The declaration of independence states "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights"   There really was no need for the 13th amendment.  The declaration of independence already stated that slavery should not be accepted.  We moved FORWARD with our ideals when we ended slavery.

I'm sorry, but if the declaration of independence states that all men are created equal, then why was there slavery for 90 years? It's quite simple, actually; slaves weren't considered people. That's american ideals, label these guys as not-people and enslave them for 90 years! but when they're free, round 'em up and put them in our private prisons, restrict their right to vote directly and indirectly, segregate them from the whites and give them less opportunities. Then give them shit when they speak up about it.

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

My favorite document is the Bill of Rights.  Most of the far left leaning liberals believe in the destruction or reduction of many of these rights.  We can no longer have freedom of speech because some of it is "Hate Speech".  We can no longer bear arms because "guns kill people, people don't kill people".  They even go against the 5th amendment because they believe the gov't should take capital from private owners who haven't committed a crime (in order to have gov't run production).  And federalization of many different laws goes against the 10th amendment.  The bill of rights has , in my view, become a big joke.

No, they're not. You have freedom of speech; the government will never persecute you for your speech. Just don't be surprised that being racist makes someone tell you to shut the fuck up. Just don't be surprised that being stupid makes someone tell you to stop being stupid. Telling someone to shut the fuck up is just as in line with the first amendment as racism. The alt-right often says that leftists want to restrict freedom of speech because intolerance of intolerance is bad, when in reality the idea of the first amendment applying strictly to restrict government intervention does not apply to person to person interactions.

You can still bear arms. Democrats in general are pro-2nd amendment, and the majority of people believe in basic gun control. You're joking if you think that leftists want to ban guns. They want more federal gun control because incongruity in gun control laws is what causes certain areas to have more gun crime than others.

Progressive taxation has been shown to decrease the income inequality between the rich and the poor, and provide better prosperity for a country. You're saying that progressive taxes are anti-5th amendment when the highest tax bracket% is the lowest it has been since 1988, and before 1988 it was 1930. And I'm sure that year rings a bell. Taxation is not theft, contrary to what the alt-right and the far right says, at any rate; what you're arguing is that literally any taxation is theft, when in reality zero taxes would result in a government that does not work. Unless you think the sixteenth amendment of our constitution is a giant joke, too! Keeping in mind that passing a law into constitution requires something like a 2/3 majority among state governors.

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

I'm not against the entirety of the left.  But it's been clear to me for a while that the far left has been calling for a complete betrayal of American ideals and American society.  And that matters to people.  You wonder why you got Trump?  People don't think he's a genius. People don't think he has great experience or great ideas.  People think he knows what America is and what America isn't, and people care about that.

The far left has never had any influence in any major government, especially in the US. The far-right has been the Republican Party since Obama was elected.

We got Trump because the popular vote doesn't matter and Clinton campaigned in places like Texas and Arizona with futility. We also got Trump because of Russian interference in social media, and we got Trump because people refuse to accept the facts. I know you've ragged on PC before, but you also don't like hearing the truth when it shits on rich people and it decries the wealthy as privileged and lucky. Effectively, Trump was elected because people shielded themselves from the truth.

You also end up with Trump due to an uneducated or greedy populace.

Also, definition of liberalism by many sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/liberalism

http://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_liberalism.html

How are you defining liberalism, exactly? What are you defining as leftist? You're just throwing out buzz words at this point, and you're arguing like someone from the alt-right. Also, you're cherry picking, and you wonder why I treat you like a child; you failed on every account to address any point I've made, and I've addressed two entire posts in great detail.

Edited October 27, 2017 by Lord Raven

[Moblin Major General]

17 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Unless you think the sixteenth amendment of our constitution Also a giant joke, too!

I don't know, I don't like the Constitution being changed just because the SCOTUS says it's okay to tax people's earnings and liquid assets. It also brought about the scariest tax collectors in the world. If you can scare the shit out of both Superman and the Joker, you're doing something right.

[Lushen]

5 minutes ago, Sias said:

To be honest, I wouldn't call 50% acceptance of homosexuals "not that bad", but rather terrible, no matter what political group may hold that view. Also, what are your moral reasons against trans people?

