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On November 11 2019 22:47 plated.rawr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2019 09:39 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 09:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 09:15 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 08:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:37 Aquanim wrote:On November 11 2019 08:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:17 Aquanim wrote:On November 11 2019 07:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 07:46 Aquanim wrote:[quote] If Trump was pulling strings to get Charlotte Pence investigated, the case that he was using the office of the President for his own personal political gain would be far more tenuous. + Show Spoiler +In fact I don't see how it would personally benefit him at all. Which is why he wouldn't do it. Saying that the Democrats would not investigate him for such a thing does not seem like a good example of hypocrisy or partisanship. So it's not the bribing/extortion that's the problem, it's who it benefited and you don't see the hypocrisy or partisanship... okay I would probably still find some of the details of how this went down problematic if Trump was trying to get some random pleb or somebody on his own side investigated. But yes, the fact that Trump was using the office for his own personal gain as opposed to your hypothetical situation where he would not personally gain anything does make a difference. I'm not sure what your difficulty with that is. EDIT: I am finding this hypothetical situation a little difficult to come to grips with simply because the notion of Trump pulling strings to get a Pence investigated is so obviously ludicrous. Really that hard for you to imagine Trump believing Pence has machinations to replace him and wanting leverage on Pence to prevent it? It's still pretty hard to believe... but in the hypothetical case where that happened, I reckon Democrats would probably still try to sink Trump with it (after all, the potential for blowback on them goes down considerably if the Bidens aren't in the picture). Perhaps less enthusiastically... but they'd probably be getting more help from the Republicans, too. An actually believable chain of events would be Trump looking for dirt on the family of a hypothetical primary challenger. Which I think would probably also get him impeached (again with less enthusiasm from the Democrats, but probably a lot more from Republicans). Obviously doing things in the "national interest" are also in his personal and political interests. So it's not that he was benefiting personally/politically for bribery/extortion. It's the ratio calculated by partisans of the national interest in confronting the kinda corruption Hunter Biden was engaged in and a Biden presidency would open up vs the personal/political benefit Trump would gain from it. I can't even engage with this without buying into your worldview so I think I'm just gonna not. Other than the quotations around national interest, that has nothing to do with my worldview and is merely a summary of the positions I've seen articulated here and supported by the rest of your post. If Trump had done the extortion/bribe for something more traditionally bipartisan but definitively more horrific there would be no impeachment attempt for it. ... Ok put all rich people on administration boards and their families in jail. Now you're speaking my language As much as I'd like to sometimes, it's not realistic, you shouldn't arrest people who have not broken the Law. Even if you wish it, you cannot expect the Dems to do it and call them hypocritical if they don't (in this specific case). Change the Law first. You expect any law to be upheld against those who facilitates and funds its upholders? In general, law works well to moderate undesirable behaviour, but it is entirely impotent when it comes to dealing with the wealthy and connected. To fix the law, you first need to fix the potential for individual power and the leverage it allows.
So do something that's literally impossible. Gotcha.
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On November 12 2019 20:43 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2019 22:47 plated.rawr wrote:On November 11 2019 09:39 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 09:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 09:15 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 08:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:37 Aquanim wrote:On November 11 2019 08:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:17 Aquanim wrote:On November 11 2019 07:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
So it's not the bribing/extortion that's the problem, it's who it benefited and you don't see the hypocrisy or partisanship... okay
I would probably still find some of the details of how this went down problematic if Trump was trying to get some random pleb or somebody on his own side investigated. But yes, the fact that Trump was using the office for his own personal gain as opposed to your hypothetical situation where he would not personally gain anything does make a difference. I'm not sure what your difficulty with that is. EDIT: I am finding this hypothetical situation a little difficult to come to grips with simply because the notion of Trump pulling strings to get a Pence investigated is so obviously ludicrous. Really that hard for you to imagine Trump believing Pence has machinations to replace him and wanting leverage on Pence to prevent it? It's still pretty hard to believe... but in the hypothetical case where that happened, I reckon Democrats would probably still try to sink Trump with it (after all, the potential for blowback on them goes down considerably if the Bidens aren't in the picture). Perhaps less enthusiastically... but they'd probably be getting more help from the Republicans, too. An actually believable chain of events would be Trump looking for dirt on the family of a hypothetical primary challenger. Which I think would probably also get him impeached (again with less enthusiasm from the Democrats, but probably a lot more from Republicans). Obviously doing things in the "national interest" are also in his personal and political interests. So it's not that he was benefiting personally/politically for bribery/extortion. It's the ratio calculated by partisans of the national interest in confronting the kinda corruption Hunter Biden was engaged in and a Biden presidency would open up vs the personal/political benefit Trump would gain from it. I can't even engage with this without buying into your worldview so I think I'm just gonna not. Other than the quotations around national interest, that has nothing to do with my worldview and is merely a summary of the positions I've seen articulated here and supported by the rest of your post. If Trump had done the extortion/bribe for something more traditionally bipartisan but definitively more horrific there would be no impeachment attempt for it. ... Ok put all rich people on administration boards and their families in jail. Now you're speaking my language As much as I'd like to sometimes, it's not realistic, you shouldn't arrest people who have not broken the Law. Even if you wish it, you cannot expect the Dems to do it and call them hypocritical if they don't (in this specific case). Change the Law first. You expect any law to be upheld against those who facilitates and funds its upholders? In general, law works well to moderate undesirable behaviour, but it is entirely impotent when it comes to dealing with the wealthy and connected. To fix the law, you first need to fix the potential for individual power and the leverage it allows. So do something that's literally impossible. Gotcha.
