Joe Biden backs away from a public option.

Silvanus

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Congratulations on being late and not reading the OP? That was literally what was suggested from the start and you threw a fucking hissy fit over it. The whole argument was that there was practical steps Biden could have taken but actively chose not to. What, did you think we were asking for the entire thing all in one go overnight?
I didn't actually throw a fit and reject everything in the OP, though, did I? I said the fact it wasn't in that particular bill didn't mean it wasn't coming. That's fundamentally all. I genuinely don't know why you'd interpret that as an implicit rejection of all the other possible actions he could take... especially when I specifically endorsed them.

The characterisation of a "hissy fit" is a bit amusing, on a side-note, considering that your posts to me in this thread have been about three times as pointlessly aggressive as anything I've written here. I'm getting a bit tired of signing on just to be endlessly denigrated, and I'm not interested in just batting back accusations and insults. So if that's all there is going forward, I'm not really going to bother.
 
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Agema

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The two positions are the same philosophically.
They literally are not the same philosophically. If they were the same, they'd be synonyms.

They are both, at heart, pragmatic politics,
No, they aren't. They are ideologies, or philosophies if you want to phrase it that way. You would be right to say that they have in common not being ideologies with universally applicable, defined policies like the others you mentioned. You could perhaps describe them as views on how change should be achieved rather than views on what change should be achieved, although of course this is murky reasoning, because both also de facto determine targets.

What you're trying to say about "social transgressives" is essentially unpragmatic progressives. Likewise there are unpragmatic conservatives, pining after some past time now hopelessly obsolete and inadequate for the present day.
 

crimson5pheonix

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I didn't actually throw a fit and reject everything in the OP, though, did I? I said the fact it wasn't in that particular bill didn't mean it wasn't coming. That's fundamentally all. I genuinely don't know why you'd interpret that as an implicit rejection of all the other possible actions he could take... especially when I specifically endorsed them.

The characterisation of a "hissy fit" is a bit amusing, on a side-note, considering that your posts to me in this thread have been about 10 times as pointlessly aggressive. You've just been endlessly tossing accusations and insults for several pages now, long after I've reiterated that I don't want a goddamn delay. If this isn't a hissy fit, I don't know what is.



Complete bollocks.
That's kind of to be expected, really. Complete healthcare overhaul is direly overdue, but it's simply not going to be immediate due to the legislative process in the US. It was never going to be ready to go in time for the emergency vaccination provision, which needs to happen immediately.
A lie and a call for a delay.

But it's easy to see how vaccine rollout, which is now intensely time-sensitive, could be delayed by overhauling all the supply-chains mid-rollout.
A lie and a call for a delay.

Yeah, it is. But the alternative isn't already in place, and will take a few months at the very least to establish (just like every public health service in the world has done).
A lie and a call for a delay.

And we cannot delay vaccine rollout. Even by days. Even by hours. That does need to happen literally immediately. You direct them to wait until the public option is established and functioning, then even if the process was started on minute one of Biden taking office, even if it was pushed through with every possible fibre of effort, that would mean a few weeks delay, and hundreds of thousands of people would avoidably die.
A lie and a call for a delay.

Remember that this thread is specifically about the mechanisms used to distribute the vaccine
Just plain illiteracy.

What I've been saying from the start is that introducing a public option is not an immediate act. It's a colossal undertaking, which will take quite a while to complete, regardless of whether you start it on day one. It's realistic to envisage the process taking (at the least) weeks and (more realistically) months to complete. Now, vaccine distribution must begin immediately.
A lie and a call for a delay.

That's just the first few pages, of you lying and calling for delays. And what looks like you having failed to read and comprehend the article, as you spent this whole thread saying the COVID relief bill shouldn't contain COVID relief because that would delay the relief bill, which begs the question of why bother passing it at all?

And yes, I'd call what you did a hissy fit as you've deployed every centrist tactic to try and derail the conversation as best as possible and change what's being argued. Not to mention you had a nasty habit of cutting out parts of my responses to play tone-policing, because as we know, policy is less important than faux-civil undertones as you try to misrepresent what's happening.
 