 

I specifically said it was terrible.  Then I said it was not that bad considering other political parties are just as bad.  I would like it to be 100% among all parties, but it's not like core conservatives are significantly more against homosexuality than other parties.  

5 minutes ago, Sias said:

When someone accuses you of speaking from a position of privilege, they don't try to invalidate all hardships in your life. They attempt to tell you that you're likely underestimating a problem because you've never been personally exposed to it and that your life would've been even harder if not for said privilege you possess.

 

The issue with this argument is that you're basically saying "You were born rich so you can never ever talk about being poor".  So because of my situation, I can't think or speak about another situation.  However, when I left my parents 'wing' I was in the exact same situation everyone else who left their parents 'wing' is in.  Lord Raven, for example, has no student loans just like me.  I am not blind to the fact that some people do have student loans, but he's claiming his situation is so different when it is not.  My situation does not discredit my ideologies which is why I usually don't respond to this silly point.   And it goes both ways.  If me being born in a rich family means I can't talk about being poor, then people who were born in a rich family and are Democrats cannot talk about being poor either.  It's just a stupid talking point that relies on attacking someone's situation rather than their statements.

10 minutes ago, Sias said:

T"The poor don't know how to be rich" is probably the weirdest accusation of poor people that I've ever read. Like, really. Also, I'm preeetty sure that your 3-step-plan to success doesn't actually work.

1

It's not mine, it's from the brookings institute and it is statistical.  People act like if you follow these three steps there is 0% chance of you not succeeding.  This is why people hate XCom because 90% shots miss 10% of the time.  Duh.  It's a general statistic that shows the MAIN reasons for being poor have nothing to do with privilege. 

10 minutes ago, Sias said:

You might have missed the part where social democracies still have capitalism. And you're grossly oversimplifying how easy it is to move from one country to another.

 

He said he doesn't believe in capitalism as a whole.  That's what I was responding to.  And you're right, most other countries have border security.  I saw a funny meme on twitter the other day that was posted after Trump's election.  "All these people saying they're going to move to Canada because of Trump don't understand that Canada has had Trump's border control for years so they can't". 

14 minutes ago, Sias said:

There's quite a large difference between a random anecdote and a controlled scientific study, but sure.

Congrats, there have been dozens of restrictions to free speech since eternities ago. Mainly because people recognized that it may actually not be that healthy to society as a whole if everyone can just say whatever they want. Also, you might be mixing up freedom of speech and freedom of consequences.

What.

Did you miss the part where the 5th amendment clearly does allow taking capital from private owners?

American ideals and American society as you would like to have them.

1

Anecdotes are scientific studies in many cases.  You can prove terminal velocity exists from a single anecdote, for example.  Scientific studies are not without flaws - look at the polls on Trump V Clinton.

17 minutes ago, Sias said:

Congrats, there have been dozens of restrictions to free speech since eternities ago. Mainly because people recognized that it may actually not be that healthy to society as a whole if everyone can just say whatever they want. Also, you might be mixing up freedom of speech and freedom of consequences.

 

Not in America.  There are laws that say you can't plot to kill someone or encourage violence.  That is not what people generalize as "hate speech".  I think the KKK is the most disgusting organization in America.  I think it's beautiful that something so disgusting is allowed to exist.  It shows that my ideals, anyone's ideals, cannot dictate what someone else says or does, even if they are disgusting pigs.

18 minutes ago, Sias said:

What.

2

I did say the far left.  I am well aware a lot of people are just talking about "common sense gun control" [I hate that term because it implies that gun control is easy], but the extreme left has always talked about removing the right to bear arms.  Even apart from them, the left as a whole does believe in stricter control over the 2nd amendment which is meant to be free.  Obviously, no one believes private citizens should have missiles, but the left will continue to chip away at what we can and can't have till there's nothing left.

18 minutes ago, Sias said:

Did you miss the part where the 5th amendment clearly does allow taking capital from private owners?

2

No that was my entire point.  For a social democratic state to work, you would need to take capital away from private owners.  That is like...the definition of democratic socialism which makes up a measurable amount of the left.

24 minutes ago, Sias said:

American ideals and American society as you would like to have them.

