In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
On May 11 2016 08:59 SK.Testie wrote: Thanks for the answers. I don't have the best grasp on America's social welfare net so I figured I was oversimplifying things there.
On May 11 2016 08:26 travis wrote: That said, I am not sure about his stances on social programs... is anyone?
The assumption thus far is that he's decently socially liberal and believes in social security & welfare and lower taxes for the poor. He's been adamant that, "we're not going to have people dying on the streets. We're going to take care of people." I assume he'll leave it unchanged until he brings it up. His big things he talks about most are trade & the border.
The wording that Trump uses makes it seem like he intends to expand social programs. Historically, Trump has always been in favor of single payer.
Can you really expand social programs when you intend to cut taxes though? There is always the print more money plan I guess ^_^
There's always issues of the government wasting money though which is a huge thing that's not a sexy topic to talk about because you have to go after each individual issue. Right now I think the government is extremely wasteful... I think you'd be hard pressed to find any governments that aren't either wasteful or outright corrupt. And the oversimplified version of it is basically that the government isn't spending their own money, so they are far less careful with it and care far less.
There's a tonne of instances that governments, municipal, state, federal etc have either dropped the ball or outright stolen public funds. And it happens not just at every level, but in every industry imaginable. Transit, tourism, military, medical, education, etc. It's not a sexy issue though so it doesn't get a lot of screen time unless it's a really, really big scandal. Then again Obama's foreign policy of training fighters who basically just went and joined ISIS or Al-Nusra could be considered a pretty massive blunder but that's not even getting at all the domestic funds being wasted.
The government needs to be reigned in a little and I don't see a vote for Clinton doing that.
Sure we could reduce government waste, but how do we actually do that? Is that going to be enough to offset all the tax cuts Trump is proposing? The populist feel good answer doesn't do anything for me without a plan to back it up.
On May 11 2016 09:21 Naracs_Duc wrote:
On May 11 2016 09:07 Blitzkrieg0 wrote:
On May 11 2016 09:04 Mohdoo wrote:
On May 11 2016 08:59 SK.Testie wrote: Thanks for the answers. I don't have the best grasp on America's social welfare net so I figured I was oversimplifying things there.
On May 11 2016 08:26 travis wrote: That said, I am not sure about his stances on social programs... is anyone?
The assumption thus far is that he's decently socially liberal and believes in social security & welfare and lower taxes for the poor. He's been adamant that, "we're not going to have people dying on the streets. We're going to take care of people." I assume he'll leave it unchanged until he brings it up. His big things he talks about most are trade & the border.
The wording that Trump uses makes it seem like he intends to expand social programs. Historically, Trump has always been in favor of single payer.
Can you really expand social programs when you intend to cut taxes though? There is always the print more money plan I guess ^_^
Its really simple; you cut programs.
You cut taxes, bringing revenue down X You cut social programs, reducing spending by Y
This means we have (X1 - X2) - (Y1 - Y2) to spend on other programs.
So long as the expanded/added programs (Z) is at least equal to the new X - Y, then you're fine.
But what programs are you actually cutting? So it's possible in theory, but without even some vague idea of what policy cuts Trump intends to make the whole thing seems like we're back to voodoo economics. With Trump suggesting things like printing money he isn't going to get the benefit of the doubt in this realm from me.
To your first question, despite left's wishful thinking that finally this time they will "get it right", governments are wasteful by nature because the incentives simply are not there for them to be efficient.
You make governments less wasteful by making the government smaller.
This quote chain began with Trump extending social programs for low income families so your post doesn't make sense.
On May 11 2016 10:48 ragz_gt wrote: The original point was illustrating how pointless anecdotal ecidences are, and you missed it spetacularly by come back with some outlandish hyperbole. And how is debt amount related to gdp meaningful in anyway to government waste?
It's an alarm bell, do you understand? Total debt exceeds GDP levels -> Reevaluate government's competence.
Or it cam be alarm bell for not enough tax, if us tax at Scandinavian rate, which i had in finland, you can pay it off in 5 year!
On May 11 2016 10:48 ragz_gt wrote: The original point was illustrating how pointless anecdotal ecidences are, and you missed it spetacularly by come back with some outlandish hyperbole. And how is debt amount related to gdp meaningful in anyway to government waste?
It's an alarm bell, do you understand? Total debt exceeds GDP levels -> Reevaluate government's competence.
Sure, lets get ride of the party in control of congress. All for it.
Well thank god we solved that one with that easy trick.
I've rearranged your post to maximize the irony, what do you think?
I think, if anything, the GOP has proven over the last 16 or so years that they are the masters of running up the debt. The last time we had a surplus was not under their governance.
The largest licensed medical cannabis dispensary in the US, once dubbed the “marijuana superstore”, has won a four-year legal battle with federal prosecutors who tried to shutter its Oakland and San Jose pot shops.
The government on Tuesday withdrew its forfeiture action intended to close down Harborside Health Center. The dismissal releases the dispensary from a tug of war between local and federal authorities over medical marijuana.
Steve DeAngelo, Harborside’s executive director, hailed the move as a signal of “the beginning of the end of federal prohibition”.
Though California became the first state to legalize medical pot after voters approved a ballot measure in 1996, federal law enacted by Congress in 1970 puts marijuana in the same category as heroin, finds it has no medicinal value, and prohibits its prescription under any circumstance.
In 2012, the then US attorney Melinda Haag targeted Harborside as part of a crackdown on what she perceived as a flourishing network of illegal pot suppliers operating under the cover of California’s medical marijuana laws.
