Because Trump 2.0

[nitflegal]

30 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

To the first point - the willingness of the voting public is irrelevant.  The issue is there.  It's not going away.  Left unattended it'll only get worse.  This is where real political leadership is needed.  We've had that in the past.  We're lacking it now.

To the second point - I don't have numbers.  I actually tried looking into this a few months back and the results were inconclusive about whether the Right is impacted more than the Left.  I have seen examples of it impacting the opposite end of the spectrum.  Just the other day on reddit there was a post about Facebook employees being fired over complaints about internal policies protecting Right-leaning websites.  Another post featured an attack on a game that held an AOC stream.

What matters in the end is if something is immoral or illegal it's wrong no matter who it happens to.  We also have to remember that some of these platforms are businesses that don't have to be 'fair'... and if people on the Right feel a company isn't they should simply take their business elsewhere.

 

I'm going to disagree, the willingness of the voting public is entirely relevant.  Both for selfish reasons for the political future of the legislators but more importantly because fixing these issues will take years.  If every politician commits seppuku to do the right thing they will be gone before the problem has been fixed and replaced by people who will reverse it.  To fix this problem we will need to globally raise taxes, cut social security and Medicare, roll back universal health care, cut spending on the military and law enforcement, and currently fight a Covid economic downturn.  All of these are highly unpopular.  Can you think of any times we have seen real successful political leadership when the vast majority of voters are actively against major components of the action?  It's an honest question, I can't think of a single instance like this where literally every voter will have negative effects.

[Skywalkre]

7 hours ago, Rick said:

Skywalkre I personally believe you make intelligent posts, from what I read into them they come to a different conclusion than I believe. The exception would be health care and its costs. 

This is probably my fault, but I don't remember your posts on "...about being for small government, fiscal responsibility, pro-defense, equal and fair application of the Constitution/law to every citizen, and I'm pro-Life."

I've posted about all of those on several occasions (maybe not the pro-Life bit as there's rarely an appropriate thread) over the years but they tend to get ignored and not generate a lot of discussion.  The reason is probably because said posts tend to point out the hypocrisies and shortcomings of the Right as much as the Left (case in point - back when the Tea Party was a thing I was often critical of it... not because their overall goal wasn't admirable but because a lot of the ideas put forward to achieve it were garbage).

The fiscal responsibility thing I've been posting about since I started on TN (fiscal conservatism is dead, as admitted by many of the far Right on here, so no shocker those posts get ignored).  Small government I've mentioned quite a bit about how Fed money seems to have a negative impact when pushed out.  The big issues in recent years I've made several posts about are Fed loans for colleges (I've called to have them eliminated or drastically reduced) and Fed money to fight the War on Drugs.  This latter one ties in to the equal and fair application of the Constitution/law.  There are far too many examples of the War on Drugs leading local police departments to find excuses to keep getting the money... and they end up targeting the poor (who are largely minorities) to ratchet up arrest counts.  Many of the issues protesters this summer were complaining about should actually be Conservative issues - the aforementioned War on Drug issues, incarceration rate disparities, excessive stops by police of minorities (I first posted about this years ago... apparently the evidence has become even greater), etc.

There's other stuff, too.  It's out there.  Certain posters just prefer to forget/ignore them so they can maintain this illusion of me they want to see. 

[Josh]

57 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

Wasn't 2016 an existential threat as well?

OOC were any of these first time voters in key swing states?

It is pretty clear that by any metric yes, a lot of first time voters. You could just google 'first time voters 2020' and google will autocomplete it for you and chose the source you trust.

What of course isn't clear is who they are voting for by what margin. Typically the GOP does worse when there is more voting, which is why they generally try to discourage it or make it harder (my favorite example is Texas limiting ballot boxes to one per county - for security reasons). But this election will see record turnout for both sides I think.

As an example of how enthusiastic voting is - Texas is already above 100% of the 2016 vote. So we have a clear datapoint that it isn't just people voting early and Nov 3rd seeing a big drop off; if people stopped voting now in TX it would still be a greater turnout that the last election. The last election was admittedly a very low turnout, especially on the Dem side, so that isn't a great metric. But with several days left before the actual election we're already pushing 60% nationally, and some states don't even allow early in person voting while others have fairly strict absentee voting laws.

