Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Mr. Cairo]

What "left" are you talking about? If you're comfortable labeling the entire left thanks to the words and actions of a few loons on the fringe

Well, you.  In this thread.  Just now.

But I didn't call every republican president since WW2 a nazi. That was the "left" I was talking about, in reference to your statement.

But don't try and tell me that the Tea Party is moderate, because it is not.

You phrased it as though it's a spectrum that blends from Nazi to alt-right to Tea Party, but you're certainly implying shared positions other than 'not a Democrat'.  It doesn't work that way.

I don't understand this statement. What doesn't work that way? That those three groups I mentioned share positions? Because they do. Or is it that they share positions with moderate Republicans?

By that statement alone you appear to have given up on ever trying to reach dialogue with "the left".

I'm about to give up on talking with you, that's for sure.  Might still be willing to talk with Darrell.

Ha, isn't it funny how your desire to engage in dialogue drops when you get accused of not wanting to engage in dialogue?


But since this discussion isn't going anywhere, I'll attempt to return to an actual dialogue and ask you this: On what policy points, Republican or Democrat, are you, as a Republican, willing to compromise on? this is a genuine question, not rhetorical in any way.

[TheHumanHydra]

I'm very disturbed by some of the tone in this thread. It seems that liberal-minded people are beginning to define Republicans as 'enemy', which is the first step on the road to nowhere very brightly lit.

Long immersion in both conservative religious and liberal secular society (albeit north of the border) has led me to this conclusion: voices in these discussions are so strident because each group feels threatened by the other. This isn't rocket science, but it's necessary to understand if your goal is reconciliation and not conquest. If your goal is conquest, well ... liberal society is already lost to you, in your heart.

There is no brilliant short-term solution to the rapid partisanship of the States. What I do wish is for us to take the pot off the burner so that it doesn't boil over. This means remaining calm, not demonizing those one disagrees with, recognizing that neither the Antichrist nor Adolf Hitler has yet arisen, and building social and professional relationships with people on the opposite end of the political spectrum that will reduce 'othering' and build mutual respect-amid-enmity.

I'm reminded of J.F. Kennedy's strategy during the Cuban Missile Crisis: ignore the belligerent missives and only reply to the moderate ones that lent themselves to dialogue. To keep the bombs from going off.

Republicans aren't the enemy, but the alt-right and the white supremacists who make up the majority of the alt-right's membership are the enemy. I will not compromise with literal Nazis. 

Amen, but I was of course talking about non-Nazis (and the dangers of confusing them).

This is an unfortunate situation, but it is not beholden on the Left to ignore the face of the Right and try and engage with the silent, and cowed, majority of moderate Republicans. How can they when the moderate Right refuses to challenge the extreme Right? Why is it that the only people who seem to go out and protest at places like Charlottesville are the liberals and anarchists and socialists? Maybe the moderates do go out and protest, but they certainly don't like to advertise that fact.

This is a good rebuke that I appreciate. In fact, I had intended to write, 'ignore the belligerent missives (racists?) and only reply to the moderate ones' in my final paragraph, but now I am less sure of that.
What I would like to demonstrate is that it is no longer the right wing alone that is filled with vitriol, hysteria, and enmity:

It's engaging with people like the man T-Hawk quoted that killed the Weimar Republic. When a group of people are that far from what is moral decent human behaviour engagement is the first step to capitulation.

1) It was the republitraitor state ...

That dumbass was going to vote for Trump regardless, whether the Democrats nominated Clinton, Bernie, Biden, Webb, or the reanimated corpse of Jackson. He just feels bad that Trump tore off the mask of sanity and exposed the howling race hatred and grievance.

I have nothing but contempt for it, and at this point I don't really care to pretend to feel otherwise.

Sorry, folks; you're all genuinely nice people otherwise, and I know I'm going to get some hackles up. And some of these opinions have some truth behind them. It's just that the people of America will never succeed in restoring to their nation the sanity enjoyed in the rest of the West by walking this road of sharpened swords. I genuinely fear for the peace of America (here perhaps I am showing my hysteria) and wish Americans would mend their fences so I didn't have to be so haunted by that Civil War documentary I watched the other week ...

