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On October 06 2017 01:04 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +
Republicans And Democrats Don't Agree, Don't Like Each Other And It's Worse Than Ever
The partisan split in America is the highest it's been in two decades, with Republicans and Democrats holding vastly disparate views on race, immigration and the role of government, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center.
Pew has been measuring attitudes on policy issues and political values dating back to 1994, and its latest check-in finds — perhaps unsurprisingly — that Americans are more divided than ever.
"The fact that Republicans and Democrats differ on these fundamental issues is probably not a surprise, but the magnitude of the difference is striking, and particularly how the differences have grown in recent years and where they've grown," Carroll Doherty, Pew's director of political research and one of the authors of the study, told NPR.
Pew asked more than 5,000 respondents this summer about 10 specific political issues — ranging from government regulation and aid, same-sex marriage and environmental regulations — and found that, on average, there was a 36-point gap between Republicans and Democrats. That's a whopping 21-point increase since it began tracking those questions 23 years ago.
Partisanship has risen markedly since 2004, the year President Bush was re-elected, and has hit a new high.
Two decades before, there was about a 15-point gap between Republicans and Democrats on these issues, but it wasn't that much more pronounced than differences in race or religion.
Now, how you identify politically is — by far — the starkest divider of how Americans see certain issues.
The widest two gaps were on views about race and government aid to the poor. Overall, 41 percent of Americans said that racial discrimination is the reason black people struggle to get ahead, which is the highest mark in the survey's history; 49 percent, however, still said that African-Americans who couldn't advance were responsible for their own situation.
But broken down along party lines, there's a huge 50-point gap between how Republicans and Democrats see the issue — almost two-thirds (64 percent) of Democrats think some African Americans struggle to get ahead because of discrimination, while just 14 percent of Republicans think so.
Back in 1994, 39 percent of Democrats thought the same thing — a 25-point uptick — while just a quarter (24 percent) of Republicans thought so, a 12-point drop in the two decades since.
There's also a 47-point gap between Democrats who believe that government should do more to help the needy (71 percent) and Republicans, who agree with that statement (just 24 percent.) Democrats' belief that the government needs to do more to help is from 58 percent in 1994.
A minority of Republicans have held that belief, and even fewer do today than a decade ago. The percentage saying so has fallen 21 points since 2007.
On immigration, there's also a wide chasm between the parties — 84 percent of Democrats say immigrants have strengthened the country with their "hard work and talents."
That's a 52-point increase since 1994.
But the percentage of Republicans saying immigrants help the country is half that (42 percent). A plurality of Republicans (44 percent) believes immigrants are a burden, but that 42 percent is actually higher than in 1994 for Republicans.
There is evidence of a generational shift among Republicans on social issues. On issues like immigration and support for same-sex marriage, for example, there was more support among younger Republicans.
On immigration, for example, 62 percent of Republicans under 30 said immigrants strengthen the country (20 points higher than the GOP overall). Just 31 percent of Republicans 65 and older believed the same thing.
Majorities in both parties also now said that being gay should be accepted by society. But the margin is far wider among Democrats than Republicans — More than 4-in-5 (83 percent) Democrats said so, while just more than half (54 percent) of Republicans agreed. Because Democratic support has exploded, the gap between the two parties has actually gotten wider despite broader acceptance by people in both parties.
On other issues, like environmental regulations (and whether they have hurt the economy) and use of the military versus non-interventionism, the parties have also moved in very different directions over the past two decades.
Like on all the issues Pew tested, Doherty explained that with each party being pulled further into their corners, it's been harder for legislators in Washington to reach any type of middle-ground consensus.
SourceThe divide grows and will likely get far worse in the next decade.
I'd say that as older Republicans die off the numbers will improve and society will make progress.
