Join In On The Action "Register Here" To View The Forums

Already a Member Login Here

Board index Forum Index
User avatar
Ambassador
 
Posts: 21062
Joined: 15 Jun 2002, 6:53 am

Post 08 Nov 2016, 10:24 am

rickyp wrote:Obama has an approval rating of 56%.


His policies don't do that well.

Clinton may earn 50% of the electorates votes today.


Bet me. She will not hit 50% of the popular vote.

That represents a will of the people that perhaps you don't recognize then?


You missed the point, naturally. ". . . a government that does not address glaring problems and instead selects boutique issues against the will of the majority cannot last."

1. Failing to require ID to vote. It polls at 80%. I hear all the suppression arguments, but minorities themselves (not the popular "representatives") don't seem to have the problem. In any event, it's a problem that can be solved. Is it a "major" problem? No, but it shows how indifferent the government is to the people.

2. Cutting spending. There are many ways to do this.

3. Restructuring the tax code to make it simpler and fairer.

4. Fixing immigration.

5. Fixing entitlements.

(there are many others)

These are in no particular order. They don't get fixed. They get used as cudgels. That needs to stop. Where are the statesmen? Where are the negotiators?

You're a complete tool.
User avatar
Adjutant
 
Posts: 3646
Joined: 17 May 2013, 3:32 pm

Post 08 Nov 2016, 11:32 am

Really those are the top five problems facing us? It seems to me to be somewhat obvious that the central problem that must be addressed is the downward pressure on wages due to capital and companies being able to move freely across borders to get the cheapest labor. Capital is getting higher returns while labor is suffering because we have difficulty competing with workers making a fraction of our own. Logically, in response to this fact, we should be the following things:

(1) lowering barriers to education and training so that our people's superior productivity will off-set competition from countries who have much cheaper labor;

(2) Improving all kinds of infrastructure (roads, bridges, high-speed rail, Internet speed) so that again our workers have a competitive advantage over workers in poorer countries;

(3) Making some allowance in the safety net for workers displaced because of globalization rather than blaming them as lazy and parasitic.

And we're concerned about voter ID? I mean, what difference does immigration (within certain limits) mean really when you can go down to Mexico to get cheaper labor? The real issue, as always, is who gets access to the wealth our society creates and right now that is going disproportionately to a certain few at the top. And fairness demands that since that windfall is due primarily to an external factor--globalization--we should do something to off-set it.

But, no, let's talk voter ID...
User avatar
Emissary
 
Posts: 1543
Joined: 15 Oct 2002, 9:34 pm

Post 08 Nov 2016, 12:52 pm

Ricky:

But your now in a situation where you are down to two choices


Not quite. I have other choices and made them.

RayJay:

They are tweens and teenagers being led by a man-boy.


How ironically sentimental of you.

No, in fact, there does come a time when something is so broken that it is best to simply start over. It's quite logical and happens all the time, unfortunately, not often enough in politics. Which reminds me, it's a good thing you weren't around in 1776 RayJay. You would have pegged (figuratively of course) George Washington, Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson as more man-boys or sentimentalists at best.
User avatar
Adjutant
 
Posts: 3646
Joined: 17 May 2013, 3:32 pm

Post 08 Nov 2016, 2:08 pm

Washington, Adams, Jefferson....Trump?

Don't think that list fits, Dags.

The essential thing about democracy is you can't just blow it up. Things tend to go to hell when there is a loss of stability and no stable institutions. There was at least some stability with American Revolution because the Founders were an educated elite and many of them had experience in local colonial government. You want to compare that situation to...Trump?

I get that you are frustrated but I think a reasonable person would think regardless of how oligarchical our society, it is still a relatively rich society compared to the rest of the world and the average person is better off than in most parts of the world. It does not make any sense to just blow it up, though we have course have to fight hard to make it better. If Hillary gets elected at least things will be a little bit better for the average person and changing demographics may mean more substantial changes lay in the future. Why people act like as if they have nothing to lose here with the present system is beyond me. Of course we have something to lose.
User avatar
Ambassador
 
Posts: 4961
Joined: 08 Jun 2000, 10:26 am

Post 08 Nov 2016, 2:21 pm

dag hammarsjkold wrote:Ricky:

But your now in a situation where you are down to two choices


Not quite. I have other choices and made them.

RayJay:

They are tweens and teenagers being led by a man-boy.


How ironically sentimental of you.

No, in fact, there does come a time when something is so broken that it is best to simply start over. It's quite logical and happens all the time, unfortunately, not often enough in politics. Which reminds me, it's a good thing you weren't around in 1776 RayJay. You would have pegged (figuratively of course) George Washington, Ben Franklin, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson as more man-boys or sentimentalists at best.


