Redeeming the Republicans

[Lago PARANOIA]

How is American foreign policy any different under the two parties? I don't see any real difference.

Look, John McCain said during the 2008 U.S. Presidential election that he wanted to keep the Iraq War II going indefinitely. Or, hell, just look at the very existence of Iraq War II. Sure, assholes like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry voted for it out of cravenness, but I seriously doubt that there would still be a runup to the war if Gore was in the Presidential hot seat, 9/11 or no. I don't have a smoking gun of Romney going 'we'll be having war with Iran if I get elected' but he has definitely been making those noises.

You'll get no disagreement with me that Obama's foreign policy is still way too imperial and heavy-handed compared to what it could be. And this vein runs through the entire Democratic Party -- even Elizabeth Warren is a frickin' war hawk. But there is no doubt that the Republican Party has been way worse.

Your politicians stance on abortion means fuck all to me, when the majority seem to be unopposed to high collateral drone executions and keeping soldiers in poppy fields, to protect the heroin trade.

Oh, I get it now. It's not about saving or improving human lives in abstract, it's about saving particular kinds of lives. Who cares whether one political philosophy has openly shilled for ending American food stamps (thus damning at least thousands of people to death by starvation) -- both of them advocate a policy that kills people in the hundreds to thousands so they're both equally bad and culpable.

If you want to play the humanitarian 'all lives are important' game in order to judge moral consequences and behavior, all human lives are important. You compare numbers and only numbers. Otherwise you're just a tribalist who is trying to hide their tribalism through frame-flipping.

[Kaelik]

How is American foreign policy any different under the two parties? I don't see any real difference.

Your politicians stance on abortion means fuck all to me, when the majority seem to be unopposed to high collateral drone executions and keeping soldiers in poppy fields, to protect the heroin trade.

Keeping consumers quibbling over civil liberties at home, hinders awareness of larger, global issues. You need to check your privilege, sir. I don't give a fuck about your buyer's justification over whatever political vision you bought in to.

Do you not understand what equal even means? No one is contesting that killing people is bad. But if the choice is "kill X foreigners" or "kill X foreigners and Y domestically" anyone with a fucking brain can see that you pick the first one.

This is literally Hitler territory. World War II is bad. World War II will always be bad. But World War II without the Jew murdering, even though bad, is objectively better than what we had. You are literally saying that Domestic murder has no value.

To say nothing of the fact that Democrats do in fact propose stupid ass wars less, so they kill fewer foreigners too. If you really think eight years of drone strikes and pulling out of Iraq is the same as eight years of starting two fucking wars you are dumb as shit.

[Drolyt]

How is American foreign policy any different under the two parties? I don't see any real difference.

That's because there isn't much of a difference. The parties barely even debate foreign policy. The only president in recent memory to oppose gunboat diplomacy while supporting humanitarian efforts was Carter, and he did not have the political skill to push his ideas through. Still, the Republicans manage to be worse.

Your politicians stance on abortion means fuck all to me, when the majority seem to be unopposed to high collateral drone executions and keeping soldiers in poppy fields, to protect the heroin trade.

I agree, those are certainly more important issues than abortion. Unfortunately megacorporations control the media so most Americans aren't even aware of what is going on.

Keeping consumers quibbling over civil liberties at home, hinders awareness of larger, global issues. You need to check your privilege, sir. I don't give a fuck about your buyer's justification over whatever political vision you bought in to.

Wow. Okay, first, what country are you from? I doubt its hands are clean. Regardless, why shouldn't we focus on issues at home? How the hell are we supposed to focus on global challenges when we can't even keep our disabled veterans out of poverty?

Edit: Seriously, what the hell are you advocating? Ruthless prioritization of humanitarian causes? So we shouldn't worry about racial discrimination until there are no more starving children? Improving educational outcomes can wait until malaria is eradicated? It doesn't work like that.

[Winnah]

Oh, I get it now. It's not about saving or improving human lives in abstract, it's about saving particular kinds of lives. Who cares whether one political philosophy has openly shilled for ending American food stamps (thus damning at least thousands of people to death by starvation) -- both of them advocate a policy that kills people in the hundreds to thousands so they're both equally bad and culpable.

Don't compare reality, with hysterical fantasy. You still have food stamps, the possibility you may not have food stamps in no way compares to the reality of extrajudicial execution.

To say nothing of the fact that Democrats do in fact propose stupid ass wars less, so they kill fewer foreigners too. If you really think eight years of drone strikes and pulling out of Iraq is the same as eight years of starting two fucking wars you are dumb as shit.