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On October 06 2017 01:50 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 01:32 brian wrote:On October 06 2017 01:31 Slydie wrote:On October 06 2017 01:19 zlefin wrote:
They aren't presented with such options becuase they aren't voting for the kind of people who work diligently and thoughtfully to fix problems in a rigorous manner. It's not like it's impossible to figure out how to fix such things; voters simply do not reward people for such. There's plenty of plausible options, the public just doesn't want to hear them, because they don't wnat to hear about policy. As a foreginer, there are some seriously weird up values among voters in the US too, like abortion, death penalty, police violence, gun control, healthcare "only for me" and more. Add to that the structral problems like campaign donations, opression of unions, education, industry lobbyists, the 2-party system, gerrymandering etc. and I believe: You are fucked. do you not have strong opinions on those ‘weird values?’ I think he meant to say that you guys have weird opinions on those particular issues. Which, from a european pov, regarding those particular issues, is true for like 40% of you guys. It kinda feels like what happened is that democrats/young people/urbanites to a larger degree have adopted european values and republicans try to counter-balance by being even more staunchly traditional american.
Nah, by taking this line, you're giving American conservatives exactly what they want in the same vein that the Federalist Society keeps trying to force everyone to associate constitutionalism with conservatism. The concept of "Traditional American" ideals is a game of political smoke and mirrors in which political entities do their best to narrow the scope of inquiry such that the association works in their favor. For example, Conservatives love pointing at Thomas Jefferson, cherry-picked Federalist Papers, and Jacksonian American Exceptionalism while shouting "THIS IS AMERICA," but those things are in no way essentially figurative. Liberals do the same with Hamilton, the now practically written out of existence 9th Amendment, and the shitshow that was an early America full of asshole states that wanted to do everything in their power to reneg on debts, avoid federal laws, and preserve the status of their ruling classes. Depending on how you frame things, the US is either a conservative country that made a few mistakes (slavery, 3/5s clause, Dred Scott) or a liberal country that has never managed to shrug off its history of abject racism and "fuck you, I got mine" sentiments.
Neither perspective has any essential truth to it, so when it comes to delineating US politics, I don't think it makes sense to associate Americanism with a particular side of the spectrum. That said, you're definitely right in the sense that our liberals owes a great deal to our European brethren and the work they've done while we still argue with cowards too afraid or too stupid to admit that our country has a seemingly perpetual problem with race and class relations. Though in a relativistic sense, we're definitely more conservative than Europe.
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On October 06 2017 01:39 Velr wrote:
The discussion about these topics is just way more reasonable in most of europe, even when the results end up pretty similar like in the US.
As an example: Abortion is a big topic everywhere for some groups but its not a core issue for big parties, just for some extremely conservative splinterparties.
In a rich, small, and homogeneous society, it wouldn't come up as much. That's even despite your abortion laws being much more restrictive than the US (12-13 weeks vs 22-23 weeks).
We've had a pretty even 50-50 divide in the country on pro-life vs pro-choice for quite a while now. Same with abortion legal in all/most vs legal in few cases/none. I can grasp some of that from pro-life friends that say it's nothing short of legally killing babies and pro-choice friends that call it enslaving a woman's body. I understand saying you can have your abortions, but don't immorally use my tax dollars to support your choice.
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On October 06 2017 01:53 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 01:45 Artisreal wrote:On October 06 2017 01:19 zlefin wrote:
They aren't presented with such options becuase they aren't voting for the kind of people who work diligently and thoughtfully to fix problems in a rigorous manner. It's not like it's impossible to figure out how to fix such things; voters simply do not reward people for such. There's plenty of plausible options, the public just doesn't want to hear them, because they don't wnat to hear about policy. Honest question: who, after working 8 to 10 hours plus commute wants to think about what to do in the wake of automation instead of spending time with kids/loved ones/firends/hobbies? I suspect it's not that many, I certainly wouldn't put myself into that group. I have specific interests that I pursue politically form time to time but that doesn't cover even 10% of the most important questions of our time (number is random). You have cracked the code of elections. The population does not want to be entrenched in politics for 6 months to a year. In an ideal world, they want to tune in for 1-2 months, make their decision and move on. And that is how elections used to be. There was an era where the parties had a really hard time getting the networks to cover the conventions. It was pretty awesome, when politics was so boring that TV networks lost money covering it. But now we have come full circle and covering politics is show business. Entertainment. It is off season sports. Red vs Blue. Left vs Right. And people treat it like that. People are now Republicans in the same fashion that my father is a Red Sox fan. Every tried to get a Red Sox fan to cheer for the Yankees?
I feel that it is a fallout of Citizen's United, which allows political parties and affiliates to spend almost unlimited sums of moneys resulting in campaigns that run 24x7x365. Combine it with notoriously lax regulations for News channels and internet based "news sources" (and I use the term very loosely here), we have a recipe for the current political climate.