Just Henry and Jefferson :wink: ;) . In all seriousness we do not live in a non-democratic monarchy right now. I'm sorry if I offended you. Deep down I am conservative in the real sense of the word, i.e. afraid of what once can lose.
User avatar
Emissary
 
Posts: 3405
Joined: 12 Jun 2006, 2:01 am

Post 08 Nov 2016, 2:29 pm

You didn't live in a non-democratic monarchy then either. Granted, the franchise could have been extended a bit further to make it properly democratic, but you could say much the same about the 'democracy' which replaced it.
User avatar
Statesman
 
Posts: 11324
Joined: 15 Aug 2000, 8:59 am

Post 08 Nov 2016, 3:24 pm

freeman3
It seems to me to be somewhat obvious that the central problem that must be addressed is the downward pressure on wages due to capital and companies being able to move freely across borders to get the cheapest labor. Capital is getting higher returns while labor is suffering because we have difficulty competing with workers making a fraction of our own. Logically, in response to this fact, we should be the following things:

Even more fundamentally it is the devaluation of labor and employers due to the coporatizement of business in North America. The effects of globalization you mention here are greater because corporations are run for short term profit, and for management enrichment over long term competitiveness and for the enrichment of all the stakeholders in the company. (shareholders, employees and management.)
The three things you enumerate are important parts of Clintons policy proposals.
User avatar
Ambassador
 
Posts: 21062
Joined: 15 Jun 2002, 6:53 am

Post 08 Nov 2016, 3:29 pm

freeman3 wrote:Really those are the top five problems facing us?


Please, don't go rickyp on me! Did you read what I said?

Doctor Fate wrote:. . . a government that does not address glaring problems . . These are in no particular order. They don't get fixed.


I never said, nor intended to indicate, these were "the top five problems facing us." They are, however, either VERY popular issues or very SOLVABLE issues.

But, those in politics don't care what "we the people" want. They just want to position themselves for the next election.

This is why we have Trump and why he's even remotely got a shot.

It seems to me to be somewhat obvious that the central problem that must be addressed is the downward pressure on wages due to capital and companies being able to move freely across borders to get the cheapest labor.


Maybe, but it won't be as easy to get a consensus on that. Get socialists and capitalists to agree on issues of labor and capital? Please.

I may have been less than articulate, but you completely read what you wanted to read.
User avatar
Ambassador
 
Posts: 21062
Joined: 15 Jun 2002, 6:53 am

Post 08 Nov 2016, 3:30 pm

rickyp wrote:The three things you enumerate are important parts of Clintons policy proposals.


Which she has no chance of enacting.
User avatar
Adjutant
 
Posts: 3646
Joined: 17 May 2013, 3:32 pm

Post 08 Nov 2016, 3:46 pm

I guess I did make some assumptions that you listed the the most important problems, but on re-reading you just said the most glaring problems. So I got it wrong, but perhaps you could have been clearer. Anyway, I got it wrong and my tone was a little snippy. My bad.
User avatar
Ambassador
 
Posts: 21062
Joined: 15 Jun 2002, 6:53 am

Post 08 Nov 2016, 4:03 pm

freeman3 wrote:I guess I did make some assumptions that you listed the the most important problems, but on re-reading you just said the most glaring problems. So I got it wrong, but perhaps you could have been clearer. Anyway, I got it wrong and my tone was a little snippy. My bad.

No worries.

My point is, to re-frame it just a bit: there are many issues where there are consensus solutions available, but they don't get addressed. In part, it's a failure of Presidential leadership (not just Obama, but his predecessors) and, in part, it is our elected representatives being unwilling to buck their party's best interests in favor of the people's interests.
User avatar
Adjutant
 
Posts: 3646
Joined: 17 May 2013, 3:32 pm

Post 08 Nov 2016, 4:12 pm

I'm all for compromise solutions over things we can compromise over. But the willingness to horse-trade with those across the aisle seems to be dying, primarily I think due to there being such an ideological gap between the most liberal Republicans and the most conservative Democrats. The center has disappeared. The points you raise may be correct but the lack of a centrist group of Republicans and Democrats that could provide the votes to get things done is a big factor, I think.
User avatar
Emissary
 
Posts: 1543
Joined: 15 Oct 2002, 9:34 pm

Post 08 Nov 2016, 4:58 pm

Freeman,

The list works just fine. Those men realized that their current political structure needed to be reinvented. They took action to do so. They destroyed the old system. They did not choose to wait around for a thousand years in the hope that things would glacially work themselves out for the better. They destroyed a monarchy which made way for a democracy.

Today we are no longer living in a democracy. We live in an oligarchy.

Trump would potentially be the hand grenade to destroy the oligarchy. Perhaps this might lead to a return to our democratic roots.

My analogy was pointed at RayJay's inept and flawed Darwinian approach to incremental change. In no way was the analogy meant to compare Trump with such men of integrity. He couldn't spell the word. He makes the list insomuch as his election destroys an oligarchy posing as a democracy.
User avatar
Adjutant
 
Posts: 3646
Joined: 17 May 2013, 3:32 pm

Post 09 Nov 2016, 1:32 am

I'll try to be positive...oh come on, that's ridiculous. That was a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham...and that's understating it. I feel we're part of a bad futuristic novel from like 1995 set in 2016 where ha ha Donald Trump is president...
User avatar
Administrator
 
Posts: 11284
Joined: 14 Feb 2000, 8:40 am

Post 09 Nov 2016, 6:48 am

shocking for sure but no sham. Not only did Trump win, but he won the popular vote as well (less than 50% but more than Clinton) and the US just got it's version of Brexit. People wanted change and this was their opportunity for just that.

It also put polling on it's ear, RickyP must be having a mind implosion about now but it really didn't shock me that the polls were so off. I have said before the US is more Conservative than Liberals wish to think and the silent majority is in fact Conservative. These silent folks also tend to avoid taking part in polls. Throw in those who simply lied because they could not admit they actually voted for Trump and there you have it, a shocker that really wasn't if you knew the true feelings of Americans.