US Politics

KirkDuyt said:
Completely equal wealth would work if we first lobotomize the human race. We're greedy cnuts who need something to motivate us.
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We are not solely motivated by material incentives.

Also,'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' has very subtle but important distinctions to 'completely equal wealth'. Equal access to common wealth is different to ownership of equal private wealth.
 
KirkDuyt said:
Completely equal wealth would work if we first lobotomize the human race. We're greedy cnuts who need something to motivate us.
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A highly intelligent and advanced society might actually be able to function with a completely equal wealth, but that isn't going to happen for a long time, if ever.

Something like Norway on the other hand should be the target.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
We are not solely motivated by material incentives.

Also,'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' has very subtle but important distinctions to 'completely equal wealth'. Equal access to common wealth is different to ownership of equal private wealth.
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I think the model in Scandinavia or The Netherlands is close to the amount of equality that's ideal to me. I have no prpblem whatsoever with paying high income tax in exchange for social security.
 
Revan said:
Never said that I am a communist when a surgeon should be as wealthy as a window cleaner.

Equal opportunity, free education, free health, progressive taxes (including extremely large one in super-wealthy), a regulation of house markets when the more houses you buy the more you get taxed, total ban on high frequency trading, total ban on lobbying and politicians to not be allowed to get more than a few hundreds (or even tens) from a person/organization are all policies I strongly support.

Everyone having the same wealth on the other hand ... hell no, that is nuts, and that experiment was played in last century. It didn't end well.
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Agree with most of this, except the high frequency trading, a significant capital gains tax should be enough.

If some are still good enough to make money doing it, let them.
 
Cal? said:
Agree with most of this, except the high frequency trading, a significant capital gains tax should be enough.

If some are still good enough to make money doing it, let them.
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I think that society should reward only behavior which is beneficial to the society. HFT isn't beneficial in any sense, it is actually harmful cause it puts money from economy to speculative finance. It serves only as a way of driving inequality.

So, I don't buy the 'if someone is good at it, let him get rich by doing so' argument, when someone getting rich by doing so actually makes other people poorer.
 
Cal? said:
That's the reality of the world we live in. Ultimately, low-skilled workers are easily replaceable and there is no big incentive for the management to increase wage or rights above market level. Obviously there are companies so big like Amazon and Walmart who can bend the market, but ultimately the vast majority of companies pay around the market going rate and that's pretty much determined by supply and demand in the labor market.

I agree that a better balance can and should be found. Scandinavia are doing much more than the US (who are in turn doing much more than China) in this regard.
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There’s a big myth about the supposed easily replaceable ‘low skilled worker’. Take something like fruit picking. You think you can just put anyone with a pair of hands out there and get the same level of productivity as someone who has done that job for years? Or factory work, or warehouse work or pretty much any work? Experience and expertise are just as vital in those jobs as they are in any other. Just because a job involves standing up all day or doesn’t require a degree, doesn’t make it easy.
 
Revan said:
I think that society should reward only behavior which is beneficial to the society. HFT isn't beneficial in any sense, it is actually harmful cause it puts money from economy to speculative finance. It serves only as a way of driving inequality.

So, I don't buy the 'if someone is good at it, let him get rich by doing so' argument, when someone getting rich by doing so actually makes other people poorer.
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There's plenty of stuff people do to make money that has little to no benefit to the society, as long as it doesn't harm society too much, there's no reason to outlaw it.

Setting up a high barrier (tax) so that society gets something out of it seems fair.
 
Kentonio said:
There’s a big myth about the supposed easily replaceable ‘low skilled worker’. Take something like fruit picking. You think you can just put anyone with a pair of hands out there and get the same level of productivity as someone who has done that job for years? Or factory work, or warehouse work or pretty much any work? Experience and expertise are just as vital in those jobs as they are in any other. Just because a job involves standing up all day or doesn’t require a degree, doesn’t make it easy.
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I was thinking more like McDonalds or Walmart warehouse regarding the low skilled worker.

Obviously there's a lot of manual labor that requires more skill.
 