I know this from experience, so trust me when I say that it does not counts as pulling out if you leave the tip in. Conservative estimates posit at least 50k troops will remain in Iraq indefinitely. Also, 8 years of drone strikes and counting.

Seriously, what the hell are you advocating? Ruthless prioritization of humanitarian causes? So we shouldn't worry about racial discrimination until there are no more starving children? Improving educational outcomes can wait until malaria is eradicated? It doesn't work like that.

I already stated my position. Red or Blue does not mean anything, when your elected officials are corporate whores.

My position is, remove corporate influence over politics. Then your government can get down to the business of representing the interests of the majority.

[Kaelik]

Okay, I understand you now. I think what you are saying is true on average, but I think there are more exceptions than you realize.

I think you are an idiot, partially because of things like this. Why the fuck do you think I think there are so few exceptions. You asked why it is dying, not why it doesn't exist. I admit the existence of such people, but when evidence points in one direction on both issues, and evidence mounts over time you have a larger number of people who follow the direction evidence points in both cases and a larger number of people who follow the direction of evidence in neither case and a smaller number of people who ignore one kind of evidence but not the other.

I know this from experience, so trust me when I say that it does not counts as pulling out if you leave the tip in. Conservative estimates posit at least 50k troops will remain in Iraq indefinitely. Also, 8 years of drone strikes and counting.

So once again, in addition to you stupidly believing that starving people in America don't count, how do you not get that descalating wars kills fewer people than starting new wars?

Your stupid solution of "drone strikes are bad, so therefore I have no opinion on whether the guy who drone strikes or the guy who drones strikes and invades Iran is President" is literally the dumbest possible thing to say.

My position is, remove corporate influence over politics. Then your government can get down to the business of representing the interests of the majority.

The majority does not give two shits about how many foreigners die if it brings us economic prosperity. The majority of Americans would vote to have you stabbed in eye if it would get them $50.

[Whipstitch]

Edit: Seriously, what the hell are you advocating? Ruthless prioritization of humanitarian causes? So we shouldn't worry about racial discrimination until there are no more starving children? Improving educational outcomes can wait until malaria is eradicated? It doesn't work like that.

Basically, he isn't advocating much of anything, he just has a bullshit equivocation that rather aptly demonstrates how perfect is the enemy of good.

[Drolyt]

I think you are an idiot

I'm aware of this.

Why the fuck do you think I think there are so few exceptions. You asked why it is dying, not why it doesn't exist.

Because of this:

I'm not saying that it is difficult to hold contradictory beliefs. The position that God exists and he isn't a tremendous asshole is not any more or less self contradictory than any other position about God.

I am saying that smart people realize there are no gods, and smart people realize that you shouldn't murder all the poor people with stupid policies.

It is equivalent to saying "It is difficult to be stupid enough to believe that 2+2=5, but smart enough to know how to calculate acceleration."

That is the reason that there are very few people at Nasa who do incorrect calculations.

Both positions are strongly correlated with intelligence. For someone to understand good social policies they have to be smarter than it takes to not believe in gods.

There is nothing in there about trends. The only conclusion this argument supports is that there are few such people to begin with, not that they are dying out.

[Winnah]

I know this from experience, so trust me when I say that it does not counts as pulling out if you leave the tip in. Conservative estimates posit at least 50k troops will remain in Iraq indefinitely. Also, 8 years of drone strikes and counting.

So once again, in addition to you stupidly believing that starving people in America don't count, how do you not get that descalating wars kills fewer people than starting new wars?

Your stupid solution of "drone strikes are bad, so therefore I have no opinion on whether the guy who drone strikes or the guy who drones strikes and invades Iran is President" is literally the dumbest possible thing to say.

If you are going to argue like a 10 year old, let me open by saying that you support heroin overdoses because you don't want Afghan farmers to starve, you prick. Kaelik supports the heroin trade. Fuck that guy.

There is no de-escalation of conflict in Iraq. There will just be fewer Americans to bomb, at least until the election next year.

Also, using drones to kill people is an act of war, you fucking moron. Sending your military into another sovereign territory to kill people is the very definition of warfare. You can juggle semantics over whether a war was officially and legally declared or not, but by doing so, you would be dishonest, and still a moron.

Stop supporting heroin, you arsehole.

[Kaelik]

If you are going to argue like a 10 year old, let me open by saying that you support heroin overdoses because you don't want Afghan farmers to starve, you prick. Kaelik supports the heroin trade. Fuck that guy.