 

Say what you will about conservatism or liberalism.  Conservatism more closely resembles American ideals in nearly every aspect. You may be against conservative ideals and again, that's fine.  But let's be honest until Obama's 2nd term it was largely considered an insult to be called a liberal in America.  Republicans used it as an insult to Obama when he was campaigning (though I don't really think he is a full blown liberal). 

 

26 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

What are you talking about? My parents literally could not afford my school.

 

No but my parents and many other parents could afford it for you!   I don't understand how you can't understand the anger people have when they paid for your education and you are complaining about where it got you. 

28 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

1) The poor don't know what it's like to be rich? What the fuck does that mean?

2) You don't understand the struggle of living paycheck to paycheck, nor do you understand the struggle of parents being jobless for factors out of their own control, nor do you understand what it's like to be unlucky.

3) I don't care if your friend is making 80k/year as his first job, when he's one of hundreds of millions of people in this country. Who's to say that others did not put in the same effort and get as much out of it?

4) Okay, and let's make things clear really quickly: I graduated with a 3.91 GPA, plenty of research experiences, internships, including published work, and I also had to work plenty per week while juggling 19 credit semesters quite a bit. It's not like I didn't work hard because I got government assistance; 60k of my college funds were a merit scholarship and around 20kish (it varied by year) were government assistance. I've made full use of my time, thanks.

2

1) It means what I've been saying it means.  The poor generally don't understand how to be successful.  Let's look at a poor community with a high rate of crime (not you, let's talk about inner cities for a second), low graduation rates,  high use of drugs, high unemployment.   You give each of these members $60,000.00.  It is not politically incorrect to suggest that the majority of them will waste it on commodities, drugs, or other useless crap.  It's not unreasonable to suggest that they won't take that money and put it towards something that will make them successful.  It's not unreasonable to suggest that all these people who say "screw college" are going to go to college now that they can afford it.   I don't understand how you don't know what I mean by this statement, I've said it all the time.  People who are poor need influence and advice.

2) You can't possibly know that.  You can say I haven't experienced it.  Stop telling me that because I am in a good situation I am just a greedy asshole who doesn't get it.  Maybe I'm not in a bad situation because I do get it.  One of the funniest things Trump has ever said was in response to people who were complaining about how Trump hired rich people to manage the economy.  His response was "What!?  Did they want me to hire poor people to manage the economy!?".  Saying that poor people don't know how to manage money shouldn't be politically incorrect, it should be disregarded as basic common sense.

3)  Well I hope you're not including yourself in that hundreds of millions.  Because you got free college which means you worked considerably less hard than he did.  That's not insulting, he worked harder than anyone I know. 

4)  Yea.  My teachers told us not to go above a 3.85 GPA.  Bad for job potential.  There's also interview/personality skills that I have always argued are significantly more important than GPA in America.  I can't really comment on this point too much because I don't understand your situation, but it is my understanding that physics majors have terrible job opportunity because there aren't a lot of jobs that benefit from the degree, is this true?

 

I'm going to stop here because I spent like 20 minutes on this post.  Every time I respond your posts get longer and longer which requires my posts to be longer and longer.  I don't really have time to spend an hour or two everyday.  I'm not ignoring your points, but I can't get to every point either.  If there's something you really want me to touch on I'd be happy too, I just don't want to see our posts getting continually longer and longer and end up spending 60 hours a week posting useless information.

[Shoblongoo]

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

In the United States after Reconstruction, the phrase "the Left" was used to describe those who supported trade unions, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.^[19][20] More recently in the United States, left-wing and right-wing have often been used as synonyms for Democratic and Republican, or as synonyms for liberalism and conservatism respectively.^{[21][22][23][full citation needed][24]}

Don't get me wrong, the definition of words matter, but we can spend all day talking about how messed up American political definitions have become or we can talk about politics.

 

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

My favorite document is the Bill of Rights. 

...okay...

In their day the Founding Fathers--the authors of the Bill of Rights; those held out by modern American conservatives to be the highest exemplars of conservative values that the political right should seek to emulate with reverence--were considered radical liberals, working in opposition to conservative values of reverence for the great institutions of the Commonwealth and Anglo-Protestant Law.

