US Politics: The Accountability Problem

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

2.  There are systemic cultural issues that make this a hard question, including the fact that it is not clear that high quality public education for all is (or ever was) a shared common value among Americans.

3.  While money is required, it needs to be money well spent.  Education by fad has been the norm for a while.  The goal should be to create public schools that all wish their children to attend.  We don't have that right now.

These are very valid points. As an anecdotal example, the town I grew up and went to school in has a population of about 32-35k and had, last time I counted, SEVEN superintendents. And these are all public schools; that number doesn't include the private schools. 

And that totally fucked up system is by design, to keep children of color out of what is now the Richie Rich school district (which, full disclosure, was the school I attended, although it wasn't nearly as bad then), while still allowing it to siphon public funds from the city district coffers.

[Altherion]

8 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I'm a bit surprised the Green New Deal is a bit ambivalent about carbon capture technologies (I think a few of the env. groups are as well). The argument is that the capture technologies will give fossil fuel companies free reign to continue drilling, with the understanding that everything can be captured later. A similar argument is that more fuel efficient cars just make people drive more to get roughly the same fuel usage. 

There are complicated social arguments to be made on both sides, but in my opinion carbon capture technologies should be part of the mix. We can deal with unintended consequences later, but just reducing emissions wont cut it (IMHO). At some point we need scaled up technologies that can actually remove CO2 from the atmosphere (and other GHGs as well)

It's most likely because this is the highest hanging fruit. The easiest and cheapest places to find gains are on efficiency (i.e. spend less energy). This means stuff like better insulation which reduces the need for both heating and air conditioning, LED lightbulbs instead of halogen and so on. It's only slightly more expensive, but you need everybody to buy in (nearly impossible in a capitalist economy, but probably not that hard in, say, China). The next best thing to do is to use the clean technology that is available right now (e.g. solar panels, electric cars, etc.). At the moment this is still quite expensive and is mostly accessible to the upper middle class and higher (there are exceptions for people who live in a few regions where it's either favored by nature or heavily subsidized).

Carbon capture is even worse than that -- it's still in the development stages and even once it comes out of development, it'll still be quite some time before it is economically viable. I'm not saying we shouldn't work on it, but it's not a near term thing.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Triskele said:

But could that be backwards and Bernie might this time around have the advantage that Trump had in that he could always have a solid core and everyone else divides the vote?  

I don't think so.  If you look at the three primary polls listed by RCP in the last week - two national, one Iowa - Bernie is at 15-16%.  If you're gonna make this argument about anybody, it's clearly Biden.

[Martell Spy]

11 minutes ago, Triskele said:

There's been some chatter recently that Trump had an advantage in the GOP primaries because he had a solid 30% or so support early on that seemed to have a ceiling but the clown car of other candidates would just split the vote every which way and hand the state to Trump.

There's been plenty of chatter also, and I'm guilty of this, of saying "well, Bernie did well when he was the only Clinton alternative, but let's see last time."  

But could that be backwards and Bernie might this time around have the advantage that Trump had in that he could always have a solid core and everyone else divides the vote?  

I read a similar theory about Booker. I guess it could apply to Beto as well. Booker could unite the centrists while everyone else is racing left.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

I read a similar theory about Booker. I guess it could apply to Beto as well. Booker could unite the centrists while everyone else is racing left.

Bacon at 538 laid out in an article yesterday why it's very difficult to unite the various moderate demos into a bloc.  I think Biden transcends this because he has unparalleled stature - and would have correspondingly unparalleled institutional support - if he got in.

[Martell Spy]

9 minutes ago, DMC said:

Bacon at 538 laid out in an article yesterday why it's very difficult to unite the various moderate demos into a bloc.  I think Biden transcends this because he has unparalleled stature - and would have correspondingly unparalleled institutional support - if he got in.

That is an incredible stat, a third of Democrats think you must believe in God to be a moral person. Frightening to an atheist like me. Next I will get dumped in with those that dealt pot in school.

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Next I will get dumped in with those that dealt pot in school.

