So, i’m basically against the Republican stance on each of the 3 following issues, but i don’t really want to focus on the rights and wrongs of specific political positions, rather i’d like to give some sporting advice to Republicans voting for a nominee with the hopes of their party winning the presidency next year. The following wedge issues, whatever their value for rallying the base during primary season, are bound to hamper Republican White House ambitions. In no particular order:
Immigration: It’s been a losing issue for Republicans in the last two presidential races, and now that Trump has the bullhorn on the issue and the support of the largest share of registered Republicans, the overwhelming majority of Latino voters will turn against the Republican brand. Without Latino support, they lose a really important bloc of voters.
Obamacare: Far from the disaster it was universally predicted to be by Republicans, Obamacare, while still in it’s nascent stage, has now provided health insurance to about 15 million people, about 80% of whom poll as pleased with it. Few people, if any, have lost their jobs. It has not wrecked the economy. It has survived 2 Supreme Court challenges and more than 50 politically motivated Congressional votes against it in a majority Republican House. Republican calls to repeal it didn’t keep Obama from getting re-elected in 2012, and on top of that any proposed repeal would, this time around, entail 15 million people suddenly losing their health coverage. That doesn’t look good to the part of the electorate that isn’t actually an Obama-loathing Republican looking to snipe at the President, whatever the cost. It’s as if the Republicans are still trying to rally the vote against Obama even though he’s not up for re-election, and at some point after the primaries are over, the swing voters (who are over and sick of the whole Obamacare fight) are going to start making their choice based on the candidates at hand, with a general disregard for the last guy.
Planned Parenthood: It’s just TOO popular, especially in swing states. If Republicans are actually principled in their stance against abortion, then they should wage the more practical battle of winning the White House so they can then ensure a 7-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court in the next two terms and then try to appeal Roe-v-Wade. Defunding Planned Parenthood won’t reduce abortion rates, repealing Roe v Wade will.
Perhaps we can take it one step further and attempt to reconcile conservative, liberal, and other viewpoints on these ideas.
As far as immigration is concerned, my understanding of Trump’s position, is that he wants to build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it. Perhaps the correct way to think about this view is “how can a wall between the countries be a good thing?” Maybe a compromise can be made, or perhaps a wall could be a starting point for the conservative platform, that can be built upon. Perhaps build a wall to keep out illegal immigrants, but at the same time make it easier to for people to legally migrate to the US. In my mind it is the best of both worlds - the wall can serve as a deterrent for illegal border crossing, and a deterrent for any illegal activity that might migrate across the border (fears of drugs and gangs seem commonplace), and it can serve as a defense mechanism for those of us who are concerned about it. With this defense in place, maybe it can become more acceptable to allow more migrants into the country, who I can only imagine are seeking a better life for their families. Who doesn’t want that?
As far as obamacare is concerned, I think everyone is taking a good position on the issue. The liberal view of healthcare for everyone seems very noble and well intentioned to me. Why would anyone really want others to go without healthcare (assuming other issues are ignored)? The conservative view may be “why should I pay for someone else’s healthcare?” To which I retort, “why don’t you want to?”. I don’t want to divulge into a debate of capitalism vs socialism, but rather begin to reconcile the two. The capitalist approach seems to want the best for oneself and those close to you. It’s realistic to me. The socialist approach seems to be towards the common good, good for everyone, which is idealistic to me. Maybe bringing the real closer to the ideal and the ideal closer to the real is a good starting point here.
Planned parenthood - Yes, I want to plan my own parenthood. It’d be nice if others helped me with it also (paid for it). In my mind the moral issue is indirect financial support of abortion. I don’t want to have to pay for someone else to potentially commit an immoral act. Others may not view the act of abortion black and white. My own viewpoint is that I would want the best for my child (I don’t have one), and perhaps this is the beginning of the gray area. I’m childless (and spouseless), but someday I hope to have both a spouse, and God willing, children. While I can imagine wanting to terminate the pregnancy of my own child (some potential future wife), the selfless thing to do would be to give it life. Maybe a starting point for the morality of this issue is, “How can preventing abortion be a good thing for both me and my child?”. The alternative of “How can terminating a pregnancy be a good thing for both me and my child?” is an issue that probably began with someone’s heart in the wrong place. I think we should try to fix that first.