Try harder idiot. I support the rights of heroin farmers to make heroin and sell it, provided they aren't being exploited. Because I support drug legalization.

There is no de-escalation of conflict in Iraq. There will just be fewer Americans to bomb, at least until the election next year.

You are an idiot. If your complaint is that Americans are killing people, then you should be for anything that reduces the number of people killed by Americans. Reducing the number of troops does that.

Also, using drones to kill people is an act of war, you fucking moron. Sending your military into another sovereign territory to kill people is the very definition of warfare.

"Acts of War" are not wars. If you send a sniper to kill the President that is an act of war, but it is not a war. Wars are prolonged conflicts between multiple sides, as opposed to solitary acts. But guess fucking what, that doesn't even matter.

Because this is the relevant part "kills fewer people."

Now, are you going to really tell me with a straight face that you think Drone Strikes kill more people than Invading countries? Because Republicans do that, and they launch drones too.

You are literally mathematically impaired to the point where you are whining that X + Y is the same as X. Where Y is like 50 times X.

[DSMatticus]

Winnah, you are a fucking idiot. "Drone strikes + more war" is worse than "drone strikes" in the exact metric you are referring to, and "drone strikes + more war + no abortions + no gay marriage + cut government spending + destroy our one attempt at a not-retarded healthcare system + destroy every safety net possible, and so on" is worse than "drone strikes" in the exact metric you are referring to and a ton others you are refusing to acknowledge because... they aren't important?

So either you are refusing to acknowledge that the Republican platform includes more war, less women's rights, less homosexual rights, and less social safety nets (in which case, you are a fucking idiot), or you are saying those things don't matter because the only way to evaluate the success of an administration is in a completely binary FAIL/SUCCESS way and having killed anyone with a drone strike is a FAIL (in which case, you are a disgusting human being who refuses to acknowledge that because Republican administrations would objectively cause more human suffering, Republican administrations are actually worse for causing more human suffering).

I'm going with disgusting human being, because this:

Otherwise, it's just a puppet show with a slight deviation on issues of civil liberty.

Yes. Healthcare, abortions, gays in the military/gay marriage, the right to vote as a fucking poor minority are slight deviations. Completely uninteresting and irrelevant. Those things (and by things, you apparently mean women, gays, minorities, and sick people) don't really matter.

[nockermensch]

Dudes, please: Anyone arguing for "politicians are all in the same corrupt sack" or "parties are all the same" is arguing for the bad guys. They are the only ones that benefit from a general cynical attitude and lack of interest/belief in the political process.

This means that, yes, a lot of the times you should be analyzing what all the candidates really stand for and then picking the lesser evil. That sucks, but the alternative is even worse.

[Drolyt]

Dudes, please: Anyone arguing for "politicians are all in the same corrupt sack" or "parties are all the same" is arguing for the bad guys. They are the only ones that benefit from a general cynical attitude and lack of interest/belief in the political process.

The sad thing is there are a ton of people out there like this. The worst part is I know people who are apathetic but still vote. Seriously, they claim both parties are equally bad and then vote anyways. The mind boggles.

[Koumei]

Dudes, please: Anyone arguing for "politicians are all in the same corrupt sack" or "parties are all the same" is arguing for the bad guys. They are the only ones that benefit from a general cynical attitude and lack of interest/belief in the political process.

Indeed, so unless Winnah is a shill for them, we might actually have our official "dumbest person on the Den". The differences between the two might not be as large as we want (of course they're not), but you cannot possibly say "Your aeroplane is white, not red. So it sucks, it's just the same as my white car with three wheels, one working headlight and an engine that takes an hour to start up". There are differences and they fucking matter.

If one guy is a murderer who kills one person for no reason that you could justify as being acceptable (self-defence, defence of others, legal euthanasia etc), and another guy is a mass murderer who did the same thing to ten people, then sure, they're both bad dudes. But the second one is worse. In fact he is literally ten times as bad. If you had to shake hands with one of them on television, you'd pick the former - and you'd probably say to the camera "Yeah folks, he's a cockbag, but at least he's not that other guy!"

Please do not die, Winnah. That would be a terrible thing. Because then someone else would have to be the dumbest horse-fucker alive.

[Maj]

I have always been partial to this (very large) image depicting the difference between left/right:

[CatharzGodfoot]

There are so many altruists on the Den. I'm honestly surprised that anyone cared enough about Winnah's opinion on US domestic politics to teach them some basic logic.