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Cherry picking the Federalist Papers is one of my historical pet peeves. Especially Hamilton, since that man wrote down and published every idea that came into his head, good or bad. Citing it anything from the Federalist papers as authoritative totally misses the point of why they were written, to convince people a centralized goverment was a good idea. They were not written to hash out how a centralized goverment would function. They were written before the founding fathers had tried to govern effectively. All of their opinions changed in those first 20 years of governance.
On October 06 2017 02:07 Piledriver wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 01:53 Plansix wrote:On October 06 2017 01:45 Artisreal wrote:On October 06 2017 01:19 zlefin wrote:
They aren't presented with such options becuase they aren't voting for the kind of people who work diligently and thoughtfully to fix problems in a rigorous manner. It's not like it's impossible to figure out how to fix such things; voters simply do not reward people for such. There's plenty of plausible options, the public just doesn't want to hear them, because they don't wnat to hear about policy. Honest question: who, after working 8 to 10 hours plus commute wants to think about what to do in the wake of automation instead of spending time with kids/loved ones/firends/hobbies? I suspect it's not that many, I certainly wouldn't put myself into that group. I have specific interests that I pursue politically form time to time but that doesn't cover even 10% of the most important questions of our time (number is random). You have cracked the code of elections. The population does not want to be entrenched in politics for 6 months to a year. In an ideal world, they want to tune in for 1-2 months, make their decision and move on. And that is how elections used to be. There was an era where the parties had a really hard time getting the networks to cover the conventions. It was pretty awesome, when politics was so boring that TV networks lost money covering it. But now we have come full circle and covering politics is show business. Entertainment. It is off season sports. Red vs Blue. Left vs Right. And people treat it like that. People are now Republicans in the same fashion that my father is a Red Sox fan. Every tried to get a Red Sox fan to cheer for the Yankees? I feel that it is a fallout of Citizen's United, which allows political parties and affiliates to spend almost unlimited sums of moneys resulting in campaigns that run 24x7x365. Combine it with notoriously lax regulations for News channels and internet based "news sources" (and I use the term very loosely here), we have a recipe for the current political climate.
The most damning part of Citizen's United is that congress did nothing after the ruling to assure accountability for super PACs. No laws were written, no guidance. Just nothing. So now the entire process is the wild west. A voter couldn't figure out who is funding a super PAC if they wanted to. It is unlimited money and it is ruining elections and public discourse.
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On October 06 2017 02:07 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 01:39 Velr wrote:
The discussion about these topics is just way more reasonable in most of europe, even when the results end up pretty similar like in the US.
As an example: Abortion is a big topic everywhere for some groups but its not a core issue for big parties, just for some extremely conservative splinterparties. In a rich, small, and homogeneous society, it wouldn't come up as much. That's even despite your abortion laws being much more restrictive than the US (12-13 weeks vs 22-23 weeks). We've had a pretty even 50-50 divide in the country on pro-life vs pro-choice for quite a while now. Same with abortion legal in all/most vs legal in few cases/none. I can grasp some of that from pro-life friends that say it's nothing short of legally killing babies and pro-choice friends that call it enslaving a woman's body. I understand saying you can have your abortions, but don't immorally use my tax dollars to support your choice.
Here is the Issue with this.
Switzerland isn't homogenous, yes its mostly white but nearly 30% of people living here aren't swiss. We got 2 big languages and one with decent size.
Yes, we are rich. So is the US, i don't see that point at all. You just decided to go more into a "fuck the poor" direction than we did.
Damn near everything we have/do you could have too.
The size argument is pretty hilarious anyway because when it comes to businesses/companies right wingers tend to be all about economy of scale.
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On October 06 2017 02:13 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 02:07 Danglars wrote:On October 06 2017 01:39 Velr wrote:
The discussion about these topics is just way more reasonable in most of europe, even when the results end up pretty similar like in the US.