Working for the common good isn’t just idealistic, it’s the most beneficial. If everyone has health care, workers miss less work–which leads to a more vibrant economy–and we pay less for extremely expensive operations and extensive treatment for those who cannot pay for it. That’s capitalistically productive as well. What would be your idea of a compromise?
As to abortion, neither you nor anybody else gets to impose their view of what an “immoral act” is. You may think abortion is immoral, but the laws of this land, as well as many of its citizens, do not…their hearts are not “in the wrong place.” Also planned parenthood provides much more than abortion advice, it provides the sexual education and birth control that prevents the unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortion, and it provides health care services for many women’s many gynological health issues. It is a very important part of our society.
Don’t have one yet, I’m just attempting to create a starting point so that one is more likely to be reached. Sounds better to me than picking a party which may have some things I care about and some things I don’t. But I think people should stew on it rather than picking a party and sticking with it. I think its a question of where to prioritize commitments - making all of the teams better, or making your own team better first. Conservatives might prioritize their team by prioritizing family values and saving money in the short term above all else. Liberals might prioritize their team by presenting doing the same with some other issue. I don’t have the answer as to which commitment to prioritize. Something to think about
Untab to read rant
[tab]Actually I do get to impose it. I made a post, and you chose to read it. You didn’t have to. But that’s about where my imposition ends - my intention when I offered the “hearts in the wrong place” was as an easy escape for anyone who might have doubts about his/her own decisions. I can’t say I’ve been in the situation to do this, but it seems to me as there probably is a lot of shame in the idea of terminating a pregnancy. There’s a political party saying that its wrong all of the time (imposition of shame). There’s the potential mother who is consciously making the decision (self-imposition of shame). There’s the potential mother who is reminded of the consequences of her sexual choices (potential imposition of shame, I’m not a woman but I think slut-shaming is still a thing, be it from men or self-imposed). There’s the horrid cases of rape/incest (Do I really have to explain how SOMEONE’s heart was not in the right place here?).
I suppose an alternative where shame not need to exist is a woman, who has lots of sex, is proud of it, doesn’t want to have any kids (or to care about them), doesn’t expect that she should have to worry about it, AND men, who have lots of sex, are proud of it, don’t want any kids (or to care about them), doesn’t expect that he should have to worry about it.
While I understand the lack of desire to care from the perspective of either gender, removing the biological risk of children from the act of sex has turned it into a “risk-free reward” to be dangled over the heads of men everywhere (from my biased, male opinion). Or “risk-free reward” to be taken/given that otherwise would not have been
Perhaps society is devolving to be shame free, and our current laws are helping it “progress”
In any case I think our progress here coincides with devaluation of religion. It may or may not ultimately be a good thing, but I hope that thousands of years of religious wisdom are not lost in the name of sex. As we lose religion and the need for men, the elites will get all of the sex at the expense of the enslaved man
I’m not convinced that any of these are serious Republican “issues”. I think they’re just the most inflammatory talking-points on which to polarize the voters, so that they forget about, or fail to notice, how much of their rights and freedoms are being curtailed, how much of their wealth and welfare is being stolen. For the real issues, look at state legislatures. The red states have ever more prisons, police forces armed to fight WWIII; the citizens have ever less legal recourse, less right to collective action and bargaining, less reproductive and educational choice and less access to the political process. Another function of these extreme positions is to marginalize, silence and gradually purge all the moderate, responsible - sane - conservatives, so the extreme right wing can take unfettered control of the party and eventually the country. We’re looking a simmering putsch.
They’ve already written off Latino support - that’s why they’ve been so busy gerrymandering the Black and Latino electoral districts, doctoring the registered voter’s lists and sabotaging the electronic voting machines, to disenfranchise the interest groups their agenda most threatens. It’s always been done, to some degree, but they’ve really stepped up the effort since Bush II.