But Harborside representatives, customers and Oakland officials have praised the center as a model for compassionately distributing medical marijuana to sick patients while pumping tax dollars into municipal coffers.
Opened in 2006, Harborside was the subject of the hit reality series Weed Wars. It serves more than 1,000 people a day in Oakland and in a sister San Jose dispensary and employs 150 people, DeAngelo said.
When Haag filed the legal action four years ago, she described Harborside as a “marijuana superstore”. It is 8,000 square feet, and the Oakland store last year took in $28m – enough to make it the second largest retail taxpayer in Oakland, a fact not lost on officials in a city that’s struggled to find money to staff its police department.
On May 11 2016 10:19 ragz_gt wrote: Yes, the 20 trillion gaming rig called "iraq war"
But no, the fact they spend more than take in is not "waste", it's called biting off more than they can chew, or not taking in enough. Nether makes Trump's "plan" easier to come true.
On May 11 2016 05:30 Plansix wrote: The purpose of voting is to pick who you think will best serve your interests and maybe others as well. Claiming that they must 100% meet all your standards to earn your vote is totally valid, but you won’t be voting a lot. Because they are not elected by you along and the candidates often have to listen to people that even they don’t agree with.
And this, right here, along with the DNC being terrible in the mid terms, is how the GOP has taken over down ballot races, Travis. By not voting at all, you’re helping the GOP win the entire ballot in your state.
Well, they don't really need to 100% meet all my standards... but that's beside the point.
No one said I supported the democratic party. Actually, I specifically don't support either party, and believe that the system is completely fucked. It's my belief that if the republicans garner enough support from voting citizens that they get elected, then so be it. That's not on me (despite people trying to argue it is).
I understand the argument of "but your vote could have stopped it!". But I think it's a flawed argument. There's plenty of things that I could change in the world by taking some sort of action - that does not mean I have an inherent obligation to do so, *especially* when doing so conflicts with my beliefs. I am not responsible for everyone else, I am only responsible for me. That's my belief, and if people disagree with it, then fine - but I would warn some people to stop being so fucking cocky because maybe they aren't quite as clever as they think they are.
I would say you are extremely lucky to have the ability to abstain from the process and not worry about it substantively harming you or people you know. I am also not a member of any political party. I am not wild about Hilary and felt the DNC could have done better. But my fiancée and I have good friends who are Muslim and are terrified of Trump. I could never face them again if I decided to abstain from this election in protest.
Also, the last time I considered not voting with Bush v Gore and Bush v Kerry. Both times I sat it out because I was busy with college and didn’t like my options. After that brother got deployed twice to useless wars that only made us both completely disillusioned with our country. I wouldn’t have turned the tide, but someone like me in Florida could have.
I'm curious who your Muslim friends were supporting?
Anyway this whole vote shaming is silly. How many people trying to shame people into voting did anything to get the millions of people who don't vote (not just people who support your candidate), to engage in the primary process? If they are just coming in at the end to shame people for not voting against Trump, then it rings totally hollow to me.
In this Democratic primary (or the Republican primary, for that matter) I can imagine a lot of reasonable reasons to believe all of the candidates in your party's primary are equally great or equally terrible but believe the other party's candidates don't fall in the same place.
From a purely selfish perspective, if I was equally happy with a Sanders or Clinton nomination, why would I spend energy try to engage people in the primary process? And why would that force me to be equally happy with a Trump and Clinton presidency?
This kind of perspective (broadened to close friends in some cases) is more what people are looking at when "vote shaming" I think.
It's not about "being equally happy". If you only want people to participate when it benefits you, then you don't get to use civic responsibility to shame people into voting when it helps you is basically my point.
If the long lines, voter registration changes, lacking equipment/staff, etc... only raises red flags for you when the other side does it then you don't get to pretend your intentions are pure.
People are shamelessly trying to make a pathos argument under the cover of the logic that any vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump and it's completely disingenuous.
None of this has anything to do with the realities of voting. We will have two choices this year. They can not, in any intellectually honest way, be considered equal. One advocates for $12.50 and the other would prefer to do nothing. Isn't the entire idea that some groups are really disproportionately fucked a really big deal to you?
One of the fundamental ideals behind BLM is the idea that there exists a population in the US which has the unfortunate curse of living in a parallel society to the rest of our country. Institutionalized racism and millions of other small things make blacks, on average, more prone to a lot of shitty shit. This is a group which, when the GOP is in charge, gets shafted way worse than other groups. When the EPA gets gutted and suddenly people are able to build some toxic shit, where do you think it'll go? The communities that can organize and defend themselves with lawyers and protests and other shit (that the poor simply do not have the time for) will be fine, but the communities that can not defend themselves will suffer immensely, as they have already.
As I continued typing shit, I realized I am preaching to the choir. You get it. Some people get shafted way harder than others. I still remember what its like to grow up without food security or housing security. I think Clinton will do more to protect vulnerable families like my own than Trump would. $150 makes a huge difference to many, many families, my own growing up included. I'm not sure what your situation was like growing up, but some Paul Ryan'esque entitlement cuts would have probably meant homelessness for my family. Clinton may have similarities with the GOP, but I don't think there's any argument to be made that Trump or Clinton would have meant the same situation for me growing up.
Travis is right. "Not voting" is not killing the left in this country. Blackmail by the "Third Way" Clintons is killing it.
