u.s. politics: faygo to the polls

[GAROVORKIN]

48 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Oh no, that's not good enough, I'm afraid. I'm on the bandwagon, fellas. Who do we go after next? Those heartless fucks who voted for ACA repeal?   

There are several things about he ACA saga that really irked me 

1. You can Keep you doctor

2. You can keep you health plan 

3. It was also supposed to reduce costs      

4 . Lets pass this bill to see whats in it.

 

What really uproariously funny   in all this  is  I don't recall  asking for ACA in the first place. 

 

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 There's the larry post.

That's where I drew the ACA thing from.

 

So I guess you can just turn violence on and off like a faucet? 

This is so inane. Of course you can. We do this all the time, for all sorts of things. We don't have this bizarre slippery slope ever evident; if we did, we would have exterminated all the muslims in this country years ago. 

Similarly, we didn't attack Germany and then say 'okay, Britain, you're up next'. Violence isn't something that has to never end, or have unlimited goals. 

And again, here's the real important thing - you say that violence will be the next step, but we are already there. That's the real problem I have with the argument that violence shouldn't be used - because violence is already being used. What I continue to hear from you over and over is this ignoring of the people who are already having harm caused to them and telling them to sit down, protest, and for gods sake don't hurt any of those people who are actively advocating for your death. 

I'm not saying that there should be drone strikes. I'm not saying that we should bomb Cleveland...okay, that'd be fine. I'm saying, simply, that violence is a perfectly reasonable tactic to use, has been used in history to stop tyrants over and over again, and is often the only thing that will actually stop someone from killing you. I don't want to go executing Nazis, but I absolutely do want to make sure that another Heather Heyer doesn't happen, another Dylann Roof doesn't happen. And advocating to use violence on those who are signing up to kill 11 million immigrants in this country is not an unreasonable position, nor does it mean there is a slippery slope.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

In New Orleans the white rights paraders to save Confederate monuments got paced by tuba players playing cartoons' music scores, and some were pelted with --- glitter. The belief in NO is that crazyconfederatenaziwhitesupremacistnationalists hate being glitterized and turned into cartoon characters.

So New Orleans!  So excellent!

I love it.

[Zorral]

9 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 There's the larry post.

That's where I drew the ACA thing from.

 

So I guess you can just turn violence on and off like a faucet? 

You've forgotten that this is exactly how the organizers of the cadres  -- well the cells -- in Boston, New York and other places did it in the run-up to the War of Independence, the French Revolution and Kansas-Missouri and other places in the run-up to Secession -- and, why yes, in Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain and Hitler's Austria and Germany.

It's looking more so that your -- meaning you personally -- real problem is that you just react and pontificate and don't read, don't study -- and in fact, probably don't get out much and don't talk with people who aren't here.  Or maybe you do but there is no evidence here that you do, which is why talking with you is becoming pointless.  You don't have any real ideas, you just blow in response to watching tv all day.

 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

There are several things about he ACA saga that really irked me 

1. You can Keep you doctor

That was largely true for most people.

2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

2. You can keep you health plan 

That was 100% true, though not without some bullshit.

2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

3. It was also supposed to reduce costs

It did reduce costs insanely. 

2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

 4 . Lets pass this bill to see whats in it.

This is an often used bullshit talking point taking a Pelosi statement out of context, and it turned out to be entirely right given that polling has swung 20% better for it. In particular, three major points about the ACA  that didn't get any coverage at the time (pre-existing conditions, essential health benefits and lifetime limits) are now three of the biggest things people like about the ACA. 

2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

What really funny in all this  I don't even  asking for ACA in the first place. 

Sorry that you don't care about 50 million people without affordable healthcare, but yes, I suspect you didn't ask for it because you don't care.