As an example: Abortion is a big topic everywhere for some groups but its not a core issue for big parties, just for some extremely conservative splinterparties. In a rich, small, and homogeneous society, it wouldn't come up as much. That's even despite your abortion laws being much more restrictive than the US (12-13 weeks vs 22-23 weeks). We've had a pretty even 50-50 divide in the country on pro-life vs pro-choice for quite a while now. Same with abortion legal in all/most vs legal in few cases/none. I can grasp some of that from pro-life friends that say it's nothing short of legally killing babies and pro-choice friends that call it enslaving a woman's body. I understand saying you can have your abortions, but don't immorally use my tax dollars to support your choice. Here is the Issue with this. Switzerland isn't homogenous, yes its mostly white but nearly 30% of people living here aren't swiss. We got 2 big languages and one with decent size. Yes, we are rich. So is the US, i don't see that point at all. You just decided to go more into a "fuck the poor" direction than we did. Damn near everything we have/do you could have too.
The biggest difference between the US and Europe that I often see neglected deals in our geography and sovereign divide. Nowhere else in the world does a country actively practice "dual sovereignty" the way we do here in the US, so any seemingly easy to address political problem automatically becomes more difficult to solve because our state and federal governments oppose one another by design.
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Reading about Catalonian independence has been interesting. In many ways, they sound justified in feeling like they contribute x and don't get enough y. It got me thinking about US states. I haven't put much thought or research into this, but from my own mild pondering, it feels like all states contribute. Some states collect more federal money than they receive, but meh. Are there any states that really are just kinda not that great? Some states contribute timber, some contribute farming, some contribute technology...etc. Are there states that are just kinda not that great with resources, don't have much IP, don't help with trading ports, and are just kinda along for the ride?
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On October 06 2017 02:13 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 02:07 Danglars wrote:On October 06 2017 01:39 Velr wrote:
The discussion about these topics is just way more reasonable in most of europe, even when the results end up pretty similar like in the US.
As an example: Abortion is a big topic everywhere for some groups but its not a core issue for big parties, just for some extremely conservative splinterparties. In a rich, small, and homogeneous society, it wouldn't come up as much. That's even despite your abortion laws being much more restrictive than the US (12-13 weeks vs 22-23 weeks). We've had a pretty even 50-50 divide in the country on pro-life vs pro-choice for quite a while now. Same with abortion legal in all/most vs legal in few cases/none. I can grasp some of that from pro-life friends that say it's nothing short of legally killing babies and pro-choice friends that call it enslaving a woman's body. I understand saying you can have your abortions, but don't immorally use my tax dollars to support your choice. Here is the Issue with this. Switzerland isn't homogenous, yes its mostly white but nearly 30% of people living here aren't swiss. We got 2 big languages and one with decent size. Yes, we are rich. So is the US, i don't see that point at all. You just decided to go more into a "fuck the poor" direction than we did. Damn near everything we have/do you could have too. The size argument is pretty hilarious anyway because when it comes to businesses/companies right wingers tend to be all about economy of scale.
Also the 50-50 divide quickly becomes like 80-20 if the question is "Should all abortions be illegal". The overwhelming majority of Americans do not want abortion to be completely illegal.
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On October 06 2017 02:16 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 02:13 Velr wrote:On October 06 2017 02:07 Danglars wrote:On October 06 2017 01:39 Velr wrote:
The discussion about these topics is just way more reasonable in most of europe, even when the results end up pretty similar like in the US.
As an example: Abortion is a big topic everywhere for some groups but its not a core issue for big parties, just for some extremely conservative splinterparties. In a rich, small, and homogeneous society, it wouldn't come up as much. That's even despite your abortion laws being much more restrictive than the US (12-13 weeks vs 22-23 weeks). We've had a pretty even 50-50 divide in the country on pro-life vs pro-choice for quite a while now. Same with abortion legal in all/most vs legal in few cases/none. I can grasp some of that from pro-life friends that say it's nothing short of legally killing babies and pro-choice friends that call it enslaving a woman's body. I understand saying you can have your abortions, but don't immorally use my tax dollars to support your choice. Here is the Issue with this. Switzerland isn't homogenous, yes its mostly white but nearly 30% of people living here aren't swiss. We got 2 big languages and one with decent size. Yes, we are rich. So is the US, i don't see that point at all. You just decided to go more into a "fuck the poor" direction than we did. Damn near everything we have/do you could have too. The biggest difference between the US and Europe that I often see neglected deals in our geography and sovereign divide. Nowhere else in the world does a country actively practice "dual sovereignty" the way we do here in the US, so any seemingly easy to address political problem automatically becomes more difficult to solve because our state and federal governments oppose one another by design. I could be wrong but I beleive Switzerland does have that very same state/federal model.