I do have to laugh when I imagine Trump building his Great Wall - and then Texas seceding. I like even more this idea:
No, Mexico and Canada cannot be made to pay for these idiotic projects, any more than the Iraq ‘war’ was revenue neutral. Nobody can afford to undertake these idiotic projects, and nobody really intends to try. It’s rhetoric aimed at the unemployed and underemployed American working class, to turn their anger from the political, industrial and financial elite who have screwed them over, toward a more accessible, more visible, more comprehensible target. This is the same fear and prejudice they’ve been exaggerating and exploiting for decades, if not centuries…
… and, in fact, we can go back a few thousand years for precedent in other parts of the world.
The Repugs knew this would happen. They also knew no HMO would lose money, no employer would go out of business, no pensioner would lose services, or any of the other dire forecasts.
That’s why they opposed the plan, reviled, slandered, sabotaged, undermined, lied about, chipped away at and delayed it at every step, on every level, as hard and long as they possibly could. They want a frightened, suspicious populace - it’s so much easier to hold down. If the working people feel secure, they start thinking they have a right to be that way; they start thinking government is supposed to serve their needs, not Goldman- Sachs’. For this reason, any and all expansions of social welfare or justice are opposed just as vigorously. This was a large, ambitious proposition that affects many millions, so it made a natural crusade.
Republicans couldn’t care less about babies. If they did, they would offer a program of sex education and prevention of STD’s and unwanted conception ; facilitate adoption and counselling services; establish perinatal and pediatric clinics; make vaccination, proper nutrition and child care available to poor and mothers; expand family law and child-protection agencies (instead of defunding those programs, too), support women’s empowerment and autonomy (instead of attacking it.) No, it’s not about babies: it’s an inducement to the fundamentalist preachers who can “deliver” big blocks of votes and big buckets of campaign money.
If they win, it will be an unmitigated disaster. And they probably will. Living in Canada, I’m inclined to start passing the hat for the cost of that wall.
No, they want to win. Too many soap-flakes are competing for the candidacy - but that’s just the result their pushing out many credible contenders in the last decade. They’ve been pandering very hard to the flaky segments of the electorate and appealing to its various prejudices. They also have way too many powerful donors in a position to demand unrealistic favours. First, the rank-and-file must be promised all its desires (however contradictory), while the real agenda is planned out for the elite.
But it’s quite possible that there is a good strategist* in the back room, waiting for Dems to present a target whom they can attack with a barrage of negative advertising in the last couple of weeks. The average USian attention span grows shorter, while presidential campaign grow longer.
Yes, but lets say that they want congress and senate not presidency. Democrats as president tends to keep Republicans as majority in either senate or/and congress.
i disagree. At this point, most mainstream public opinion sees BlackLivesMatter as a fringe group. Some of them are quite smart and engaging but they are idealistic and frankly, dogmatic. If you disagree with them you are not just wrong, you are guilty. To call them a hate group is silly, but their rhetoric does bear structural resemblance to hate rhetoric, involving blaming and shaming people of another race and/or culture. There’s a clip on youtube of Hilary’s encounter with one of them, a particularly earnest, articulate, polite, young black man with a lot to say about race relations in the US, and i think she kind of takes him to school pretty graciously. Of course, she is a talented politician and very good at talking to black people about race relations without offending them (never an easy task as a white person).
Yeah, but i think even most Republicans now realize gay marriage is a no-win issue for them. And the best the holdouts can do is cheer Kim Davis for forcing her religious views upon others with a twist to the Constitution that makes it sound like she’s standing up for religious freedom. The thing that really amazes me is that there are not more like Kim Davis. The rapid acceptance of homosexuality into the mainstream is actually one of the few things about public opinion in the US that i find encouraging.
Yeah, the only reason they oppose the Iran Deal is that it represents another symbolic victory for Obama, whom they loathe. It’s not as if there are actually better alternatives when it comes to Iran, notwithstanding Trump’s proposition that we invade, kick ass and take all their oil.
But why just give up on having the presidency as well? They can elect lots of senators and congressmen, and still also have the White House. The Democrats did it for the first 2 years of Obama’s presidency. Hell, that’s the only reason Obamacare in it’s present form got passed. If they actually want to make good on any of the outlandish shit they promise to the American public, then they will need the presidency.
