In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
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On May 29 2016 12:06 Nyxisto wrote: from a moral standpoint he believes in cutting social security?
Social security is just another way of government violence. Some people (conservatives, libertarians) oppose the confiscation of wealth, by force trough the government, required to fund social security.
I know Hillary supporters have been saying "of course Sanders polls better than Hillary, he hasn't been hit like she is blah blah"
But has that actually ever happened before? Where the "presumed nominee" is losing to the other parties nominee but the person in second place beats them by double digits?
On May 29 2016 08:09 Jaaaaasper wrote: Also holy shit Bernies senior policy advisor going after Peter Staley. I can't think of a better way to guarantee you lose the LGBTQ vote (a key democratic demographic that Hillary alienated with her Nancy Regan foot in mouth) than going after a guy who is credited with savings millions of lives through his activism with the AIDS crisis. We have officially hit anger in the stages of greif.
I think (and hope) the Sanders campaign will backtrack on this, because the entire thing is appalling. AIDS activists met with Hillary a few weeks ago, while Sanders decided to cancel his meeting with them at the last minute. That cancellation was rightfully criticized, and he ended up scheduling another meeting with them this week.
After the meeting, however, the Sanders campaign posted a misleading account of the discussions, and the AIDS activists released a letter stating their position and the contents of the discussions had been misrepresented. An excerpt from the letter:
While we were optimistic following what we felt was a productive meeting, our optimism quickly turned to disappointment when your campaign issued a news release misrepresenting the meeting with HIV/AIDS leadership entitled “Sanders Backs California Ballot Initiative to Rein in Drug Prices at Meeting with HIV/AIDS Advocates.” As 19 representatives of the coalition, nearly half of whom are either based in or affiliated with organizations in California, we are deeply concerned as this may now appear as if we were exploited for short-term political gain leading up to the imminent California Presidential Primary Election.
Your campaign’s release title and the bulk of its content mislead readers and the press to believe that our May 25 meeting was primarily focused on your endorsement of a California ballot initiative on HIV drug pricing. By extension, it also implies that our national HIV/AIDS coalition also fully endorses this initiative. Both these characterizations are inaccurate.
During the meeting, we raised the issue of the California ballot initiative with you toward the tail end of the discussion, not to support or endorse it, but to relay to you that a number of stakeholders in California have serious concerns about the initiative. There is no general consensus in the HIV/AIDS community in support of the California ballot initiative, which is why we requested that you meet with those stakeholders. Prior to our meeting, numerous California organizations have tried to reach your campaign with these concerns, without any success.
While our coalition is frustrated by your campaign’s release about the initiative, which was only touched upon briefly during our time together, we are eager to continue the dialogue around the other critical issues that were the focus of the meeting [...].
One of the activists who participated in the meeting, Peter Staley, wrote on his facebook page, in reference to the Sanders press release, that he felt "used and abused" by the Sanders campaign.
This led to an unbelievable response from the Sanders campaign: not only did they not acknowledge their mistake with regards to the press release, but they actually attacked Peter Staley directly by accusing him of being a big pharma shill. To quote them: "it is not surprising that someone who depends on Gilead Sciences and other big pharmaceutical companies for funding would continue to drop bombs on the only presidential candidate who has the courage to stand up to the greed of the big drug companies." Warren Gunnels (senior policy adviser for the campaign) also attacked him directly on twitter.
We are talking about Peter Staley here -- the accusation is as factually wrong as you can get. To quote Dan Savage:
I hate this "you're either 100% with us or you're against us" mentality. It's the same kind of reasoning that leads Sanders to call everyone who voices a disagreement with him "part of the establishment", including organizations like Planned Parenthood (he ended up backtracking for that one, though). Ugh.
By the way, if anyone is interested in another trainwreck debate, the Libertarian party hosted a debate yesterday, and the entire video is available here.
On May 29 2016 15:34 kwizach wrote: By the way, if anyone is interested in another trainwreck debate, the Libertarian party hosted a debate yesterday, and the entire video is available here.
On May 29 2016 15:34 kwizach wrote: By the way, if anyone is interested in another trainwreck debate, the Libertarian party hosted a debate yesterday, and the entire video is available here.
Holy shit, this is so awful, I have never seen so many uneducated people talking at once who only aim to make so witty remark.
