Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Mr. Cairo]

From my perspective, for example, almost anything, including Trump, is better than turning civilized world into USSR-lite. Of course, if you are a progressive yourself, you should vote for Clinton.

What exactly is it about Clinton that makes you think her as president will turn the world in USSR-lite? I am genuinely curious, Clinton is the one presidential candidate I haven't been following much, mainly because from what I can tell, she never does or says anything that isn't cautious, middle-of-the-road democrat-speak. But from what I've seen online (I know, I know) people seem to think she's as warmongering as Bush (if you're on the left) or more commie than Obama (if you're on the right). I just don't see where that comes from.



My two cents re: neo-liberal capitalism:
To me there's a difference between believing in a free market, and being a neo-liberal capitalist. I think that capitalism is, in practice, anti-free market. Capitalism is about acquiring capital (money), and the best way to do that is to corner a market, not foster healthy and productive competition. The most successful capitalist state in the world right now is China, precisely because it is not a free market in China, so the party officials who run those ridiculously large banks have vastly more control over everything that the bank gets up to. One the one hand, they're certainly very successful, and are a lot better able to react to changing economic environments. But then again, millions of people in China are working in terrible conditions with few real rights, and despite massive funding, their R&D is still far behind the West.

[Commodore]

Reading about the current political fallout of the referendum is comforting, I guess. I don't understand parliamentary politics, but evidently neither do the participants.

But from what I've seen online (I know, I know) people seem to think she's as warmongering as Bush (if you're on the left) or more commie than Obama (if you're on the right). I just don't see where that comes from.

She's made noises in both roads; promising to shoot down Russian planes, and regurgitating whatever boilerplate progressive stuff is needed in the primary. Fortunately for interests of not being in World War 3, I doubt she meant a word. Her State Department was pretty bloody (Syria, Egypt, Libya), but that seems more ineptitude than bloodthirst, and it's pretty much par for the course for that ghastly office. I'm sure she wouldn't buck her buyers in office. Externally I doubt a Clinton 2.0 reign would be much different from the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama decades preceding it.

[Gavagai]

she never does or says anything that isn't cautious, middle-of-the-road democrat-speak.

Yeah, like this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/11/us/pol....html?_r=1 This alone makes her no less crazy than Trump.

Anyway, from my perspective what goes now for "cautious, middle-of-the-road democrat-speak" is bad enough. However, I'm a libertarian and I can admit that it's hard for me to differentiate between kinds of left-wingers. From my perspective they all tend to blend into an indistinguishable red-coloured mess.
With Clinton, however, I have additional problems which are related to her personality, not her political views. She displays a dangerous mix of egocentrism, personal power, corruption, sense of entitlement and blanket incompetence. Not a person to vote into presidency.

Regarding "neo-liberalism" - it seems that everyone has his own definition of this word. The only common denominator is that it's something bad.

[DaveV]

With Clinton, however, I have additional problems which are related to her personality, not her political views. She displays a dangerous mix of egocentrism, personal power, corruption, sense of entitlement and blanket incompetence. Not a person to vote into presidency.

When the alternative is someone who raises all of those flaws to the tenth power, there's not really much of a choice. The difference to me is that Clinton wants to be president, but Trump wants to be God-Emperor. Ego and narcissism are pretty common in politicians, but it's hard to remember anyone who was so nakedly hungry for attention and applause as Trump.

In response to the earlier discussion regarding "how much damage can Trump do?", I see the main damage being to the international reputation of the US (although just the fact he could be nominated by a major party does plenty of damage already). People used to laugh at Berlusconi and wonder how Italy could elect such a man. It's not so funny any more.

If Trump is able to overcome gridlock and enact even a small portion of his stream-of-consciousness pronouncements (abridging freedom of the press, international trade wars, deporting millions of people, renegotiating US debt obligations, withdrawing US military presence to Fortress America, etc., etc.), disaster looms.

