The Random Politics Thread

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[StillUnknown]

 

they dissected that fool

[Cooked Crack]

That guy is going to be a real jerk to his daughter tonight. 

[Fresh8686]

Those girls showed more leadership in that video than that congressman has probably ever showed. We aren't fighting climate change because china isn't? What kind of follower ass **** is that? Take the LEAD mother****er. We need to lead in this fight for our children to have a better tomorrow. Your words and platitudes don't mean **** and these kids are smart enough to see through it.

[Renegade7]

2 minutes ago, Fresh8686 said:

Those girls showed more leadership in that video than that congressman has probably ever showed. We aren't fighting climate change because china isn't? What kind of follower ass **** is that? Take the LEAD mother****er. We need to lead in this fight for our children to have a better tomorrow. Your words and platitudes don't mean **** and these kids are smart enough to see through it.

 

I said it when I went to March for our Lives the first time in DC, dont sleep on Gen Z.  

[Fresh8686]

55 minutes ago, Renegade7 said:

 

I said it when I went to March for our Lives the first time in DC, dont sleep on Gen Z.  

 

Yup, I was there too and they represented well. Same for the womens marches and at IAD during the muslim ban.

[LadySkinsFan]

I am hopeful about the younger generations. 

[twa]

Is that the ones eating Tide pods or is that their elders?

 

 

[skinsmarydu]

MoJoe just now...The Orange One was at the border yesterday showing the "Rolls Royce" quality of it. 

According to the USCPB, there were 654 miles of wall on the southern border when Barack left office, and there are still 654 miles of wall...not one single inch has been added. 

[Cooked Crack]

Edited September 19, 2019 by Cooked Crack

[Fresh8686]

All this Trump stuff over these past years have shown me that most people don't have much of a moral compass at all. Instead they operate under the paradigm that "might equals right" and just being president means you make the rules and decide what is right and wrong and everyone else follows. And it's not just regarding Trump and his base, but all the government officials and bureaucrats who stand idly by.

That is... ****ing insane to me.

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

West Virginia, what is this ****?

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Renegade7]

On 9/21/2019 at 4:58 PM, Cooked Crack said:

 

West Virginia, what is this ****?

 

That's their statue of Obama, act like you know

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Renegade7]

On 9/18/2019 at 8:27 PM, twa said:

Is that the ones eating Tide pods or is that their elders?

 

 

 

^{greatest generation seemed to have a lot of people cool with Jim Crow, so i guess no generation is perfect, right?}

[skinsmarydu]

Remember when Rick Santorum went on about "this is a napkin, not a paper towel" and Lawrence o'Donnell said "paper towels are the preferred napkin in my house"?

Good times. 

[Riggo-toni]

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

A city selection committee unanimously recommended awarding the contract to Jacobs Engineering, one of the nation’s leading design firms that specializes in water treatment plants.

Instead, at Longwell’s urging, the City Council gave it to Wichita Water Partners, a group that has less experience designing large water plants. City staff warned that the group was seeking advice on how to run Wichita’s plant from a company blamed for the Flint, Mich., water crisis.

 

[LadySkinsFan]

Corruption starts locally.

[Cooked Crack]

 

MS-13 migrating up to Canada now.

[gbear]

 

I had an interesting conversation with my son as we head into election season.  He was asking how anyone could support Trump.  He hears many people talk in our house and around school about all the bad things Trumps has done and supported and he does not understand why people listen to him.  He asked, “Are people who support him that mean or stupid?”

 

I do not know if my answer makes sense in the broader scheme of things, but I tried to explain our political system rarely comes down to god versus evil.  Rather it comes down to competing values. 

 

To illustrate this, I told him the dumbed down version of Million Dollar Murray where a town realized it was cheaper to give the town drunk his own apartment and hire him his own social worker rather than continue to pay for his medical care and time in jail.   As a result in the 90’s, there was a move towards cost effective treatments.   However, how does one tell the single parent working two jobs to put a roof over the head of his or her children and food on the table that their tax dollars are going to pay for Murray’s free apartment because otherwise Murray will drink?  Sometimes, it comes down to a choice between solving the problem or being fair.

 

So often today’s politics seem to come down arguments about which is more important, attempting to solve a problem or being fair.  With that said, I started listening to the candidates speeches a bit differently because so much of Trump’s and the Republicans’ pitches are how unfair the current laws and customs are.  Why do the rich have to pay so much more than the poor?  Why do certain people get advantages when they apply to colleges? It seems a lot of their platform is premised on a sense of injustice.  That sense of injustice seems bewildering to many of the minority populations (majority Democrats) who see themselves as historically the victim to far greater injustices whether we talk about racial injustice, sexism, or homophobia. 

 

Then we have the “solve the problem” group.  They are biased to see issues as solvable which is why candidates with messages like Warren’s “I’ve got a plan for that” resonate with them.  They are the type likely to propose the apartment for Murray and a social worker.  They are the types to look at the Affordable Care Act and call it a success because it increases access to insurance and care on the whole and leads to longer life expectancies where Medicare and Medicaid are expanded. They may not think about how unfair it is when total medical costs increase, and wealthier Americans once again shoulder the costs. Yes, catching that cancer earlier was cheaper than catching it later when it eventually killed the patient.  However, that patient is now alive longer to continue racking up medical expenses and will eventually still have the expensive end of life treatments he or she would have had years earlier.  I think of this as one of modern liberalism’s frequent failures.  One can make a situation better, but the costs of not dealing with or misidentifying the root problems persist.  In the case of the costs of improved insurance and access to care going up over time, the root causes of high cost of end of life medical care and treatment for chronic conditions have not been addressed. 

 

At some point, both sides should see it is not about good and evil.  It is a choice between competing values.  Yes, I fall on the side of attempt to make it better for those whom we can.  I fall into the Utilitarian camp of preferring the options that lead to the greatest good for the greatest numbers.  However, I recognize this bias will put me at odds with those who claim taking from those who have to provide for the greater number of people is unfair to those who start with more.  What’s more, they will be correct saying my proposals do not even benefit those to whom I would give if my taking from those with more lowers the amount to be shared significantly enough.  If our higher taxes make all the businesses leave, then we are taxing $0 at a higher rate and getting less than we get now with a lower tax rate.

 

Like everything else, the best course is probably one of moderation where both extremes are avoided.  Throughout our country’s short history, we have swung from one side of the pendulum to the opposite never reaching the perceived impending catastrophe.  The hardest part seems to be our perspective at either end of the swing is straight down, and the truth is the string of our democracy has not yet broken.  The optimist in me still sees the rebound and hopes we have reached the point where we swing the other way.

 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by gbear

[Renegade7]

On the metro overhearing this family where the little kids are talking about lowering taxes and fixing all the potholes.  The look on other people's face waiting for the parents to intervene is priceless.

Edited October 10, 2019 by Renegade7