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions is unveiling a new aspect of his promised crackdown on violent crime: the reinvigoration of a longstanding Justice Department program aimed at getting federal prosecutors to make a concerted effort to stem drug trafficking and violent gangs in their communities.
In a memo issued Thursday to U.S. Attorneys across the country, Sessions announced plans to impose new requirements aimed at bolstering a 16-year-old initiative known as Project Safe Neighborhoods. The program calls on the chief federal prosecutors to dedicate personnel to violent crime reduction and to develop plans to collaborate with local police and prosecutors to try to get the most violent criminals off the streets.
"We cannot afford to be complacent in the face of violence that threatens too many of our communities," Sessions said in his memo. "All United States Attorneys must implement an enhanced violent crime reduction program that incorporates the lessons learned since the original program's launch in 2001 and leverages new strategies to help turn the tide against violent crime."
Project Safe Neighborhoods, set up under President George W. Bush, is an outgrowth of Project Exile—a state-federal effort in Richmond to make sure that those using guns in crimes got mandatory prison sentences.
Sessions and Justice Department officials were low-key in their criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the program, but noted that violent crime has risen over the past two years, calling for a federal response.
"Unfortunately, the Department's support of this successful initiative has waned in recent years," the attorney general said.
Other Justice officials said the Obama administration put increased focus on issues like white-collar crime and that some of the focus was understandable in light of the 2008 financial meltdown.
"In the last years, the department had other priorities and never focused quite as much on the program as we did in the, say, previous 10 years," said one official who asked not to be named. "We're rebooting it, basically."
"There just was not this priority placed on violent crime and narcotics prosecution. That was not the message we received in the field," another Justice official told reporters.
In the works for months but announced on the heels of the worst-ever mass shooting in U.S. history, the new effort includes a change to how federal authorities process traces for guns used in crimes. Those linked to crime scenes will be given priority, with plans to complete such traces in 24 hours, officials said.
Meeting that goal could be challenging since the process sometimes involves checking paper records kept by gun dealers. Gun-rights advocates have blocked legislation that would put more gun sale and ownership data in federal hands.
While Project Exile is generally viewed as successful in discouraging gun crime, critics have said its inflexibility led to thousands of young offenders—most of them minorities—getting stiff prison terms with little regard to whether the crime was their first offense or other extenuating circumstances.
"Out goal is not to fill up the prisons. Our goal is to reduce crime," the Justice official said.
There is no major infusion of resources behind the program yet, officials said, although Sessions has committed to using existing funds to add 40 prosecutor slots to places around the country experiencing spikes in violent crime.
President Donald Trump's budget request for the current fiscal year includes proposals for 300 new prosecutors to focus on violent crime and immigration issues and for $70 million in grant funding to support anti-violence efforts. The federal government is currently operating on a stop-gap funding measure with prospects for passage of traditional appropriations bills unclear.
Officials said they could not say precisely what current work might be adversely impacted by the new focus.
"Will that have some concomitant effect of, well, does that mean we do one less Social Security fraud case? Maybe, but it's going to be office by office," one of the Justice officials said.
Some of the previous priorities were misplaced, the official argued.
"You go to Chicago right now — this should be their priority. And I think you will see if you saw numbers in Chicago. They did a lot less violent crime cases over the last, call it, four years and folks [brought] more white-collar....And to their detriment," he said.
The new policy also calls for U.S. attorneys to report on their anti-violence efforts every six months instead of every two years and to work with local authorities set up systems to track gun violence in their jurisdictions.
Source
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At least it was modeled after the US, but here size/distance probably really matter.