On May 11 2016 05:30 Plansix wrote: The purpose of voting is to pick who you think will best serve your interests and maybe others as well. Claiming that they must 100% meet all your standards to earn your vote is totally valid, but you won’t be voting a lot. Because they are not elected by you along and the candidates often have to listen to people that even they don’t agree with.
And this, right here, along with the DNC being terrible in the mid terms, is how the GOP has taken over down ballot races, Travis. By not voting at all, you’re helping the GOP win the entire ballot in your state.
Well, they don't really need to 100% meet all my standards... but that's beside the point.
No one said I supported the democratic party. Actually, I specifically don't support either party, and believe that the system is completely fucked. It's my belief that if the republicans garner enough support from voting citizens that they get elected, then so be it. That's not on me (despite people trying to argue it is).
I understand the argument of "but your vote could have stopped it!". But I think it's a flawed argument. There's plenty of things that I could change in the world by taking some sort of action - that does not mean I have an inherent obligation to do so, *especially* when doing so conflicts with my beliefs. I am not responsible for everyone else, I am only responsible for me. That's my belief, and if people disagree with it, then fine - but I would warn some people to stop being so fucking cocky because maybe they aren't quite as clever as they think they are.
I would say you are extremely lucky to have the ability to abstain from the process and not worry about it substantively harming you or people you know. I am also not a member of any political party. I am not wild about Hilary and felt the DNC could have done better. But my fiancée and I have good friends who are Muslim and are terrified of Trump. I could never face them again if I decided to abstain from this election in protest.
Also, the last time I considered not voting with Bush v Gore and Bush v Kerry. Both times I sat it out because I was busy with college and didn’t like my options. After that brother got deployed twice to useless wars that only made us both completely disillusioned with our country. I wouldn’t have turned the tide, but someone like me in Florida could have.
I'm curious who your Muslim friends were supporting?
Anyway this whole vote shaming is silly. How many people trying to shame people into voting did anything to get the millions of people who don't vote (not just people who support your candidate), to engage in the primary process? If they are just coming in at the end to shame people for not voting against Trump, then it rings totally hollow to me.
In this Democratic primary (or the Republican primary, for that matter) I can imagine a lot of reasonable reasons to believe all of the candidates in your party's primary are equally great or equally terrible but believe the other party's candidates don't fall in the same place.
From a purely selfish perspective, if I was equally happy with a Sanders or Clinton nomination, why would I spend energy try to engage people in the primary process? And why would that force me to be equally happy with a Trump and Clinton presidency?
This kind of perspective (broadened to close friends in some cases) is more what people are looking at when "vote shaming" I think.
It's not about "being equally happy". If you only want people to participate when it benefits you, then you don't get to use civic responsibility to shame people into voting when it helps you is basically my point.
If the long lines, voter registration changes, lacking equipment/staff, etc... only raises red flags for you when the other side does it then you don't get to pretend your intentions are pure.
People are shamelessly trying to make a pathos argument under the cover of the logic that any vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump and it's completely disingenuous.
None of this has anything to do with the realities of voting. We will have two choices this year. They can not, in any intellectually honest way, be considered equal. One advocates for $12.50 and the other would prefer to do nothing. Isn't the entire idea that some groups are really disproportionately fucked a really big deal to you?
One of the fundamental ideals behind BLM is the idea that there exists a population in the US which has the unfortunate curse of living in a parallel society to the rest of our country. Institutionalized racism and millions of other small things make blacks, on average, more prone to a lot of shitty shit. This is a group which, when the GOP is in charge, gets shafted way worse than other groups. When the EPA gets gutted and suddenly people are able to build some toxic shit, where do you think it'll go? The communities that can organize and defend themselves with lawyers and protests and other shit (that the poor simply do not have the time for) will be fine, but the communities that can not defend themselves will suffer immensely, as they have already.
As I continued typing shit, I realized I am preaching to the choir. You get it. Some people get shafted way harder than others. I still remember what its like to grow up without food security or housing security. I think Clinton will do more to protect vulnerable families like my own than Trump would. $150 makes a huge difference to many, many families, my own growing up included. I'm not sure what your situation was like growing up, but some Paul Ryan'esque entitlement cuts would have probably meant homelessness for my family. Clinton may have similarities with the GOP, but I don't think there's any argument to be made that Trump or Clinton would have meant the same situation for me growing up.
Travis is right. "Not voting" is not killing the left in this country. Blackmail by the "Third Way" Clintons is killing it.
Sadly, the Clintons with their single votes each were not the reasons liberals lost seats in the house and senate. The reason for that was liberals "protesting" through their right not to vote. They created the country into the shit pile they see and now they're upset at the shit they made and wants to blame others for it.
On May 11 2016 05:30 Plansix wrote: The purpose of voting is to pick who you think will best serve your interests and maybe others as well. Claiming that they must 100% meet all your standards to earn your vote is totally valid, but you won’t be voting a lot. Because they are not elected by you along and the candidates often have to listen to people that even they don’t agree with.
And this, right here, along with the DNC being terrible in the mid terms, is how the GOP has taken over down ballot races, Travis. By not voting at all, you’re helping the GOP win the entire ballot in your state.
Well, they don't really need to 100% meet all my standards... but that's beside the point.
No one said I supported the democratic party. Actually, I specifically don't support either party, and believe that the system is completely fucked. It's my belief that if the republicans garner enough support from voting citizens that they get elected, then so be it. That's not on me (despite people trying to argue it is).
