American Politics Discussion Thread

[Mjmd]

You're saying changes to election law should be challenged legally before elections so you can't wait until after elections to see which ways different ways of voting turned out to then challenge those ways?

That makes too much sense for America.

[T-hawk]

Say you're a Trump election truther/denier whatevs

Not exactly. I'll clarify again, since once again you leftists can't handle nuance or independent thinking. (Does the left even have the concept that you can disagree with your side on some issues? Or are you all just 100% compliant hive-mind collectivists?)

I don't know if the election was cheated or stolen. I do know there were illegal rule changes, misapplied validation standards, and late counting in Pennsylvania. I don't know if that added up to enough to swing the state. I don't know if there was enough in other states to swing the national outcome. And I don't even think PA's result should be changed - ultimately I agree with the court dismissals, that nobody else had standing to override PA's determination of its own rules, PA is sovereign on that matter. (States rights over federal is also a libertarian point.) Audits and recounts aren't a solution, since you're just auditing and recounting the same manipulated totals.

My position is that there is enough uncertainty that the Jan 6th protests and Republican challenges are justified, until we get elections with enough safeguards that we can trust. The short-term cost of the protests is worth it for long-term robustness of the democratic process.

[Mjmd]

Except after each time they challenge and lose, they just never admit they were wrong / admitting the result (ie they lost). Its fine if you want to have INDEPENDENT audits and recounts. Its fine if you want to go to court to challenge something. I will argue both should be paid for by the party challenging unless its within .5%, but regardless that is fine. 

THERE IS A LARGE DIFFERENCE in repeating unfounded lies and then despite failing in all the avenues trying to overturn the election ........

Jan 6th isn't the fire, its the smoke. Its a consequence of lying over and over and over again.

Edit: I want to clarify that I find the name calling of "leftists as non independent thinkers" is kind of insulting considering you are word for word repeating right wing talking points. I myself try to avoid personal insults. I try to logically show things like "whatever x thing you believe* doesn't justify overturning an election". I don't think that is hive mind thinking, in my opinion its just simple logic.

[darrelljs]

My position is that there is enough uncertainty that the Jan 6th protests and Republican challenges are justified, until we get elections with enough safeguards that we can trust.  The short-term cost of the protests is worth it for long-term robustness of the democratic process.

I'm going to assume you mean excluding the storming of the capital . Many of the laws being passed to address "voter fraud" (or for that matter "voter protection") have nothing to do with the issues you raised. Partisans are taking advantage of the opportunity to skew voter turnout.

Darrell

[Mjmd]

Here are some possible logical fallacies being presented. 

Tu Quoque logical fallacy - basically saying "you too do bad things". Man its nice having name to match. Its been bothering me what it was. Basically the argument is "democrats did something, therefore its ok for us to do something (ignoring that their something was 1000000% worse). I'll note its possible I'm confusing this with logical fallacy of false equivalence.

Non-sequitur logical fallacy - Mjmd argues overturning election is the worst thing - T-hawk shifts the argument to a different topic (by using Tu Quoque above). While there is a TENOUS connection, its still not addressing the main argument / is trying to change from the main argument. I've said before that this is a straw man logical fallacy, but I think non-sequitur is more accurate / maybe both. I don't think its red herring as its there is a slight connection.

Ad Nauseam - repeating argument over and over again as if its true. T-hawk keeps repeating his argument from above logical fallacies without any actual proof. Cyneheard has kindly done some legwork on a rebuttal, but T-Hawk just repeats that his side is true without really proving that it is. I'll still note that even if it was 100% true, it doesn't change that it doesn't address either of the logical fallacies listed above.

[T-hawk]

I wasn't the one switching topics. This started with taxing billionaires, and Mjmd pivoted into "how can you vote for those horrible election-thieving Republicans". Which I answered.

Tu quoque is a fallacy if you're trying to construct a proof. It's not relevant if you're talking about voting and political support. Everything is relative for that. "They too do bad things" is indeed relevant to choosing which party is less-bad.

The only thing I've repeated without proof is my claims on the PA election situation, which I remembered from a while ago (and Darrell confirmed on one), but got lazy about looking up current sources, since it's impossible to find anything that presents actual facts rather than slanted propaganda, and anything I find you guys will just dismiss and claim is a bad source.