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Norway28669 Posts
On October 06 2017 02:05 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 01:50 Liquid`Drone wrote:On October 06 2017 01:32 brian wrote:On October 06 2017 01:31 Slydie wrote:On October 06 2017 01:19 zlefin wrote:
They aren't presented with such options becuase they aren't voting for the kind of people who work diligently and thoughtfully to fix problems in a rigorous manner. It's not like it's impossible to figure out how to fix such things; voters simply do not reward people for such. There's plenty of plausible options, the public just doesn't want to hear them, because they don't wnat to hear about policy. As a foreginer, there are some seriously weird up values among voters in the US too, like abortion, death penalty, police violence, gun control, healthcare "only for me" and more. Add to that the structral problems like campaign donations, opression of unions, education, industry lobbyists, the 2-party system, gerrymandering etc. and I believe: You are fucked. do you not have strong opinions on those ‘weird values?’ I think he meant to say that you guys have weird opinions on those particular issues. Which, from a european pov, regarding those particular issues, is true for like 40% of you guys. It kinda feels like what happened is that democrats/young people/urbanites to a larger degree have adopted european values and republicans try to counter-balance by being even more staunchly traditional american. Nah, by taking this line, you're giving American conservatives exactly what they want in the same vein that the Federalist Society keeps trying to force everyone to associate constitutionalism with conservatism. The concept of "Traditional American" ideals is a game of political smoke and mirrors in which political entities do their best to narrow the scope of inquiry such that the association works in their favor. For example, Conservatives love pointing at Thomas Jefferson, cherry-picked Federalist Papers, and Jacksonian American Exceptionalism while shouting "THIS IS AMERICA," but those things are in no way essentially figurative. Liberals do the same with Hamilton, the now practically written out of existence 9th Amendment, and the shitshow that was an early America full of asshole states that wanted to do everything in their power to reneg on debts, avoid federal laws, and preserve the status of their ruling classes. Depending on how you frame things, the US is either a conservative country that made a few mistakes (slavery, 3/5s clause, Dred Scott) or a liberal country that has never managed to shrug off its history of abject racism and "fuck you, I got mine" sentiments. Neither perspective has any essential truth to it, so when it comes to delineating US politics, I don't think it makes sense to associate Americanism with a particular side of the spectrum. That said, you're definitely right in the sense that our liberals owes a great deal to our European brethren and the work they've done while we still argue with cowards too afraid or too stupid to admit that our country has a seemingly perpetual problem with race and class relations. Though in a relativistic sense, we're definitely more conservative than Europe.
Well, say traditional american values from a european perspective then. Your last sentence errs a bit in the same way my post does btw, Europe east of Germany is in many ways more conservative than the US is (but there's a strong tendency to consider western europe the 'true' europe), and american progressives have, the past 5-10 years, surprised me through going further on many issues than what similarly minded groups in Europe do. Like, from my cursory glance, Portland is more alternative than Kreuzberg is. And while you guys severely lagged behind some western european countries like the netherlands with regard to homosexual rights, I think the parts of the US where transgenders are accepted are more accepting than what the case is for virtually anywhere in Europe.
Your republicans are much further to the 'right' than our conservatives are. If we go 30 years back in time, that was not the case. Our conservative party still considers the republicans their american sister-party, because that's how it was historically - but I'm fairly confident someone like Kwark would probably vote for them. During the 90s, my perception was that both democrats and republicans would find themselves on the very right segment of Norwegian politics. Now, republicans go much further than our progress party does (most right-wing party with parliamentary representation), whereas half the democratic voters who post here sound like your average Norwegian labor party voter - the other half, like Kwark, would prolly go conservative.
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On October 06 2017 02:26 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 02:16 farvacola wrote:On October 06 2017 02:13 Velr wrote:On October 06 2017 02:07 Danglars wrote:On October 06 2017 01:39 Velr wrote:
The discussion about these topics is just way more reasonable in most of europe, even when the results end up pretty similar like in the US.
As an example: Abortion is a big topic everywhere for some groups but its not a core issue for big parties, just for some extremely conservative splinterparties. In a rich, small, and homogeneous society, it wouldn't come up as much. That's even despite your abortion laws being much more restrictive than the US (12-13 weeks vs 22-23 weeks). We've had a pretty even 50-50 divide in the country on pro-life vs pro-choice for quite a while now. Same with abortion legal in all/most vs legal in few cases/none. I can grasp some of that from pro-life friends that say it's nothing short of legally killing babies and pro-choice friends that call it enslaving a woman's body. I understand saying you can have your abortions, but don't immorally use my tax dollars to support your choice. Here is the Issue with this. Switzerland isn't homogenous, yes its mostly white but nearly 30% of people living here aren't swiss. We got 2 big languages and one with decent size. Yes, we are rich. So is the US, i don't see that point at all. You just decided to go more into a "fuck the poor" direction than we did. Damn near everything we have/do you could have too. The biggest difference between the US and Europe that I often see neglected deals in our geography and sovereign divide. Nowhere else in the world does a country actively practice "dual sovereignty" the way we do here in the US, so any seemingly easy to address political problem automatically becomes more difficult to solve because our state and federal governments oppose one another by design. I could be wrong but I beleive Switzerland does have that very same state/federal model.