InfiniteBoredom said:
We are not solely motivated by material incentives.
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I was thinking about that quite a bit lately. In capitalism, social integration and acceptance are heavily linked with individual wealth. To a point where they are inseparatable, although they're not one and the same and other factors exist as well.

When it comes to necessary human incentives, a lot depends on the question if the decisive part between these two is material wealth as such, or being fully integrated into and accepted by society (with wealth just being a main vehicle for that in our current social setting). If it's the latter, a communist society might work, provided it manages to fulfill that basic need in other ways, while producing enough material wealth for all its members.
InfiniteBoredom said:
Also,'from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs' has very subtle but important distinctions to 'completely equal wealth'. Equal access to common wealth is different to ownership of equal private wealth.
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Important point, one of the most common misunderstandings I see in these discussions.
 
Never in doubt, this appointment. We were told Trump would have been impeached many times over by now, but that's not happened either. So, this is barely a surprise.
 
Pagh Wraith said:
Which is true for most people who label themselves 'socialist'. I do agree about John McCain to a degree though. I wouldn't go as far as wishing death on someone but I certainly didn't shed any tears when he passed away. Would be nice though if people on the left would acknowledge that Obama belongs in the same group. The group of imperialist war mongers that is.
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Im on the left, and Ill gladly acknowledge it. Drone boy is no better than the rest. Hilary would have been a continuation of obama and to be honest her attitude lost her the election. People can point the finger at protest votes, and stay homes all they like, but her attitude was what did her in. In that same breath, Trump is a nutjob bigoted piece of shit opportunist that wants to feck his own daughter and looks like someone took a blow torch to he man figure. And has about as much business running a country as I do performing dog tricks at crufts.
 
MDFC Manager said:
Never in doubt, this appointment. We were told Trump would have been impeached many times over by now, but that's not happened either. So, this is barely a surprise.
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Actually mot many thought he’d be impeached till after the mid-terms.

The GOP obviously isn’t going to
 
Pagh Wraith said:
Which is achieved by having completely free markets and trade.
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Nothing, absolutely nothing, good is achieved by having completely free markets and trade. Without regulations, workers will, without doubt, be fecked into the ground.
 
Eboue said:
you have the luxury of looking at politics like it is a game with good people on both sides who just disagree and thinking they ought to follow roberts rules of order. i dont. when republicans and corporate democrats are in power, my family and friends are the ones who suffer. they are the ones whose houses get forclosed on, who lose healthcare, who get fired unfairly, who work long hours with lax safety regulations and never get a raise. they are the ones in flint who still dont have clean water while obama goes off to produce tv shows for netflix. they are the ones who worked their whole lives only to go bankrupt at 50 because their wife got cancer. they are the ones who are disabled and have their benefits cut to the point of homelessness meanwhile the bankers who crashed the economy got a bailout and eric holder did absolutely fecking nothing about it. they are the ones who get lied to by military recruiters and sent off to kill while eric prince sits atop a pile of cash. they are the ones making $36,000 as a teacher and still have to spend $900 on supplies for their underfunded classrooms while betsy devos has ten yachts. you dont get to preach to me about decorum and norms. the message that these people have for me and my friends and family and community is simple: "drop dead". hatred towards them is the least we can do in response. the very least.
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Great post mate. @Eboue for President.
 
Pagh Wraith said:
Which is true for most people who label themselves 'socialist'. I do agree about John McCain to a degree though. I wouldn't go as far as wishing death on someone but I certainly didn't shed any tears when he passed away. Would be nice though if people on the left would acknowledge that Obama belongs in the same group. The group of imperialist war mongers that is.
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That's true for pretty much all US Presidents since the Spanish-American war times. (I think I'm thinking of the Monroe Doctrine but I'm too lazy to look it up) Just been more pronounced since WW2 and the US became the top dogs over the Brits.
 
Synco said:
Is there a long history of conflict between @fishfingers15 and other posters?

Because not knowing the back story, I find it pretty irritating how some apparently left-wing posters are berating someone over the voting issue who may be deported from the US, thinking he's worse off with Trump/Reps at the helm than with Clinton/Dems. One telling him to "get a critique of the system"..
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I'm just tried of this shifting the blame and guilt onto non voters. The reason I respond so harshly to @fishfingers15 is because he is saying non voters really fecked people like him over which yes is true. But firstly you need to these to vote for your politics if you want any chance of getting power so alienating them isn't very smart.