Silvanus

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A lie and a call for a delay.

Just plain illiteracy.
Your reading comprehension is absolutely dire. Not a single fucking one of those posts called for delay in rolling out public healthcare. I'm almost at a loss to imagine how you've absurdly misread them.
 

crimson5pheonix

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Your reading comprehension is absolutely dire. Not a single fucking one of those posts called for delay in rolling out public healthcare. I'm almost at a loss to imagine how you've absurdly misread them.
They literally all are, and trying to justify it with a bald-faced lie about the bill being about the vaccine distribution, which it isn't. It can't even be, it literally can't contain any logistics. And instead you've come in saying that the article is calling for a complete overhaul overnight, showing you didn't actually read the article, and that they should have instead included temporary powers, which is what the article did call for further proving you didn't actually read what's going on. You've come into the thread half-cocked and having done 0 reading and have gotten upset when you come off as a centrist for doing so.
 

Silvanus

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They literally all are [...]
I'm done with this. No, they're literally not. You've shown basically zero comprehension of what I've actually argued; You've read random shit into them that isn't there, and then flatly refused to listen to any clarification from the person who actually wrote them. I do not believe it should be delayed. I'm done with this whole pointless, aggressive tangent.
 

crimson5pheonix

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I'm done with this. No, they're literally not. You've shown basically zero comprehension of what I've actually argued; You've read random shit into them that isn't there, and then flatly refused to listen to any clarification from the person who actually wrote them. I do not believe it should be delayed. I'm done with this whole pointless, aggressive tangent.
It's very hard to argue against someone who just wants to argue for argument's sake.
 

tstorm823

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In fact, it's not even possible to be pragmatic without a goal-- which is to say, a(t least one) specific ideal.
Of course it's possible to be pragmatic without a specific ideal. You can be pragmatic within vague guidelines. Why not?
Conservatism and progressivism hail from very different places.
The modern political movements literally hail from the same place. The early 20th century, the Republican Party was simultaneously the Calvin Coolidge party and the Teddy Roosevelt Party. The most conservative a political party has basically ever been was the birthplace of progressivism in America. Why? Because, as Teddy said, wise progressivism and wise conservatism go hand in hand.

Edit in here: what I think you miss is that the joint position, progressive conservatism, won the 20th century. The other -isms got their butts kicked. The two halves of progressive conservatism only have room to duke it out now because the political ideologies of the world were so firmly stomped into the ground as to become irrelevant. And it's important to me that we get the band back together because the stupid communists keep trying to rise from the grave and need to be re-stomped.
It's a definitional thing: little c conservative and Big C Conservatism: The Political Stance are two separate things. Same way with liberal, same way with progressive.
View attachment 3220

Like, I'm pretty conservative, personally. Takes me a long while to warm up to new ideas and attitudes. But I'm definitely not a Conservative, and I'm not really a Liberal, and I'm sure as fuck not a Neoliberal.
Here's the thing: dictionaries are wrong on purpose. I don't mean that as an insult. The job of a dictionary is to tell a person what a word means when someone uses it to them, so if the general public starts using a word incorrectly, dictionaries become obligated to be wrong on purpose. The big C Conservatism you're referring to isn't real. In 50 years, that definition will be erased, guaranteed, because the real definition of conservative dictates political positions relative to the status quo. Conservative as in "favoring free enterprise" is a nonsense definition. People may use the word that way, but it's only connected to the actual meaning of the word in specific times and places, and I don't even know if that's accurate in America right now.

The real political concept of conservatism is the little c concept of conservatism. Disregard what you think a big C Conservative is, that way of defining serves no purpose but to make it more difficult to express your views and to agree with others. I am a Republican conservative, and I am also a progressive, and I'm not going to stop saying that because others have some narrow view of the terms to help them decide who they're supposed to hate.
No, they aren't. They are ideologies, or philosophies if you want to phrase it that way. You would be right to say that they have in common not being ideologies with universally applicable, defined policies like the others you mentioned. You could perhaps describe them as views on how change should be achieved rather than views on what change should be achieved, although of course this is murky reasoning, because both also de facto determine targets.

