Both Sides, Both Ways: Implications and Political Argumentation

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tiassa, Oct 9, 2019.

  1. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    5,089
    "They're gonna put money in my pocket and guarantee my guns and muscle-cars." What more do you need to know?
    (They all do this. Our conservative PM-candidate keeps saying "pockets, pocket, pocket" as if it meant anything.)
    Oh, yes, the high-end consumer includes "Small government, balanced budget", with rarely any sense of what they mean by either, how it's to be accomplished, whether it's good for the people... Or any recollection that the last five or six conservative administration that campaigned on the same platform then proceeded to increase the national debt and the cost of living, deploy more military forces someplace, add more "security" agencies and spend a shitload of money on their pet industries or projects - effectively increasing both the size and cost of government.
     
    Last edited: Oct 13, 2019
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  3. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    Vulgarity aside, in what ways is Trump significantly different from any/all Republicans from the past four decades? In certain respects, Trump actually has more integrity than those who preceded him: he generally wears his racism, misogyny, etc. on his sleeves. I guess that's a difference, but I suspect--given the support he gotten for this--future Republicans will likely be more open about their hatred and intolerance, as well. And the supposed "outsiders," like McCain (the "Maverick," right!) or... Romney, they've long been exposed as the literal fraudsters that they are.

    Going back to page one, I initially read the "I'm an Independent" response to the OP as trolling: it's essentially a tacit endorsement of this "both sides" bs. A more generous reading would attribute the response to functional illiteracy, or perhaps simply inattentiveness--I guess that's more "generous," I dunno? Anyways, that's how it reads. And I can only work with what I get, I don't read minds.

    In 2000, I knew a number of people who enthusiastically contributed to the Ralph Nader campaign. In 2004, these people were doing the same for the John Kerry campaign--minus the enthusiasm! And that's kinda been the way of things for the entirety of my adult life. I don't really know any Democrats, I only know people who consistently vote Democrat, because it's really the only sane choice.

    Non-parliamentary system aside, the biggest problem with this "two party system" isn't that there are no viable alternatives, it's that one of them is a fascistic party, leaving essentially only one party.
     
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  5. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    The biggest problem is that there is corporate corruption (legal and otherwise) which results in undue influence in our politics.

    That also has allowed racism and ignorance to become political bed mates with one party which does result, as you say, in there only being one sane choice.

    Absent that, there would be two moderate parties providing ample competition for each other.
     
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  7. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    Yeah, I think the two party system , while it may not have been ideal, it worked alright prior to... well, my birth. No single party is ever going to appeal to all ur sensibilities, for every single person. If we only voted that way, we'd have at least a few million parties.
     
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  8. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    As someone said (paraphrasing) "ideal is the enemy of good" meaning striving for perfection isn't what makes anything good.

    No system is "ideal". That out corruption and well-meaning people will make most any system "good". Corporation and capitalism aren't the real problem.
     
  9. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, I do. lol

    Nah, just kidding. You mentioned Bernie Sanders...I thought he started out as a Libertarian?
     
  10. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    He ran as an independent in the general elections (for Senate) after winning the Democratic primaries.

    The point is it doesn't matter what you call yourself. He is using the Democratic Party to run and to get his assignments in the Senate.
     
  11. wegs Matter and Pixie Dust Valued Senior Member

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    True.
     
  12. LaurieAG Registered Senior Member

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    Incidentally, does anybody know how long has it been since a candidate gained any major political parties presidential nomination without being financially beholden to anybody else?
     
  13. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    Corporate and capitalist people are.
     
  14. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Money talks; America jumps to attention. Anything else flaps its gums; America jeers.
    Those factors have never been absent. The Founding Fathers (TM) grappled with this and capitulated. Various administrations have tried and come a-crupper. When something is built into the foundation, no amount of paint and wallpaper will make it go away. All you can do is attempt mitigations, always at your peril.
    I have personally witnessed the descent of US politics over the last half century and can see, not only the connecting lines but also the gradual disintegration of the GOP during those decades. The Dems have had ups and downs, but the Repugs have been in a steady downward spiral since Fear and Loathing . Tricky Dick is looking like a class act from this perspective.
    But is sanity something you can sell to the American consumer?

    Where is the stone on which is carved: DEMOCRACY IS PARTY POLITICS? Can you not think of any other system?