Well if you look at the breakdown Bacon got from PEW - that 30/22/21% of Dem moderates uneducated whites, blacks, and latinos, I think that God/values item makes perfect sense.  Most of those demos are gonna be pretty religious, and that constitutes most of the moderates in the sample.

[Martini Sigil]

2 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

That is an incredible stat, a third of Democrats think you must believe in God to be a moral person. Frightening to an atheist like me. Next I will get dumped in with those that dealt pot in school.

It's truly amazing... as fast as no/non religion is rising in this country, the power of the O.G. zombie --even on the left-- is still pronounced... the USA is the most religious country in western civilization, and --IMO-- it is our undoing.

[Kalbear]

The US isn't even the most religious country in north America. 

[TrueMetis]

So I see on twitter people are starting to fill out their tax returns and finding out they aren't getting a refund this year. Fun times.

[mcbigski]

3 hours ago, Triskele said:

There's been some chatter recently that Trump had an advantage in the GOP primaries because he had a solid 30% or so support early on that seemed to have a ceiling but the clown car of other candidates would just split the vote every which way and hand the state to Trump.

Well last time around the Republicans let too many establishment candidates run and the democrats didnt let enough.  They ll probably both over adjust but if the establishment Republicans can settle on one candidate trump will be in trouble because the media will be entirely behind him or her until the nomination.

[Gone and Quite Forgotten]

I'm starting to see Chris Christie every time I think of Baron Harkonnen from Dune. Not necessarily a fat thing.

[mormont]

Trump: willing to bully trans people at home, unwilling to stand up to murderous dictators abroad.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47182567

A study in courage, isn't he?

[Morpheus]

He actively tried to help in the coverup, it is less cowardice than corruption and ruthlessness. 

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

I'm starting to see Chris Christie every time I think of Baron Harkonen. Not necessarily a fat thing.

I feel ya. It's just a general fucking revulsion. His weight's got nothin' to do with it.

Oh! GUYS! GUYS! GUESS WHAT!?!

Jace learned a new word!!!! Well... not learned. I mean, obviously. But I totes have learned how fun the word can be. 'Cuck' or 'Cucked' is like my new favorite thing to say in my best Alex Jones voice. I growl it at all of my friends and colleagues daily now, it's great!

Obviously I use this... not even 'insulting' insult facetiously, as a mockery of our fellow Nazi Americans, but it's dexterous for a deranged mind such as mine. I see why the Nazis liked it so much.

But can we revisit that 'insulting' thing for a second. Like, I don't get it. I've never gotten it. I mean, I understand the emasculating elements and why that's supposedly such an insult (in 2019? c'mon) but when it first was co-opted by our goosestepping countrymen and I eventually became aware of its prevalence in their limited literary tool bag I just didn't see the gravity. Cuckold, a descriptive of a man whose wife is 'unfaithful' (also, in 2019? c'mon) often assigned as a form of mockery.

I guess from their impossibly convoluted worldview the idea of your possession (wife) betraying you (promiscuity out of expected bounds) is deeply revealing of some weakness on the man's part, no doubt to keep his object in line and respectful. But...

But...

Like, that's not really a thing in American culture. And I'm not sure of a time when it was. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there have been times within someone's living memory when they gleefully whispered 'cuckolded' behind a supposed friend's back when he arrived single to that years' Christmas party. But generally in every experience I've ever seen/heard/read in real life or simulated, a 'cheater' whether male or female (admittedly WAAAY more for the female) is seen as the villain of a story. I have never in my life encountered someone who described with relish cheating on and thereby emasculating their husband or lover. I've known people who 'cheated', but they invariably either saw these activities as shameful to themselves or were on some psychotic rage bend where nobody wanted anything to do with them besides the person(s) they were fucking.

Conversely, the person on whom the 'cheating' was perpetrated is not seen as 'weak' or 'less than', they're seen as having been victimized (I'm not here to tell you what for, exactly, 'cause I don't know) by a nefarious and untrustworthy scoundrel. Friends and family rally around this person to lift their spirits and provide words of condemnation towards the belligerent.