The standard US response to 'I'm an angry foreigner and I think that you should do things which aren't in your own interest out of pure spite.' is 'Fuck off.', regardless of political affiliation.

[hyzmarca]

Your politicians stance on abortion means fuck all to me, when the majority seem to be unopposed to high collateral drone executions and keeping soldiers in poppy fields, to protect the heroin trade.

1) Heroin is an awesome drug and its trade should be protected. I'm all for that.

2) Drones strikes are cool. They combine robots and explosions. I don't see how anyone can be opposed to that.

If you are going to argue like a 10 year old, let me open by saying that you support heroin overdoses because you don't want Afghan farmers to starve, you prick. Kaelik supports the heroin trade. Fuck that guy.

Heroin overdoses are only a problem due to non-existent dosage labeling. Heroin in sold without proper dosage information because it is illegal. Ergo, I support legalization. That would prevent most overdoses.




But yeah, the problem with the Republicans is that there is really no such thing. The GOP basically welded together several disparate interest groups that really aren't related to each other in order to create a powerful voting block.

Generally speaking, the fundamentalist Christian lobby gives not a single shit about economic issues and the big business lobby gives not a single shit about moral issues.

The various flavors of Republican are all very different animals and they really shouldn't be working as well together as they do. The lack of competing interest overlap does help.

[DSMatticus]

@Maj, I hate it. It tries too hard to craft differences in terms of relatively respectable-sounding values for both and manages to get both sides wrong. For example: "equality is a level playing field," and "equality is opportunity." The actual discussion is that inequality exists right now (absolutely true), the playing field is currently not level* (also absolutely true), what should we do about these things? And the left's suggestion is "improve opportunities for the unfortunate with investment in social programs and level the playing a field by limiting abusive business practices," and the right's suggestion (in practice, and sometimes openly in words) is "fuck the unfortunate and make it easier for the current winners to win harder."

*The concept of a level playing field has a lot of outright overlap with opportunity, but for this purposes I'm taking it to mean "the rules of the game are fair to all," which they are clearly not because laws basically stop applying once you have all the monies.

[Whipstitch]

I like how that chart puts down opposition to "tax and spend" as a conservative value even though when push comes to shove their position is really closer to "Don't tax, spend anyway #YOLO"

[Drolyt]

The various flavors of Republican are all very different animals and they really shouldn't be working as well together as they do. The lack of competing interest overlap does help.

There are very good reasons why they work so well together. The biggest one is that they are all, in a word, "conservative". By this I mean that they are for the status quo. The next biggest is that they are all authoritarian, albeit for different reasons (the religious right thinks "respect for authority" is a moral virtue, other flavors of republican like that because it keeps people from questioning their rule). It is true that many republican policies are just bones thrown by the nobility to please the so-called "moral majority" but overall the alliance is quite tight.

[Lago PARANOIA]

A convenient relationship is not the same thing as a tight relationship.

The plutocrat Republicans are increasingly getting stabbed in the back by the second-to-bottom-rung authoritarian Republicans. Oh sure, he reverse relationship happening pretty much goes without saying but what's fascinating about American politics post-2010 is how increasingly angry, ambitious, and outright Starscreamish the STBRAs are acting. There were hints of betrayal such as the conservative revolt on immigration reform in George W. Bush's term. But not open rebellion. The factory bosses are increasingly starting to crack the whips at the robber barons as they start to lose their respect for their masters.

Said plutocrats are (metaphorically) only one botched debt ceiling or derailed immigration reform 2.0 from being stripped, beaten up, and forced on the factory line alongside the child workers. And what's funny is that I don't think the plutocrat conservatives are aware at how nihilistic and desperate their STBRA quislings are feeling these days.

[Drolyt]

STBRA

Sorry, all google is getting me is this.

[fbmf]

second-to-bottom-rung authoritarian Republicans.

[Drolyt]

second-to-bottom-rung authoritarian Republicans.

Thanks. I can't believe I didn't get that.

[sabs]

The thing is, if you look at it Hispanic voters should be a republican feeding frenzy. They're predominantly religiously conservative, mysoginistic, and incredibly homophobic. They work hard, and don't particularly like hand outs. If the republicans were willing to drop the racist part and embrace immigration, they could make themselves relevant for generations.

What we really need is a way to get Religion out of education for about 20-30 years.

[RobbyPants]

STBRA

Sorry, all google is getting me is this.

Don't feel bad. I had to read backwards to figure that out, too.