The conservatives were the ones who favored preserving the status quo of fealty to the British Crown, and respect and obedience to the governors and soldiers tasked with enforcing law and order across the colony's in the King's' name.  To disrespect these authorities and the values and traditions behind them--to agitate against them and call for an overthrow of the government for discontent with The Law of Englishmen. THAT was  a terrible affront to the conservative conscience.

…a conservative is merely one who sees inherent value in multigenerational continuity of social norms and customs and views their preservation as a compelling goal of public policy, against the liberal supposition that old ways should be abandoned and new ways should be elevated whenever a defect in the old ways can be corrected or improved upon by so doing.

…a liberal is one who rejects the idea that there is inherent value in multigenerational continuity of social norms and will always seek progressive change to laws and social norms to make them as responsive as possible to the issues of the day, against the conservative supposition that preservation of tradition must be a competing goal of social policy and that the act of deviating from tradition to bring about progressive change is itself a social harm that the benefits of the change must be weighed against.

This framework is permanent. What specific positions qualify as “liberal” and “conservative” within that framework is as the culture of the day.

What was conservative 200 years ago is extinct and what was liberal 200 years ago is conservative in modern times.

Today’s liberals will be considered conservatives in future generations—what today seems new and radical will in 200 years be the status quo to be preserved by those who favor adherence to tradition. Today's conservatives will cease to be, and tomorrow's liberals will be unrecognizable.

...That's the way of it...

Trying to pin down the definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" by the positions that they take at any one point in time (i.e. a "liberal" is someone who is anti-war and pro-union) is a fool's errand. 
 

Edited October 27, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Res]

The U.S. border control is actually pretty strict; the strictest I've encountered amongst all the countries I've traveled to.

[Sias]

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

I specifically said it was terrible.  Then I said it was not that bad considering other political parties are just as bad.  I would like it to be 100% among all parties, but it's not like core conservatives are significantly more against homosexuality than other parties.  

Core conservatives are literally the group with the second worst result regarding homosexuals in your quiz. They are significantly more against homosexuality than others.

Quote

The issue with this argument is that you're basically saying "You were born rich so you can never ever talk about being poor".  So because of my situation, I can't think or speak about another situation.  However, when I left my parents 'wing' I was in the exact same situation everyone else who left their parents 'wing' is in.  Lord Raven, for example, has no student loans just like me.  I am not blind to the fact that some people do have student loans, but he's claiming his situation is so different when it is not.  My situation does not discredit my ideologies which is why I usually don't respond to this silly point.   And it goes both ways.  If me being born in a rich family means I can't talk about being poor, then people who were born in a rich family and are Democrats cannot talk about being poor either.  It's just a stupid talking point that relies on attacking someone's situation rather than their statements.

Later on in your post you wrote "I can't really comment on this point too much because I don't understand your situation". That is literally what I try to tell you all this time.

Is it still possible for a rich person to talk about poor people? Yes. But their opinion only has merit when they actually are well-educated about the topic or at least somewhat knowledgeable regarding the differences between their circumstances of life and those that others have had. And no matter what you do (unless you fall into poverty yourself), you're always going to miss the specific insight on the issue that you only gain when you've been in such a situation before.

If you want a comparision: Whatever I do in my life, I'll never be able to personally experience a pregnancy myself. And no matter how much I read up on it or how often I talk to people who are pregnant, I'm always going to miss an important perspective on the topic: the inside perspective. Which means that in the end of it all, I may miss key aspects of the issue because I don't really know what I'm talking about.

Quote

It's not mine, it's from the brookings institute and it is statistical.  People act like if you follow these three steps there is 0% chance of you not succeeding.  This is why people hate XCom because 90% shots miss 10% of the time.  Duh.  It's a general statistic that shows the MAIN reasons for being poor have nothing to do with privilege. 

Source please.

Quote

He said he doesn't believe in capitalism as a whole.  That's what I was responding to.  And you're right, most other countries have border security. 

The US has border security as well, and it's actually pretty strict in comparision. And that's when we dismiss the ton of other issues that pop up when you try to migrate to another country.

Quote

Anecdotes are scientific studies in many cases.  You can prove terminal velocity exists from a single anecdote, for example.  Scientific studies are not without flaws - look at the polls on Trump V Clinton.