[Kalbear]

As to a @dmc515 post from earlier about me - my point was to @Manhole Eunuchsbane, who was suggesting that what makes the US a Democracy is its adherence to free speech and expression laws. And yes, it's absolutely true that the US making those worse would make us even worse on the Democracy scale - but it's also true that those freedom of speech laws have not particularly appeared to have helped make the US a strong democracy compared  to the rest of the world. More restrictive free speech does not appear to have made a major dent in most other Democracies. 

So the argument that making freedom of speech more strict will result in the US losing its democracy is, IMO, complete bullshit.

[Altherion]

5 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Sure, if white men were truly discriminated against they would have a point. But I'm sure you realize that such victimisation on their part is hiding the true reaons of their economic woes. In other words, blaming affirmative action instead of political, governmental, and financial decisions taken these last decades is highly ridiculous. You and I know why inequality has risen in the past fifty years in the West, and we know affirmative action is certainly not to blame for anything in this story.

Yes and no. It is true that the overall rise of inequality has nothing to do with affirmative action or any of the other "diversity" initiatives. However, the latter are a multiplicative effect on top of the former: with ever fewer desirable positions, the preferential treatment towards certain groups based on immutable characteristics becomes more significant. Using the standard pie metaphor, inequality has decreased the size of the slice that most people get, but affirmative action and the like redistribute a part of the already shrunken slice away from certain groups and towards others. Of course, the two effects aren't of the same order of magnitude, but the visibility of the "diversity" one is magnified by the fact that it has beneficiaries who are easy to see (and in fact some who loudly advocate for its increase).

5 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Also, in order to see affirmative action as "discrimination" you have to pretty much deny the fact that there is discrimination against minorities or women in the first place.

There is no official discrimination against women or minorities and there are lawsuits where it is found. The unofficial variety is by its very nature difficult to substantiate (again, if you could prove that it is present, there'd be a lawsuit).

5 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I really don't think I need to tell you all this Altherion. IIRC you're not even white, are you?

Depends on who you ask. I doubt I'd qualify in, say, late 1930s Germany, but I certainly do in the contemporary US.

5 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I think the media isn't doing their job of truly showing why such ideas should be rejected.
Of course, it they did, in the US they would no doubt be accused of being biased.

In the US, it is much too late for this: at this point, the media would be hard pressed to convince more than half of the population that they're telling the truth if they say that water is wet. This is probably the scariest aspect of this mess: the alt-right and the alt-left are currently too small to make a noticeable difference, but there is no national-scale entity with moral authority anymore or even one that will simply be believed by most people.

6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

But in Europe at least, the journalists have done a pisspoor job of criticizing right-wing populism.
But we know why don't we? In France, Le Pen had to be threatening enough to get Macron elected. Else something really bad could have happened... Like an actual socialist being elected president. And god forbid we should go back to a genuinely progressive tax system...

I think the 2017 French election was expertly executed: the French elites learned a lesson from Brexit and Trump and decided to take no chances. Macron would almost certainly have won against any other candidate in any case, but having Le Pen in the second round made the victory much more decisive.

That said, yes, for some reason the media seems to be more effective in preventing socialists from getting anywhere than they do with the far-right. I'm not sure why this is the case. Maybe the European media don't really want to attack them., but the American one has bashed the far-right every chance it got for a while... it just seems to be damaging the media more than it does the far-right.

6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Come on, what are the numbers? What percentage of the population are we talking about? Or even of the college population?
You can't seriously think this is statistically relevant.

The percentage of the population is negligible -- but it is the case for practically all actions, events or policies so far. On the other hand, the propaganda impact is national and it contributes to the rage. I can just as easily ask what percentage of the population have been impacted by the alt-right; it is almost certainly even smaller and not by a little bit.

6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I beg to differ. I think neoliberalism is fine with some mild versions of neo-fascism and that it even encourages them.
Worse case scenario, the rise of the neo-fascists is very useful to neo-liberals to prevent socialism from rising again.