Read the etymology. Notice the parallels. You are beginning to understand what these words really mean. You just need to forget about that last bit. They don't de facto determine targets. You're just trained into ignorant, and mostly pejorative, uses of the terms. Especially given where you live. Let them have their real definitions. It allows for so much more reasonable discourse and so much more opportunity for agreement.
What you're trying to say about "social transgressives" is essentially unpragmatic progressives. Likewise there are unpragmatic conservatives, pining after some past time now hopelessly obsolete and inadequate for the present day.
There is a word for the latter. It's "traditionalists". Unfortunately, there isn't an accepted word for the former, so I do my best. I don't mean unpragmatic progressives, because I'm referring to people who don't care about progress. They only care about change. They only care about opposition to the perceived hegemony. Anti-capitalist, anti-white, anti-Christian movements do not care in the slightest about progress. They have picked the things they feel have power and are determined to oppose them on principle, regardless of whether it help or hurts people. I know these people rationalize their positions, thinking anything with power is hurting people so the only way to help is to oppose them, but that is just self-delusion. You point to any time and place where those in power now were forces for good, and you will be disregarded by some on principle. Those people are not progressive. Many of them will deny any progress has actually ever been made. Those people are purely transgressive. Progressive and conservative are complements to one another, but many of the people who identify as progressive aren't progressive at all, because rather than advocate for specifically changes that might help people, they stand in opposition to all traditions and the status quo as a matter of principle. It is the equal and opposite to stubborn traditionalists, but traditionalists aren't actually conservative, and these transgressives aren't progressive, because neither of those groups give any serious consideration to the causes and effects of the policies they advocate for.
 
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Seanchaidh

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Of course it's possible to be pragmatic without a specific ideal. You can be pragmatic within vague guidelines. Why not?
If vague guidelines are arbitrary, you're not actually being pragmatic-- just randomly systematic. If vague guidelines are not arbitrary, then they are based on some specific ideal. It may not be an incredibly detailed vision of precisely what society should look like, but it must make specific judgments about the sorts of things that are desired and the sorts of things that are to be avoided. And if you're about to say "ah, but what I meant by 'specific ideal' was a detailed vision--" then none of the political philosophies you mentioned present such either.
 

tstorm823

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If vague guidelines are arbitrary, you're not actually being pragmatic-- just randomly systematic. If vague guidelines are not arbitrary, then they are based on some specific ideal. It may not be an incredibly detailed vision of precisely what society should look like, but it must make specific judgments about the sorts of things that are desired and the sorts of things that are to be avoided. And if you're about to say "ah, but what I meant by 'specific ideal' was a detailed vision--" then none of the political philosophies you mentioned present such either.
I'm describing the single reality of self-governance. Places with representative governments do not act with even a vague unified vision of what should be. They flutter around back and forth with the dictates of the times. That is reality. I'm describing real phenomena. You are only describing hypotheticals that have never existed.
 

tstorm823

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Ah, so you're not describing anything that actually exists currently either.
Again, I'm talking about reality, and not your delusional idealized vision of what should be. The reality of self-governance isn't what you wish self-governance would be. That's not a problem with my argument.
 

Seanchaidh

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You're really gonna make your stand on "if someone isn't speaking to my ideal vision, they aren't talking about reality"?
You're talking about self-governance as if it is supposed to exist in the context of United States politics, which is dominated by a smattering of media companies and the conglomerates who own them. There are a wide variety of different ways that self-governance could possibly exist with many, many different policy outcomes, some of which I would certainly not approve of (and some of which would eventually lead to losing the quality of having self-governance). None of those are the United States.