So I have a question for the right-leaning people on this thread. Would you be willing to see a liberal, left-leaning government in the USA if that's what it takes to end the resurgent white supremacy movement?

I don't know if this was in part directed at me (because I am Canadian) but my answer is that I would be voting Democrat anyway, because I think the Republicans are crazy!  But it's a crazy I'm able to vote against, speak against, and, ultimately, live beside.

[TheHumanHydra]

Give it time in your land. Empires never fracture peacefully. Glubb Pasha has foreseen. Technology changes but people are the same, don't expect otherwise.

Heh, first we have to become an empire. Which we will do once global warming opens up our vast icy tracts to agriculture, Greenland accepts our dollar, and we go to war with Russia over the Arctic Circle. Then we'll get to be in a Civ game in a hundred years! 

[ipecac]

So I have a question for the right-leaning people on this thread. Would you be willing to see a liberal, left-leaning government in the USA if that's what it takes to end the resurgent white supremacy movement?

Let's see, the neo-nazi movement consists of losers, LARPers, people trying to take advantage of them, fed informants, and doubtlessly other infiltrators.

The probability of it becoming a significant danger to society is precisely zero.

[Mr. Cairo]

Let's see, the neo-nazi movement consists of losers, LARPers, people trying to take advantage of them, fed informants, and doubtlessly other infiltrators.

The probability of it becoming a significant danger to society is precisely zero.

Except as they do become increasingly marginalised as society gets generally more liberal (which it is), they will resort to more and more extreme methods. I don't think that driving a car into a crowd is going to be the last time they borrow tactics from ISIS.

My issue with the neo-nazis isn't so much that they exist (but I would be very happy indeed if they didn't), but that the Republican leadership in the States seems to be OK with pandering to them, and tacitly encouraging them, as long as it lets them get their agenda through.

[Dreylin]

...until their patent monopolies (government action) run out, and not on average.  To take your example of EpiPen - the underlying problems were regulations requiring schools have EpiPens (rather than injectable epinefrine) and FDA regulations preventing new entry into the market.  Even there, it's temporary and rare (hence newsworthy).  Note these private sector workarounds for the EpiPen example

Not sure from your first sentence whether you are pro-Patent or anti? Patents serve to protect a company's IP theoretically so they can recoup the investment they made in R&D. Pricing during the patented period is generally "what the market can bear" not "what the average consumer can afford". There are many examples of companies hiking drug prices if they think they can get away with it.

Also on patents, it's not like pharma companies sit still and let them expire; there are many ways they can try to get around it. The latest attempt to completely circumvent is to transfer to a Native American tribe (sovereign entity) not subject to the Patent laws:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/...-it-s-ugly

Sure, and a stronger tendency to take the obvious benefits of cooperation: see the steadily growing number of interracial marriages.  See the fact that Jim Crow had to be enforced by governments, because business owners kept breaking segregation.

Being English, I don't pretend to understand Jim Crow, but I think that the assertion that white southerners would have rushed towards integration without them is disingenuous.

If it was forbidden to build on flood plains, Houston would not exist.  The whole city is a flood plain.  Instead people would have to pay a lot more in order to live somewhere else (possibly in a different country).  Rebuilding occasionally is expensive, but not nearly as expensive as living normally someplace like San Francisco or NYC.

It's true that I would prefer if Federal Flood insurance charged high enough premiums that people

Swamp really, but that doesn't mean it's impossible to prepare for and mitigate the effects of these flood. For example the neighbourhood where I live invested heavily in upgrading the drainage after Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 and experienced relatively few homes flooded this time (we were fine).

Do you want stories of the friends, family & colleagues who lost everything last month; it's not just a case of rebuilding the house, it's losing all your personal possessions - memories? Here's one about the friend of a colleague whose home was flooded in the Tax Day flood last year and had to be completely rebuilt; he was due to collect the keys the week after the storm came through, but it had flooded again....