Also, Trump is ridiculously neo-liberal. National neo-liberalism and international neo-liberalism are two sides of a coin. Or do you seriously believe that things will be better if NAFTA is renegociated to screw the Canadians? Like, do you seriously believe that poverty in the US is due to the Canadians?

I think you mean the Mexicans -- nobody in the US has been talking about the Canadians -- and no, I don't. Thus far, Trump appears to be an opportunist who had the skill and luck to acquire a powerful position, but not quite enough to get anything significant done with it. I'm not sure if he's a neoliberal simply because he hasn't done anything yet.

[GAROVORKIN]

Just now, Kalbear said:

That was largely true for most people.

That was 100% true, though not without some bullshit.

It did reduce costs insanely. 

This is an often used bullshit talking point taking a Pelosi statement out of context, and it turned out to be entirely right given that polling has swung 20% better for it. In particular, three major points about the ACA  that didn't get any coverage at the time (pre-existing conditions, essential health benefits and lifetime limits) are now three of the biggest things people like about the ACA. 

Sorry that you don't care about 50 million people without affordable healthcare, but yes, I suspect you didn't ask for it because you don't care.

 

I find that people who take cheap shots at people  who disagree with them do so ,  due to the fact that they got nothing to say  and you've  definitely got nothing to say in this instance .

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

39 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Okay, let's go another way. 

Let's say a coworker said offhandedly that he wanted to kill every immigrant he saw. Heck, let's not even say that - let's say that they threatened to kill someone at work. Or maybe you heard about how they beat their mom up because she wouldn't let him play videogames. 

The "right" response is to call the authorities, right?

What if they didn't do anything? What would you do? Would you protest outside their house? Would you write to the news or on Facebook? 

Or would you personally intercede? Would you keep watch and if necessary, stop them with force? 

Because that is what is being talked about. We have ample evidence that there are a large number of people now who wish to and will cause harm to others. Protesting has not stopped them. The police have not. The government took away their funding to stop them and considers them less radical than juggalos. If we are not the ones who will stop them, who will?

That's all perfectly reasonable. I'm onboard with that level of vigilance and appropriate response. I'm not pushing back against anything that resembles this. 

Sword of Doom posted something to the effect that nazis could have their Free Speech after they were hung and buried 6 feet under. A couple of other posters agreed with this sentiment and congratulated him for having the courage to make it. That's the sort of call to violence that I'm railing against. Apologies to @DanteGabriel for not clarifying that point. This discussion has now stretched across 10 days and I believe at least 4 different U.S. Politics threads. Dante just jumped into it today, so perhaps I'm taking some of my frustration out on him unjustly.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

13 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Similarly, we didn't attack Germany and then say 'okay, Britain, you're up next'. Violence isn't something that has to never end, or have unlimited goals. 

No, we went to Korea for that after catching our breath.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

I find that people who take cheap shots at people  who disagree with them do so ,  due to the fact that they got nothing to say  and you've  definitely got nothing to say in this instance .

How did I take a cheap shot? You said you didn't ask for the ACA. That means you were completely fine with the current state of affairs, which meant 50 million people didn't have insurance. How is that inaccurate? 

[GAROVORKIN]

Just now, Kalbear said:

How did I take a cheap shot? You said you didn't ask for the ACA. That means you were completely fine with the current state of affairs, which meant 50 million people didn't have insurance. How is that inaccurate? 

Don't bother.

[Kalbear]

3 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

That's all perfectly reasonable. I'm onboard with that level of vigilance and appropriate response. I'm not pushing back against anything that resembles this. 

Sword of Doom something to the effect that nazis could have their Free Speech after they were hung and buried 6 feet under. A couple of other posters agreed with this sentiment and congratulated him for having the courage to make it. That's the sort of call to violence that I'm railing against. Apologies to @DanteGabriel for not clarifying that point. This discussion has now stretched across 10 days and I believe at least 4 different U.S. Politics threads. Dante just jumped into it today, so perhaps I'm taking some of my frustration out on him unjustly.