I would be shocked if the vote count didn't top 150 million this year.

[Skywalkre]

40 minutes ago, nitflegal said:

I'm going to disagree, the willingness of the voting public is entirely relevant.  Both for selfish reasons for the political future of the legislators but more importantly because fixing these issues will take years.  If every politician commits seppuku to do the right thing they will be gone before the problem has been fixed and replaced by people who will reverse it.  To fix this problem we will need to globally raise taxes, cut social security and Medicare, roll back universal health care, cut spending on the military and law enforcement, and currently fight a Covid economic downturn.  All of these are highly unpopular.  Can you think of any times we have seen real successful political leadership when the vast majority of voters are actively against major components of the action?  It's an honest question, I can't think of a single instance like this where literally every voter will have negative effects.

What I mean is the willingness is irrelevant if what they want isn't feasible.  Eventually, literally, the bill will come due for our lack of discipline and people won't be able to get everything they want. 

I'm not asking for political leadership to fall on their swords.  Real political leadership would clearly spell out the issues ("this is unsustainable") and work on framing it (such as "why would you want China to become the world superpower" and "don't you want a strong military?") in a way that folks would be willing enough to deal with the solutions and then above all work on a solution (this is where Ryan back when he was in the House failed miserably.. he basically had no solution other than just stop spending).  Yes, it'll take years.  Yes, it'll take some sacrifice (though given all the fuss so many make about wearing bloody masks I wonder if this country is even capable of sacrifice anymore) but it has to be done.  The longer it's put off the worse things will be (again, real leadership would drive this home).

The funny thing in all of this is here on TN folks moan on and on about the US becoming a banana republic.  Not addressing this issue actually will make us one compared to the horror stories some put out about what the Ds would do directly...

Edited October 30, 2020 by Skywalkre

[Josh]

I would point out that under Obama, most people on the right were against spending and deficits, but as soon as Trump was elected even the Freedom Caucus fell on their collective swords. Which indicates the partisan level of such basic discussions inside the highest level of government and how blatantly hypocritical our representatives are on both sides.

Edited October 30, 2020 by Josh

[Skywalkre]

13 minutes ago, Josh said:

I would point out that under Obama, most people on the right were against spending and deficits, but as soon as Trump was elected even the Freedom Caucus fell on their collective swords. Which indicates the partisan level of such basic discussions inside the highest level of government and how blatantly hypocritical our representatives our on both sides.

We've been seeing that again with some in the Senate over stimulus talks - for years no issues but during a pandemic where we're possibly looking at entering into a Depression they suddenly are all worried about spending.  Just...

/facepalm

[rmgill]

1 hour ago, Skywalkre said:

Reading is fundamental.

Mumbling the words like Biden off the teleprompter doesn't make it so. 

1 hour ago, Skywalkre said:

 

The difference is you all see what little criticism you've made as numerous... I don't.

It's more substantive than "orange man bad". And it's also more relevant to compare the criticisms of Trump in his 4 years vs Biden's 40+ years. 

The simple assertion that Trump is bad because he says mean things and Biden is nice because he doesn't falls flat on the fact that Biden has been recorded saying just as awful things numerous times. "He's gonna put ya'll back in chains" is so hyperbolic it  could be tracked on the side lobes of the Pine Tree Line. 

 

[rmgill]

34 minutes ago, Josh said:

I would point out that under Obama, most people on the right were against spending and deficits, but as soon as Trump was elected even the Freedom Caucus fell on their collective swords. Which indicates the partisan level of such basic discussions inside the highest level of government and how blatantly hypocritical our representatives are on both sides.

What are you spending the money on? 

"Lets go into debt to repaint the car" is different than "lets go into debt to FIX the car's engine". 

Edited October 30, 2020 by rmgill

[nitflegal]

28 minutes ago, Skywalkre said:

What I mean is the willingness is irrelevant if what they want isn't feasible.  Eventually, literally, the bill will come due for our lack of discipline and people won't be able to get everything they want. 