When people recognize that, it becomes clearer that neoliberal thinking is an obstacle to progress, not it's ally.
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On November 12 2019 20:43 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2019 22:47 plated.rawr wrote:On November 11 2019 09:39 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 09:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 09:15 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 08:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:37 Aquanim wrote:On November 11 2019 08:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:17 Aquanim wrote:On November 11 2019 07:58 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
So it's not the bribing/extortion that's the problem, it's who it benefited and you don't see the hypocrisy or partisanship... okay
I would probably still find some of the details of how this went down problematic if Trump was trying to get some random pleb or somebody on his own side investigated. But yes, the fact that Trump was using the office for his own personal gain as opposed to your hypothetical situation where he would not personally gain anything does make a difference. I'm not sure what your difficulty with that is. EDIT: I am finding this hypothetical situation a little difficult to come to grips with simply because the notion of Trump pulling strings to get a Pence investigated is so obviously ludicrous. Really that hard for you to imagine Trump believing Pence has machinations to replace him and wanting leverage on Pence to prevent it? It's still pretty hard to believe... but in the hypothetical case where that happened, I reckon Democrats would probably still try to sink Trump with it (after all, the potential for blowback on them goes down considerably if the Bidens aren't in the picture). Perhaps less enthusiastically... but they'd probably be getting more help from the Republicans, too. An actually believable chain of events would be Trump looking for dirt on the family of a hypothetical primary challenger. Which I think would probably also get him impeached (again with less enthusiasm from the Democrats, but probably a lot more from Republicans). Obviously doing things in the "national interest" are also in his personal and political interests. So it's not that he was benefiting personally/politically for bribery/extortion. It's the ratio calculated by partisans of the national interest in confronting the kinda corruption Hunter Biden was engaged in and a Biden presidency would open up vs the personal/political benefit Trump would gain from it. I can't even engage with this without buying into your worldview so I think I'm just gonna not. Other than the quotations around national interest, that has nothing to do with my worldview and is merely a summary of the positions I've seen articulated here and supported by the rest of your post. If Trump had done the extortion/bribe for something more traditionally bipartisan but definitively more horrific there would be no impeachment attempt for it. ... Ok put all rich people on administration boards and their families in jail. Now you're speaking my language As much as I'd like to sometimes, it's not realistic, you shouldn't arrest people who have not broken the Law. Even if you wish it, you cannot expect the Dems to do it and call them hypocritical if they don't (in this specific case). Change the Law first. You expect any law to be upheld against those who facilitates and funds its upholders? In general, law works well to moderate undesirable behaviour, but it is entirely impotent when it comes to dealing with the wealthy and connected. To fix the law, you first need to fix the potential for individual power and the leverage it allows. So do something that's literally impossible. Gotcha.
The greatest source of individual power is wealth - the greatest lack of individual power also the lack of wealth. Kill two birds with one stone by redistributing wealth from the obscenely wealthy to the desperate. Less wealth at the top is less centralized power around a single person, less desperate people at the bottom means less people willing to perform desperate acts for little money.
