Election results discussion thread (and sadly the inevitable aftermath)
- Thread starter Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)
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Yes, the reason why there are 100ks of ballots with only Biden at the top are the fault of the Dem establishment. I am hopeful there will be a happening that will blow this open but as always, nothing ever happens.
"Personal responsibility" is a punchline. It's a talking point used by conservatives to justify their anti-human stance of no social safety nets.
I don't think that is a very good distinction. The eastern leftists as you call them were certainly socialist and communist and they did share pretty much the same goals with their western counterparts. Disagreements were about how to get there and even more, what they could do.
And yes, social democracy has been pretty successful where eastern block communism failed. Most leftists, east and west, have sen that and understand that and act accordingly. But not all.
This is backwards.
Like, I have a lot of problems with the things you said in these couple posts. You think left wing policies caused the successes of the late 20th century and were abandoned, I'm confident the opposite happened, that conservative policies were successful and people embraced them. You think that when the poor become richer they abandon the left, but the left lives in the universities that are often the place to jump up a peg. Your views seem genuinely cut off from actual history, but....
That sentence is legitimately ridiculous. The line goes: "Republicans think Democrats are stupid, Democrats think Republicans are evil" and the further out you branch from there on the political spectrum the more extreme it gets. The anarcho-capitalists out way to one side believe so completely in the natural goodness of humanity that they think a world without laws would serve the people better and the rich will care for the poor without forcing them to, and the communists on the other side think so little of humanity that they believe ownership of property is too extreme a tool to trust people not to oppress one another. The right thinks the best of people. The left does not.
On that note, I'm pretty sure capitalists would follow this same logic when arguing that fascism is not the same thing as capitalism. They share roots, but are different enough to be considered separate rather than merely synonyms.
You can be correct if only "social-democracy" isn't socialism and merely an attempt by liberalism to embrace social-programs in order to suppress the proletariat. A successful attempt in places like Denmark.
You mean the right is on the side that thinks people are capable of taking care of themselves and those around them, and the left thinks direct action of federal government is an absolute requirement to keep people from dying alone in a ditch.
Gethsemanis description is mostly true.
However the relation between socialist and social democrat was never really clear. Due to how charged the term "socialism" was, the same people sometimes embraced or rejected the term for the same stuff. And that gets even worse over various language barriers.
But people were pretty clear about where the difference between social democracy and communism was.
However the relation between socialist and social democrat was never really clear. Due to how charged the term "socialism" was, the same people sometimes embraced or rejected the term for the same stuff. And that gets even worse over various language barriers.
But people were pretty clear about where the difference between social democracy and communism was.
Or, you could act like an adult and acknowledge that you are not as familiar with the subject matter as you presumed and as consequence have been relying on poorly thought out post-hoc rationalizations for an untenable position you're stubbornly holding onto past the point of reason. One need look no further than your inane "oh, but the First Amendment isn't sufficient because if a corporation passed a law it wouldn't apply" nonsense for that much to be patently obvious. And that you insist on "well under <increasingly implausible chain of circumstances> Sharia could be passed and we should ban it anyways (despite the fact that it's already functionally banned)" tips your hand more than I think you realize.
But since I don't seem to be getting through to you on how that's not some clever loophole but a stupid and nonsensical attempt at a 'gotcha', let me break it down for you:
You argue that corporations have been getting more powerful, which I can only reasonably assume is referencing the influence of lobbyists. Under this interpretation "corporations could bypass the First Amendment because it doesn't apply to them" is a case of 'the fool who thinks himself wise' because the extent of the corporations power with regards to legislation is their ability to influence the government into taking certain actions. It doesn't matter if the legislation is pushed because special interest groups want it, at the end of the day the government is still the only body that passes laws. There is no circumstance in which "well it wasn't the government who passed it" holds true with legislation that passed into law.
The alternative is that we presume that you meant that corporations are somehow gearing up to overthrow and replace the government, Shadowrun style, and that under those circumstances the First Amendment wouldn't stop them from passing whatever legislation they want. This is the alternative rather than the most likely interpretation because - frankly - it manages to be much stupider than the last option. For starters, it's a flight of fancy. While corporations are more than eager to expand their influence there are no indications that any of them are interested in overthrowing the governing body and replacing it with themselves, especially when that's likely impossible barring a coup d'etat which they could not win. Moreover, none of them want Sharia. So right out the gate the argument is predicated on a wholly fictitious Supercorporation that is both primed to overthrow the US government and - in contrast to even most American Muslims - desperately wants to codify Sharia into law, and moreover is functionally unopposed. But that's just the start.
The argument actually gets stupider when you think on it. Remember this is a circumstance wherein the US government is defunct and replaced by this fictitious Supercorporation...which is to say that this Supercorporation is the new government. So this means that we're assuming one of three things, all of which make the argument fall apart. Option A: The Supercorp is pulling the strings but still works through the traditional government...in which case we're back to the original bit wherein it's still the government passing the laws. Option B: The Supercorp simply replaces the government with minimal other changes. In this case the Supercorp is the government, so the First Amendment applies. Option C: The Supercorp implements a new regime entirely. In this case it doesn't matter what rules are on the books, as they are all equally defunct unless the new government explicitly decides to keep them. In no circumstance does this boogeyman you're fabricating work the way that you are implying. You might as well be arguing "well what if the First Amendment was revoked". Under those circumstances you're already assuming that the laws precluding the outcome you're trying to convince us of are being removed, which would presumably include the same law you're trying to convince us we need to pass.
You aren't arguing so much as you're throwing crap onto the wall and hoping something sticks and covers up the fact that you're speaking from a position of ignorance and swallowed the fearmongers' propaganda hook, line, and sinker. This is nothing more than you trying to find some way, any way that the demagoguery which took advantage of your ignorance could possibly be true, simply because it's the idea that you came into the thread believing.
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So, Gethsemani's response and Satinavian's response actually can stop this once and for all.
We should just make a thread about Political Policies, Movements, and Forms of Government. Basically, we should ask everyone to freaking define what we individually think what socialism, republicanism, Social programs, and etc means. Then we can see who is based on the actuality of the definitions and how it's been put into place, and who has been listening to fear mongering pundits who just want you to 'Abhor The Other'.
And I fully understand that there will be fringes in every group. Yes, there are Islamic terrorists. But from this move, we can see if people are using the fringes or the minority to define the majority. Which, of course, is bias and we can just move on from there.
We should just make a thread about Political Policies, Movements, and Forms of Government. Basically, we should ask everyone to freaking define what we individually think what socialism, republicanism, Social programs, and etc means. Then we can see who is based on the actuality of the definitions and how it's been put into place, and who has been listening to fear mongering pundits who just want you to 'Abhor The Other'.
And I fully understand that there will be fringes in every group. Yes, there are Islamic terrorists. But from this move, we can see if people are using the fringes or the minority to define the majority. Which, of course, is bias and we can just move on from there.
It's not nonsense. You're claiming that the people who chant "eat the rich" see the best in people.
Like, tangent, I get riled up when I see people talk about empathy when really they're only describing pity. Empathy can understand people independent of circumstances, pity doesn't have to understand, it just consoles anyone in a bad place without even trying to understand. You know why there are so many poor Republicans? It's not cause they're racists, put that out of your mind. It's not cause they imagine themselves as millionaires, put that out of your mind. It's because they want to take care of themselves, and they're tired of the pity from people who don't understand them.
Yes: the nutritional value.
And here I thought it was because they weren't being paid what they're actually worth by the capitalist class.
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