I understand the argument of "but your vote could have stopped it!". But I think it's a flawed argument. There's plenty of things that I could change in the world by taking some sort of action - that does not mean I have an inherent obligation to do so, *especially* when doing so conflicts with my beliefs. I am not responsible for everyone else, I am only responsible for me. That's my belief, and if people disagree with it, then fine - but I would warn some people to stop being so fucking cocky because maybe they aren't quite as clever as they think they are.
I would say you are extremely lucky to have the ability to abstain from the process and not worry about it substantively harming you or people you know. I am also not a member of any political party. I am not wild about Hilary and felt the DNC could have done better. But my fiancée and I have good friends who are Muslim and are terrified of Trump. I could never face them again if I decided to abstain from this election in protest.
Also, the last time I considered not voting with Bush v Gore and Bush v Kerry. Both times I sat it out because I was busy with college and didn’t like my options. After that brother got deployed twice to useless wars that only made us both completely disillusioned with our country. I wouldn’t have turned the tide, but someone like me in Florida could have.
I'm curious who your Muslim friends were supporting?
Anyway this whole vote shaming is silly. How many people trying to shame people into voting did anything to get the millions of people who don't vote (not just people who support your candidate), to engage in the primary process? If they are just coming in at the end to shame people for not voting against Trump, then it rings totally hollow to me.
In this Democratic primary (or the Republican primary, for that matter) I can imagine a lot of reasonable reasons to believe all of the candidates in your party's primary are equally great or equally terrible but believe the other party's candidates don't fall in the same place.
From a purely selfish perspective, if I was equally happy with a Sanders or Clinton nomination, why would I spend energy try to engage people in the primary process? And why would that force me to be equally happy with a Trump and Clinton presidency?
This kind of perspective (broadened to close friends in some cases) is more what people are looking at when "vote shaming" I think.
It's not about "being equally happy". If you only want people to participate when it benefits you, then you don't get to use civic responsibility to shame people into voting when it helps you is basically my point.
If the long lines, voter registration changes, lacking equipment/staff, etc... only raises red flags for you when the other side does it then you don't get to pretend your intentions are pure.
People are shamelessly trying to make a pathos argument under the cover of the logic that any vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump and it's completely disingenuous.
None of this has anything to do with the realities of voting. We will have two choices this year. They can not, in any intellectually honest way, be considered equal. One advocates for $12.50 and the other would prefer to do nothing. Isn't the entire idea that some groups are really disproportionately fucked a really big deal to you?
One of the fundamental ideals behind BLM is the idea that there exists a population in the US which has the unfortunate curse of living in a parallel society to the rest of our country. Institutionalized racism and millions of other small things make blacks, on average, more prone to a lot of shitty shit. This is a group which, when the GOP is in charge, gets shafted way worse than other groups. When the EPA gets gutted and suddenly people are able to build some toxic shit, where do you think it'll go? The communities that can organize and defend themselves with lawyers and protests and other shit (that the poor simply do not have the time for) will be fine, but the communities that can not defend themselves will suffer immensely, as they have already.
As I continued typing shit, I realized I am preaching to the choir. You get it. Some people get shafted way harder than others. I still remember what its like to grow up without food security or housing security. I think Clinton will do more to protect vulnerable families like my own than Trump would. $150 makes a huge difference to many, many families, my own growing up included. I'm not sure what your situation was like growing up, but some Paul Ryan'esque entitlement cuts would have probably meant homelessness for my family. Clinton may have similarities with the GOP, but I don't think there's any argument to be made that Trump or Clinton would have meant the same situation for me growing up.
Travis is right. "Not voting" is not killing the left in this country. Blackmail by the "Third Way" Clintons is killing it.
On May 11 2016 05:30 Plansix wrote: The purpose of voting is to pick who you think will best serve your interests and maybe others as well. Claiming that they must 100% meet all your standards to earn your vote is totally valid, but you won’t be voting a lot. Because they are not elected by you along and the candidates often have to listen to people that even they don’t agree with.
And this, right here, along with the DNC being terrible in the mid terms, is how the GOP has taken over down ballot races, Travis. By not voting at all, you’re helping the GOP win the entire ballot in your state.
Well, they don't really need to 100% meet all my standards... but that's beside the point.
No one said I supported the democratic party. Actually, I specifically don't support either party, and believe that the system is completely fucked. It's my belief that if the republicans garner enough support from voting citizens that they get elected, then so be it. That's not on me (despite people trying to argue it is).
I understand the argument of "but your vote could have stopped it!". But I think it's a flawed argument. There's plenty of things that I could change in the world by taking some sort of action - that does not mean I have an inherent obligation to do so, *especially* when doing so conflicts with my beliefs. I am not responsible for everyone else, I am only responsible for me. That's my belief, and if people disagree with it, then fine - but I would warn some people to stop being so fucking cocky because maybe they aren't quite as clever as they think they are.
I would say you are extremely lucky to have the ability to abstain from the process and not worry about it substantively harming you or people you know. I am also not a member of any political party. I am not wild about Hilary and felt the DNC could have done better. But my fiancée and I have good friends who are Muslim and are terrified of Trump. I could never face them again if I decided to abstain from this election in protest.
Also, the last time I considered not voting with Bush v Gore and Bush v Kerry. Both times I sat it out because I was busy with college and didn’t like my options. After that brother got deployed twice to useless wars that only made us both completely disillusioned with our country. I wouldn’t have turned the tide, but someone like me in Florida could have.