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On November 12 2019 23:53 plated.rawr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2019 20:43 iamthedave wrote:On November 11 2019 22:47 plated.rawr wrote:On November 11 2019 09:39 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 09:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 09:15 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 08:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:37 Aquanim wrote:On November 11 2019 08:30 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:17 Aquanim wrote:
[quote]
I would probably still find some of the details of how this went down problematic if Trump was trying to get some random pleb or somebody on his own side investigated.
But yes, the fact that Trump was using the office for his own personal gain as opposed to your hypothetical situation where he would not personally gain anything does make a difference. I'm not sure what your difficulty with that is.
EDIT: I am finding this hypothetical situation a little difficult to come to grips with simply because the notion of Trump pulling strings to get a Pence investigated is so obviously ludicrous. Really that hard for you to imagine Trump believing Pence has machinations to replace him and wanting leverage on Pence to prevent it? It's still pretty hard to believe... but in the hypothetical case where that happened, I reckon Democrats would probably still try to sink Trump with it (after all, the potential for blowback on them goes down considerably if the Bidens aren't in the picture). Perhaps less enthusiastically... but they'd probably be getting more help from the Republicans, too. An actually believable chain of events would be Trump looking for dirt on the family of a hypothetical primary challenger. Which I think would probably also get him impeached (again with less enthusiasm from the Democrats, but probably a lot more from Republicans). Obviously doing things in the "national interest" are also in his personal and political interests. So it's not that he was benefiting personally/politically for bribery/extortion. It's the ratio calculated by partisans of the national interest in confronting the kinda corruption Hunter Biden was engaged in and a Biden presidency would open up vs the personal/political benefit Trump would gain from it. I can't even engage with this without buying into your worldview so I think I'm just gonna not. Other than the quotations around national interest, that has nothing to do with my worldview and is merely a summary of the positions I've seen articulated here and supported by the rest of your post. If Trump had done the extortion/bribe for something more traditionally bipartisan but definitively more horrific there would be no impeachment attempt for it. ... Ok put all rich people on administration boards and their families in jail. Now you're speaking my language As much as I'd like to sometimes, it's not realistic, you shouldn't arrest people who have not broken the Law. Even if you wish it, you cannot expect the Dems to do it and call them hypocritical if they don't (in this specific case). Change the Law first. You expect any law to be upheld against those who facilitates and funds its upholders? In general, law works well to moderate undesirable behaviour, but it is entirely impotent when it comes to dealing with the wealthy and connected. To fix the law, you first need to fix the potential for individual power and the leverage it allows. So do something that's literally impossible. Gotcha. The greatest source of individual power is wealth - the greatest lack of individual power also the lack of wealth. Kill two birds with one stone by redistributing wealth from the obscenely wealthy to the desperate. Less wealth at the top is less centralized power around a single person, less desperate people at the bottom means less people willing to perform desperate acts for little money.
Neoliberal redistribution of their wealth would require fixing the law which can't be done without redistributing their wealth. Do you not see how you're argument is impracticable and nihilistic (or oblivious to it's nihilism)?
It's an argument for a neoconservative status quo poorly masked as left leaning pragmatic realism.
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What happens when you redistribute the wealth, and those that never had the wealth decide to blow it all in a few days? It’s commonly seen with lottery winners. If redistribution were to happen, there would also need to be some kind of education with how to handle that much money.
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Also Supreme Court is listening to the DACA case today. We’ll which side of history Chief Justice Roberts wants to be a part of.
Edit: they’re also letting a sue go ahead against the gun maker of Sandy Hook.
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On November 13 2019 00:09 ShoCkeyy wrote:
What happens when you redistribute the wealth, and those that never had the wealth decide to blow it all in a few days? It’s commonly seen with lottery winners. If redistribution were to happen, there would also need to be some kind of education with how to handle that much money.
Education (though not the capitalist indoctrination most people imagine) is critical. It's one reason why it's foundational in all socialist theory (which anyone still clinging to capitalism would benefit from engaging with).
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On November 13 2019 00:09 ShoCkeyy wrote:
What happens when you redistribute the wealth, and those that never had the wealth decide to blow it all in a few days? It’s commonly seen with lottery winners. If redistribution were to happen, there would also need to be some kind of education with how to handle that much money.