Until the resurgence of this word's usage by our swastika swaddling friends I can recall having heard or read the term used exactly once in recent mainstream culture for the purpose of suggesting derision or humiliation, and that was in HBO's 'Rome', Season 2 Episode... 8 (was right, but I did have to look it up to confirm). A show taking place literally over two thousand years ago. Otherwise, the term generally suggested a mutual sexual gratification arrangement wherein the man (I'd never really heard of a chick being into it) watches his lover get fucked by another dude. Which is totally weird (I mean to general people, I don't give a fuck) and was not seen as 'normal' but pretty clearly on the deviant/perverted side of scandal as opposed to emasculating. <Insert Roger Stone joke here.>

This is a societal observation, one that's pretty fucking basic. I guess I can vaguely imagine some lowbrow Adam Sandler or Kevin James movie where a part of the humor revolves around the idea of the main character being 'cheated on', demonstrating his worthlessness, well enough to believe such examples exist but. Huh! I think I just figured it out. They probably all sit around touching themselves to Kathy Bates' character in 'Waterboy'. I am now prepared to say definitively that Nazis are Adam Sandler devotees, and their disgusting worldviews emerged from that misanthropic fraud's intellectual carbuncles that Sony has (had?) the gall to put in film theaters.

See, it can be fun to do Nazi stuff and just make shit up. That's like 4 good paragraphs of word salad just to get to a fucking Adam Sandler punchline! Isn't the internet delightful?

[Darth Richard II]

Oh jeez, you JUST learned about cuck? I’m kind disappointed in you Jace. Hell pretty sure I was called a cuck in one of the Star Wars threads.

[Seli]

17 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

I feel this is a talking point that is not rooted in reality, America spends more on education than any other country in the world, the problems with education is not money.  I've been hearing that we needed to spend more on education literally my entire life, and we have increased spending on education my entire life, with nothing to show for it.  

https://www.vox.com/2015/3/25/8284637/school-spending-US

That is not surprising, it takes a lot of money to fix problems rather than prevent them in the first place. From an outsider perspective it seems that the fundamental lack of food, health, income security in the USA gives a large proportion of the population a difficult start which takes a lot of effort to overcome. A situation of course made worse by the weird system of paying early education by local taxes rather than regional/national ones, resulting in worse off communities being hit on multiple levels.

[Inigima]

Sorry to drive-by — I haven't been around much lately — but this entire argument is based on a false premise, that American public education is bad and/or getting worse. It is not. American public education has improved over time and is still doing so. To the extent that our assessments can capture student achievement, the indicators are positive, and we keep raising our standards. I would have to dig out my copy to get page numbers, but my data comes from Diane Ravitch's Reign of Error. Ravitch was an Assistant Secretary of Education under George H.W. Bush. I'm not expecting anyone else to provide journal citations, but I think the current claims are being pulled directly out of the asses of people making them. Not maliciously — these are common, widespread perceptions. But that doesn't, in and of itself, make them true. 

That's not to say public education is a solved problem — there's always room for improvement, we will always find things we could do better, there will always be hucksters trying to use public education to siphon public money to their own benefit, and so on. But to argue that our public schools are simultaneously receiving unparalleled funding and going down the toilet is oversimplistic at best and grossly inaccurate, even though that's an extremely common public perception. 

Stuff like local funding of public education creates some obvious problems already identified earlier in this thread. But personally, I think a lot of our problems in education are really the result of policy failures in other spheres, and public education is just one area where those policy failures manifest visibly. Specifically, I think poverty is at the root of a lot of what appear to be public education issues. It's very difficult to be a good student when you don't have adequate food or shelter or your buildings don't have heat in the winter.

[Rorshach]

15 hours ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

So I was thinking more of CCU rather than CCS (U being use rather than sequestration). The thing that excited me a few months ago is someone put a $100-250 value per MT of CO2e being reused through capture. Previous numbers were closer to $600/MT, so a substantial improvement.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/06/its-possible-to-reverse-climate-change-suggests-major-new-study/562289/
 

Still, considering emissions reductions offsets are usually in the $1-2/MT range, it is still a more expensive option. And there is the usual academic disclaimer of "in 5 years this technology has the potential to...." which never pans out 5 years later, But funding for research in this area should be part of a green deal mix,

It certainly is interesting, and worth continuing researching. If that technology could be delivered at industrial scale, it would help combat climate change. 