I'm curious who your Muslim friends were supporting?
Anyway this whole vote shaming is silly. How many people trying to shame people into voting did anything to get the millions of people who don't vote (not just people who support your candidate), to engage in the primary process? If they are just coming in at the end to shame people for not voting against Trump, then it rings totally hollow to me.
In this Democratic primary (or the Republican primary, for that matter) I can imagine a lot of reasonable reasons to believe all of the candidates in your party's primary are equally great or equally terrible but believe the other party's candidates don't fall in the same place.
From a purely selfish perspective, if I was equally happy with a Sanders or Clinton nomination, why would I spend energy try to engage people in the primary process? And why would that force me to be equally happy with a Trump and Clinton presidency?
This kind of perspective (broadened to close friends in some cases) is more what people are looking at when "vote shaming" I think.
It's not about "being equally happy". If you only want people to participate when it benefits you, then you don't get to use civic responsibility to shame people into voting when it helps you is basically my point.
If the long lines, voter registration changes, lacking equipment/staff, etc... only raises red flags for you when the other side does it then you don't get to pretend your intentions are pure.
People are shamelessly trying to make a pathos argument under the cover of the logic that any vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump and it's completely disingenuous.
None of this has anything to do with the realities of voting. We will have two choices this year. They can not, in any intellectually honest way, be considered equal. One advocates for $12.50 and the other would prefer to do nothing. Isn't the entire idea that some groups are really disproportionately fucked a really big deal to you?
One of the fundamental ideals behind BLM is the idea that there exists a population in the US which has the unfortunate curse of living in a parallel society to the rest of our country. Institutionalized racism and millions of other small things make blacks, on average, more prone to a lot of shitty shit. This is a group which, when the GOP is in charge, gets shafted way worse than other groups. When the EPA gets gutted and suddenly people are able to build some toxic shit, where do you think it'll go? The communities that can organize and defend themselves with lawyers and protests and other shit (that the poor simply do not have the time for) will be fine, but the communities that can not defend themselves will suffer immensely, as they have already.
As I continued typing shit, I realized I am preaching to the choir. You get it. Some people get shafted way harder than others. I still remember what its like to grow up without food security or housing security. I think Clinton will do more to protect vulnerable families like my own than Trump would. $150 makes a huge difference to many, many families, my own growing up included. I'm not sure what your situation was like growing up, but some Paul Ryan'esque entitlement cuts would have probably meant homelessness for my family. Clinton may have similarities with the GOP, but I don't think there's any argument to be made that Trump or Clinton would have meant the same situation for me growing up.
Travis is right. "Not voting" is not killing the left in this country. Blackmail by the "Third Way" Clintons is killing it.
On May 11 2016 05:30 Plansix wrote: The purpose of voting is to pick who you think will best serve your interests and maybe others as well. Claiming that they must 100% meet all your standards to earn your vote is totally valid, but you won’t be voting a lot. Because they are not elected by you along and the candidates often have to listen to people that even they don’t agree with.
And this, right here, along with the DNC being terrible in the mid terms, is how the GOP has taken over down ballot races, Travis. By not voting at all, you’re helping the GOP win the entire ballot in your state.
Well, they don't really need to 100% meet all my standards... but that's beside the point.
No one said I supported the democratic party. Actually, I specifically don't support either party, and believe that the system is completely fucked. It's my belief that if the republicans garner enough support from voting citizens that they get elected, then so be it. That's not on me (despite people trying to argue it is).
I understand the argument of "but your vote could have stopped it!". But I think it's a flawed argument. There's plenty of things that I could change in the world by taking some sort of action - that does not mean I have an inherent obligation to do so, *especially* when doing so conflicts with my beliefs. I am not responsible for everyone else, I am only responsible for me. That's my belief, and if people disagree with it, then fine - but I would warn some people to stop being so fucking cocky because maybe they aren't quite as clever as they think they are.
I would say you are extremely lucky to have the ability to abstain from the process and not worry about it substantively harming you or people you know. I am also not a member of any political party. I am not wild about Hilary and felt the DNC could have done better. But my fiancée and I have good friends who are Muslim and are terrified of Trump. I could never face them again if I decided to abstain from this election in protest.
Also, the last time I considered not voting with Bush v Gore and Bush v Kerry. Both times I sat it out because I was busy with college and didn’t like my options. After that brother got deployed twice to useless wars that only made us both completely disillusioned with our country. I wouldn’t have turned the tide, but someone like me in Florida could have.
I'm curious who your Muslim friends were supporting?
Anyway this whole vote shaming is silly. How many people trying to shame people into voting did anything to get the millions of people who don't vote (not just people who support your candidate), to engage in the primary process? If they are just coming in at the end to shame people for not voting against Trump, then it rings totally hollow to me.
In this Democratic primary (or the Republican primary, for that matter) I can imagine a lot of reasonable reasons to believe all of the candidates in your party's primary are equally great or equally terrible but believe the other party's candidates don't fall in the same place.
From a purely selfish perspective, if I was equally happy with a Sanders or Clinton nomination, why would I spend energy try to engage people in the primary process? And why would that force me to be equally happy with a Trump and Clinton presidency?
This kind of perspective (broadened to close friends in some cases) is more what people are looking at when "vote shaming" I think.
It's not about "being equally happy". If you only want people to participate when it benefits you, then you don't get to use civic responsibility to shame people into voting when it helps you is basically my point.