I definitely think that Gary Johnson is the most reasonable of the bunch, though he has to restrain himself a lot since anything sensible he says get boo'd. I thought I might find a position that I like, but nope, not at all.
Why can't the conservatives remove religion, and replace it with logic, reason, and the scientific method. Fight to keep taxes at reasonable level (tax revenue as a percentage of GDP should be 20-25%). Then embrace that government intervention makes economic sense in situations that have the free rider problem - have Universal Health Care and tear down the pharmaceutical companies, and quickly your healthcare costs will be 10% of GDP and not 18%. Yes, climate change is real, but keep your stance of not getting the government involved in it, and also keep your stance that the way social security is devised right now is bad (provide opt in social security that retires at 67-68, or a self-funding option that makes it easy for people to plan their retirement).
And on the personal freedoms side of things, I support women and men should be treated equally with respect to voting and pay for equal work (though in a free market, that sorts itself out), you just need to break down the barriers for discrimination to happen. But stop this insane radical feminist movement going on, women and men are not the same, they are a different gender, let them be different and allow them to take their biological roles instead of merging sex into one. Also, I don't think that everyone is 100% free to express their will, because in a system like that, people will subtly push their ideas onto others to achieve their agenda. That's why I am way of Islam and other highly religious people (I supporter stricter borders and less immigration with more background checks, I disagree with Muslim deportation, on the fence about illegal immigrant deportation), because I don't want the country to be led by thoughts that have no logical merit (probably biased since I'm an agnostic and don't want religion to propagate). Western values made the world great, and these are the best areas to live in (and I'm an immigrant myself), much better place to raise a family than in eastern europe, the dangers in the middle east, the wtf in India and Pakistan, the conforming environment in Japan and S. Korea... These are the ideas we should encourage as they have shown to lead to happiness and prosperity.
Why is there no party like this. Hillary embodies some of these values but she is just so gross to listen to, and she takes all these stances on progressive values that are simply too far left for me, and a bit to the left on my economic viewpoints as well. Meanwhile, Republican conservatives are awful to me as they are so into religion, one reason why I like Trump is I truly think his an agnostic/athiest/very lightly religious, though he can't show it 100% (I'm pro-choice, pro-gay-marriage). Trump on social issues is magnificent, on the scale of left being feminazi and don't need ID to vote, and the right being discrimination and fascism, he's a tad more to the right than I'd like him to be, and on economic issues, I have no idea what he is, since his views vary massively, though a little bit to the right once again. I like the Tariffs and I like lower taxes, but I think his medicare, military, and education views are too far right.
I suppose the Trudeau we have back home in Canada isn't so bad
Donald Trump backs out of debate with Bernie Sanders
Donald Trump will not participate in a debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the GOP nominee said in a statement on Friday.
"Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher," Trump said. "Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women’s health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders - and it would be an easy payday - I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be.
GH, a few months ago we were discussing food providers and you were saying my experience of Walmart in my rich area was atypical. I went to a shitty Walmart in a poor area, you were right.
On an unrelated note, how would someone describe being on the right regarding environmental issues. I'd describe being on the left on the environment as being opposed to "privatize the profits, socialize the costs" where a deregulated industry is able to engage in economic activity which if assessed for impact across society as a whole actually makes everyone on average poorer but still makes money by the costs being externalized. But surely "make the coal companies pay for the coal pollution" is in line with the whole personal responsibility thing, if the companies were people that'd be being on the right. I want to use the government to make companies pay for their own shit because I don't want to pay welfare to companies that can't afford to exist on their own and the government is big enough to make them.
I was asked where I stood politically on the environment and my views on the environment all come from the same place as my economic views which aren't very left at all and yet apparently I'm far left with my "don't poison me" agenda and "all the scientists say that if people do this it'll be awful so maybe the government should try and stop people doing that" ideas. Is anyone here on the right on the environment? How does it work? When I think of a nation that refuses to let environmental concerns stand in the way of industry I think of the Soviet Union, in which individuals like the fishers on the Aral Sea were robbed of their communal property and livelihood, not of capitalist countries. Right is left and left is right, it seems.
Those on the right see that looking after the planet will mean a hit to profits in the short term, therefore it is bad and some *reason* should be found not to. It also goes against the fundamentalist libertarian idea that if everyone chases maximum profit all the time then the world will naturally fall into some kind of utopia.