Secondly this ''moralism'' is only ever used to berated people on the left or people who have ever right to be disconnected with the political system.This moralism was and is never used on liberals when they cause misery. No one ever blame UK liberals voters for the fact we have a Conservative & DUP government, no one blames Obama voters for their happiness to continue to vote for countless drones murders and blowing up Libya, no one blames Democratic voters for the huge amounts of deportations etc. And people shouldn't because as mentioned before it's politically fecking useless.

Yes it's completely awful what is happening in the US now but(For the millionth time)it didn't happen out of thin air. The more rightward turn of US didn't happen on day 1 of Trump presidency but has been a continually build up including the time of Democratic presidents. This is a systemic problem so stop the grandstanding and get a critique.

Synco said:
@Sweet Square
It's practically 1:1 the issue we had in the Kaepernick/Nike thread.
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How so ?
 
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Sweet Square said:
I'm just tried of this shifting the blame and guilt onto non voters. The reason I respond so harshly to @fishfingers15 is because he is saying non voters really fecked people like him over which yes is true. But firstly you need to these to vote for your politics if you want any chance of getting power so alienating them isn't very smart.

Secondly this ''moralism'' is only ever used to berated people on the left or people who have ever right to be disconnected with the political system.This moralism was and is never used on liberals when they cause misery. No one ever blame UK liberals voters for the fact we have a Conservative & DUP government, no one blames Obama voters for their happiness to continue to vote for countless drones murders and blowing up Libya, no one blames Democratic voters for the huge amounts of deportations etc. And people shouldn't because as mentioned before it's politically fecking useless.

Yes it's completely awful what is happening in the US now but(For the millionth time)it didn't happen out of thin air. The more rightward turn of US didn't happen on day 1 of Trump presidency but has been a continually build up including the time of Democratic presidents. This is a systemic problem so stop the grandstanding and get a critique.
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Ultimately its current non-voters who will eventually liberate the country from the gridlock quagmire its stuck in, as they are the only current block of people who exist in sufficient abundance to actually move the needle to where one party may have super majority type numbers to get grand narrative type policies passed (medicare for all, education etc).
 
Sweet Square said:
I'm just tried of this shifting the blame and guilt onto non voters. The reason I respond so harshly to @fishfingers15 is because he is saying non voters really fecked people like him over which yes is true. But firstly you need to these to vote for your politics if you want any chance of getting power so alienating them isn't very smart.

Secondly this ''moralism'' is only ever used to berated people on the left or people who have ever right to be disconnected with the political system.This moralism was and is never used on liberals when they cause misery. No one ever blame UK liberals voters for the fact we have a Conservative & DUP government, no one blames Obama voters for their happiness to continue to vote for countless drones murders and blowing up Libya, no one blames Democratic voters for the huge amounts of deportations etc. And people shouldn't because as mentioned before it's politically fecking useless.

Yes it's completely awful what is happening in the US now but(For the millionth time)it didn't happen out of thin air. The more rightward turn of US didn't happen on day 1 of Trump presidency but has been a continually build up including the time of Democratic presidents. This is a systemic problem so stop the grandstanding and get a critique.

How so ?
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Most of this is true but at the same time I think the wider point being made is that a lot of Americans who voted in 2016 weren't in the luxury position of being able to abstain completely or vote for a third-party candidate - for plenty going for the 'least bad' of Hilary and Trump was their only viable option, because a Trump Presidency was going to be demonstrably worse for them than a Hilary one.

I don't think she would've been great by any means but there's a whole host of laws Trump's enacted that have already had a negative effect on Americans that wouldn't have been enacted by Hilary. And a vote for her didn't need to be an absolute endorsement of all her politics - Sanders had done well enough during his primary challenge to provide the left-wing in the US with plenty of momentum, and certainly leftist voices would've stood a better chance of having some of their policies and positions adopted with Clinton in the White House than with Trump, who isn't beholden to them at all. Indeed Hilary's willingness to flip on issues like gay marriage in the past show her willingness to change her mind on something when it's politically beneficial - with plenty of pressure and the threat of a primary challenge in 2020 she may have been more willing to do this on certain economic matters.