[Mjmd]

Actually that thread of conversation had been inactive for a bit and Amica jumped in about abortion and how you support pro choice that and should therefore vote Democrat. You then said no because "democrats are worse", but my argument is merely that in a democracy the worst thing you can do is try to overturn said democracy. Republicans tried to do so, anyone who recognizes that should not vote for them because that is essentially to a democracy. It seems incredible relevant that parties aren't trying to decertify or via "finding votes" or other means trying to overturn an election. Protecting the basic principles of a democracy is the most important thing, there is no relative badness that can come close to this. The reason obviously being that if democracy is still functioning you can vote on other issues.

Simple yes/no question T-Hawk. Should democrats overthrow elections in Republican states that have implemented restrictions on voting? Democrats could clearly argue its affecting number of votes, there is a clear moral wrongness, so failing all their legal challenges against a biased supreme court should they try to overturn those elections? I say no and I hope you do to.

Its an incredible dangerous path Republicans are going down, hopefully I've at least persuaded some people silently on the fence of this. I don't actually expect T-Hawk to change his mind, but hopefully some others have been.

[Mjmd]

my argument is merely that in a democracy the worst thing you can do is try to overturn said democracy.

I criticized T-Hawk for ad nauseam, but one of the most likely explanations besides T-Hawk being blinded by party affiliation is that he may consider this on the same level as other weaknesses / issues in US democracy. I haven't proven that this is worse than other weaknesses in US democracy specifically thereby myself participating in ad nauseam. Other examples being parties allowed to make election policy / verify elections, campaign finance reform, and people voting for / believing the same party no matter what. Anyways, I owe Bing a defense of democracy and the two are very much intertwined so why not try.

Sidebar on T-Hawk refusing to provide support

I'm considering the PA cases an issue of parties being able to make election policy, which is a weakness in our democracy.

I will except independent news sources or reputable law articles. Overall theory to me makes sense that election laws should be challenged pre election though in any event and not post once people have voted via those methods relying on their vote being counted by those methods. In any case I consider this to be FAR below issues of transfer of power which I hope to prove. IE even if you consider efforts of Democrats to increase the  number of people who vote and Republican efforts to decrease the number of people to vote even morally (for some odd reason), it doesn't matter because both are far below the overall issue of overturning an election.

Democracy is often said to be the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. The simple reason being is most other systems of government just slide back into being some form of autocracy pretty easily. For simplicity sake I'll just be comparing these.

People who just glance at history may be attracted to autocracy. They see the golden age leaders able to do long term planning, make effective policy, and implement the rule of law. "And then they died" and that is where a glance of history ends because is almost always goes downhill from there. The truth of history is that most of it has been spent with different people vying for power.  Both in a cival war or assassination ways, but also in more subtle taking of power. Sons, brothers, uncles, queens, distant cousins, generals, bodyguards, eunuchs have all gotten in on the action and not just when the leader dies of natural causes..... Quick sidebar the use of eunuchs was often because it was thought they wouldn't be as likely to participate in the struggle for power because they couldn't pass it on..... It still didn't work. Various forms of inheritance law tried to solve these issues, but people want power. People will justify their grab for power.

Trying to grab and maintain a power base has other consequences. These systems are usually heavily corrupt. The only checking forces are top down and even if the person in power cares / isn't actively trying embezzle money ect (rare) they primary care about staying in power, which means making other entities happy. A group that often benefits from this military as they are usually essential to maintaining power. This also has an added effect of making their economies weaker because instead of any kind of market competition its more about the favor of the state / people in power. Think bribery and giving over government assets.

Also, their obvious are tons of cases where leaders even when they are trying to rule well just mess up. Its hard to admit you're wrong in an autocracy and hard to change direction because of it. I'll note everything I'm typing could be several  novels.

I want to note I know someone is going to pipe in "But China is a meritocracy and less corrupt". 1) China is currently in a golden age scenario with a strong effective leader. In times past where human right violations weren't really cared about it would be a pretty easy case. 2) When Xi came to power there was a purge of "corrupt" political figures. Did these figures all happen to be political rivals or dangerous to Xi, yep. Again, all anti corruption efforts come from the top and I think its pretty easy to show that what actual matters in China is loyalty to the party but more importantly loyalty to Xi. People who speak out against any corruption of people loyal to Xi tend to be swiftly silenced so we don't actually know. It still will be interesting to see what happens as he gets older and more paranoid (a common theme among autocrats). And obviously what happens when Xi dies.