On May 29 2016 18:50 Jockmcplop wrote: Those on the right see that looking after the planet will mean a hit to profits in the short term, therefore it is bad and some *reason* should be found not to. It also goes against the fundamentalist libertarian idea that if everyone chases maximum profit all the time then the world will naturally fall into some kind of utopia.
If a glazier were to pay a boy to throw rocks at windows he would maximize profits for both himself and the boy but I'd imagine those on the right would agree with me that the law should prevent them from doing so.
On May 29 2016 18:50 Jockmcplop wrote: Those on the right see that looking after the planet will mean a hit to profits in the short term, therefore it is bad and some *reason* should be found not to. It also goes against the fundamentalist libertarian idea that if everyone chases maximum profit all the time then the world will naturally fall into some kind of utopia.
If a glazier were to pay a boy to throw rocks at windows he would maximize profits for both himself and the boy but I'd imagine those on the right would agree with me that the law should prevent them from doing so.
I'd imagine they would suggest that the window owner pays private security to look after their windows.
On May 29 2016 12:06 Nyxisto wrote: from a moral standpoint he believes in cutting social security?
Social security is just another way of government violence. Some people (conservatives, libertarians) oppose the confiscation of wealth, by force trough the government, required to fund social security.
If you have ever been without a penny, you would know that there is no worst oppression than not to know how you are going to eat for dinner, not having a roof and not having any resources. There is no such thing as being free, homeless and hungry. You are not free if you have a cancer and can't get treatment because nobody gives a fuck.
Now, you have a choice:
- either you oppress the comfortable by asking him to contribute to society through taxes, knowing that if him or his children are one day helpless, they will receive assistance.
- either you decide that nothing is more important than comfortable people not to have to pay anything because FREEDOM and you condemn all the poor to a much, much, much worse for of oppression.
Freedom doesn't mean having no duty and not giving a fuck about anyone. Freedom also means being able to live decently. The amount of freedom you gain from having no money at all to having something is much bigger and much more valuable than the fantasy land of everybody for himself than the jungle Ayn Rand and her lunatic supporters dream about.
But for me the question is even clearer. In your libertarian society of selfishness, even if you are among people who make enough money to live decently and can just ignore the poor because being a selfish asshole is a virtue, you are not free in the sense that you live in permanent danger of having really bad luck and having absolutely nobody to help you.
Thinking that freedom is to do whatever you want, not share anything and not give a fuck about the weak is a sign of immaturity. No wonder libertarianism is so popular among spoiled white young men
On May 29 2016 18:30 KwarK wrote: GH, a few months ago we were discussing food providers and you were saying my experience of Walmart in my rich area was atypical. I went to a shitty Walmart in a poor area, you were right.
On an unrelated note, how would someone describe being on the right regarding environmental issues. I'd describe being on the left on the environment as being opposed to "privatize the profits, socialize the costs" where a deregulated industry is able to engage in economic activity which if assessed for impact across society as a whole actually makes everyone on average poorer but still makes money by the costs being externalized. But surely "make the coal companies pay for the coal pollution" is in line with the whole personal responsibility thing, if the companies were people that'd be being on the right. I want to use the government to make companies pay for their own shit because I don't want to pay welfare to companies that can't afford to exist on their own and the government is big enough to make them.
I was asked where I stood politically on the environment and my views on the environment all come from the same place as my economic views which aren't very left at all and yet apparently I'm far left with my "don't poison me" agenda and "all the scientists say that if people do this it'll be awful so maybe the government should try and stop people doing that" ideas. Is anyone here on the right on the environment? How does it work? When I think of a nation that refuses to let environmental concerns stand in the way of industry I think of the Soviet Union, in which individuals like the fishers on the Aral Sea were robbed of their communal property and livelihood, not of capitalist countries. Right is left and left is right, it seems.
To be honest, "privatize the profit, socialize the cost" is quite a good definition of the right in general.
Take the financial sector and the 2008 crisis and you get a pretty good picture.
On May 29 2016 18:30 KwarK wrote: GH, a few months ago we were discussing food providers and you were saying my experience of Walmart in my rich area was atypical. I went to a shitty Walmart in a poor area, you were right.