You sound like you may have a terrible, terrible misunderstanding about how scientifis studies in fact work.

And do you realize that the polls regarding Trump/Clintion had a thing called margin of error? There's also the issue that many of them were too old to take into context the latest turn of events directly before the election.

Quote

Not in America.  There are laws that say you can't plot to kill someone or encourage violence.  That is not what people generalize as "hate speech". 

Uhhh... Have you actually ever looked at the restrictions on the first amendment?

Quote

I think it's beautiful that something so disgusting is allowed to exist.

This sounds like a very nice example of a paradox.

Quote

I did say the far left.  I am well aware a lot of people are just talking about "common sense gun control" [I hate that term because it implies that gun control is easy], but the extreme left has always talked about removing the right to bear arms.  Even apart from them, the left as a whole does believe in stricter control over the 2nd amendment which is meant to be free.  Obviously, no one believes private citizens should have missiles, but the left will continue to chip away at what we can and can't have till there's nothing left.

Where did you get the idea that the second amendment was meant to be totally free and not free in context only? Also, why do you believe that "the left" wants to take away all your arms when the large, large majority is simply in favour of stricter gun control?

Quote

No that was my entire point.  For a social democratic state to work, you would need to take capital away from private owners.  That is like...the definition of democratic socialism which makes up a measurable amount of the left.

First of all, the government already is taking capital away from private owners (taxes and stuff, duh). And secondly, I told you that this is clearly allowed by the 5th amendment, so... I don't see the issue you have here?

Quote

Say what you will about conservatism or liberalism.  Conservatism more closely resembles American ideals in nearly every aspect. You may be against conservative ideals and again, that's fine.  But let's be honest until Obama's 2nd term it was largely considered an insult to be called a liberal in America.  Republicans used it as an insult to Obama when he was campaigning (though I don't really think he is a full blown liberal). 

Of course conservatism more closely resembles the American ideals of hundreds of years ago - that's the whole point of conservatism, it refuses to modernize old norms and ideas. On the other side however, have you maybe considered that the American ideals may have changed with time as well?

Also sure, of course the opposing political view uses "liberal" as an insult, just like how today "alt-right" can be utilized the same way.

Quote

1) It means what I've been saying it means.  The poor generally don't understand how to be successful.  Let's look at a poor community with a high rate of crime (not you, let's talk about inner cities for a second), low graduation rates,  high use of drugs, high unemployment.   You give each of these members $60,000.00.  It is not politically incorrect to suggest that the majority of them will waste it on commodities, drugs, or other useless crap.  It's not unreasonable to suggest that they won't take that money and put it towards something that will make them successful.  It's not unreasonable to suggest that all these people who say "screw college" are going to go to college now that they can afford it.   I don't understand how you don't know what I mean by this statement, I've said it all the time.  People who are poor need influence and advice.

This basically ties into what I wrote earlier: You make sweeping, insulting (and wrong!) generalizations about millions of people beacuse you don't really seem to have an idea at all about how their situation actually works. What you're saying isn't politically incorrect, it's factually incorrect.
Poor people would only waste their money on "useless crap"? They need the influence and advice of conservatives to reach anything in life? Really? You do realize that you're coming across as incredibly, incredibly patronizing right now?

Quote

One of the funniest things Trump has ever said was in response to people who were complaining about how Trump hired rich people to manage the economy.  His response was "What!?  Did they want me to hire poor people to manage the economy!?".  Saying that poor people don't know how to manage money shouldn't be politically incorrect, it should be disregarded as basic common sense.

Because Trump has such a good grasp on his money management, right?
You're vastly, vastly underestimating what poor people have to deal with here. Not only do they have to be really careful due to having practically no safety nets to fall back on at all, they also have to plan their expenses very closely as there's often simply not enough money around to fulfill everything what others would consider basic life standards.

And btw, the problem with rich people managing the economy is more of an issue with them trying to exploit the system for their own gain.

[Res]

2 minutes ago, Sias said:

If you want a comparision: Whatever I do in my life, I'll never be able to personally experience a pregnancy myself. And no matter how much I read up on it or how often I talk to people who are pregnant, I'm always going to miss an important perspective on the topic: the inside perspective. Which means that in the end of it all, I may miss key aspects of the issue because I don't really know what I'm talking about.