In a formal sense, it isn't all that different given the similar division of power between cantons and the federal confederation outlined in the Swiss federal constitution. In a practical sense though, the scale of difference and historical length of existence end up changing the balance in a way that renders the US significantly more at odds with itself than Switzerland ever will be moving forward. History-wise, the Swiss have been at this game of figuring out where the line between canton and federal power resides for a helluva lot longer than we have, and in that sense, it would be very interesting to look back in time for a point where Swiss inner-conflict might mirror ours. Here in the US, the fight over exactly what the federal/state divide means in a legal sense has only just begun by comparison with Switzerland. Further, Switzerland's tradition of direct democracy cuts out a lot of the noise that we have here in the US relative to electoral transparency.
On October 06 2017 02:32 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 02:05 farvacola wrote:On October 06 2017 01:50 Liquid`Drone wrote:On October 06 2017 01:32 brian wrote:On October 06 2017 01:31 Slydie wrote:On October 06 2017 01:19 zlefin wrote:
They aren't presented with such options becuase they aren't voting for the kind of people who work diligently and thoughtfully to fix problems in a rigorous manner. It's not like it's impossible to figure out how to fix such things; voters simply do not reward people for such. There's plenty of plausible options, the public just doesn't want to hear them, because they don't wnat to hear about policy. As a foreginer, there are some seriously weird up values among voters in the US too, like abortion, death penalty, police violence, gun control, healthcare "only for me" and more. Add to that the structral problems like campaign donations, opression of unions, education, industry lobbyists, the 2-party system, gerrymandering etc. and I believe: You are fucked. do you not have strong opinions on those ‘weird values?’ I think he meant to say that you guys have weird opinions on those particular issues. Which, from a european pov, regarding those particular issues, is true for like 40% of you guys. It kinda feels like what happened is that democrats/young people/urbanites to a larger degree have adopted european values and republicans try to counter-balance by being even more staunchly traditional american. Nah, by taking this line, you're giving American conservatives exactly what they want in the same vein that the Federalist Society keeps trying to force everyone to associate constitutionalism with conservatism. The concept of "Traditional American" ideals is a game of political smoke and mirrors in which political entities do their best to narrow the scope of inquiry such that the association works in their favor. For example, Conservatives love pointing at Thomas Jefferson, cherry-picked Federalist Papers, and Jacksonian American Exceptionalism while shouting "THIS IS AMERICA," but those things are in no way essentially figurative. Liberals do the same with Hamilton, the now practically written out of existence 9th Amendment, and the shitshow that was an early America full of asshole states that wanted to do everything in their power to reneg on debts, avoid federal laws, and preserve the status of their ruling classes. Depending on how you frame things, the US is either a conservative country that made a few mistakes (slavery, 3/5s clause, Dred Scott) or a liberal country that has never managed to shrug off its history of abject racism and "fuck you, I got mine" sentiments. Neither perspective has any essential truth to it, so when it comes to delineating US politics, I don't think it makes sense to associate Americanism with a particular side of the spectrum. That said, you're definitely right in the sense that our liberals owes a great deal to our European brethren and the work they've done while we still argue with cowards too afraid or too stupid to admit that our country has a seemingly perpetual problem with race and class relations. Though in a relativistic sense, we're definitely more conservative than Europe. Well, say traditional american values from a european perspective then. Your last sentence errs a bit in the same way my post does btw, Europe east of Germany is in many ways more conservative than the US is (but there's a strong tendency to consider western europe the 'true' europe), and american progressives have, the past 5-10 years, surprised me through going further on many issues than what similarly minded groups in Europe do. Like, from my cursory glance, Portland is more alternative than Kreuzberg is. And while you guys severely lagged behind some western european countries like the netherlands with regard to homosexual rights, I think the parts of the US where transgenders are accepted are more accepting than what the case is for virtually anywhere in Europe. Your republicans are much further to the 'right' than our conservatives are. If we go 30 years back in time, that was not the case. Our conservative party still considers the republicans their american sister-party, because that's how it was historically - but I'm fairly confident someone like Kwark would probably vote for them. During the 90s, my perception was that both democrats and republicans would find themselves on the very right segment of Norwegian politics. Now, republicans go much further than our progress party does (most right-wing party with parliamentary representation), whereas half the democratic voters who post here sound like your average Norwegian labor party voter - the other half, like Kwark, would prolly go conservative.