And I really don't have a problem with that view, honestly. If people are going to stand up and willingly advocate to kill me, my family, and my friends, I have zero fucks to give for their free speech point of views - especially if they do so while knowingly taking the flag and decorations of an organization which already did this. 

Seriously - what is the actual value of having free speech if it means you can use it to terrorize people? What is the value to an open society? If you can answer this without answering anything to do with slippery slope, I'll listen. Because we've already shown that there are plenty of very democratic societies that get by without making Nazi symbols legal and have restrictions on free speech, so the idea that this will lead to an authoritarian state is obviously flawed. 

4 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

No, we went to Korea for that after catching our breaths.

So are you saying that the US shouldn't have entered WW2? Or not let Russia take over Europe? Or let North Korea take over South Korea? Again, I don't get you - South Korea existing right now is obviously a good thing, especially given how fucked North Korea is. Are you saying that protesting would have worked? I don't honestly know. 

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Don't bother.

No, please - let's get into this. You don't remember asking for the ACA. How come? Why didn't you care about providing 50 million people with insurance? If you have a reason, please state it, because otherwise as far as I can tell you were simply thoughtless and didn't think that 50 million people needed health insurance for some reason, and that they'd be okay. 

I tend to find people who make pithy comments in order to score points can't back them up in any way once confronted with the reality of what it might mean. 

[LongRider]

9 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

How did I take a cheap shot? You said you didn't ask for the ACA. That means you were completely fine with the current state of affairs, which meant 50 million people didn't have insurance. How is that inaccurate? 

I couldn't figure out Gar's response either, since you commented on each point and added more info.   Perhaps  Gar doesn't have any preexisting conditions to worry about. 

scheesh! 

[LongRider]

asshole

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I couldn't figure out Gar's response either, since you commented on each point and added more info.   Perhaps  Gar doesn't have any preexisting conditions to worry about. 

scheesh! 

In all honestly, before my son got cancer I wasn't super thrilled with the ACA either, and was willing to take a slight hit in my benefits in exchange for helping others a little bit. But after cancer? After knowing he would have been kicked off coverage and we would have half a million dollars in medical debt? Knowing that he'd never be able to get insurance in his life? Yeah, bit difficult to say that it's such a bad deal. 

[GAROVORKIN]

Just now, Kalbear said:

No, please - let's get into this. You don't remember asking for the ACA. How come? Why didn't you care about providing 50 million people with insurance? If you have a reason, please state it, because otherwise as far as I can tell you were simply thoughtless and didn't think that 50 million people needed health insurance for some reason, and that they'd be okay. 

I tend to find people who make pithy comments in order to score points can't back them up in any way once confronted with the reality of what it might mean. 

May I give you some advice?  If you going to be critical of someone and their opinions refrain from statement of"  you don't care" or you must not care "  im  not responsible for these 50 million  so do lay that guilt trip crap on me, I no neither respect not use for anyone that does that. 

The problem I have is I would like to be able to make my own decisions about Healthcare and how much with getting stuffed down my throat by government.   

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

12 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

So are you saying that the US shouldn't have entered WW2? Or not let Russia take over Europe? Or let North Korea take over South Korea? Again, I don't get you - South Korea existing right now is obviously a good thing, especially given how fucked North Korea is. Are you saying that protesting would have worked? I don't honestly know. 

 You used not attacking Britain after defeating Germany as an example as to how we can turn violence on and off like a faucet. Since we found out how profitable war is, we haven't really managed to turn that faucet off, have we? I'm not speaking to the lack of nobility of those two wars. We are a country that profits off of war. We sell arms to unscrupulous allies, We've corporatized war. 

 We like violence too much to turn it off. 

[GAROVORKIN]

7 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I couldn't figure out Gar's response either, since you commented on each point and added more info.   Perhaps  Gar doesn't have any preexisting conditions to worry about. 

scheesh! 

Nevermind .