Obviously the logic of placing blame onto abstainers, defectors and third-party voters is fairly silly, because more Hilary voters in 08 opted for McCain than Bernie voters opted for Trump last year, but by the same token if you're someone whose life is immeasurably worse post-Trump compared to how it'd have been under Hilary, it's undoubtedly frustrating when you see people lambasting Trump who ultimately didn't vote for the only candidate who was capable of preventing his getting into the WH.
 
Cheesy said:
it's undoubtedly frustrating when you see people lambasting Trump who ultimately didn't vote for the only candidate who was capable of preventing his getting into the WH.
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but the only candidate who would have prevented him getting in was Sanders. And none of the criticism is targeted at the people who insisted Hillary was more electable despite a mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise
 
Eboue said:
but the only candidate who would have prevented him getting in was Sanders. And none of the criticism is targeted at the people who insisted Hillary was more electable despite a mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise
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I think he did slightly better in polls than Hillary, but Hillary was already doing better than Trump in polls, and most polls were all about Hillary vs Trump.

Hillary has arguably been the worst Democrat candidate in my lifetime (significantly worse than Kerry who was bad himself), but still better than Trump, so never understood people who stayed at home or voted for Stein or whomever. Still, it hopefully serves a lesson both to them and to DNC to not favourize deeply flawed candidates.

Edit: Actually, the difference was bigger than I though. Here are the polls for Bernie vs Trump: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e...ral_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html#polls Looking only at the final ones (shaded ones) he lead + 10.4. On corresponding polls, Hillary lead by 3.5 points. Of course, it needs to be said that Trump and Republicans were heavily targeting Hillary while more or less ignoring Bernie (bar the occasional crazy Bernie), so it is hard to know how Bernie would have done vs their attacks, but it is quite clear that the numbers gave a heavy advantage to him, in addition to not having the last minute server scandal.
 
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Eboue said:
but the only candidate who would have prevented him getting in was Sanders. And none of the criticism is targeted at the people who insisted Hillary was more electable despite a mountain of evidence suggesting otherwise
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Before the primaries this may have made sense. But after Clinton won them she was indeed the only realistic alternative to a Trump presidency, because Sanders was out of the race.

(Edited the last half-sentence)
 
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Synco said:
Before the primaries this may have made sense. But after Clinton won them she was indeed the only realistic alternative to a Trump presidency, because Sanders was out of the race.

(Edited the last half-sentence)
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but why is there only criticism of the left? as mentioned by someone upthread, its always exclusively criticism of the left. republicans dont cry when right wing voters go for libertarian candidates. libs cry when left wing voters dont vote for their corporate pro-war candidates
 
oneniltothearsenal said:
Uh you did in the bolded of the first post of yours I quoted
" I loathe the republicans and the protest voters equally."

However you are defining "protest voters" in your own head, it is both misplaced and irrational for you to loathe them.
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I'm sorry, not getting into this argument with you. You perfectly know what I mean about protest voters. People who voted Sanders in the primary and sat the election out/voted for Jill Stein/voted for Harambe/just ended up voting for down ballot Dems. I've argued this to death over Eboue and made my peace with it. Bye.

Sweet Square said:
I'm just tried of this shifting the blame and guilt onto non voters. The reason I respond so harshly to @fishfingers15 is because he is saying non voters really fecked people like him over which yes is true. But firstly you need to these to vote for your politics if you want any chance of getting power so alienating them isn't very smart.

Secondly this ''moralism'' is only ever used to berated people on the left or people who have ever right to be disconnected with the political system.This moralism was and is never used on liberals when they cause misery. No one ever blame UK liberals voters for the fact we have a Conservative & DUP government, no one blames Obama voters for their happiness to continue to vote for countless drones murders and blowing up Libya, no one blames Democratic voters for the huge amounts of deportations etc. And people shouldn't because as mentioned before it's politically fecking useless.