And to build upon your comparison; I've been pregnant, twice, and I still can't speak for other pregnant people because my pregnancy has been nothing like theirs (sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad, like when my mother-in-law kept suggesting I was doing/eating something wrong because I was vomiting daily and to quote her, "I was never sick and my friends were never sick!")

[Lord Raven]

I'll offer a more detailed response later but viewing things in generalities and lacking nuance entirely is a symptom of being sheltered and in some ways privileged. Having met and taught the sheer number of people I have has convinced me that we have to use aggregate studies to show results and not anecdotes.

Research is a lengthy process for this reason. Generalities are toxic unless they're well researched, and researching them requires a standard far beyond what you're stating. Research in general is not comparable to a research paper in college or grad school; you are generally researching an answer to an already resolved question that is basically summarizing the years of actual, ground breaking research that has been done on that subject. That's why high school research is bullshitty and actual professional research is not, because you're graded for sometbing someone else already did and doing it with a relative amount of halfassitude and actual researchers take many months to years to aggregate all kinds of data to make a conclusion. It's a joke that you selectively choose research anyway; you pick and choose research that exemplifies your point without looking into the nuance.

Its also understandable that you don't understand this because you likely haven't actually been involved in the scientific rigor that the research process requires. I do, and when I attempt to educate you, you basically spit on me and say I'm wrong. Do you want me to link you to more articles on it or do you want to keep being a child about this and contribute to the American brain drain brought upon by president fuckface?

Edited October 27, 2017 by Lord Raven

[Phoenix Wright]

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

1) It means what I've been saying it means.  The poor generally don't understand how to be successful.  Let's look at a poor community with a high rate of crime (not you, let's talk about inner cities for a second), low graduation rates,  high use of drugs, high unemployment.   You give each of these members $60,000.00.  It is not politically incorrect to suggest that the majority of them will waste it on commodities, drugs, or other useless crap.  It's not unreasonable to suggest that they won't take that money and put it towards something that will make them successful.  It's not unreasonable to suggest that all these people who say "screw college" are going to go to college now that they can afford it.   I don't understand how you don't know what I mean by this statement, I've said it all the time.  People who are poor need influence and advice.

2) You can't possibly know that.  You can say I haven't experienced it.  Stop telling me that because I am in a good situation I am just a greedy asshole who doesn't get it.  Maybe I'm not in a bad situation because I do get it.  One of the funniest things Trump has ever said was in response to people who were complaining about how Trump hired rich people to manage the economy.  His response was "What!?  Did they want me to hire poor people to manage the economy!?".  Saying that poor people don't know how to manage money shouldn't be politically incorrect, it should be disregarded as basic common sense.

3)  Well I hope you're not including yourself in that hundreds of millions.  Because you got free college which means you worked considerably less hard than he did.  That's not insulting, he worked harder than anyone I know. 

4)  Yea.  My teachers told us not to go above a 3.85 GPA.  Bad for job potential.  There's also interview/personality skills that I have always argued are significantly more important than GPA in America.  I can't really comment on this point too much because I don't understand your situation, but it is my understanding that physics majors have terrible job opportunity because there aren't a lot of jobs that benefit from the degree, is this true?

1. i agree with you, but i disagree that this is a poor person's problem uniquely. people with money simply don't need to give as much a shit. trump being exhibit a; any poor person who would declare bankruptcy as often as him you'd likely argue that they're just terrible at managing money. 

generally speaking, people are poor at managing money. everywhere. the more you start out with, the less that matters. everyone needs influence and advice.

2. being poor does not necessarily mean one does not know how to manage money. fuck trump.

4. demonstrably false. physics, applied physics, and astrophysics majors enjoy some of the lowest unemployment rates in the current job market. that doesn't mean every degree holder is doing physics, but it means we're extremely desirable because of our wide skill set. 

[Res]

You actually have to be somewhat decent at managing money if you're on a low income, because every cent is generally valuable and accounted for. You also can't afford late fees or fines or overdraft fees. The issue is generally not having income to begin with, not mismanaging money. And, of course, the danger is that a single accident or piece of misfortune disrupts your careful budget, then the fees snowball, but again, that's not as a result of mismanaging money. 

