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US Politics - All He Wants for Christmas Was His Two Dead Sheep


Mlle. Zabzie

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5 hours ago, Squab said:

Who is more qualified to know which party is the more worker friendly? The workers themselves? No, It'll be someone well educated who has studied the policies and even visited one of these areas once. And because the worker is dumb a low information voter, all we need is the right messaging next time. 

[...]

Rural workers are abandoning the parties that once stood for workers but are now more focused on socialism, environmentalism, identity politics and whatever else is currently popular politically on university campuses. And some hillbilly worker from the country who questions any left wing ideal (immigration, increased taxes, environmental legislation, etc.) is dismissed (racist, capitalist, science denier, bigot). But hey, what would i know, im just a <insert name here>.

Unlike my comrades I don't think this is a problem of ignorance versus knowledge, but something far deeper.

I'm not sure of the terms that would be preferred by native English speakers but I'd say this is a problem between truth and reality. I would here define reality as what exists regardless of anyone's opinion about it, while truth is something relative to an individual perspective that one uses to define their existence and decide their actions.
(I've seen lots of different ways of defining the terms, but what's important is making the difference between absolute and relative notions)

The left tries to focus on things that are absolutes: human impact on the environment as measured through scientific methods, economic relationships as studied through empirical studies... etc.
The right tends to try to find what is the truth. It focuses on things that are technically not always anchored in reality: moral values, culture, tradition, identity... Now these things are all important for humans, and have an impact on reality, but are not themselves part of it.
It's never been that simple, but in this kind of discussion it turns out to be essential. The impact of immigration on a nation's culture or identity is true, but it is not real. Conversely global warming is real, but right-wingers refuse to see it as truth.

The problem is that one can be very knowledgeable about truth and not about reality. It's why conservatives can frown upon some aspects of science, and accuse academia as a whole of "liberal bias." It's also why leftists tend to "look down upon" a number of conservative values or positions.
It's why we can no longer even have a discussion without running into semantics.

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31 minutes ago, Squab said:

Your ignorance and arrogance lies completely in your assumptions of my scenario regardless of your education. If i want to know about sticking dicks in power sockets, be assured i will ask you. My own life, im gunna rely on me.

Highly unlikely.

Unless you are all a doctor/electrician/plumber/lawyer/etc. etc.  you are constantly getting/asking advice from other people because they are considered experts in their field.

Do you always have to listen to them? No, it is your choice not to listen. But when you choose to not listen it does not automatically mean you made the best choice for yourself. It means you made a decision that may or may not turn out for the best.

 

Edit: Let me give a more specific example. Let's say you get in a car wreck and go to the emergency room. The doctors there tell you they want you to stay a night in the hospital under observation. But you decide not to listen to the experts and against medical advice (AMA) decided to go home. Once home you go to sleep, fall into a coma, and never awake. Now @Squab did said person make the best decision for themselves, or were they just an idiot who got themselves killed because they refused to listen to the people who knew what the hell they were talking about?

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29 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, if you're going to define words to mean things other than what they mean, we can't communicate. if you think 'upper class snobbishness' is not actually about what class someone is, for example, we literally are not able to discuss things in any way that makes sense. 

ETA - what's weird about all this is that it's essentially a caricature version of postmodernism that someone is taking, or is pretending to take, absolutely seriously. Words mean whatever I want them to mean. Facts are optional. Everything is subjective. It's the sort of thing the right used to mock and now, apparently, embrace. 

Let me make it simpler for you: what you think is better for me is different than what i think is better for me and you pushing the point proves you are, at heart, authoritarian. The ETA proves your upper class snobbishness. Absolute failure to see another persons perspective because you are better than them.

30 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Highly unlikely.

Unless you are all a doctor/electrician/plumber/lawyer/etc. etc.  you are constantly getting/asking advice from other people because they are considered experts in their field.

Do you always have to listen to them? No, it is your choice not to listen. But when you choose to not listen it does not automatically mean you made the best choice for yourself. It means you made a decision that may or may not turn out for the best.

 

Edit: Let me give a more specific example. Let's say you get in a car wreck and go to the emergency room. The doctors there tell you they want you to stay a night in the hospital under observation. But you decide not to listen to the experts and against medical advice (AMA) decided to go home. Once home you go to sleep, fall into a coma, and never awake. Now @Squab did said person make the best decision for themselves, or were they just an idiot who got themselves killed because they refused to listen to the people who knew what the hell they were talking about?