I'm not asking for political leadership to fall on their swords.  Real political leadership would clearly spell out the issues ("this is unsustainable") and work on framing it (such as "why would you want China to become the world superpower" and "don't you want a strong military?") in a way that folks would be willing enough to deal with the solutions and then above all work on a solution (this is where Ryan back when he was in the House failed miserably.. he basically had no solution other than just stop spending).  Yes, it'll take years.  Yes, it'll take some sacrifice (though given all the fuss so many make about wearing bloody masks I wonder if this country is even capable of sacrifice anymore) but it has to be done.  The longer it's put off the worse things will be (again, real leadership would drive this home).

The funny thing in all of this is here on TN folks moan on and on about the US becoming a banana republic.  Not addressing this issue actually will make us one compared to the horror stories some put out about what the Ds would do directly...

I agree 100% that this is going to end very, very badly.  The problem is it in the short term it is eminently feasible.  Using Ryan as an example, who probably had the most realistic plan to date (very one sided, but at least a serious starting point) he was utterly knee-capped by everyone around him at the mere mention of cutting entitlements at all, even when his cuts were generally simply not continuing to add additional levels of spending rather than actual cuts.  His whole plan was a nonstarter because there was no support for it.  To get this under control you will need his plan (pissing off half the country) plus raising taxes on everyone.  Not just the rich.  Not just the upper class.  Not just the middle class.  Everybody.  So the plan will be something along the lines of everyone pays more taxes whether you make 10 billion dollars a year or 20 thousand dollars a year.  Social security gets cut, retirement ages get extended, Medicare coverage gets cut, ACA gets much more expensive to the mandatory users, military cuts, etc.  The voters will destroy anyone who even starts seriously talking about it.

 

Put it this way, whether you agree with Paul Ryan or not he very carefully and clearly laid out why our path is unsustainable.  People didn't disagree just with his methods, they fundamentally disagreed with the problem being bad enough for them to sacrifice any of their wants.  Until that is corrected not a damned thing will happen.  I fully expect us to keep behaving like idiots until something catastrophic happens that forces us to deal with it to avoid full collapse.  At which point the sure will be vastly more painful than it would have been today and even more painful than if we tackled this 10 years ago.

[nitflegal]

18 minutes ago, rmgill said:

What are you spending the money on? 

"Lets go into debt to repaint the car" is different than "lets go into debt to FIX the car's engine". 

Of course its partisan, people only want to fix the problem until their voters get upset.  I have some sympathy for the Republican politicians who do care coming to the conclusion that if they are going to gain no benefit from being fiscally responsible they may as well throw money away too.

[rmgill]

What's missing from the "why don't the GOP just cut everything?" IS of course the reality that folks ARE depending on those entitlements. So there needs to be a multi-level transfer of those programs from Federal where it is now to the states where it should be. 

 

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by rmgill

[Jeff]

17 hours ago, NickM said:

 

I tried to find Mr. Spock, but I was only able to find:

 

[Jeff]

[Stargrunt6]

 

[MiloMorai]

3 hours ago, seahawk said:

Absolutely, Every country would be blessed with a leader like him.

I would say that the citizens of those countries or any other country that got a handle on controlling the covid are very glad that tRump is not their leader.

[seahawk]

9 hours ago, MiloMorai said:

I would say that the citizens of those countries or any other country that got a handle on controlling the covid are very glad that tRump is not their leader.

The question is at what price. The reduction of personal freedoms and the destruction of the economy and society became a lot more socialist in the process. And fpr example in New Zealand patriots are fighting to get their freedom back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_anti-lockdown_protests_in_New_Zealand

God bless them.

[MiloMorai]

4 hours ago, seahawk said:

The question is at what price. The reduction of personal freedoms and the destruction of the economy and society became a lot more socialist in the process. And fpr example in New Zealand patriots are fighting to get their freedom back: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_anti-lockdown_protests_in_New_Zealand

God bless them.

Short term pain for long term gain.

[Rick]

17 hours ago, Skywalkre said:

I've posted about all of those on several occasions (maybe not the pro-Life bit as there's rarely an appropriate thread) over the years but they tend to get ignored and not generate a lot of discussion.  The reason is probably because said posts tend to point out the hypocrisies and shortcomings of the Right as much as the Left (case in point - back when the Tea Party was a thing I was often critical of it... not because their overall goal wasn't admirable but because a lot of the ideas put forward to achieve it were garbage).