Most of Houston isn't required to have flood insurance, but that doesn't matter because the government will come along and bail them out. And not the State government (who might have to then take some responsibility) but the Federal government. So all the local Republicans can continue to be happily anti-regulation and not make any attempt to fix the problem (instead spending their time trying to enact discriminatory legislation and ban local city tree ordinances) and rely on the Feds to bail them out. Oh, and they also get to create specious arguments for voting against bailouts for other states' disasters, as Ted Cruz did after Hurricane Sandy.

[Dreylin]

I don't believe there is a 'resurgent' movement.  I think it's the same tiny band of dwindling, aging losers as existed in the 90's, and the 00's,

I'm not sure how accurate this is really, most of the pictures I saw from Charlottesville were of men in their 20s and 30s. The man who ran his car into the crowd is 20, doubt he was doing much in the '90s....

[ipecac]

Except as they do become increasingly marginalised as society gets generally more liberal (which it is), they will resort to more and more extreme methods. I don't think that driving a car into a crowd is going to be the last time they borrow tactics from ISIS.

They've won bigly with the election of Trump, if anything there's more danger from some leftists going insane over future tweets by Trump and turning violent.

My issue with the neo-nazis isn't so much that they exist (but I would be very happy indeed if they didn't), but that the Republican leadership in the States seems to be OK with pandering to them, and tacitly encouraging them, as long as it lets them get their agenda through.

That's what politicians do.

And if the question is going to boil down to 'do you right-wingers prefer a left-leaning government or the Republicans?', there's not much point in asking.

[Mr. Cairo]

Except as they do become increasingly marginalised as society gets generally more liberal (which it is), they will resort to more and more extreme methods. I don't think that driving a car into a crowd is going to be the last time they borrow tactics from ISIS.

if anything there's more danger from some leftists going insane over future tweets by Trump and turning violent.

Do you really believe this? Sure, antifa is becoming increasingly violent (although I'd call them anarchists, not leftists, but that's a discussion for another time), but it's the right-wing militias and anti-government groups that are armed to the teeth and driving cars into crowds of protesters. Rioting is one thing, but when it comes to domestic terrorism, it's not the left that the security services are worried about.

And if the question is going to boil down to 'do you right-wingers prefer a left-leaning government or the Republicans?', there's not much point in asking.

The question was "do you prefer a left-leaning government over neo-nazis" WITH the addendum that while Republicans DO NOT EQUAL neo-nazis, right now, the neo-nazis come with the Republicans.

So really the question has three choices:
1) Do nothing and allow the far right to gain increasingly disproportionate power over the Republican Party machine.
2) Vote Democrat
or my preferred answer:
3) Expunge the far right from the Republican party, and begin constructive dialogue with the Democrats.


And before anyone says that Antifa has taken over the Democrats, I need only refer you to the furor that came out during the Dem Primary last year. The far left in America has no love nor loyalty to the Democratic party.

[ipecac]

Do you really believe this? Sure, antifa is becoming increasingly violent (although I'd call them anarchists, not leftists, but that's a discussion for another time), but it's the right-wing militias and anti-government groups that are armed to the teeth and driving cars into crowds of protesters.

The car-ramming has thus far proven to be an isolated incident, while violent rioting is almost customary for the antifa.

Rioting is one thing, but when it comes to domestic terrorism, it's not the left that the security services are worried about.

As far as I'm aware, there's been precisely zero attacks on the police by the neo-nazis, while innumerable attacks and taunts by antifa. It's pretty easy to see which side security will be more concerned about.

The question was "do you prefer a left-leaning government over neo-nazis" WITH the addendum that while Republicans DO NOT EQUAL neo-nazis, right now, the neo-nazis come with the Republicans.

So really the question has three choices:
1) Do nothing and allow the far right to gain increasingly disproportionate power over the Republican Party machine.
2) Vote Democrat
or my preferred answer:
3) Expunge the far right from the Republican party, and begin constructive dialogue with the Democrats.

4) There've been nazis in the USA for almost a century, they've accomplished less than nothing, and are set to still be insignificant for the next century even despite minor reprises of Street Fighter: Commies v Nazis.