If you wish to speak of a degraded form of nominal self-governance, then you may speak of reality.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Here's the thing: dictionaries are wrong on purpose. I don't mean that as an insult. The job of a dictionary is to tell a person what a word means when someone uses it to them, so if the general public starts using a word incorrectly, dictionaries become obligated to be wrong on purpose. The big C Conservatism you're referring to isn't real. In 50 years, that definition will be erased, guaranteed, because the real definition of conservative dictates political positions relative to the status quo. Conservative as in "favoring free enterprise" is a nonsense definition. People may use the word that way, but it's only connected to the actual meaning of the word in specific times and places, and I don't even know if that's accurate in America right now.

The real political concept of conservatism is the little c concept of conservatism. Disregard what you think a big C Conservative is, that way of defining serves no purpose but to make it more difficult to express your views and to agree with others. I am a Republican conservative, and I am also a progressive, and I'm not going to stop saying that because others have some narrow view of the terms to help them decide who they're supposed to hate.


Read the etymology. Notice the parallels. You are beginning to understand what these words really mean. You just need to forget about that last bit. They don't de facto determine targets. You're just trained into ignorant, and mostly pejorative, uses of the terms. Especially given where you live. Let them have their real definitions. It allows for so much more reasonable discourse and so much more opportunity for agreement.

There is a word for the latter. It's "traditionalists". Unfortunately, there isn't an accepted word for the former, so I do my best. I don't mean unpragmatic progressives, because I'm referring to people who don't care about progress. They only care about change. They only care about opposition to the perceived hegemony. Anti-capitalist, anti-white, anti-Christian movements do not care in the slightest about progress. They have picked the things they feel have power and are determined to oppose them on principle, regardless of whether it help or hurts people. I know these people rationalize their positions, thinking anything with power is hurting people so the only way to help is to oppose them, but that is just self-delusion. You point to any time and place where those in power now were forces for good, and you will be disregarded by some on principle. Those people are not progressive. Many of them will deny any progress has actually ever been made. Those people are purely transgressive. Progressive and conservative are complements to one another, but many of the people who identify as progressive aren't progressive at all, because rather than advocate for specifically changes that might help people, they stand in opposition to all traditions and the status quo as a matter of principle. It is the equal and opposite to stubborn traditionalists, but traditionalists aren't actually conservative, and these transgressives aren't progressive, because neither of those groups give any serious consideration to the causes and effects of the policies they advocate for.
"Conservatism is the real punk rock". Your attempted definition of "unpragmatic progressive" is bollocks and is defined only by what you deem unpragmatic. Just say "SJW" or "Cultural Marxist" or some other bollocks

(And there isn't an "anti-white movement", as much as you'd like to claim victimhood)
 

Silvanus

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I don't mean unpragmatic progressives, because I'm referring to people who don't care about progress. They only care about change. They only care about opposition to the perceived hegemony. Anti-capitalist, anti-white, anti-Christian movements do not care in the slightest about progress. They have picked the things they feel have power and are determined to oppose them on principle, regardless of whether it help or hurts people. I know these people rationalize their positions, thinking anything with power is hurting people so the only way to help is to oppose them, but that is just self-delusion.
You continue to not have the faintest idea what your political opponents actually believe, and substitute a mess of strawmen.

If you're going to do that, you don't get to also complain when we use our definitions of "conservative" rather than yours.
 
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Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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A dictionary definition is usually the start to an argument failure, and this is no different.

Read the etymology. Notice the parallels. You are beginning to understand what these words really mean. You just need to forget about that last bit. They don't de facto determine targets. You're just trained into ignorant, and mostly pejorative, uses of the terms. Especially given where you live. Let them have their real definitions. It allows for so much more reasonable discourse and so much more opportunity for agreement.
Necessarily, a substantial "target" of conservatism is to not or minimally change the status quo, and the a substantial "target" of progressivism is change from the status quo. Thus believing in either necessarily contributes to the creation of targets, albeit via the context of the current status quo rather than universal principles.