[Bacchus]

I think Clinton has a an almost-identical personality to Trump, with the major difference being that she is a lawyer and a pro-intriguer, who never flaps her mouth just for the fun of it. Every bit of information regarding the inside workings of the offices she held shows her to be centred entirely on her own needs, desires and ideas. It is hugely telling, and dangerous, that a person would rather have a lifetime PA as her right hand in whatever task she is managing, than a specialist. Clinton, as much as Trump, wants a personal court, not an office. The main difference between them in this respect is that Clinton is completely accommodated by her party in her "management style" (or, rather, she skillfully won the party over to gain acceptance as the rightful queen). Trump would love to be where Clinton is, but he hasn't put a lifetime of work into it, so he actually has to answer serious challenges even from his allies.

[Old Harry]

Isn't Clinton the most investigated presidential candidate ever? Why have none of the allegations ever stuck? (Excepting the email server thing - which seems more likely to spring from a desire to ensure embarrassing personal stuff didn't get in the papers rather than MASSIVE CORRUPTION).

The fact that she's come through 30 years of investigation, smear and innuendo with a reputation as strong as it is seems astonishing and says good things about her competence and character. I know I wouldn't have lasted five minutes with that sort of heat on me (no I'm not going to tell you the ways in which I'm corrupt).



Commodore and t-hawk: I totally agree with your assessment that the chance of your vote swaying the result of an election is so vanishingly small that the risk of you being run over on the way to the polling booth far outweighs any material benefit you get from voting. But I really like the experience, and being able to talk about it afterwards, and you know that most accidents happen in the home don't you?

What I really hate is tactical voting - voting for one lizard to stop another lizard getting in just means you're stuck with lizards. I want a system where everyone votes for the party that really aligns with their beliefs and then at the end of the process they cobble together a coalition which represents the majority of those beliefs and gets the things done that those candidates agreed upon (note the last UK coalition meant that both parties could just tear up their manifestos and do what they wanted - that wasn't good.)

[Mr. Cairo]

Gavagai - I want to know what part of "Progressivism" you think will turn the world into USSR-lite?

Because from my perspective as a Canadian/Brit, that most of what the progressives in the USA want are things that most other countries in the West have had for years. Single-payer healthcare, sensible gun control, anti-discrimination laws that cover orientation and gender-identity as well as race and sex, enforceable banking regulations, reforming the criminal assembly line justice system, decriminalizing/legalizing drugs like Cannabis, better and safer access to abortion, a minimum wage that doesn't result in corporate welfare, and a welfare system that actually tries to lift people out of poverty.

By American standards, Canada is an extremely progressive and left-wing country. Would you characterize Canada as being USSR-lite?


As for Trump and Clinton, I'd tend to agree with Commodore and say that Hillary won't be all that different from the last few presidents, Republican or Democrat. Whereas Trump, while being unable to do many of the things he says he'd do domestically, would be a foreign policy disaster. Simply because he would not be respected by any of his peers from around the world. The USA is still the most powerful country in the world, and it needs someone at its head who is respected. Sure, many other world leaders wont like Hillary, but they'll respect her, not least because they know her from her time as First Lady and then Secretary of State. Before this election campaign, most people knew Trump only as that guy from The Apprentice with the weird hair, and now he's seen as a loudmouthed, racist, sexist, buffoon. That imagery, that impression, will not go away just because he's President.

[Gavagai]

Single-payer healthcare, sensible gun control, anti-discrimination laws that cover orientation and gender-identity as well as race and sex, enforceable banking regulations, reforming the criminal assembly line justice system, decriminalizing/legalizing drugs like Cannabis, better and safer access to abortion, a minimum wage that doesn't result in corporate welfare, and a welfare system that actually tries to lift people out of poverty.

Yeah, most of this stuff I perceive as bad and think that it would move US in the direction of USSR-lite. And you are right about most of the western world, that's why I'm worried so much about US. Want at least one relatively normal place to remain in the world.