I dont think you know what is best for someone better than they do which is why i support euthanasia. 

After you tell me you know whats better for my life than i do, you’ll happily remove me from societal decisions and implement true socialism (until it fails and gets called something else)

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3 minutes ago, Squab said:

I dont think you know what is best for someone better than they do

Me personally? No. Of course not.

But you do think other people know best.

Which is why when your plumbing breaks and it is not a simple problem you call a plumber to fix it.

If you break your arm you go to the doctors to set it.

If you have to go to court you hire a lawyer to represent you.

 

Or maybe I"m wrong and I'm posting at a genius who is an expert in all things ever.

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3 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

Me personally? No. Of course not.

But you do think other people know best.

Which is why when your plumbing breaks and it is not a simple problem you call a plumber to fix it.

If you break your arm you go to the doctors to set it.

If you have to go to court you hire a lawyer to represent you.

 

Or maybe I"m wrong and I'm posting at a genius who is an expert in all things ever.

Regardless, you are deferred to in all decisions because you know whats best for you. Have you never hired a plumber? Have you never hired anyone? Thats the idea of hiring someone, you get advice but you and you alone know whats best for you... unless someone else has power of attorney in which case, ask a lawyer

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6 minutes ago, Squab said:

Regardless, you are deferred to in all decisions because you know whats best for you. Have you never hired a plumber? Have you never hired anyone? Thats the idea of hiring someone, you get advice but you and you alone know whats best for you... unless someone else has power of attorney in which case, ask a lawyer

To quote you from a few posts ago, "Totally false".

Just because I myself get to make the final decision, does not mean I am making the best decision for myself. People make mistakes all the time.

Which brings us back to Mormont's initial mentioning of smoking. Is it my right to make a wrong choice that harms myself?

Damn straight.

Does the fact I chose it automatically make it the best decision for myself?

Hell no. 

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1 minute ago, A True Kaniggit said:

To quote you from a few posts ago, "Totally false".

Just because I myself get to make the final decision, does not mean I am making the best decision for myself. People make mistakes all the time.

Agreed on the fact people can make bad decisions. Thats obvious. My argument is: 

if you think that you know what is best for someone (or a group of people) better than they do, then you are likely to lose elections consistently and not understand why

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Without getting into the actual specifics of this slightly bizarre conversation, the conservative right does have a much more sympathetic view of individualism than the left. I gather that some of the aversion to left-wing ideas is that they tend to fight their battles on moral grounds of what is best for society as a whole, whereas apart from some aspects of the religious right, conservatives are generally more about individual choice and freedom.

I gather that @Squab is reacting to the tendency for preachiness of the left, although I can't say I particularly agree with his mode of attack. And yes, I know the right preaches too (e.g. conservatives on all sorts of hot button issues) but as much as the left abhors their preachiness and moral posturing, the right abhors the very same on the left, just on different issues.

1 minute ago, Squab said:

if you think that you know what is best for someone (or a group of people) better than they do, then you are likely to lose elections consistently and not understand why

I'm not sure what your stances are on abortion, LGBT rights, traditional family values or any other of that sort of thing, but in cases like those the right is also guilty of thinking they know what's best for someone. It's just on different stuff.

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10 minutes ago, Jeor said:

I'm not sure what your stances are on abortion, LGBT rights, traditional family values or any other of that sort of thing, but in cases like those the right is also guilty of thinking they know what's best for someone. It's just on different stuff.

Same applies but i agree that the modern left has basically become a new version of the religious right. Both totally laughable

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7 hours ago, Squab said:

Who is more qualified to know which party is the more worker friendly? The workers themselves? No, It'll be someone well educated who has studied the policies and even visited one of these areas once. And because the worker is dumb a low information voter, all we need is the right messaging next time. This same exact smugness was reflected in the recent result in Australia too.

How many results will it take to understand the left now represents population centers where government jobs and services and wages along with over education is high? Rural workers are abandoning the parties that once stood for workers but are now more focused on socialism, environmentalism, identity politics and whatever else is currently popular politically on university campuses. And some hillbilly worker from the country who questions any left wing ideal (immigration, increased taxes, environmental legislation, etc.) is dismissed (racist, capitalist, science denier, bigot). But hey, what would i know, im just a <insert name here>.