If the long lines, voter registration changes, lacking equipment/staff, etc... only raises red flags for you when the other side does it then you don't get to pretend your intentions are pure.
People are shamelessly trying to make a pathos argument under the cover of the logic that any vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump and it's completely disingenuous.
None of this has anything to do with the realities of voting. We will have two choices this year. They can not, in any intellectually honest way, be considered equal. One advocates for $12.50 and the other would prefer to do nothing. Isn't the entire idea that some groups are really disproportionately fucked a really big deal to you?
One of the fundamental ideals behind BLM is the idea that there exists a population in the US which has the unfortunate curse of living in a parallel society to the rest of our country. Institutionalized racism and millions of other small things make blacks, on average, more prone to a lot of shitty shit. This is a group which, when the GOP is in charge, gets shafted way worse than other groups. When the EPA gets gutted and suddenly people are able to build some toxic shit, where do you think it'll go? The communities that can organize and defend themselves with lawyers and protests and other shit (that the poor simply do not have the time for) will be fine, but the communities that can not defend themselves will suffer immensely, as they have already.
As I continued typing shit, I realized I am preaching to the choir. You get it. Some people get shafted way harder than others. I still remember what its like to grow up without food security or housing security. I think Clinton will do more to protect vulnerable families like my own than Trump would. $150 makes a huge difference to many, many families, my own growing up included. I'm not sure what your situation was like growing up, but some Paul Ryan'esque entitlement cuts would have probably meant homelessness for my family. Clinton may have similarities with the GOP, but I don't think there's any argument to be made that Trump or Clinton would have meant the same situation for me growing up.
Travis is right. "Not voting" is not killing the left in this country. Blackmail by the "Third Way" Clintons is killing it.
Sadly, the Clintons with their single votes each were not the reasons liberals lost seats in the house and senate. The reason for that was liberals "protesting" through their right not to vote. They created the country into the shit pile they see and now they're upset at the shit they made and wants to blame others for it.
This betrays such a fundamental lack of comprehension about what is being discussed that I'm not even sure where to begin.
You missed the good part where Jon Stewart talks about how no one can be sure of what Hillary actually thinks because even she doesn't know, and compares her to a mac running a shoddy simulation of Windows:
On May 11 2016 05:30 Plansix wrote: The purpose of voting is to pick who you think will best serve your interests and maybe others as well. Claiming that they must 100% meet all your standards to earn your vote is totally valid, but you won’t be voting a lot. Because they are not elected by you along and the candidates often have to listen to people that even they don’t agree with.
And this, right here, along with the DNC being terrible in the mid terms, is how the GOP has taken over down ballot races, Travis. By not voting at all, you’re helping the GOP win the entire ballot in your state.
Well, they don't really need to 100% meet all my standards... but that's beside the point.
No one said I supported the democratic party. Actually, I specifically don't support either party, and believe that the system is completely fucked. It's my belief that if the republicans garner enough support from voting citizens that they get elected, then so be it. That's not on me (despite people trying to argue it is).
I understand the argument of "but your vote could have stopped it!". But I think it's a flawed argument. There's plenty of things that I could change in the world by taking some sort of action - that does not mean I have an inherent obligation to do so, *especially* when doing so conflicts with my beliefs. I am not responsible for everyone else, I am only responsible for me. That's my belief, and if people disagree with it, then fine - but I would warn some people to stop being so fucking cocky because maybe they aren't quite as clever as they think they are.
I would say you are extremely lucky to have the ability to abstain from the process and not worry about it substantively harming you or people you know. I am also not a member of any political party. I am not wild about Hilary and felt the DNC could have done better. But my fiancée and I have good friends who are Muslim and are terrified of Trump. I could never face them again if I decided to abstain from this election in protest.
Also, the last time I considered not voting with Bush v Gore and Bush v Kerry. Both times I sat it out because I was busy with college and didn’t like my options. After that brother got deployed twice to useless wars that only made us both completely disillusioned with our country. I wouldn’t have turned the tide, but someone like me in Florida could have.
I'm curious who your Muslim friends were supporting?
Anyway this whole vote shaming is silly. How many people trying to shame people into voting did anything to get the millions of people who don't vote (not just people who support your candidate), to engage in the primary process? If they are just coming in at the end to shame people for not voting against Trump, then it rings totally hollow to me.
In this Democratic primary (or the Republican primary, for that matter) I can imagine a lot of reasonable reasons to believe all of the candidates in your party's primary are equally great or equally terrible but believe the other party's candidates don't fall in the same place.
From a purely selfish perspective, if I was equally happy with a Sanders or Clinton nomination, why would I spend energy try to engage people in the primary process? And why would that force me to be equally happy with a Trump and Clinton presidency?
This kind of perspective (broadened to close friends in some cases) is more what people are looking at when "vote shaming" I think.
It's not about "being equally happy". If you only want people to participate when it benefits you, then you don't get to use civic responsibility to shame people into voting when it helps you is basically my point.
If the long lines, voter registration changes, lacking equipment/staff, etc... only raises red flags for you when the other side does it then you don't get to pretend your intentions are pure.
People are shamelessly trying to make a pathos argument under the cover of the logic that any vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump and it's completely disingenuous.
None of this has anything to do with the realities of voting. We will have two choices this year. They can not, in any intellectually honest way, be considered equal. One advocates for $12.50 and the other would prefer to do nothing. Isn't the entire idea that some groups are really disproportionately fucked a really big deal to you?