There is a word for the latter. It's "traditionalists".
And it's just a subcategory of conservative, like communism is a subcategory of socialism. There is no point playing a sort of "No True Scotsman" game where you take the ideology you favour, and then make up definitions to exclude everyone of that ideology that you don't want to associate with.
 

tstorm823

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"Conservatism is the real punk rock". Your attempted definition of "unpragmatic progressive" is bollocks and is defined only by what you deem unpragmatic. Just say "SJW" or "Cultural Marxist" or some other bollocks

(And there isn't an "anti-white movement", as much as you'd like to claim victimhood)
a) I never said anything like "conservatism is the real punk rock"
b) Agema is the one that used the term "unpragmatic progressive", and I actively rejected it
c) If it wasn't already clear, I greatly care about meanings and origins of terms. I don't want to call someone a "cultural marxist" if their beliefs aren't marxist. There are real marxists, and it does me no good to lump other people into that group. Social justice is another term that is a good thing with a long history that's being misused horribly right now, admittedly mostly from the right. Social justice is a Ccatholic term referring to a largely different concept than the way it is used now, where Catholic social justice meant things like "feeding the poor is a form of justice", now it's portrayed as "whatever I don't like in the media is social injustice" (whether it's people actual acting that way or people being accused of acting that way), so I'd rather not be using that term as much as possible, unless of course I'm referencing the works and teachings of the Jesuits. I'm trying not to contribute to the degradation of language for the purpose of insulting people.
d) I don't think there is an anti-white movement with any meaningful influence, I don't intend to act like I'm persecuted, but I do think there are psychos on Twitter and Reddit that consider opposition to whiteness as a legitimate political position. And that is not a progressive position.
You continue to not have the faintest idea what your political opponents actually believe, and substitute a mess of strawmen.

If you're going to do that, you don't get to also complain when we use our definitions of "conservative" rather than yours.
I don't think anyone here falls into either of these specific extreme categories. I don't think we have anyone who is a traditionalist or a transgressive in this forum. I do think there are some people who might consider themselves progressive, when in reality they don't believe in progress and ascribe to a specific ideology by which they could appropriately describe their beliefs, but I don't think there's anyone here that's transgressive for the purpose of it. I have a very good idea of what my political opponents believe. I've proven it every single time someone has been misguided enough to accuse me of not knowing what my opponents believe. If you pay attention, a lot of my rants are how most of you who think I'm your political opponent shouldn't think that at all, at least not in the context of discussion with actual communists. You're more borderline for that argument than the Agemas or Obsidians or even the Saelunes of the world, I understand that, but there is something wrong about the current popular view of political alliances when you think you have less in common with me than you do with the crowd that sides with south american dictators so long as they're anti-capitalist enough.

Do you genuinely have a problem with the idea of progressive as "advocating for progress, for changes in political policy that might improve the state of society"? Do you actually find fault in leaving all the weird specific race and sex stuff out of the definition of progressive? Do you actually find fault in leaving all the libertarian and theocratic mumbo jumbo out of the definition of conservative? Is using these terms as they were used a century ago somehow a lie in your mind? Like, you're going to use conservative in whatever way you want, but its on you if your usage of it is useless because you've tied yourself to political tribalism instead of meaningful discourse.
Necessarily, a substantial "target" of conservatism is to not or minimally change the status quo...

And it's just a subcategory of conservative...
These two statements are contradictory. You are right, conservatism is to not or minimally change the status quo, and traditionalists do not necessarily do that. There are many traditions that traditionalists advocate for that are no longer the status quo. Someone trying to ban gay marriage in the US is no longer being conservative, that isn't the status quo, but they are being traditionalist. The Venn Diagrams for conservative and traditionalist have a huge overlap where all the standing traditions lie, that much is true, but neither is a subset of the other. All the left behind traditions that people want to bring back, those people are advocating for change in the status quo. That doesn't make them progressive, because their motive is rarely based on how they think the change might improve society, rather it's just loyalty to the "good old days", but they are advocates for change, which makes them not conservative.