Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[TrickstaPriest]

Hmm.  Interesting ideas Sociotard.

[st barbara]

6 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

Yup, we're done.  Only question is whether to wait and see how things shake out in November, or if I should start looking into moving now.  Any suggestions for countries with decent weather and healthcare?

Well I could suggest Australia to you. We have basic health care (paid for by a levy on our taxes) and you can always get private cover if you wish to pay for it. Most of the country has pretty good weather (it CAN get hot in summer, especially in Queensland and the "top end). You might have to get used to our sports however, we don't really have much Ice Hockey (although we are pretty good at field hockey) and our main forms of football are rather different to American Football, but we would welcome almost any migrants from the U S A.

[Pattern Ghost]

Be honest: You're just trying to lure him there so your wildlife can eat him.

[Lord Liaden]

"Come to Canada; it's just like America, but with more snow and less shootings."

[Badger]

Hearing about Kennedy.  I don't think it is that bad for Dems, as made out to be, if 3 things are done.

 

1.  Keep Ginzburg going

2.  Keep Thomas from retiring

3.  Win in 2020.

 

With a 2020 win, I doubt those 2 make it through 2024.  So, if so you get back the 5-4 vote.  Though one of the other liberal judges is old too, come to think.

[Starlord]

4 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

"Come to Canada; it's just like America, but with more snow and less shootings."

 

Haven't you guys built a wall yet?

[BoloOfEarth]

9 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

"Come to Canada; it's just like America, but with more snow and less shootings."

 

This reminded me of "WKRP - more music, and Les Nessman." 

[Hermit]

4 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

This reminded me of "WKRP - more music, and Les Nessman." 

 

Great, now i have to make an NPC reporter for my champions games named "Les Shewtings"

[Lord Liaden]

And Canada is in Trump's sights again: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/‘what-the-hell-does-that-mean’-trump-criticizes-canada-then-says-he-doesn’t-understand-what-he-just-read/ar-AAzhPt9?li=AAggNb9

 

I thought it would be enough to save my sanity just to not listen to him, but I don't think I can read him either. I'm guessing his followers must only get excerpts and sound bites from his speeches. Surely no one who tried to follow one from start to finish could believe he knows what the hell he's talking about.

[Ragitsu]

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/27/623763875/judge-bars-migrant-family-separations-orders-return-of-children-within-30-days

[BoloOfEarth]

Country club cancels Republican's fundraiser due to her support of Trump.

 

Yeah, discrimination hurts.  I'm just curious how this is markedly different from a bakery refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Well, this isn't a business refusing to provide their normal service due to sexual orientation of a client, which is against the law. This is a business refusing to make a exceptional accommodation for an event with a very clear and identifiable political purpose. If the club's management agreed to host the event it would be reasonable for the public (including the club's members) to assume they supported the political position this fundraising was to benefit.

[Ragitsu]

12 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

Country club cancels Republican's fundraiser due to her support of Trump.

 

Yeah, discrimination hurts.  I'm just curious how this is markedly different from a bakery refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. 

 

 

Gay = who you are.

Policy/action = what you choose to do?

[Sociotard]

And yet there are some brain scans that can predict whether you are more conservative or liberal, so maybe not.

[Ragitsu]

21 minutes ago, Sociotard said:

And yet there are some brain scans that can predict whether you are more conservative or liberal, so maybe not.

 

Unless we want to upend the notion of free will (and, by extension, radically redefine responsibility) by mandating MRIs/CT scans to determine probable behavior, it would be best if we didn't go down that road.

[Pattern Ghost]

20 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

Unless we want to upend the notion of free will (and, by extension, radically redefine responsibility) by mandating MRIs/CT scans to determine probable behavior, it would be best if we didn't go down that road. 

 

Just a few days ago, I caught a presentation by and interview with James Fallon on NPR. He's a neuroscientist who in the course of his research accidentally (though perhaps not serendipitously) discovered he had the brain scan of a psychopath. Turns out, it runs in his family. Lizzy Borden is a distant cousin of his. He recounted asking people close to him what they thought of him after this discovery and was surprised to find out that they all found him distant and thought he had trouble connecting with people.

 

I don't think it's a bad thing to have information that increases your self awareness, and awareness of others. We aren't hardwired to the level of behavior that an ant is, for example, but if we learn to recognize and accept that some tendencies are hardwired, it may help us cope with them in an informed way.

 

 

 

[Ragitsu]

24 minutes ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

Just a few days ago, I caught a presentation by and interview with James Fallon on NPR. He's a neuroscientist who in the course of his research accidentally (though perhaps not serendipitously) discovered he had the brain scan of a psychopath. Turns out, it runs in his family. Lizzy Borden is a distant cousin of his. He recounted asking people close to him what they thought of him after this discovery and was surprised to find out that they all found him distant and thought he had trouble connecting with people.

 

I don't think it's a bad thing to have information that increases your self awareness, and awareness of others. We aren't hardwired to the level of behavior that an ant is, for example, but if we learn to recognize and accept that some tendencies are hardwired, it may help us cope with them in an informed way.

 

 

 

 

Research and the quest for knowledge in a broad, academic sense is all fine and dandy; it is the use of related developed techniques/technologies to pre-judge others (especially on a wide scale) that I worry about.

