US Politics Mega-thread - Page 412

On July 04 2018 22:22 Introvert wrote:
isn't it interesting how when someone says "abolish ICE" we are supposed to k ow that they don't want open borders, but that they just mean "abolish and replace because it's too rotten to be saved." If a conservative says "the EPA is a classic power hungry bureaucracy that likes to crush those too small to fight" the automatic assumption is that one wants no environmental regulations at all. Excellent example of how some people won't even offer someone the benefit of the doubt. Just assume the person on the right is a bad person, and your arguments are much easier!

Now, I suspect that "abolish ICE" is just some good old fashioned dumb hyperbole (not a smart one but whatever). Kind of like "abolish the EPA" is. But those on the left take it further... There are people who mean these literally, but if you are on the left you stress that "abolish ICE" isnt open borders to most people, but if it's about the EPA you assume that it means "have no regulations whatsoever!"

On July 05 2018 00:59 Danglars wrote:

I generally don’t engage with people that look at the names of various agencies and nonprofits and base their summary on their feelings. People that willing to speak out of ignorance can’t be argued into a fuller understanding of the victims. Their invisible victims of “systemic racism” or voter ID or heteronormative society and the rest are afforded greater attention and compassion.

On July 05 2018 00:59 Danglars wrote:

I generally don’t engage with people that look at the names of various agencies and nonprofits and base their summary on their feelings. People that willing to speak out of ignorance can’t be argued into a fuller understanding of the victims. Their invisible victims of “systemic racism” or voter ID or heteronormative society and the rest are afforded greater attention and compassion.

On July 04 2018 23:17 Gorsameth wrote:
If someone wants to argue that the EPA is rotten and needs to be abolished I would first ask for evidence of them being rotten.
We have mountains of it on the ICE.

On July 05 2018 01:14 kollin wrote:

'Invisible victims of systemic racism' lol

On July 05 2018 02:50 IgnE wrote:


invisible doesn't mean non-existent. danglars is speaking to their erasure from a place of deep empathy on both sides

On July 04 2018 21:06 Leporello wrote:
You're painting a very rosy picture of what was essentially a robbery of the treasury, most notably during the Reagan "boom". You cut the income tax in half, deplete gov't revenue in the process and begin the national debt trend that we're enduring to this day -- well of course you'd better have one hell of a "boom". If Reagan didn't have any "boom", then all we could say is he just burned trillions of dollars and pushed our country towards mountains of debt for nothing. But no, the economy "boomed" for a little while until the free-lunch wore off.

Clinton had the Internet.

Neither of them deserve any credit due to good economic policy. One was disgusting reverse-welfare that put a huge liability onto the backs of future generations, the other was just circumstance of a landmark private innovation.

It's like congratulating someone for taking out a massive loan from a bank without much clue as to how they'll pay it back, while opining that future customers should be so lucky. Well, they won't be so lucky. They're the ones that're unfairly going to have to pay for the previous customer's ignorance.


With Reagan and Clinton -- you're talking about Baby Boomers -- people who received the world on a golden platter. The biggest, strongest, sturdiest middle-class workforce ever. The generation that was given everything, and took it for granted.

They're the reverse of the Greatest Generation, in my opinion. They didn't build the middle-class -- rather, they robbed it into near-extinction, while patting themselves on the back over their "economic booms". And Donald Trump is the last bit of their legacy. A spit in the face of everything the Greatest Generation stood for.

On July 04 2018 23:40 iamthedave wrote:


I'm sorry, P6, you're going to need to help me out here. I ran what you said through my American translator plug in and it came out with:

The EPA is full of liberal wishy-washy traitors who hate America and want businesses to fail

and

ICE is full of hard-working American patriots who just want to keep the borders safe and prevent other patriots being raped by Mexicans.

On July 05 2018 03:27 screamingpalm wrote:


Indeed! Democrats still to this day brag about the budget surplus of the "goldilocks economy" not understanding sectoral balances and that needs to net to zero. In other words, the surplus drained savings and created a private debt expansion bubble which led to a nasty recession. Clinton replaced deficit spending by filling the Gap with bank loans and IOU's (and filled his buddies' pockets on Wall Street). A generation that benefitted from progressive policies of FDR, Ike, LBJ...

As far as the national debt though, there is far too much fear-mongering over what is essentially safe liquid assets- savings accounts at the fed. Much Ado about nothing and not something that we have to "endure" nor is it a burden. The federal government does not need, nor benefit from revenue.

On July 05 2018 04:26 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
That's what the Japanese thought. National debt is not a burden. What's your view on that?

On July 05 2018 04:22 Introvert wrote:


Your translator needs an update.

But I'll use this post because it's such an excellent distillation of what I'm talking about.

I'm not arguing about whether either agency should exist. For the sake of this conversation I intentionally hedged on that! I'm pointing out a phenomenon the right knows well and the left perpetuates where we can take two similar starting points but go nowhere. because everyone on the right is a Bad Person, a statement like "abolish the EPA" is extrapolated to mean "there should be no environmental regulations!" while "abolish ICE" is taken to mean "get rid of the agency and replace it with the Sweet Butterfly Patrol."

We aren't arguing the merits, and we can't because the Bad Person assumption is already enforced. And that's exactly what you did! lol.

This is why I find discussions about things like "reaching out" or "civility" so hilarious from the left. When your own side is so high on this assumption, what makes you think you were actually exemplars of the virtues you are saying "got us nowhere"? Fascinating.

On July 05 2018 04:35 NewSunshine wrote:

There's a fault in your premise which makes all your conclusions about "the Left" mean very little. The argument is that ICE is a deeply troublesome agency that 1) is unnecessary, and thus doesn't need replacing, and 2)actively does harm to both immigrants and citizens alike. It could be abolished tomorrow and the country would be better off. What's more, given what I've said already, people who argue for abolishing ICE aren't arguing for open borders. That's just a patently absurd position that no one is taking. Just like you're not going to find a proponent for women's abortion rights saying that we might as well just kill everyone and get it over with. That's not why they hold the position they do.

And finally, many people who argue the EPA must be dissolved do actually think we'd be better off without any environmental regulations whatsoever. There are still people who think global warming is a hoax, and that this is all much ado about nothing, and a conspiracy to destroy small businesses and "civil liberties".

I don't find the parallel you're trying to draw all that valuable.

On July 05 2018 04:31 screamingpalm wrote:



Can you be more specific? Usually the main concern in hyperinflation, but Japan runs much higher debt to GDP than the US and struggles with deflation.


National debt is a bit of a misnomer- should be called national savings. We are talking about savings accounts at the Federal Reserve. When you "pay off" the debt, you are simply transferring funds from a savings account to a checking account. National debt paid.

On July 05 2018 04:51 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Japan has a high level of national debt. That high level of national debt is usually assumed by economists (though what the heck do they know?" to blame for the period of low growth that Japan is currently going through. They cannot simply print money become of worries about inflation. Government debt as a saving account is probably the strangest analogy I have ever read though. A savings account is supposed to make you richer, not poorer. A country in a stable world that chooses to inflate away the worth of their bonds will find all future issuance worthless.

On July 05 2018 04:51 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
Japan has a high level of national debt. That high level of national debt is usually assumed by economists (though what the heck do they know?" to blame for the period of low growth that Japan is currently going through. They cannot simply print money become of worries about inflation. Government debt as a saving account is probably the strangest analogy I have ever read though. A savings account is supposed to make you richer, not poorer. A country in a stable world that chooses to inflate away the worth of their bonds will find all future issuance worthless.