Yes it's completely awful what is happening in the US now but(For the millionth time)it didn't happen out of thin air. The more rightward turn of US didn't happen on day 1 of Trump presidency but has been a continually build up including the time of Democratic presidents. This is a systemic problem so stop the grandstanding and get a critique.
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I mean, you want me not to whine about my personal issues (both emotional and financial) and just understand this is collateral damage of alienating people by nominating centrists like Clinton and decades of right leaning policy? I mean, feck me right? This is the right time to make a point about the unfair system with a very real chance of swinging the judiciary to the left for a good generation, with good chance to remove citizens united and gerry mandering etc? feck all that, just sit on the corner and wait for the 2020 left wave? Got it man, will never complain to you or to anyone else in this board. Thanks a ton.
 
Kentonio said:
There’s a big myth about the supposed easily replaceable ‘low skilled worker’. Take something like fruit picking. You think you can just put anyone with a pair of hands out there and get the same level of productivity as someone who has done that job for years? Or factory work, or warehouse work or pretty much any work? Experience and expertise are just as vital in those jobs as they are in any other. Just because a job involves standing up all day or doesn’t require a degree, doesn’t make it easy.
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A lot of those jobs pay for an specific amount of work done. For example, delivery of that many packages or picking up that many fruits. So, yes, you can actually replace two hands by any other two hands. Amazon does it daily. If the new hands are slower, they will be paid less, so profit remains the same.
 
fishfingers15 said:
I'm sorry, not getting into this argument with you. You perfectly know what I mean about protest voters. People who voted Sanders in the primary and sat the election out/voted for Jill Stein/voted for Harambe/just ended up voting for down ballot Dems. I've argued this to death over Eboue and made my peace with it. Bye.
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And as my first post point out, you are believing in a myth that has literally zero factual basis and tonnes of factual evidence against. Its based on irrational magical thinking.

Your logic is flawed because you ignore that many libertarian, traditional Republicans also sat out or voted for Libertarian Gary Johnson. Trump had TRIPLE the number of protests voters siphoned away from him as Clinton did. I've also linked plenty of times that of Trump's voters 53% were specifically voting Against Clinton - a record high. So your loathing of these mythic "protest voters" that is just misplaced, irrational and to be quite honest extremely selfish.

If you want to loathe anyone, you should be loathing Trump voters and Clinton primary voters not the people that would have had more empathy for you than any other group if not for your misplaced loathing of them. I guess this is a Buddhist test. We should have nothing but compassion for you despite your loathing of us.
 
Eboue said:
but why is there only criticism of the left? as mentioned by someone upthread, its always exclusively criticism of the left. republicans dont cry when right wing voters go for libertarian candidates. libs cry when left wing voters dont vote for their corporate pro-war candidates
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No idea why Reps don't do this, and I don't care much. I just think preventing Trump should have been the priority for everyone with a left(-radical), liberal, centrist, just roughly progressive/democratic outlook. In case of a Sanders candidacy my criticism would have been equally directed against those centrists who'd rather risk a president Trump than support an unwanted candidate of the left (I'm sure there'd been plenty).

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oneniltothearsenal said:
If you want to loathe anyone, you should be loathing Trump voters and Clinton primary voters not the people that would have had more empathy for you than any other group if not for your misplaced loathing of them. I guess this is a Buddhist test. We should have nothing but compassion for you despite your loathing of us.
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Feck me, that's condescending.
 
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Synco said:
No idea why Reps don't do this, and I don't care much. I just think preventing Trump should have been the priority for everyone with a left(-radical), liberal, centrist, just roughly progressive/democratic outlook. In case of a Sanders candidacy my criticism would have been equally directed against those centrists who'd rather risk a president Trump than support an unwanted candidate of the left (I'm sure there'd been plenty).

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Feck me, that's condescending.
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From my perspective it was @fishfingers15 post that was condescending with his repeated "loathing" of his "protest voters" that 1) don't actually exist in the caricature form he paints them (they are a mythic creation of Clinton's people after the fact) and 2) made no difference to the end result of the election as the facts show.
 
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