Well, there’s always the Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush constituencies, i suppose.
What’s unrealistic about forcibly deporting 11 million people, then amending the constitution and deporting all their American-born children as well? i mean, it’s worth it to at least TRY, right?
Well, Republicans have objections in principle to large, ambitious propositions that affect many millions when they are enacted federally. Unless of course we are talking about invading another nation - then, at least, it is acceptable to involve the Federal govt . . .
Not every Republican is as cynical as you suggest. i know quite a few personally.
If Trump or Ted Cruz gets elected, i wouldn’t blame you. In fact i’d almost feel ethically obliged to help pay for it with my tax money.
What’s wrong with them? I know some Canadian conservatives, and I know exactly what’s wrong with them: they’re short-sighted, intolerant, ignorant, selfish assholes who figure, as long as they have enough money, everybody else is expendable… including moose and salmon.
Aside from that, the people you know are probably not in the inner circle of policy-makers and missile-shakers.
You may disagree, but you’d still be wrong. Most mainstream public opinion does not see BLM as a fringe group. For you to actually back up that argument, you would need to show what constitutes “mainstream public opinion” and show they think of them as a “fringe group.” You haven’t done so yet. They are an incredibly important group fighting against the Nations’ police forces terrible record of inordinately harassing, harming, and killing America’s Black citizens. They not only have the support of Black America; they also have the support of most of progressive White America as well. They were extremely vital in getting out the information about the Sandra Bland case, and they have been deemed important enough to meet with Sanders and Clinton.
And comparing their rhetoric to the rhetoric of hate groups is also silly. The rhetoric of hate groups actively advocates violence against a particular group; BLM doesn’t do that at all. And they don’t blame or shame White people per se; they correctly criticize a White power structure that has unfairly enjoyed privilege at the cost of Black citizens’ suffering…big difference. And I have many Black friends. I assure you, they don’t mostly offend easily when listening to White people. I’ve given plenty of them guff, as they have to me. To stereotype them as hyper-sensitive when dealing with Whites is a strategy straight out of Fox News. I’m surprised you use it.
And what are you trying to argue using one videotape involving one Black person. Using that logic, we could judge all White people based on Kim Davis, and that wouldn’t make any of us look good.
This thread is another sad example of what politics and philosophy are reduced to in a democratic, modern, feminized society. It’s essentially nothing more than a popularity contest with politicians making promises they will never fulfill, lying, doing anything to get the votes. It’s no wonder the system is corrupt.
People are taught to be regulated instead of being taught that they need to self-regulate.
It’s focused entirely on quantities instead of quality - Who can get the more votes, who has more support, who can fool more people, who can lie the best. Disgusting.
As if the fact that there are 100 instead of 99 retards means they magically stop being retarded and get better at problem solving - what are a billion retards compared to a genius?
It’s much easier to convince masses they are free and equal and to have them be slaves willingly while telling them they are free, than to make them slaves and let them know they are slaves, which results in angry masses who will then try to usurp that authority. This is where democracy comes in, or at least the concept of it because there never has been such thing as democracy actually applied. It’s just a term political elites use to fool masses into thinking they are free. Yes dearest, you put a paper into a box every couple of years or so, it truly makes you a participant in politics and the decision making process.
And to top it all off you have the utterly retarded American Republican-Democrat dichotomy, which is basically a choice between inbred religious fanatics and modern liberal faggots. Wonderful. To think I used to envy those living in the USA
Actually no, the president does not have line item veto and any bill that the president vetos can still be passed into law by the congress and senate. Control of both ensures the power. The presidency will be a puppet and any fuck ups will be attributed to the president and the party the president belongs to.
Blah, blah, blah. How boring. And typical. And grandiose. And facile. And yet not quite interesting, unique, insightful or poignant. What made you feel compelled to post in this thread? If you are just here to express a generalized contempt for US politics (one which i, like most Americans, share with you) and liberal faggots (of which i am one, when i’m not having sex with my girlfriend) then, i feel compelled to ask what your point really is?