I admit I cannot remember specific T.E.A. Party ideas that were "garbage.'" I do believe the core idea of opposing the increasingly socialist spending tilt of the Democratic Party by the T.E.A. Party and/or its basic philosophy did lead the G.O.P. to eventual control of the House and Senate under Obama and Trump's win and his future re-election. 

The fiscal responsibility thing I've been posting about since I started on TN (fiscal conservatism is dead, as admitted by many of the far Right on here, so no shocker those posts get ignored).  Small government I've mentioned quite a bit about how Fed money seems to have a negative impact when pushed out. 

Trump has decreased federal government regulations. Which is a start. It REALLY is up to the voter first, politician second.

The big issues in recent years I've made several posts about are Fed loans for colleges (I've called to have them eliminated or drastically reduced) and Fed money to fight the War on Drugs.  This latter one ties in to the equal and fair application of the Constitution/law.  There are far too many examples of the War on Drugs leading local police departments to find excuses to keep getting the money... and they end up targeting the poor (who are largely minorities) to ratchet up arrest counts.  Many of the issues protesters this summer were complaining about should actually be Conservative issues - the aforementioned War on Drug issues, incarceration rate disparities, excessive stops by police of minorities (I first posted about this years ago... apparently the evidence has become even greater), etc.

I agree with your whole paragraph. The "War on Drugs" was initially a Black community idea put into action by President Clinton. IIIRC the drug of choice at this time was crack cocaine. Arrests were made and mostly young, Black men were put in jail. Then the liberal media and the fatherless Black community complain about racism. it was and still is a failure of the Black community's lack of responsible men, single-woman households, and the Federal welfare system giving money to single-woman households that perpetuate this. 

Federal money for student loans gives me mixed feelings. I've personally seen said monies being used for other things other than education and not paid pack. On the other hand, I've seen said monies being used for their intended purpose. I also admit ignorance on how this program is monitored. Do these loans need to be paid back like other loans? Is this money given out each semester? Does the student need to keep a minimum grade level? Can one qualify for student loans on occupations that will not pay enough to pay back said loans? An idea I would GREATLY like to see implemented is diversity of thoughts and ideas on college, ie more conservative ideas and professors. Perhaps said money would be distributed under a ratio of conservative to liberal classes?

There's other stuff, too.  It's out there.  Certain posters just prefer to forget/ignore them so they can maintain this illusion of me they want to see. 

The other stuff would be morality. Morality is what everything you posted hangs on. With the draining of Christian values, the mountains of the poor fiscal policies you described will emerge and grow. 

 

[Murph]

The DemoKKKrats are all about removing freedom, they love control and power.  Just like Mao.

[Simon Tan]

Who is happy? And who is going reeeeeeeee.........

[Steven P Allen]

2 hours ago, MiloMorai said:

Short term pain for long term gain.

It is pretty easy for you to call losing ones livelihood and business "short term pain," but it strikes the losers as pretty long term.

[RETAC21]

8 minutes ago, Steven P Allen said:

It is pretty easy for you to call losing ones livelihood and business "short term pain," but it strikes the losers as pretty long term.

Well, that depends on how short the pain is. If it was just 3 months total lockdown in exchange for the virus burning out then it's worth it. If it's a long, 2 year agony, then no business small or large can take it.

[Murph]

37 minutes ago, RETAC21 said:

Well, that depends on how short the pain is. If it was just 3 months total lockdown in exchange for the virus burning out then it's worth it. If it's a long, 2 year agony, then no business small or large can take it.

The DemoKKKrats want this because it allows them to expand the welfare rolls, and put more people in a state of utter dependency on the DemoKKKrats.  That way they get votes.  Its just their evil.

[Jeff]

1 hour ago, RETAC21 said:

Well, that depends on how short the pain is. If it was just 3 months total lockdown in exchange for the virus burning out then it's worth it. If it's a long, 2 year agony, then no business small or large can take it.

Strict lockdown, medium lockdown, it makes no difference, as soon as things open up, the bug comes back. Might as well take proper precautions and move forward. Lockdowns aren't working unless we're prepared to weld people into their homes.

[Jeff]

Wait for it.