Politics Please say rock bottom is getting close (3 Viewers)

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Phatguysrule said:
Strict laws on guns would be one example.

Another recent example would be trying to restrict teachers from praying, even though it doesn't negatively impact their job and they aren't forcing anybody else to do it.


I'm not advocating for anything which would require changes to the constitution. The constitution doesn't restrict people. It limits restrictions the government is allowed to impose on the people.

Drastic changes are coming one way or another. For the next 25 years or so we're going to have a labor shortage. We've had negative immigration from Mexico for the last decade or so.

And we're going to need to bring manufacturing back to North America.

So there is going to be a time of high inflation and growth.

We don't need a new system of government to pay people's medical bills. We don't need a new system of government to pay for people's education. We don't need a new system of government house the homeless, or feed the hungry.

The list goes on. What we need are Dem leaders who aren't corrupt.
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Blaming this on “corrupt Dem leaders” might be your oddest take. That’s what we need? Less Dem corruption?
 
Phatguysrule said:
I'm not advocating for anything which would require changes to the constitution. The constitution doesn't restrict people. It limits restrictions the government is allowed to impose on the people.
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That is, excuse my French, grade A bullshit.

The Electoral college gives power to land masses instead of people which is the #1 cause for the mess we are in. All you need to do is look at the discrepancy between popular vote and elected officials or popular opinion vs. the laws that are pushed by the ruling majority. The constitution of the USA has some excellent portions and some portions that were designed for an 18th century world that cause all the problems this country experiences in the 21st century.
 
andalusian said:
That is, excuse my French, grade A bullshit.

The Electoral college gives power to land masses instead of people which is the #1 cause for the mess we are in. All you need to do is look at the discrepancy between popular vote and elected officials or popular opinion vs. the laws that are pushed by the ruling majority. The constitution of the USA has some excellent portions and some portions that were designed for an 18th century world that cause all the problems this country experiences in the 21st century.
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I'm sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding.

How is your post at odds with what I posted? Just trying to figure out where the bullshit lies...
 
Phatguysrule said:
I'm sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding.

How is your post at odds with what I posted? Just trying to figure out where the bullshit lies...
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When you said "The constitution doesn't restrict people."

It restrict the political power of people based on their state of residence and everything cascades from that. A voter in Wyoming holds a lot more political power than a voter in California - because of the constitution. This is the #1 problem in America. This is not a true democracy where every vote is worth the same, because it does not.
 
Phatguysrule said:
The right kind of leader could get you there. But they have to be able to get over the partisan bullshit. Playing the same old game never will.

Obviously, Republican leaders who aren't corrupt would help as well. But I don't see that happening.

The right kind of leader when we have the next catastrophe... Could make all the difference. And there will be more and more catastrophes.
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We have a catastrophe right now - the supreme court is taking us back a hundred years, which would 100% have been avoided if the unbelievably corrupt, awful, establishment, elite, murderess and grandma Hillary Clinton had been elected instead of Trump.

But the country didn't do that, in part because of people in a few swing states who felt they 'just couldn't vote for her', and 'there's no difference between Trump and Clinton', 'both parties are corrupt', 'the DNC cheated Bernie', etc. etc.

The same sort of stuff you've been saying in this thread. Blaming your allies for not being perfect, and excusing your opponents. Saying 'both sides do it' without any acknowledgement that it can make a huge difference if one side does it more than the other side. Making perfect the enemy of good.

barfo
 
barfo said:
We have a catastrophe right now - the supreme court is taking us back a hundred years, which would 100% have been avoided if the unbelievably corrupt, awful, establishment, elite, murderess and grandma Hillary Clinton had been elected instead of Trump.

But the country didn't do that, in part because of people in a few swing states who felt they 'just couldn't vote for her', and 'there's no difference between Trump and Clinton', 'both parties are corrupt', 'the DNC cheated Bernie', etc. etc.

The same sort of stuff you've been saying in this thread. Blaming your allies for not being perfect, and excusing your opponents. Saying 'both sides do it' without any acknowledgement that it can make a huge difference if one side does it more than the other side. Making perfect the enemy of good.

barfo
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I'm sorry, who did I excuse?

Hillary didn't win because people didn't trust that she cared about them and she proved it by neglecting to campaign there.