    I'm guessing, c 320 BCE
     
  15. parmalee peripatetic artisan Valued Senior Member

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    In 1823, the angel Moroni revealed to Joseph Smith the precise location of a special book made of golden plates. This is well documented--by lunatics; however, few know that beneath this book lay the third stone tablet, upon which was inscribed the eleventh commandment: Democracy shall be party politics. In English.

    Here I think the sportball team metaphor may have some merit. Americans generally do not take to ambiguity and novel ideas. Rather infamously, we make some of the crappiest and most diluted coffee, bread, beer and cheese on the planet. Each has it's own history for how it came to be the crappiest and most diluted, but they needn't by like this anymore, and, of course, proper renditions are readily available. Still, 99 percent of Americans continue to consume the crap that no one else on the planet even regard as coffee, bread, beer and cheese. Party loyalty borne of laziness and xenophobia.
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    It matters if you still call yourself Republican.
     
  17. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    They once had a reputation for novel ideas and ingenuity. They even invented their own history, writing a Hollywoodized version of every event before the smoke cleared. (Remember the Alamo! What, exactly, do you remember about it? That nasty Mexico needs to be walled off from the god-fearin, gun-totin folks of Texas... Remember Normandy? Only the conspicuous absence of Kurdish troops...)

    As to ambiguity, I agree: they have always seemed allergic to nuance, subtlety, gradation and proportion.

    Oh, that's down to capitalism. Once you enshrine Mammon, you'll take whatever he offers and pretend it's ambrosia.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Personally, I don't know of anyone who has attained the age of Presidential eligibility without being financially beholden to anybody in any way.
    As far as gaining a major Party's nomination without feeling or acknowledging a financial debt to anyone - Trump in 2016 may have done that, simply by habitually stiffing anyone who claimed to hold his chit. I doubt Trump has ever felt that he owed anyone anything.
     
  19. Seattle Valued Senior Member

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    Not if one had better ideas. There just doesn't seem to be anyone like that in the Republican Party these days. When the political climate eventually changes, most current Republican politicians will become political pariahs never to be heard from again (and rightly so).
     
  20. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    The moderate, the tolerant, the responsible, the competent and finally those with a shred of integrity were systematically driven out, starting c. 1970, by a increasingly anti-human, anti-nature cabal.
    Decades later, Eisenhower’s “negligible” oligarchs emerged in the visage of David and Charles Koch, right-wing oil and gas billionaires. The former actually ran for the Libertarian Party’s vice presidential ticket in 1980 on a platform of completely eliminating the Social Security and Medicare programs.
     
  21. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Here is a proposition:

    • In order to fulfill my equally protected First Amendment righs, you must be censored.​

    This is as straightforward as it gets: In order to fulfill a freedom, that freedom must be forbidden.

    Go ahead and scratch your head. Go stand in front of the mirror and say it; say, "My free speech is violated as long as you aren't censored!"

    What is the third alternative on that one?

    If the accusation is that the fulfillment of one's free speech violates another's free speech or free religion, at what point is the only thing remaining to censor the one?

    There isn't really much for political independence from the question.

    So let us not put any labels on it, for now: This is a real argument that comes up in the world.

    The implication of the political argument verges on what American jurisprudence calls a suicide pact, when the system must destroy itself in order to function: In order to fulfill the First Amendment, the First Amendment must be abrogated.

    To me, just saying it as an example feels strange. How literal need we get, because at this point in history, few will actually up and say, "Free speech demands your perpetual, enforced silence!"

    Meanwhile, circumstance does raise a particular inquiry: If, the One demands the Other be censored, and the Other refuses, then what is the third alternative?
     
  22. Write4U Valued Senior Member

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    The civilized approach to allow free speech to all in designated spaces, apart from the common grounds?
     
  23. Jeeves Valued Senior Member

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    Why should it?
    In order to live in a community of any kind, individuals must accept limitations on their freedom and impose limitations on the freedom of all the other individuals in that community. This includes practice, speech, demeanor, interactions and manners. The limits may be severe and strictly enforced or casual and voluntary, depending on consensus.
    The pact is not of mutual suicide but modus vivendi. Most functional organisms are capable of making such a deal work for them. Social organisms that cannot or will not do so are doomed to extinction.
     

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