One of the fundamental ideals behind BLM is the idea that there exists a population in the US which has the unfortunate curse of living in a parallel society to the rest of our country. Institutionalized racism and millions of other small things make blacks, on average, more prone to a lot of shitty shit. This is a group which, when the GOP is in charge, gets shafted way worse than other groups. When the EPA gets gutted and suddenly people are able to build some toxic shit, where do you think it'll go? The communities that can organize and defend themselves with lawyers and protests and other shit (that the poor simply do not have the time for) will be fine, but the communities that can not defend themselves will suffer immensely, as they have already.
As I continued typing shit, I realized I am preaching to the choir. You get it. Some people get shafted way harder than others. I still remember what its like to grow up without food security or housing security. I think Clinton will do more to protect vulnerable families like my own than Trump would. $150 makes a huge difference to many, many families, my own growing up included. I'm not sure what your situation was like growing up, but some Paul Ryan'esque entitlement cuts would have probably meant homelessness for my family. Clinton may have similarities with the GOP, but I don't think there's any argument to be made that Trump or Clinton would have meant the same situation for me growing up.
Travis is right. "Not voting" is not killing the left in this country. Blackmail by the "Third Way" Clintons is killing it.
On May 11 2016 05:30 Plansix wrote: The purpose of voting is to pick who you think will best serve your interests and maybe others as well. Claiming that they must 100% meet all your standards to earn your vote is totally valid, but you won’t be voting a lot. Because they are not elected by you along and the candidates often have to listen to people that even they don’t agree with.
And this, right here, along with the DNC being terrible in the mid terms, is how the GOP has taken over down ballot races, Travis. By not voting at all, you’re helping the GOP win the entire ballot in your state.
Well, they don't really need to 100% meet all my standards... but that's beside the point.
No one said I supported the democratic party. Actually, I specifically don't support either party, and believe that the system is completely fucked. It's my belief that if the republicans garner enough support from voting citizens that they get elected, then so be it. That's not on me (despite people trying to argue it is).
I understand the argument of "but your vote could have stopped it!". But I think it's a flawed argument. There's plenty of things that I could change in the world by taking some sort of action - that does not mean I have an inherent obligation to do so, *especially* when doing so conflicts with my beliefs. I am not responsible for everyone else, I am only responsible for me. That's my belief, and if people disagree with it, then fine - but I would warn some people to stop being so fucking cocky because maybe they aren't quite as clever as they think they are.
I would say you are extremely lucky to have the ability to abstain from the process and not worry about it substantively harming you or people you know. I am also not a member of any political party. I am not wild about Hilary and felt the DNC could have done better. But my fiancée and I have good friends who are Muslim and are terrified of Trump. I could never face them again if I decided to abstain from this election in protest.
Also, the last time I considered not voting with Bush v Gore and Bush v Kerry. Both times I sat it out because I was busy with college and didn’t like my options. After that brother got deployed twice to useless wars that only made us both completely disillusioned with our country. I wouldn’t have turned the tide, but someone like me in Florida could have.
I'm curious who your Muslim friends were supporting?
Anyway this whole vote shaming is silly. How many people trying to shame people into voting did anything to get the millions of people who don't vote (not just people who support your candidate), to engage in the primary process? If they are just coming in at the end to shame people for not voting against Trump, then it rings totally hollow to me.
In this Democratic primary (or the Republican primary, for that matter) I can imagine a lot of reasonable reasons to believe all of the candidates in your party's primary are equally great or equally terrible but believe the other party's candidates don't fall in the same place.
From a purely selfish perspective, if I was equally happy with a Sanders or Clinton nomination, why would I spend energy try to engage people in the primary process? And why would that force me to be equally happy with a Trump and Clinton presidency?
This kind of perspective (broadened to close friends in some cases) is more what people are looking at when "vote shaming" I think.
It's not about "being equally happy". If you only want people to participate when it benefits you, then you don't get to use civic responsibility to shame people into voting when it helps you is basically my point.
If the long lines, voter registration changes, lacking equipment/staff, etc... only raises red flags for you when the other side does it then you don't get to pretend your intentions are pure.
People are shamelessly trying to make a pathos argument under the cover of the logic that any vote not for Hillary is a vote for Trump and it's completely disingenuous.
None of this has anything to do with the realities of voting. We will have two choices this year. They can not, in any intellectually honest way, be considered equal. One advocates for $12.50 and the other would prefer to do nothing. Isn't the entire idea that some groups are really disproportionately fucked a really big deal to you?
One of the fundamental ideals behind BLM is the idea that there exists a population in the US which has the unfortunate curse of living in a parallel society to the rest of our country. Institutionalized racism and millions of other small things make blacks, on average, more prone to a lot of shitty shit. This is a group which, when the GOP is in charge, gets shafted way worse than other groups. When the EPA gets gutted and suddenly people are able to build some toxic shit, where do you think it'll go? The communities that can organize and defend themselves with lawyers and protests and other shit (that the poor simply do not have the time for) will be fine, but the communities that can not defend themselves will suffer immensely, as they have already.
As I continued typing shit, I realized I am preaching to the choir. You get it. Some people get shafted way harder than others. I still remember what its like to grow up without food security or housing security. I think Clinton will do more to protect vulnerable families like my own than Trump would. $150 makes a huge difference to many, many families, my own growing up included. I'm not sure what your situation was like growing up, but some Paul Ryan'esque entitlement cuts would have probably meant homelessness for my family. Clinton may have similarities with the GOP, but I don't think there's any argument to be made that Trump or Clinton would have meant the same situation for me growing up.