I'm not saying obviously that Democracy's CAN'T have power struggles or have corruption, I'm saying its a system that has an additional level of checks on power, but more importantly its a system designed to constantly be transferring power. I'm not even saying America is a particularly strong democracy (nation geopolitically strong, but not the actual democracy). I've already listed some of our weaknesses, which contribute to corruption and ineffectiveness in government. BUT the main strength of democracy's are still that they are a system that can transfer power. That is the crux and core long term strength of democracies and that is why Republicans undermining that aspect is the worst thing.

I tried to keep this short. I am far from the best person to write something like this, but I tried.

[Charriu]

Sounds a lot like what CGP Grey says here.

[Boro]

Democracy is often said to be the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried. The simple reason being is most other systems of government just slide back into being some form of autocracy pretty easily. For simplicity sake I'll just be comparing these.

[...]

Trying to grab and maintain a power base has other consequences. These systems are usually heavily corrupt.

This is why Lobbying, Revolving Door policy, and Campaign Financing as-is (which indebts BOTH parties to the same business circles), the climbing "defence" spending on things like $1280 coffee cups for your air force exists. "It's not corruption if it's legalized!" 

Not to mention the bailouts, since those are old news.

The only checking forces are top down and even if the person in power cares / isn't actively trying embezzle money etc (rare) they primary care about staying in power, which means making other entities happy.

Hence the Two-Party system and fierce attacks on any attempts at building a third party. Hence the third party attacked by both sides, and especially the losing one of the two parties, hence every election being in "this is the most important election EVAR!!!1one! and if the other side wins its literally the apocalypse" mentality.

All this supported by a servile traditional media and fully privatized and partisanized social media.

A group that often benefits from this military as they are usually essential to maintaining power. This also has an added effect of making their economies weaker because instead of any kind of market competition its more about the favor of the state / people in power. Think bribery and giving over government assets.

Pentagon budget.

Also, their obvious are tons of cases where leaders even when they are trying to rule well just mess up. Its hard to admit you're wrong in an autocracy and hard to change direction because of it. I'll note everything I'm typing could be several  novels.

No. It's easier to change because you don't sabotage your chances of re-election and don't even need to deal with the PR fallout the same way.

I want to note I know someone is going to pipe in "But China is a meritocracy and less corrupt". 1) China is currently in a golden age scenario with a strong effective leader. In times past where human right violations weren't really cared about it would be a pretty easy case.

Given that guantanamo is still open, and that abu ghraib's (And Bagram Air Base's) facilitators got away with a slap on the wrist, it's clear that nobody in america (besides anomalies) really cares about human rights if it can't be weaponized against a geopolitical opponent. It is clear that the average american, even if voicing that it's bad that nobody gets responsibility for bombing america's own aid worker in Kabul, is not going to risk life and limb to protest for a couple "untermenschen", morality or not. And I'm not even going to go into the ethnic tensions within america, and especially not the situation of native american nations and pipelines. 

2) When Xi came to power there was a purge of "corrupt" political figures. Did these figures all happen to be political rivals or dangerous to Xi, yep. Again, all anti corruption efforts come from the top and I think its pretty easy to show that what actual matters in China is loyalty to the party but more importantly loyalty to Xi. People who speak out against any corruption of people loyal to Xi tend to be swiftly silenced so we don't actually know. It still will be interesting to see what happens as he gets older and more paranoid (a common theme among autocrats). And obviously what happens when Xi dies.

Would love to see the sources. And not from the "free" press of america, ruled by the same people who are benefitting massively from the corruption, people who are more scared of an alternative to the "trickle-up" economy you currently run than the devil is scared of incense.

I'm not saying obviously that Democracy's CAN'T have power struggles or have corruption, I'm saying its a system that has an additional level of checks on power, but more importantly its a system designed to constantly be transferring power. I'm not even saying America is a particularly strong democracy (nation geopolitically strong, but not the actual democracy). I've already listed some of our weaknesses, which contribute to corruption and ineffectiveness in government. BUT the main strength of democracy's are still that they are a system that can transfer power. That is the crux and core long term strength of democracies and that is why Republicans undermining that aspect is the worst thing.

I tried to keep this short. I am far from the best person to write something like this, but I tried.

Yeah, transferring power from one hand of the same ruling body to the other hand of the same ruling body. Very democratic. In essence nothing is being undermined, just the pockets of a few figureheads whose job is to sell the agenda of the ruling oligarchs to the masses and threaten third world countries. Oh and the illusion that ordinary people have a say.

You guys know what the bare minimum in a democracy should be? Recallability. Not immunity for four years lol.