Rich people can also afford accountants to manage their money for them.

 

[Shoblongoo]

BREAKING NEWS: Multiple Sources now confirming first criminal charges have been filed in the Mueller investigation

...It begins...

[Tryhard]

Anonymous for now, I assume. Though it did say could be taken into custody as soon as Monday.

You'd have to imagine it is probably Manafort or Flynn right now.

[Shoblongoo]

17 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Anonymous for now, I assume. Though it did say could be taken into custody as soon as Monday.

You'd have to imagine it is probably Manafort or Flynn right now.

We'll find out!

White House appears to have been caught completely off-guard; they had no idea this was coming down today. No official response yet.



You hear that? That's the sound of Tax Reform.

Edited October 28, 2017 by Shoblongoo

[Lord Raven]

Can you link to a news article? I tried googling and looking on reddit and I couldn't find it.

[SullyMcGully]

Okay, so seeing as the Constitution has come up, here's my opinion on the matter. It's completely unique (I've never heard anyone else talk about it like this before) and highly controversial, and I'm not a political science major, so this might have a few flaws that need to be worked out. But I think it provides an interesting perspective on the matter.

What gives the Constitution its power? Do we just obey it because it's the rules, and nobody can change them? Is it only powerful because the government backs it up? When you look at the attitudes the Founding Fathers had about the whole deal, I think it becomes clear that the Constitution is given power by the people. The Constitution is the means by which we Americans hold the government accountable. Just read the Bill of Rights. It gives a bunch of rules about what the government can and cannot do. When you pay attention to the actual rules listed, it is apparent that the purpose of these rules was to maintain the power that the people had over the government. 1st Amendment: No government religion. The government can't decide what is the right or wrong way to think. 2nd Amendment: right to bear arms. If the government were to stop representing the people, the people would have the means with which to dispose of the government. Remember that before the Revolutionary War, the British government tried to take American weapons so that Americans would be unable to protest. The 2nd Amendment was written to avoid that situation ever happening again. See where I'm going with this?

The people give the Constitution power. The Constitution only has power as long as the people back it up. If it could exist without popular support, it would be the very kind of dictatorial rule which the Founding Fathers fought to dispose of. There's nothing God-breathed about the Constitution, it has its flaws. So if the people disliked an aspect of the Constitution... it could be changed. Take the 2nd Amendment. It was great back in the day, but now a lot of people don't like it. The media has replaced firearms as the tool with which to hold the government accountable. If the majority of Americans were to decide that they didn't want it... then it could disappear. 

The American government, as it was originally designed, was meant to only work at the behest of the people. And I think it still does. What the people want done still gets done, just very, very slowly. The government can't keep a law going if nobody likes it. All it takes is a good solid majority of angry Americans demanding something and the politicians will cave, because they, too, are at the mercy of voters. They either cave or get voted out of office, which is why politicians who won't vote against their conscience are few and far between. Yes it takes a long time. Trump, who did win the election because enough people wanted him in office, might never get anything done with the current government makeup because the loudest Americans right now are the ones who seem to hate him the most. He might stonewall every initiative Democrats try to pass, but if that's really what the people want, then those initiatives will pass whenever he's out of office. Ultimately, the government is still in the hands of the people. And with enough people against it, there is no law (including the Constitution) that can't be overridden eventually. It's the American way.

So that's just my take on this whole deal of whether the Constitution is valid or not. It only works now because Americans believe in it. I believe in it, but I also believe that it can and should be changed if the people actually will it. Even if those changes lead this country the wrong way and I disagree with them, it wouldn't be America if the power didn't ultimately lie with the people, not a few famous documents.

[Shoblongoo]

3 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Can you link to a news article? I tried googling and looking on reddit and I couldn't find it.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/27/politics/first-charges-mueller-investigation/index.html

[Lord Raven]

1 minute ago, SullyMcGully said:

Trump, who did win the election because enough people wanted him in office, might never get anything done with the current government makeup because the loudest Americans right now are the ones who seem to hate him the most.

That and his approval rating is below 40%, which is historically low for someone in his situation. You can't expect much from someone who lost the popular vote. His party also actively tried to sabotage him during the primaries.