Democrats have largely turned their back on blue collar workers and their desires. You'll also notice that much of the rust belt is very gun friendly. Specifically, a huge number of union workers in the rust belt are very pro gun. And she hardly even campaigned there.

Establishment Dems just want to play the game and cash the check. These things matter.

We need more Dems like Elizabeth Warren, Stacey Abrams, AOC, Bernie Sanders. They are solid communicators. Obviously younger than Warren and Sanders would be preferable. But we will not get that until Dems start looking in the mirror.
 
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andalusian said:
When you said "The constitution doesn't restrict people."

It restrict the political power of people based on their state of residence and everything cascades from that. A voter in Wyoming holds a lot more political power than a voter in California - because of the constitution. This is the #1 problem in America. This is not a true democracy where every vote is worth the same, because it does not.
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Yeah, so again, nobody's rights are restricted by the constitution. The argument can be made that it doesn't equally protect all rights, but that's not the same thing.

I'm really not sure why the aggressive tone was needed, or why you're trying to be so argumentative about something barely on topic. I said nothing in support of the electoral college and neither had anybody else.

If Dems were more trustworthy with better messaging, and weren't going after individual rights they would almost never lose, electoral college be damned. Republicans would be forced to be more logical.

Another example where democrats drive people away would be child services and supervision laws in which some democrat run states make it a crime to leave children under a certain age (14 years old in Illinois, and 10 years old in Oregon) unsupervised at home, or outside at the park.. Many people see these kinds of laws and consider it government overreach.

I don't think anything will be done about the electoral college. It would take 3/4 of the states to agree, and that's just not going to happen any time soon. Probably not before a civil war. We'll need to come up with another solution to avoid falling to that.
 
Phatguysrule said:
I'm not advocating for anything which would require changes to the constitution. The constitution doesn't restrict people. It limits restrictions the government is allowed to impose on the people.
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It was just used to restrict women's rights.
 
Phatguysrule said:
Yeah, so again, nobody's rights are restricted by the constitution. The argument can be made that it doesn't equally protect all rights, but that's not the same thing.
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Oh, I am absolutely disagreeing about this assessment. Just because the constitution does not explicitly say that it is restricting the right of people - it does it by creating a construct that restricts the value of one's vote based on residence.

Phatguysrule said:
I'm really not sure why the aggressive tone was needed, or why you're trying to be so argumentative about something barely on topic. I said nothing in support of the electoral college and neither had anybody else.
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Because I believe you are wrong about the root cause of the problem, it is not the 2 party system, it is not the Democrats vs the Republicans, it is not the eradication of the separation of church and state, it is not about messaging, it is not about communication - it is because despite the fact that the declaration of independence starts "all men are created equal" the constitution has repeatedly been constructed in ways that goes against that.

Phatguysrule said:
If Dems were more trustworthy with better messaging, and weren't going after individual rights they would almost never lose, electoral college be damned. Republicans would be forced to be more logical.
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I disagree with that, 100% - if every one's vote was the same, we would have had 1 Republican president since Bill Clinton and that was GWB in his 2nd term (and who knows if he would have won that if the popular vote really put Al Gore as president). The democrats could have won all of these elections which means that all the things that came from it, including all these SCOTUS dinosaurs would not be here - we would likely have much better health care, gun control etc... - so the problem was not that the democrats had a communications problem. The problem is that their communication acumen was not enough to overcome the fact that not all votes are worth the same.

Phatguysrule said:
I don't think anything will be done about the electoral college. It would take 3/4 of the states to agree, and that's just not going to happen any time soon. Probably not before a civil war. We'll need to come up with another solution to avoid falling to that.
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These are 2 different discussions - one of them is why we are where we are - and the electoral college (and senate) and how bad it is for democracy is absolutely the #1 reason. The other is - how easy is it going to solve it, where what you say is absolutely right. Unfortunately, the reason it is so hard to change it is caused once again, by the brother of the electoral college (where in the senate the value of a land body - state - is over the value of human body) where a vote of someone that lives in West Virginia is worth 20 times the vote of someone who lives in California (which is why the infrastructure bill did not pass, it was not because of the Democrats or their communication, it was because a West Virginia vote is more important - because of the constitution)

I absolutely hate these discussions where we say the problem is the democrats unreliability or communication - because it is not really, it is because logic, unfortunately, has to play against a stacked hand where bad parties play because of a bad, outdated legal argument. And just because it is hard to do, dismissing it ensures it will never be fixed. The women suffrage movement was, luckily, not willing to abort the fight that took decades to fix the constitution because it was hard - nor should we. The constitution, as currently written, is still problematic and is at the root of the problem.
 