Travis is right. "Not voting" is not killing the left in this country. Blackmail by the "Third Way" Clintons is killing it.
Sadly, the Clintons with their single votes each were not the reasons liberals lost seats in the house and senate. The reason for that was liberals "protesting" through their right not to vote. They created the country into the shit pile they see and now they're upset at the shit they made and wants to blame others for it.
This betrays such a fundamental lack of comprehension about what is being discussed that I'm not even sure where to begin.
You believe there's a giant clinton conspiracy that is corrupting the moral purity of the left.
I believe there's lazy voters who bitch and moan and think that not voting somehow makes life better.
A "giant clinton conspiracy." OK see you are making it worse. Stop parroting stupid people.
I don't necessarily hold it against you that you have no historical context or understanding for Bill Clinton's politics, but I do hold it against you when you are aggressively ignorant.
This "moral purity" rhetoric has got to stop. It's not a "moral purity test" to fundamentally disagree with people about the ordering of society, government, and commerce.
Democrats and republicans are pro-capitalist. It's not a "purity test" for anti-capitalist leftists to voice opposition to pro-capitalist candidates. It's like saying that a member of PETA is invoking a silly "purity test" by not voting for someone who only kills deer "sometimes."
On May 11 2016 16:24 IgnE wrote: A "giant clinton conspiracy." OK see you are making it worse. Stop parroting stupid people.
I don't necessarily hold it against you that you have no historical context or understanding for Bill Clinton's politics, but I do hold it against you when you are aggressively ignorant.
This "moral purity" rhetoric has got to stop. It's not a "moral purity test" to fundamentally disagree with people about the ordering of society, government, and commerce.
Democrats and republicans are pro-capitalist. It's not a "purity test" for anti-capitalist leftists to voice opposition to pro-capitalist candidates. It's like saying that a member of PETA is invoking a silly "purity test" by not voting for someone who only kills deer "sometimes."
So you're against the Clintons *because* they care about the economy?
Obviously because they are pretty conservative/right wing whatever you want to call it when it comes to the economy. The Clintons stand for the stupid 3d way liberalism that also killed labour in britain and the SPD in Germany... You know that bullshit "leftist" policy that no one actually on the "left" wants or ever wanted.
Yeah, the problem is that all this important discussion (on economic policy and such) is lost with the strategy the pro sanders are doing right now, because they are making it personal / subjective, akin to a collective discussion on the topic of "Hillary Clinton". This might actually a subtle trap made by the hillary campaign, since she's so uninteresting from a policy point of view.
I'm so bored about the anti trump media. Really just envision that, I live on the other side of the ocean, half the newspapers I read quoted Jon Stewart on Trump, they all made at least an article basically arguing that Trump for president is bad and I've yet to see a valid and thoughtful argument on anything that is not related to Trump personality but that take into account his policy proposals. Now I watch Stewart entire interview and I entirely agree with him, but at no point is he arguing that Hillary is good in any way ; voting Hillary is basically damage control. I'm not for Trump at all, first of all I'm french/canadian, and I don't vote anymore in my own country, but god damn the media and our institutions are the reason we're in such situation in the entire occident, because they make everything personal while everytime an important discussion is brought up they simplify it until it's pointless, until the citizen have no choice.
On May 11 2016 17:25 WhiteDog wrote: Yeah, the problem is that all this important discussion (on economic policy and such) is lost with the strategy the pro sanders are doing right now, because they are making it personal / subjective, akin to a collective discussion on the topic of "Hillary Clinton". This might actually a subtle trap made by the hillary campaign, since she's so uninteresting from a policy point of view.
I'm so bored about the anti trump media. Really just envision that, I live on the other side of the ocean, half the newspapers I read quoted Jon Stewart on Trump, they all made at least an article basically arguing that Trump for president is bad and I've yet to see a valid and thoughtful argument on anything that is not related to Trump personality but that take into account his policy proposals. Now I watch Stewart entire interview and I entirely agree with him, but at no point is he arguing that Hillary is good in any way ; voting Hillary is basically damage control. I'm not for Trump at all, first of all I'm french/canadian, and I don't vote anymore in my own country, but god damn the media and our institutions are the reason we're in such situation, because they make everything personal while everytime an important discussion is brought up they simplify it until it's pointless.
I'm not sure I would blame the media really. I blame the people themselves.
The media is a business like any other, in it to make money off of news and we, the people, want more news faster. Its more profitable for the media to have dozens of stations compete with 'pointless simplified news' rather then for some to focus on actual high quality pieces for 'intellectuals'.
The market goes where the demand is. We created the overwhelming demand for news that can be absorbed in 2 seconds and gets distributed 24 hours a day so there is no time for reflection and investigation.
You missed the good part where Jon Stewart talks about how no one can be sure of what Hillary actually thinks because even she doesn't know, and compares her to a mac running a shoddy simulation of Windows:
God I miss seeing Jon on a regular basis. His understanding of the problems go far beyond what most political experts and politicians know. He might have a left wing bias, but he's in no way in the pocket of the democratic party and will speak out against any party that is doing a bad job.
Noah, Wilmore, Oliver, and Bee all pale in comparison to what Jon used to do. Only Colbert used to be comparable, but his format is so different now that it's not competing in the same category.
Glad to see the whole thing posted and I watched every minute of it.
EPT