This is not a popular president, and I wonder how many people who voted for Trump voted along party lines. Regardless, Obama could not get very much done legislatively in his last 6 years in office.

The only way the constitution is protected is not by the people, it's by our representatives and the Supreme Court (nominated by our representatives). If Congress or the Executive Branch oversteps their bounds, the supreme court strikes it down when civilians sue. However, legislation is passed through compromise, which is all but forgotten by the Republican Party.

As it stands, so long as we have a two party system and so long as the house has two year terms, we're only represented by the house. The Senate subverts the idea of proportional democracy (leading to a situation where someone's vote in Wyoming is worth significantly more than someone's vote in California) and things to that effect.

We are overall powerless unless we vote, and a vote only places your opinion on the table...  maybe.

[SullyMcGully]

1 minute ago, Lord Raven said:

We are overall powerless unless we vote, and a vote only places your opinion on the table...  maybe.

I'd say loudly voiced opinions work too. Politicians depend on your votes, but when a large group of angry people says something, they listen and take note because those are their constituents and if a politician doesn't do what their constituents want, then they don't get reelected.

The ACA repeal-and-replace act probably didn't fail because McCain and co. took personal issue with the bill. It failed because they saw what they would look like if the bill didn't turn out right and they were trying to get reelected. It pretty much works the same way for Democrats. They have it easy now, like the Republicans did under Obama, because all they have to do is hate on Trump and their constituents will be pleased.

[Lord Raven]

The assumption you're making is that politicians act on their promises and they truly believe in their promises.

This is not true; corporate interests are all over our government, and they pander for votes. There are single-issue abortion voters who will never get what they want due to a Supreme Court precedent and a revolt from the majority. But they still campaign on it and still get votes due to it. This is just one example.

Edited October 28, 2017 by Lord Raven

[SullyMcGully]

17 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

The assumption you're making is that politicians act on their promises and they truly believe in their promises.

This is not true; corporate interests are all over our government, and they pander for votes. There are single-issue abortion voters who will never get what they want due to a Supreme Court precedent and a revolt from the majority. But they still campaign on it and still get votes due to it. This is just one example.

You're misunderstanding me. Politicians don't give a crap for their promises, but if they do things that their constituents disagree with, they don't get reelected.

[Res]

Harking back to Lushen's claim that his friend worked harder than Lord Raven, I wanted to say: 

Apart from being a really condescending thing to say, I find the whole hard-working-competition U.S. culture has going on to be really frustrating. Because we don't need to work that hard and in many ways we shouldn't have to. There are only so many hours we are capable of really working effectively and beyond that we're mostly just logging hours at the expense of something else - usually our health.

I didn't work the first year of college; I worked part-time thereafter, and since I was in class 35 hrs a week and worked 24-30 hrs a week, that put me at 75-80 hrs a week before I even had a chance to do the ~20 or so hrs of homework expected of us. My grades dropped and I was definitely depressed in my final year. 

Likewise working 3 jobs until I was 40 weeks pregnant (to pay off medical debt that I wouldn't have incurred in other countries) and returning to work just 12 weeks later almost definitely contributed to my Hashimoto's flare-up and I made so many mistakes that first year back at work, when I was getting 3-4 hrs sleep a night; luckily they were minor mistakes, mostly in things like filing, and I managed to spot them and rectify them months later, but the point was they were silly mistakes I definitely would not have made when I was less stressed and getting more sleep. 

Many countries in Europe have a standard 35-37.5 hr working week; they have 4-5 weeks vacation a year and they manage to give certain benefits (like parental leave, or for example, my brother qualifies for a paid sabbatical every 10 years), their economies aren't suffering and they have longer life expectancies and rate higher on the happiness index than the U.S.

That's not to say that there's no value to working hard; and there are always going to be jobs where hard work and long shifts are unavoidable. But I definitely see a culture here where people are actively discouraged from taking vacation; they're discouraged from staying home when sick; they're discouraged from taking lunch breaks; they're discouraged from never not working. And I see it taking a toll on all my friends (and my!) mental and physical health. 

[Time the Crestfallen]

EDIT: I'm an idiot and completely missed someone else posting the link.

Edited October 28, 2017 by Archer of Red