[Mr. Cairo]

Single-payer healthcare, sensible gun control, anti-discrimination laws that cover orientation and gender-identity as well as race and sex, enforceable banking regulations, reforming the criminal assembly line justice system, decriminalizing/legalizing drugs like Cannabis, better and safer access to abortion, a minimum wage that doesn't result in corporate welfare, and a welfare system that actually tries to lift people out of poverty.

Yeah, most of this stuff I perceive as bad and think that it would move US in the direction of USSR-lite. And you are right about most of the western world, that's why I'm worried so much about US. Want at least one relatively normal place to remain in the world.

All I can say is you and I have very different concepts of "normal" and "bad".

I am however curious regarding your views, as a non-American Libertarian, on issues such as marriage equality and legalizing drugs. I never understood why some people in the USA who call themselves Libertarian, and therefore want the government to interfere in their lives as little as possible, are ok with the government saying who can or cannot get married and what drugs one can or cannot take.
It seems to me that the Libertarianism in the USA has become so entangled with conservatism that they automatically have to oppose anything perceived as liberal, even if it means supporting increases government involvement in their lives. I can, theoretically, understand why one might personally oppose those things based on religion or personal morals, but not why a "Libertarian" would want the government to get involved.

[Bacchus]

Isn't Clinton the most investigated presidential candidate ever? Why have none of the allegations ever stuck? (Excepting the email server thing - which seems more likely to spring from a desire to ensure embarrassing personal stuff didn't get in the papers rather than MASSIVE CORRUPTION).

The fact that she's come through 30 years of investigation, smear and innuendo with a reputation as strong as it is seems astonishing and says good things about her competence and character. I know I wouldn't have lasted five minutes with that sort of heat on me (no I'm not going to tell you the ways in which I'm corrupt).

This is the stock line of the pro-Clinton messages, and I have to say I don't understand it at all. On most of the "scandals" that she has apparently "come through clean", she didn't exactly do anything of the sort. Benghazi -- she outright lied to the public, the media and families of the dead, selling the "spontaneous protest in response to a video" narrative long after it was accepted to be false within State (and it may never been accepted as true). Assorted Bill Clinton affairs -- she was not a friend, nor a supporter of the victims of sexual assault, by all accounts her only concern was to protect the family's standing and discredit, as far as possible, all the accusing women. Clinton Foundation -- is a rent-seeking disaster, just read about their involvement in Haiti, where a whole chunk of international state aid was rerouted to an area which didn't even suffer from the earthquake to assist in building the infrastructure necessary for a Foundation-backed business park, which itself became a huge flop, delivering something like a quarter of the projected jobs. Whitewater -- c'mon, people went to jail for this, even if this had nothing to do with Clintons (it strikes me unlikely that HRC would invest sizeable funds into a business she had no idea about), the fact that investigations did not find any reasons to prosecute the Clintons aren't a positive mark. "Ok, you were close to and invested with convicted fraudsters, but it looks like you weren't directly involved in this fraud".

What the Clinton supporters always stress is that HRC has not been prosecuted for anything. But is this really the standard? Well done, you managed not to have given probable cause of any involvement in an actual crime? The Democrats seems to think that any scandal that did not result in a conviction is a positive mark, but that's just a bizarre way of looking at things. Also, Democrats tend to exaggerate what the scope of reports that "exonerate" Clinton is. To wit, the IG report on e-mails -- the pro-Clinton media and campaign bent over backwards to stress that the IG "did not find any evidence the server has been hacked", whereas the report explicitly says that the security of the server was not within the scope of the investigation. The same goes for many of the historical controversies -- Clintons were investigated on specific, narrow scopes, not their general ethical standing. Regarding the latter, it is up to the public to judge, not the bureaucracy, and as I mentioned most of the incidents Clintons were investigated for, really did include behaviour that no-one can be proud of.