Phatguysrule said:
Will you please show me the text in the constitution which restricts women's rights?
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What it says isn't always how it's used. Interpretation has allowed it be used one way and another.

You said it doesn't restrict people. It's being used to restrict people, even though that is not it's purpose.
 
andalusian said:
Oh, I am absolutely disagreeing about this assessment. Just because the constitution does not explicitly say that it is restricting the right of people - it does it by creating a construct that restricts the value of one's vote based on residence.



Because I believe you are wrong about the root cause of the problem, it is not the 2 party system, it is not the Democrats vs the Republicans, it is not the eradication of the separation of church and state, it is not about messaging, it is not about communication - it is because despite the fact that the declaration of independence starts "all men are created equal" the constitution has repeatedly been constructed in ways that goes against that.



I disagree with that, 100% - if every one's vote was the same, we would have had 1 Republican president since Bill Clinton and that was GWB in his 2nd term (and who knows if he would have won that if the popular vote really put Al Gore as president). The democrats could have won all of these elections which means that all the things that came from it, including all these SCOTUS dinosaurs would not be here - we would likely have much better health care, gun control etc... - so the problem was not that the democrats had a communications problem. The problem is that their communication acumen was not enough to overcome the fact that not all votes are worth the same.



These are 2 different discussions - one of them is why we are where we are - and the electoral college (and senate) and how bad it is for democracy is absolutely the #1 reason. The other is - how easy is it going to solve it, where what you say is absolutely right. Unfortunately, the reason it is so hard to change it is caused once again, by the brother of the electoral college (where in the senate the value of a land body - state - is over the value of human body) where a vote of someone that lives in West Virginia is worth 20 times the vote of someone who lives in California (which is why the infrastructure bill did not pass, it was not because of the Democrats or their communication, it was because a West Virginia vote is more important - because of the constitution)

I absolutely hate these discussions where we say the problem is the democrats unreliability or communication - because it is not really, it is because logic, unfortunately, has to play against a stacked hand where bad parties play because of a bad, outdated legal argument. And just because it is hard to do, dismissing it ensures it will never be fixed. The women suffrage movement was, luckily, not willing to abort the fight that took decades to fix the constitution because it was hard - nor should we. The constitution, as currently written, is still problematic and is at the root of the problem.
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Well it's not going to get fixed in our lifetimes unless Dems get their shit figured out. So that's the #1 problem as far as I can tell.
 
Chris Craig said:
What it says isn't always how it's used. Interpretation has allowed it be used one way and another.

You said it doesn't restrict people. It's being used to restrict people, even though that is not it's purpose.
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No, it is being ignored, which is allowing states to restrict people. Big difference.
 
Phatguysrule said:
No, it is being ignored, which is allowing states to restrict people. Big difference.
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It was just utilized by the SC...they "interpreted" it to say there is no protection for women when it comes to their bodies so they could cut down Roe V Wade.
 
Phatguysrule said:
Well it's not going to get fixed in our lifetimes unless Dems get their shit figured out.
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Or the revolution / civil war comes. And even if that does not happen, I hope we all continue to point this geographical discrimination so hopefully the next generations can one day choose where they want to live without having to have their right restricted. Basically, the women's rights to their body now is restricted in multiple geographical parts of this country. LGBTQ+ folks the same. The problem is not, imho, with the Democrats figuring their shit - it is with people not willing to point how bad the alternative is and making false equivalences between them and the party that wants to take away freedoms and limit help.

I don't care how bad the democrats are compared to a utopian world. I only care about how much better they are than the opposition. Until people stop being apathetic and thinking all politicians are the same, it will not be solved. Simple as that.
 
Chris Craig said:
It was just utilized by the SC...they "interpreted" it to say there is no protection for women when it comes to their bodies so they could cut down Roe V Wade.
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There are multiple protections in the constitution which an uncorrupted body would interpret to protect a woman's right to her own body. And multiple protections which would prevent anybody else from knowing if she did.