I'd imagine the wealth redistribution wouldn't be just giving out lump sums of money to people, but rather using the wealth to improve living standards and public services, provide affordable housing, as well as funding educational programs and support schemes for the poor.
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On November 13 2019 00:09 ShoCkeyy wrote:
What happens when you redistribute the wealth, and those that never had the wealth decide to blow it all in a few days? It’s commonly seen with lottery winners. If redistribution were to happen, there would also need to be some kind of education with how to handle that much money.
Wealth is not the same as money. its easy to blow money, it takes generations to blow wealth. Things like homeownership, life insurance, personal safety nets thats wealth and that takes time to accrue.
imagine if the government paid for a life insurance policy for everyone up to the age of 50. the cost is maybe 20-30 bucks a month/person (depending on the benefit amounts of course), but it has the power to substantially affect the lives of many families.
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On November 13 2019 00:01 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2019 23:53 plated.rawr wrote:On November 12 2019 20:43 iamthedave wrote:On November 11 2019 22:47 plated.rawr wrote:On November 11 2019 09:39 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 09:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 09:15 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 08:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:37 Aquanim wrote:On November 11 2019 08:30 GreenHorizons wrote:
[quote]
Really that hard for you to imagine Trump believing Pence has machinations to replace him and wanting leverage on Pence to prevent it? It's still pretty hard to believe... but in the hypothetical case where that happened, I reckon Democrats would probably still try to sink Trump with it (after all, the potential for blowback on them goes down considerably if the Bidens aren't in the picture). Perhaps less enthusiastically... but they'd probably be getting more help from the Republicans, too. An actually believable chain of events would be Trump looking for dirt on the family of a hypothetical primary challenger. Which I think would probably also get him impeached (again with less enthusiasm from the Democrats, but probably a lot more from Republicans). Obviously doing things in the "national interest" are also in his personal and political interests. So it's not that he was benefiting personally/politically for bribery/extortion. It's the ratio calculated by partisans of the national interest in confronting the kinda corruption Hunter Biden was engaged in and a Biden presidency would open up vs the personal/political benefit Trump would gain from it. I can't even engage with this without buying into your worldview so I think I'm just gonna not. Other than the quotations around national interest, that has nothing to do with my worldview and is merely a summary of the positions I've seen articulated here and supported by the rest of your post. If Trump had done the extortion/bribe for something more traditionally bipartisan but definitively more horrific there would be no impeachment attempt for it. ... Ok put all rich people on administration boards and their families in jail. Now you're speaking my language As much as I'd like to sometimes, it's not realistic, you shouldn't arrest people who have not broken the Law. Even if you wish it, you cannot expect the Dems to do it and call them hypocritical if they don't (in this specific case). Change the Law first. You expect any law to be upheld against those who facilitates and funds its upholders? In general, law works well to moderate undesirable behaviour, but it is entirely impotent when it comes to dealing with the wealthy and connected. To fix the law, you first need to fix the potential for individual power and the leverage it allows. So do something that's literally impossible. Gotcha. The greatest source of individual power is wealth - the greatest lack of individual power also the lack of wealth. Kill two birds with one stone by redistributing wealth from the obscenely wealthy to the desperate. Less wealth at the top is less centralized power around a single person, less desperate people at the bottom means less people willing to perform desperate acts for little money. Neoliberal redistribution of their wealth would require fixing the law which can't be done without redistributing their wealth. Do you not see how you're argument is impracticable and nihilistic (or oblivious to it's nihilism)? It's an argument for a neoconservative status quo poorly masked as left leaning pragmatic realism.
I havent made any statement as to how the wealth should be redistributed, only that itd be a required fix to the impotency of law against the power of wealth.
Now, as some obscenely rich people have come to realise, an increase of living standard for the desperate through available education, livable income and an illusion of self-determination, also brings with it calm and stability, which again brings prosperity to all.
These breadcrumbs extend the lives of the obscenely wealthy. If more adopted this approach, redistribution would occur naturally, which is what liberalists are arguing for. Yet, those embracing such an approach are only small pockets of the wealth-leeching elite.
When law fail us, and those with the means to change do not, they invite unrest not only in society, but also death on themselves.
Edit: it's all moot anyhow, as the migratorial chaos when the food-producing, highly populated eqatorial part of the world becomes unlivable due to rising sea levels and increased temperatures, would undo any reforms meant to support the needing.
Pitting the foreigner against the working class works every time.