On an unrelated note, how would someone describe being on the right regarding environmental issues. I'd describe being on the left on the environment as being opposed to "privatize the profits, socialize the costs" where a deregulated industry is able to engage in economic activity which if assessed for impact across society as a whole actually makes everyone on average poorer but still makes money by the costs being externalized. But surely "make the coal companies pay for the coal pollution" is in line with the whole personal responsibility thing, if the companies were people that'd be being on the right. I want to use the government to make companies pay for their own shit because I don't want to pay welfare to companies that can't afford to exist on their own and the government is big enough to make them.
I was asked where I stood politically on the environment and my views on the environment all come from the same place as my economic views which aren't very left at all and yet apparently I'm far left with my "don't poison me" agenda and "all the scientists say that if people do this it'll be awful so maybe the government should try and stop people doing that" ideas. Is anyone here on the right on the environment? How does it work? When I think of a nation that refuses to let environmental concerns stand in the way of industry I think of the Soviet Union, in which individuals like the fishers on the Aral Sea were robbed of their communal property and livelihood, not of capitalist countries. Right is left and left is right, it seems.
Taxation on carbon emission and CO2 market are all rightish ideas, coming from free market economists, but nobody cares. I guess the real topic is weither you accept the global warming or not, and the left has been quicker in accepting it.
Donald Trump backs out of debate with Bernie Sanders
Donald Trump will not participate in a debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the GOP nominee said in a statement on Friday.
"Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher," Trump said. "Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women’s health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders - and it would be an easy payday - I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be.
Good one for trump. It was to good to be true for the Clinton supporters
Aww maaan
Trump played this really well though, The Internet, social media and live coverage bonanza turned the election into reality TV, and this man knows how to play that game.
On May 29 2016 18:30 KwarK wrote: GH, a few months ago we were discussing food providers and you were saying my experience of Walmart in my rich area was atypical. I went to a shitty Walmart in a poor area, you were right.
On an unrelated note, how would someone describe being on the right regarding environmental issues. I'd describe being on the left on the environment as being opposed to "privatize the profits, socialize the costs" where a deregulated industry is able to engage in economic activity which if assessed for impact across society as a whole actually makes everyone on average poorer but still makes money by the costs being externalized. But surely "make the coal companies pay for the coal pollution" is in line with the whole personal responsibility thing, if the companies were people that'd be being on the right. I want to use the government to make companies pay for their own shit because I don't want to pay welfare to companies that can't afford to exist on their own and the government is big enough to make them.
I was asked where I stood politically on the environment and my views on the environment all come from the same place as my economic views which aren't very left at all and yet apparently I'm far left with my "don't poison me" agenda and "all the scientists say that if people do this it'll be awful so maybe the government should try and stop people doing that" ideas. Is anyone here on the right on the environment? How does it work? When I think of a nation that refuses to let environmental concerns stand in the way of industry I think of the Soviet Union, in which individuals like the fishers on the Aral Sea were robbed of their communal property and livelihood, not of capitalist countries. Right is left and left is right, it seems.
Taxation on carbon emission and CO2 market are all rightish ideas, coming from free market economists, but nobody cares. I guess the real topic is weither you accept the global warming or not, and the left has been quicker in accepting it.
Why wouldn't anybody care, exactly?
It's very simple, we have a Democratic party that has a comprehensive plan to do something about global warming. It's probably not enough, and we can hope that the left of the Democrats push for more.
Against them you have someone whose position about global warming is that it doesn't exist and is ready to just open the tap of fuel emissions at their maximum level, has no plan for green energy and wants to come back on climate treatise.
Noam Chomsky, calls this election a potential death knell to our specie:
But there are some pretty stable elements of his ideology, if you can even grant him that concept. One of them is: “Climate change is not taking place.” As he puts it: “Forget it.” And that’s almost a death knell for the species – not tomorrow, but the decisions we take now are going to affect things in a couple of decades, and in a couple of generations it could be catastrophic.
Donald Trump backs out of debate with Bernie Sanders
Donald Trump will not participate in a debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders, the GOP nominee said in a statement on Friday.