My reaction was summed up in the article: Hmmm, I hope this works

[OldGimletEye]

21 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

ETA, as far both sideism, given that one of the Democratic Party's rising stars has just said that she wants to end air travel within 10 years and that "all" Latinos/Latinas/Latinex peoples have a right to migrate to America, I wouldn't be so glib about stupidity on the left.

Missed this one. So let me cover this,

Maybe you don't read this thread regularly, but there has been times I've disagreed with AOC on a couple of issues. Not so much on her broad policy goals, but more on the implementation.

I have indicated in several post that I'm not exactly on board with Modern Monetary Theory. That said MMTers are much closer to truth on matters than the gold bug crowd within Republican Party. In fact they are much closer to truth on the nature of debts and money than your average conservative is or was.

I have also indicated that I'm skeptical for her government job guarantee. And in fact, there is some skepticism about that on the left that does exist. As I have indicated, I see that idea as being a "second best" policy. If we had sane policy both fiscal and monetary, I'd see as not being necessary. But over the last ten years what we got, was a bunch of insane ignorant nonsense from conservatives. And that ignorant nonsense wasn't just limited to your average conservative rube. Even Nobel Prize winners like Eugene Fama made basic mistakes with regard to economic theory that would have got a freshman student a failing grade. He basically used an accounting identity to make an argument when he started with that whole "a dollar spent by the government is one that can't be spent by the private sector!". That might be true where MV = Py and V is stable. But nobody, thinks V is stable. If Fama thinks it is he should have specified that assumption, when he proceeded to write drivel in the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal.

But since our political system is so messed up and we can't seemingly get decent monetary and fiscal policy, as evidenced by the, GFC, then maybe the jobs guarantee is something worth thinking about. Remember the "skills gap" crowd. Or how about the crowd that claimed unemployment was to do to "Obama's job killing regulations!". Yeah, it turns out that was all a bunch of horseshit. Unless you really want to claim that the current state of the economy is due to Trump's brilliance, rather than trends he inherited from Obama. Seemingly, however, now even Trump, Stephen Moore, and perennial conservative loser Kevin Warsh think that aggregate demand is a thing, with their sudden reversals on monetary policy.

On the issue of immigration, while I have indicated my skepticism about having complete open borders at this time ( though I'd point out that a lot of libertarians do believe in this. Perhaps you aren't familiar with what the boys and gals down at Reason mag believe as you suppose), there certainly is a very strong case that we should increase the current level of legal immigration. Where these immigrants come from, I could care less. If most of them happen to come from Latin America, then so be it. Makes no difference to me. The so called immigration problem the United States has doesn't exist and really is the result of conservatives over active imaginations.

As far as going completely open borders, I think we should raise the level of legal immigration and see what happens. If there are no adverse affects, then we should think about raising it again. Maybe some day we will have something that gets to open borders. There are lot of reasons to think that open borders may have a lot of welfare improving effects, both for the immigrants themselves, and for most US citizens. The point here is that having open borders or something close to it isn't a completely insane idea. What is insane is conservatives claiming we have a really big immigration problem.

As far as the air travel thing. Now I know that conservative sorts of people and even "reasonable centrist" love to point out how crazy AOC with regard to the New Green Deal. While there is a legitimate debate to be had, I should think, over how far we should go or what we should exactly do, what is truly insane and crazy is that we have waited this long to do anything about it. And this is the result of years of conservative climate denial and gas-lighting on this topic. I'm grateful AOC is pressing the issue because somebody needs to. The latest IPCC report is no joke. Also, I'd note AOC goal isn't to stop all long distance travel, but to replace the current mode of transportation, air travel, with something else. No I have no idea about the feasibility of this. But to the extent that it would be doable, I'm not sure why their would be an objection to it.

The upshot of this is maybe the left is sometimes wrong about certain things. However it does not follow that "both sides" are equally crazy. One is much crazier than the other and has been for years.