The problem is that we have a corrupt supreme court. The body who is supposed to interpret the constitution. At least 2 or 3 of these assholes should be impeached, IMO.
 
andalusian said:
Or the revolution / civil war comes. And even if that does not happen, I hope we all continue to point this geographical discrimination so hopefully the next generations can one day choose where they want to live without having to have their right restricted. Basically, the women's rights to their body now is restricted in multiple geographical parts of this country. LGBTQ+ folks the same. The problem is not, imho, with the Democrats figuring their shit - it is with people not willing to point how bad the alternative is and making false equivalences between them and the party that wants to take away freedoms and limit help.

I don't care how bad the democrats are compared to a utopian world. I only care about how much better they are than the opposition. Until people stop being apathetic and thinking all politicians are the same, it will not be solved. Simple as that.
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Great. You keep holding out for people to support leaders who fuck them over.

While we're at it we can hope everybody starts monitoring their own carbon footprint to curb climate change.

Then when they don't do it we can blame everybody for failing. That always works out well. Personal responsibility and all...
 
Phatguysrule said:
Great. You keep holding out for people to support leaders who fuck them over.
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The leaders, as you very well observed, look for themselves, so expecting them to change their behavior is not a reasonable expectation. The only way it changes is if the people vote properly, stop being apathetic and understand that at times they need to vote for the lesser of 2 evils to have progress, even if it is slow. If you are on a deserted island, you might have to eat some bugs to survive is the analogy, I suppose.

(or go to the street to start a revolution, I guess)
 
Marjorie Q Greene is having a sad. The Justice Department refused to intervene. People are mocking her! Yes, her! And using bible verses!

Poor Klan mom. First Amendment means mockery is not a crime.
 
andalusian said:
The leaders, as you very well observed, look for themselves, so expecting them to change their behavior is not a reasonable expectation. The only way it changes is if the people vote properly, stop being apathetic and understand that at times they need to vote for the lesser of 2 evils to have progress, even if it is slow. If you are on a deserted island, you might have to eat some bugs to survive is the analogy, I suppose.

(or go to the street to start a revolution, I guess)
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Here is an analogy I ran into last night and decided to screenshot. All credit to random r/politics poster:

Screenshot_20220630-012242_Reddit.jpg

I'll go with Taxi A easy, because this is the choices we have currently, and it is the only valid option.
 

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andalusian said:
Or the revolution / civil war comes. And even if that does not happen, I hope we all continue to point this geographical discrimination so hopefully the next generations can one day choose where they want to live without having to have their right restricted. Basically, the women's rights to their body now is restricted in multiple geographical parts of this country. LGBTQ+ folks the same. The problem is not, imho, with the Democrats figuring their shit - it is with people not willing to point how bad the alternative is and making false equivalences between them and the party that wants to take away freedoms and limit help.

I don't care how bad the democrats are compared to a utopian world. I only care about how much better they are than the opposition. Until people stop being apathetic and thinking all politicians are the same, it will not be solved. Simple as that.
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It's like you're not even having this conversation with me. I'm not arguing against voting Democrat. I'm arguing that we actually vote for the best Democrat for a change.

I didn't say politicians are all the same. In fact, I've publicly stated in here that I voted for Biden over Trump, simply because Biden was less shitty than Trump.

But I also said that I didn't expect him to do much. And I've been proven pretty well right... What I have said is that Biden is everything wrong with Democrats and most everything wrong with Republicans.

I expected Biden to be slightly better than Dubya. And that's about where he's been. He's Manchin. He's Lieberman.

Democrats need to be better or we'll just keep getting the same results that gave us Trump. And a failed insurrection is just a trial run.

You can hang your hat on changing the electoral college. But it will not happen. You're just pissing in the wind. Democrats just need to be better.
 
Tyrant of Ants said:
Why Are Democrats Letting Republicans Steamroll Them?



TLDR: Republicans are better cheaters and will destroy shit if they don't get their ways. Democrats would rather play the part of the nice/good guys than fight dirty to get shit done.
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Yep. And many Democrats don't really believe the shit they are pretending to advocate for. Many Republicans do. At least, they believe it will be good for them.

Most of the Democrats don't actually care if the middle class struggles. It's not personal for them. They'll be fine. So they don't go to the mats for those causes.
 
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