"Based on the fact that the Democratic nominating process is totally rigged and Crooked Hillary Clinton and Deborah Wasserman Schultz will not allow Bernie Sanders to win, and now that I am the presumptive Republican nominee, it seems inappropriate that I would debate the second place finisher," Trump said. "Likewise, the networks want to make a killing on these events and are not proving to be too generous to charitable causes, in this case, women’s health issues. Therefore, as much as I want to debate Bernie Sanders - and it would be an easy payday - I will wait to debate the first place finisher in the Democratic Party, probably Crooked Hillary Clinton, or whoever it may be.
Good one for trump. It was to good to be true for the Clinton supporters
Aww maaan
Trump played this really well though, The Internet, social media and live coverage bonanza turned the election into reality TV, and this man knows how to play that game.
And Bernie got played like a toy. I mean, seriously, what does he thinks?
On May 29 2016 18:30 KwarK wrote: GH, a few months ago we were discussing food providers and you were saying my experience of Walmart in my rich area was atypical. I went to a shitty Walmart in a poor area, you were right.
On an unrelated note, how would someone describe being on the right regarding environmental issues. I'd describe being on the left on the environment as being opposed to "privatize the profits, socialize the costs" where a deregulated industry is able to engage in economic activity which if assessed for impact across society as a whole actually makes everyone on average poorer but still makes money by the costs being externalized. But surely "make the coal companies pay for the coal pollution" is in line with the whole personal responsibility thing, if the companies were people that'd be being on the right. I want to use the government to make companies pay for their own shit because I don't want to pay welfare to companies that can't afford to exist on their own and the government is big enough to make them.
I was asked where I stood politically on the environment and my views on the environment all come from the same place as my economic views which aren't very left at all and yet apparently I'm far left with my "don't poison me" agenda and "all the scientists say that if people do this it'll be awful so maybe the government should try and stop people doing that" ideas. Is anyone here on the right on the environment? How does it work? When I think of a nation that refuses to let environmental concerns stand in the way of industry I think of the Soviet Union, in which individuals like the fishers on the Aral Sea were robbed of their communal property and livelihood, not of capitalist countries. Right is left and left is right, it seems.
Taxation on carbon emission and CO2 market are all rightish ideas, coming from free market economists, but nobody cares. I guess the real topic is weither you accept the global warming or not, and the left has been quicker in accepting it.
The real question regarding global warming as a westerner is to what degree you consider yourself a citizen of the world or a citizen of your nation state (and implied, to what degree you care about people from outside your nation state). Global warming is not a direct threat to western european and north american countries- hell, I think around here, quite some people would be happy about an increase of 1-2 degrees average temperature.. It does represent an indirect threat through making other regions of the world uninhabitable which could potentially force the relocation of like, hundreds of millions of people, but then climate change denial goes hand in hand with closed border policy. (not that the positions are actually related, just that climate change deniers also generally want less immigration).
Climate change denial is basically just a way of making a political position of increased pollution morally palatable. Like, if the recipes for dealing with climate change largely involve increased market regulation, taxation, government oversight and expanded government programs (not to mention what I personally think - curtailed personal consumption of non-food/culture), and you are opposed to all of these four for ideological reasons, it becomes easier to hold on to these ideological positions through arguing that global warming isn't actually the threat some leftist alarmists claim it to be, than to argue that well, I care more about these ideological positions than I care about the lives of hundreds of millions of poor people who might in the future have their lives ruined by climate change. In a similar vein, people from the right might argue that people from the left are embracing climate change because it becomes an avenue for the political changes they have already been supportive of, but that would largely be misguided because to many leftists, environmental concerns are exactly why they are leftists.
From my perspective, climate change denial basically entails disregarding your intellect to favor your morality. (And it is funny, because the immigration debate, from the right's point of view, is largely the opposite - the left insists on doing what they consider morally palatable (accepting refugees and immigrants) despite 'all the stats and numbers' indicating that 'in the future', it will have disastrous effects on our societies). And then, we find reasons why we do not believe in these statistical projections or that it will be so bad, or we say that the cultural enrichment (opposed to soil enrichment of tundra regions) will outweigh the negative influence on crime statistics, and we say that globalization is an unstoppable tidal wave and we cannot turn back time, and we say that you can't accurately predict the future and perhaps integration will magically start sorting itself out once people just start accepting each other. The parallels are kinda uncanny.
And I say all of this as a staunch supporter of increased immigration, just to make that clear.