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When I read those comments I was also going to write a post about how wealth is not the same as money, but I'm glad I don't have to. But it's not specifically about redistribution specifically, but about power, equality before the law and equality of opportunity. If those occured, then wealth is redistributed as a side effect of improving people lives, it's not the aim in itself.
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Wealth itself can be liquidated and those that want cash will find the means of getting it.
On November 13 2019 00:38 PoulsenB wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2019 00:09 ShoCkeyy wrote:
What happens when you redistribute the wealth, and those that never had the wealth decide to blow it all in a few days? It’s commonly seen with lottery winners. If redistribution were to happen, there would also need to be some kind of education with how to handle that much money. I'd imagine the wealth redistribution wouldn't be just giving out lump sums of money to people, but rather using the wealth to improve living standards and public services, provide affordable housing, as well as funding educational programs and support schemes for the poor.
The issue with this is currently the US has the largest economy, and can definitely already do this, but they don’t because of corruption, and/or sending the funds to other things like military or trumps campaign funds. We’d need to manage corruption first before trying to find public services, affordable housing, etc...
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On November 13 2019 00:55 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
When I read those comments I was also going to write a post about how wealth is not the same as money, but I'm glad I don't have to. But it's not specifically about redistribution specifically, but about power, equality before the law and equality of opportunity. If those occured, then wealth is redistributed as a side effect of improving people lives, it's not the aim in itself.
It would be better if the redistributed wealth was part of a large, socialist like safety program. I think that would get a lot of people on board with it...
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On November 13 2019 01:14 ShoCkeyy wrote:Wealth itself can be liquidated and those that want cash will find the means of getting it. Show nested quote +On November 13 2019 00:38 PoulsenB wrote:On November 13 2019 00:09 ShoCkeyy wrote:
What happens when you redistribute the wealth, and those that never had the wealth decide to blow it all in a few days? It’s commonly seen with lottery winners. If redistribution were to happen, there would also need to be some kind of education with how to handle that much money. I'd imagine the wealth redistribution wouldn't be just giving out lump sums of money to people, but rather using the wealth to improve living standards and public services, provide affordable housing, as well as funding educational programs and support schemes for the poor. The issue with this is currently the US has the largest economy, and can definitely already do this, but they don’t because of corruption, and/or sending the funds to other things like military or trumps campaign funds. We’d need to manage corruption first before trying to find public services, affordable housing, etc...
Isn't one of the main solutions to (low level) corruption to have liveable wages? Not a major US problem but in places like India the people approving decisions expect the income from corruption to make their living. So to remove that "fee" you would need to replace it with salary.
High level corruption that the US, China and a lot of other places suffer from is harder to tackle. They already make more than enough money for them and their family. They just want more on top of it.
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Northern Ireland27461 Posts
While an improvement obviously I don’t really see the point in redistribution without a cultural shift about what wealth inequality and how that manifests happening.
1. It’ll be internal within a hypothetical nation and in terms of relative wealth within that polity. It won’t really address any kind of relation to global wealth distribution.
2. In a hypothetical redistribution as a one time thing, with other structures brought in, it’ll still gradually spread back out into inequity if current norms regarding wealth remain as they are. Not to nearly as bad a degree as we have now of course.
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I dont understand why China just doesnt Tank their economy this election year to throw the US into a recession resulting in Trump losing to a democrat in 2020. Trumps been clinging to gains in the stock market as a major bouy for his re-election campaign but if China chose to put themselves into a temporary depression and wait for a democrat to get elected in 2020, they could make a much better trade deal with a more liberal president that would remove the tariffs. Seems to be the most optimal play long term for China and the future of America.
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On November 13 2019 06:38 redlightdistrict wrote:
I dont understand why China just doesnt Tank their economy this election year to throw the US into a recession resulting in Trump losing to a democrat in 2020. Trumps been clinging to gains in the stock market as a major bouy for his re-election campaign but if China chose to put themselves into a temporary depression and wait for a democrat to get elected in 2020, they could make a much better trade deal with a more liberal president that would remove the tariffs. Seems to be the most optimal play long term for China and the future of America.
(1) "Tanking their economy" would involve a lot of pain in the short term. Probably far more than the tariffs inflict.
(2) I'm fairly sure the US re-electing Trump and continuing to make a fool of itself on the global stage suits China very well, tariffs or no tariffs. I would guess that China's only interest in the "future of America" is seeing it fall so China can take its place as the leading superpower.