Fair enough, I added that last line to mediate my post and can see that you're indeed right in pointing out its flaw in being too broad  I also didn't really know that with regards to European transgender acceptance, that's interesting.
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On October 06 2017 02:13 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On October 06 2017 02:07 Danglars wrote:On October 06 2017 01:39 Velr wrote:
The discussion about these topics is just way more reasonable in most of europe, even when the results end up pretty similar like in the US.
As an example: Abortion is a big topic everywhere for some groups but its not a core issue for big parties, just for some extremely conservative splinterparties. In a rich, small, and homogeneous society, it wouldn't come up as much. That's even despite your abortion laws being much more restrictive than the US (12-13 weeks vs 22-23 weeks). We've had a pretty even 50-50 divide in the country on pro-life vs pro-choice for quite a while now. Same with abortion legal in all/most vs legal in few cases/none. I can grasp some of that from pro-life friends that say it's nothing short of legally killing babies and pro-choice friends that call it enslaving a woman's body. I understand saying you can have your abortions, but don't immorally use my tax dollars to support your choice. Here is the Issue with this. Switzerland isn't homogenous, yes its mostly white but nearly 30% of people living here aren't swiss. We got 2 big languages and one with decent size. Yes, we are rich. So is the US, i don't see that point at all. You just decided to go more into a "fuck the poor" direction than we did. Damn near everything we have/do you could have too. The size argument is pretty hilarious anyway because when it comes to businesses/companies right wingers tend to be all about economy of scale.
And of the (2014) 2mil foreigners you have living there, 1.6mil were of European extraction. Pretty homogenous. ~8mil vs 330mil. Pretty small. Half our poverty, lower inequality. You don't have to fudge how diverse your society really is. It's the very large and different populations that make up the US where you get situations like the coasts/metros vs middle america where these issues are talked about completely differently. Urban poor, rural poor, rich suburbs, etc etc.
I'm not just bashing on Switzerland. You've got a great gun culture. Semi autos too. (How can you be so regressive on gun policy, Switzerland???) It's just you won't see nearly the same issues by virtue of your demographics/situation.
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Are you sure you have any idea about the Swiss gun culture, Danglars?
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United States42694 Posts
Can we have a Swiss guy explain once and for all that they're not constantly out with their buddies drinking and shooting with their assault rifles?
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Yeah, that whole access to ammunition and mandatory male military conscription thing....
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Doesn’t Switzerland heavily regulate ammunition as a means of gun control? Because I am 99% sure they don’t just handle out long arms with 30 round clips to their citizens at age 18 with zero training.
Also, isn’t the state empowered to strip a citizen of their fire arms? Because you can’t do that in the US with having the person declared incompetent. And then the guns are just transferred to the guardian, rather than to the state.
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On October 06 2017 02:17 Mohdoo wrote:
Reading about Catalonian independence has been interesting. In many ways, they sound justified in feeling like they contribute x and don't get enough y. It got me thinking about US states. I haven't put much thought or research into this, but from my own mild pondering, it feels like all states contribute. Some states collect more federal money than they receive, but meh. Are there any states that really are just kinda not that great? Some states contribute timber, some contribute farming, some contribute technology...etc. Are there states that are just kinda not that great with resources, don't have much IP, don't help with trading ports, and are just kinda along for the ride?
I can't think of any such states. It'd of course depend on how you measure; but from my knowledge of the stats on economic distributions every state has got something or other it's bringing in to a reasonable degree. (moreso if you also account for variation over time, as some states have been better/worse positioned at various points)
transfer payments aren't really high enough to sustain an area that isn't doing something significant of its own; and they especially weren't historically.
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EPT