As a rural blue collar worker, you're wrong.  No Republican speaks for me or gives a fuck about me.  Their answer for everyone of my concerns is "work harder, we need to give $ to the rich.  Fuck healthcare.  Fuck fixing anything."

Anytime you vote you're telling someone else you think you know what is best for them, so in a political discussion this line of thought is a particularly strange embrace of total nihilism with a weird obsession on "don't tell me what to do".

 

21 minutes ago, Jeor said:

Without getting into the actual specifics of this slightly bizarre conversation, the conservative right does have a much more sympathetic view of individualism than the left. I gather that some of the aversion to left-wing ideas is that they tend to fight their battles on moral grounds of what is best for society as a whole, whereas apart from some aspects of the religious right, conservatives are generally more about individual choice and freedom.

I gather that @Squab is reacting to the tendency for preachiness of the left, although I can't say I particularly agree with his mode of attack. And yes, I know the right preaches too (e.g. conservatives on all sorts of hot button issues) but as much as the left abhors their preachiness and moral posturing, the right abhors the very same on the left, just on different issues.

I'm not sure what your stances are on abortion, LGBT rights, traditional family values or any other of that sort of thing, but in cases like those the right is also guilty of thinking they know what's best for someone. It's just on different stuff.

Re: bolded - those may be the words they use but other than the right to not pay fair wage or the right to own guns (well, if you're white) or the right to go bankrupt over medical bills the right doesn't offer any defense of individual rights.  

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29 minutes ago, Squab said:

if you think that you know what is best for someone (or a group of people) better than they do, then you are likely to lose elections consistently and not understand why

Ironically, the idea that some people "know best" is the basis of US democracy (it's very clear in the Federalist Papers), and of representative democracy generally speaking.

The alternative is increased democracy through decentralized power, which I agree would be ideal.

13 minutes ago, Squab said:

Same applies but i agree that the modern left has basically become a new version of the religious right. Both totally laughable

Only when and if left-wing policies are actually bad for the "average joe."

And maybe some are, depending on how you define the average joe. There are in fact some "leftist" policies or positions I'm personally sceptical of, but I would classify them as "liberal" rather than "leftist."
The fact that in the US "liberal" is synonymous with "leftist" really doesn't help (NB: "liberal" is "right-wing" in France, and it changes lots of things).

I'm personally old-school and like to focus on economic perspectives, where left and right are clearly defined. Progressive taxation and/or wealth taxes to finance socialized healthcare or education are demonstrably efficient (there's decades showing that, even if focusing on the US alone) and obviously good for the average joe.
There's nothing "preachy" about stuff like that. But in the US there's an ideological -and irrational- reluctance to raise taxes on the rich to finance socialized programs, so even "average joes" oppose socialized programs because they're afraid of having to pay for their neighbor.
It makes no fucking sense. But that's what you get when you have no clue what words like "Marxism" or "socialism" mean. It seems people on the right only see the moral dimension of left-wing socio-economic policies and completely forget (or have become sceptical of) their efficiency.
A simpler way to put it is that overall, social justice works. It's even possible that social justice is far more responsible for high standards of living in the West than capitalism (some studies certainly point in that direction).

And then there's something like global warming which is obviously going to hurt the average joe more than the 1%, but the right stubbornly refuses to seriously consider government intervention in the matter.
It's crazy.

And this is a recent evolution: until recently (the 1970s or thereabouts) even the American right admitted that government could use regulations, taxes, and various measures for the greater good. At some point this changed. And at that point, the American right stopped from basing its politics in reality.

The left is not completely innocent I guess, depending on what you're looking at. But to equate the modern left with the religious right is nuts.
Because at the end of the day, we have proof that socio-economic inequalities and global warming are very real and have very real consequences.
Whereas everything vaguely linked to religion and morality remain subjective, or worse.

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Ironically, the idea that some people "know best" is the basis of US democracy (it's very clear in the Federalist Papers), and of representative democracy generally speaking.

The lolz are real. This was a nice display of the death of expertise.

@Squab, Pro tip from a long time political activist, if you whine about identity politics, all you’re doing is telling everyone around you that you don’t actually understand the subject. Everyone engages in identity politics, and often times the right is far more guilty of it.

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I have no idea why you're arguing with a ultra right libertarian from Australia who wants kids to be able to work in coal mines and have sex with adults if they choose to, but please continue, it's super entertaining. 