[Vondy]

On 6/27/2018 at 8:09 PM, Sociotard said:

It may be difficult to reconcile "robust defense" with some of the others, like "fiscally conservative", unless your definition of "defense" is "make your country exceedingly unattractive to invade", rather than the reckless military adventurism too many the US admire.

 

Why is it the second someone says they are "fiscally conservative" everyone starts implying there is philosophical or political dissonance? I'm not sure how those would be difficult to reconcile since the key phrase is "defense." You can make your country an extremely scary porcupine and maintain a highly effective expeditionary capacity without conducting an endless (decades upon decades) string of simultaneous military operations in multiple areas of the globe. We could make reasonable defense cuts and still have the best funded and most powerful military in the world. We just need to be a hell of a lot more judicious about intervention and a hell of a lot more brutal about soft and inneficient bureucrats. I fully advocate aforementioned shift to more circumspect positions / policies, btw. 

 

But while many want to point at the military, its not the albatross that is bankrupting us. Its expensive and can be cut, but its not the only federal belt tightening I want to see. I know people shriek that its heartless, but our entitlement programs are the principal cause of our balooning debt. They are not sustainable and will lead our nation to insolvency. And let's not even talk about government pork-barrel programs and spending at the federal level for every pet cause under the sun. I want just every single federal program to be made meaner and leaner, and to be forced to prove it is providing value and actually accomplishing its aims.  

 

I'm not against regulation, but I think it should be smart, specific, and equally as judicious as our military policy should be. Stereotypical conservatives don't understand the law of unintended consequences and black swans in foreign policy. Stereotypical pogressives don't understand those things vis-a-vis economics and culture. That said, I'm not anti government. I'm not anti-regulation. And I'm not anti-legislation. I'm just highly circumspect about government meddling. Politics is downstream of culture. Attempting to legislate it is effectively casting Summon Black Swan IX. I want most of my government at the local level, where I can keep an eye on it, more directly influence it, bang on doors when the policy wonks start acting stupid, and tailor it to local and regional customs, mores, and communities. 

[Ragitsu]

Even if the reduction of military spending isn't the economic panacea we desperately need, I think we can do with less pointless muscle flexing abroad...especially when that flexing results in what amounts to tax-payer funded murder on the behest of ally nations with ossuaries in their closets.

[Vondy]

38 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

Even if the reduction of military spending isn't the economic panacea we desperately need, I think we can do with less pointless muscle flexing abroad...

 

We agree.

 

38 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

...especially when that flexing results in what amounts to tax-payer funded murder on the behest of ally nations with ossuaries in their closets.

 

Your point is understood and, to a certain degree, I concur with the emotional sentiment.

But I've also grown weary of the constant rhetorical overstatement and license that pervades our nation's political discourse.

It makes having a measured, nuanced, reasonable, and productive discussion difficult. 

 

 

[Badger]

9 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

Country club cancels Republican's fundraiser due to her support of Trump.

 

Yeah, discrimination hurts.  I'm just curious how this is markedly different from a bakery refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. 

 

 

Interestingly, it makes both sides look like hypocrites.  Don't complain about wedding cakes if you will complain about not being served (Huckabee-Sanders and Red Hen is big in VA for obvious reasons now).  Whereas, why is it wrong to discriminate against A, but not B.

 

 

[Old Man]

8 minutes ago, Badger said:

Whereas, why is it wrong to discriminate against A, but not B.

 

 

 

9 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

 

Gay = who you are.

Policy/action = what you choose to do?

 

 

Or to put it another way, I can't choose my sexual orientation or skin color, but I can choose what I'm willing to do for my boss.

[Badger]

9 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

 

Gay = who you are.

Policy/action = what you choose to do?

 

In general, I am a discrimination is discrimination and is wrong believer.  I can think of a handful of extenuating circumstances, for a case-by-case basis.  But, sometimes I think we are getting too close to "Believe this exceedingly narrow set of beliefs or we will totally ostracize you".  Granted, we have 2 "narrow sets of beliefs" vying for power.  

 

 

[assault]

On 6/28/2018 at 1:31 PM, st barbara said:

Most of the country has pretty good weather (it CAN get hot in summer, especially in Queensland and the "top end).

 

South-east Queensland is good in summer. Brisbane is humid, but doesn't usually reach the horrible temperatures Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide get.

 

Toowoomba, where I am, is usually a couple of degrees cooler than Brisbane, and far less humid. Unfortunately it sucks in winter. (No snow though, obviously.)

[Ragitsu]

8 hours ago, Badger said:

 

In general, I am a discrimination is discrimination and is wrong believer.  I can think of a handful of extenuating circumstances, for a case-by-case basis.  But, sometimes I think we are getting too close to "Believe this exceedingly narrow set of beliefs or we will totally ostracize you".  Granted, we have 2 "narrow sets of beliefs" vying for power.  

 

 

 

I find it difficult to rustle up sympathy for elected officials that willingly create or support policies which discriminate against non-Caucasians/whites, women, homosexuals/bisexuals, the poor (and even the middle class, these days), non-Christians, etc. Basically: individuals who make life harder for anyone that isn't a middle class or higher heterosexual W.A.S.P. (white Anglo-Saxon Protestant) male. All of a sudden, now that people are pushing back with the First Amendment and their rights as private business owners, these politicians are crying foul? Boo-frickin'-hoo.

 

Performing a root canal on an ornery Allosaurus fragilis sounds more appealing and infinitely more realistic.