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It seems like redlightdistrict doesn't understand a lot of things, like I don't know...Trump being the best thing for China, without having to orchestrate their their own proxy as president? Obama instituted a Shift to the Pacific policy, TPP which was like a ring of countries to economically ally against China, and then Trump throws all that away and now it is certain that the rise of China will curtail democratic freedom for the rest of the world. It's not exactly a coincidence that China feels like it can just ignore the rights of Hong Kong and shoot Hong Kong protesters under Trump. China is happy with Trump; the only suprise is that they aren't doing anything to make sure Trump is re-elected, or perhaps they are simply too clever to get caught or too powerful to be openly accused..
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On November 13 2019 00:44 plated.rawr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 13 2019 00:01 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 12 2019 23:53 plated.rawr wrote:On November 12 2019 20:43 iamthedave wrote:On November 11 2019 22:47 plated.rawr wrote:On November 11 2019 09:39 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 09:18 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 09:15 Nouar wrote:On November 11 2019 08:46 GreenHorizons wrote:On November 11 2019 08:37 Aquanim wrote:
[quote]
It's still pretty hard to believe... but in the hypothetical case where that happened, I reckon Democrats would probably still try to sink Trump with it (after all, the potential for blowback on them goes down considerably if the Bidens aren't in the picture). Perhaps less enthusiastically... but they'd probably be getting more help from the Republicans, too.
An actually believable chain of events would be Trump looking for dirt on the family of a hypothetical primary challenger. Which I think would probably also get him impeached (again with less enthusiasm from the Democrats, but probably a lot more from Republicans).
[quote]
I can't even engage with this without buying into your worldview so I think I'm just gonna not. Other than the quotations around national interest, that has nothing to do with my worldview and is merely a summary of the positions I've seen articulated here and supported by the rest of your post. If Trump had done the extortion/bribe for something more traditionally bipartisan but definitively more horrific there would be no impeachment attempt for it. ... Ok put all rich people on administration boards and their families in jail. Now you're speaking my language As much as I'd like to sometimes, it's not realistic, you shouldn't arrest people who have not broken the Law. Even if you wish it, you cannot expect the Dems to do it and call them hypocritical if they don't (in this specific case). Change the Law first. You expect any law to be upheld against those who facilitates and funds its upholders? In general, law works well to moderate undesirable behaviour, but it is entirely impotent when it comes to dealing with the wealthy and connected. To fix the law, you first need to fix the potential for individual power and the leverage it allows. So do something that's literally impossible. Gotcha. The greatest source of individual power is wealth - the greatest lack of individual power also the lack of wealth. Kill two birds with one stone by redistributing wealth from the obscenely wealthy to the desperate. Less wealth at the top is less centralized power around a single person, less desperate people at the bottom means less people willing to perform desperate acts for little money. Neoliberal redistribution of their wealth would require fixing the law which can't be done without redistributing their wealth. Do you not see how you're argument is impracticable and nihilistic (or oblivious to it's nihilism)? It's an argument for a neoconservative status quo poorly masked as left leaning pragmatic realism. I havent made any statement as to how the wealth should be redistributed, only that itd be a required fix to the impotency of law against the power of wealth. Now, as some obscenely rich people have come to realise, an increase of living standard for the desperate through available education, livable income and an illusion of self-determination, also brings with it calm and stability, which again brings prosperity to all. These breadcrumbs extend the lives of the obscenely wealthy. If more adopted this approach, redistribution would occur naturally, which is what liberalists are arguing for. Yet, those embracing such an approach are only small pockets of the wealth-leeching elite. When law fail us, and those with the means to change do not, they invite unrest not only in society, but also death on themselves. Edit: it's all moot anyhow, as the migratorial chaos when the food-producing, highly populated eqatorial part of the world becomes unlivable due to rising sea levels and increased temperatures, would undo any reforms meant to support the needing. Pitting the foreigner against the working class works every time.
It's clear from your argument without explicitly saying it. You got there at the end it seems, realizing your argument is basically "catastrophic ecological collapse is inevitable and it would undo any of the 'rich people realizing' we managed to achieve."
Like I said, neoconservative argument for the status quo wrapped up in faux leftism (not sure if it's your position or you articulating liberal thinking though).
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EPT