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Not sure it matters that Squab is Australian, and I gathered he was probably "libertarian" from his comment on euthanasia.

I do think the conversation brings up the issue of how in our polarized climate more educated people on the Left can productively engage with less educated people on the Right. Everybody has had the experience of feeling insecure in a situation where one is ignorant of the topic of a conversation or the vocabulary being used. People who are less educated have more of these experiences than the college educated. They have usually had many experiences where their ignorance has been mistaken for stupidity, and often will jump to the conclusion that educated people who bring up a topic they are unfamiliar with are being deliberately insulting.

Years ago I read a 1999 memoir titled Creeker by Linda DeRosier, a psychology professor at a small college who had managed to end up with a Ph.D.  though she was raised in rural eastern Kentucky in a poor farm family. The passage in the book that made the most impression on me was when she describes how at a large family picnic everyone stopped and stared at her when she used the word "atrocity." In her perception it wasn't what she had called an "atrocity" that was the problem, it was the use of the "high falutin'" word itself. She immediately goes on to say "That one slip would have been as offensive as would have been bringing up the fact that I had returned from Japan the Friday before, which I would never have brought up in that setting." Later in the same paragraph she writes "If I were to mention frequent-flier miles, it would likely be taken as a put-down by members of my home community."

I think the right wing in both the USA and the UK has done a masterful job of playing on such insecurities to get the non-college-educated to believe that "the Left" is constantly insulting them and putting them down, and to make them constantly angry about this so that they vote against their own economic interests. With political sorting so that college-educated voters have moved toward the "liberal" parties and less-educated voters toward the "Right-wing" parties, this becomes a more and more difficult issue to deal with. 

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42 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I do think the conversation brings up the issue of how in our polarized climate more educated people on the Left can productively engage with less educated people on the Right.

The points you made are extremely valid, and educated people on the left do need to recognize that their comments can often be seen as talking down to someone even if that’s not their intent at all, but I’m not sure this captures the exact essence of the problem at hand. I think the problem is, and it exists on both sides though significantly more on the right, how do we restore good faith debates, especially when one side seems to have no interest in having them?

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8 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The points you made are extremely valid, and educated people on the left do need to recognize that their comments can often be seen as talking down to someone even if that’s not their intent at all, but I’m not sure this captures the exact essence of the problem at hand. I think the problem is, and it exists on both sides though significantly more on the right, how do we restore good faith debates, especially when one side seems to have no interest in having them?

I'm not sure this is accurate.  What issues are really even up for debate?  It's not like I'm going to change my mind about much either.  I'm not going to be persuaded that climate change isn't real, that universal healthcare is a bad idea, or that abortion should be illegal.  It's tough to accuse the other side alone of bad faith when we're not going to move much on entrenched issues either.

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6 hours ago, Squab said:

Your ignorance and arrogance lies completely in your assumptions of my scenario regardless of your education. If i want to know about sticking dicks in power sockets, be assured i will ask you. My own life, im gunna rely on me.

False. You thinking you know whats better for me than i do is the root of authoritarianism. Our definition of better is undoubtedly different just like our definitions of upper class snobbishness, for me its about thinking you’re better than others, kinda like you do

 

What you are describing is Solipsism.  The Earth is a globe regardless of beliefs otherwise.   Vaccines work to reduce the spread of disease regardless of beliefs otherwise.  

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21 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The points you made are extremely valid, and educated people on the left do need to recognize that their comments can often be seen as talking down to someone even if that’s not their intent at all, but I’m not sure this captures the exact essence of the problem at hand. I think the problem is, and it exists on both sides though significantly more on the right, how do we restore good faith debates, especially when one side seems to have no interest in having them?

If you can solve that problem you've hit it out of the ball park.  Both my parents are Trump supporters.  My mother will still call me to see what I think about things.  I think she thinks I'm talking down to her when I explain that, yes, Constitutionally the House can call what ever it want "high crimes and misdemenors" so long as it can muster a 2/3's majority to vote in favor of such.  She wants to talk about the lies told about Trump but never wants to talk about Trump's lies.  It is the danger of being in an information bubble.  

But I think the bubble applies to all of us.  I was very surprised by the outcome of the UK election.  My perception was that Labour should have won easily and that Boris Johnson was despised.  I was clear inside my own information bubble.   We should all strive to avoid that kind of disconnect with reality.

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