rickyp wrote:george
The point is not that, but that they do it for reasons other than the members of those groups suppose
Please back this up...
Name an interest group that the Dems have used in the way you describe...
I suspect you are projecting or listening to rhetoric that is without substance.
What I mean is that the Democratic Party uses real and believed issues with specific socio-economic groups to further their own cause, more than fixing any real problems. Did we win the War on Poverty? (in some ways, I think so) How about the War on Drugs? Nope. The War on the Achievement Gap? Nope. The Education Gap? Nope. They all make good pep talks and rallying points, but nothing much comes out of them, in the end.
rickyp wrote:george
But the Democrats favor portraying their voting groups as suppressed, repressed, disenfranchised, and dependent upon the DNC as their Savior
I think the "voting groups" would complan that they are indeed suffering from things that fit these descriptions.
Womens groups rightly complain that they earn only 75 cents for every dollar men make. They also rightly complain that governments try to restrict their access to legal abortion. They rightly complain that they live in the only G8 nation without decent maternity leave (let alone family leave)
And they rightly complain that they suffer discriminatory behavior in soceity.
The oft-repeated notion that women make less than men is something of a red herring and usually unfair. And it is based on an overall comparison, without regard to jobs, experience, or education. (e.g.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/01/no-women-don-t-make-less-money-than-men.html)
When comparing men and women in the same occupation with the same level of experience, such differences tend to disappear. In fact, you would be hard to find any such disparity in government workers, union workers, or education. Some people claim that men tend to go after careers that habitually involve greater risk and reward, hence greater pay (e.g. computer science, finance, construction, while careers women traditionally gravitate towards have lower pay scales (nursing, social work, teaching, non-profits). Here, I think you can say there are different pay scales because of the different career paths/jobs. And a valid question is "why don't these traditionally "female" careers have better pay ranges? No simple answer, but it must have something to do with what a given society as a whole accepts. Teachers are often held up as being grossly underpaid. In some areas, perhaps, but after they have been on the job for awhile, and with better academic credentials and experience, their pay rises to a respectful level. They just don't start out at the top. Teacher pay is based on a complex set of qualifications. In the school district where I work, salaries run from a starting pay of around $38K for a fresh teacher with a B.S. and no experience up to the low $80K with a Master's and additional experience. The pay-steps look like tax tables. But you can take it to the bank that both a man and women will have the same pay with the same credentials and time on the job.
Our government is not trying to limit access to abortion, though some groups within Congress and outside certainly are. There is also the common complaint that government is trying to prevent women from obtaining birth control information or applications. What they really mean is that they are complaining about legislators trying to stop the Gov't from paying for "free" birth control.
rickyp wrote:Blacks complain that they are discriminated against in the justice system, and that they face far greater risks in encounters with police. They also complain about racial discrimination.
Gays complain about discrimination as well.
Gays, not so much, anymore. They are not only a protected class, they have nearly become a non-entity, merging into the great anonymous stew of American people. Sure, there are still complainers and the usual religious nuts warning of Sodom, but it's a magnitude better, overall. The speed with which the conversion from anti-Gay to Gay-OK occurred throughout the country (and the military) was phenomenal. Quite the opposite situation in most Islamic countries, on the other hand. But not even Hillary had very much to say on the topic this time around.
As for blacks, that is a more complex issue, for which I think there is too much hype, exaggeration and accusations on both sides, drowning out real concerns. One reason there is so much police attention on blacks, for example, is that police are deployed where the crime is. Like anybody else in any other cultural group, blacks don't like to talk about their own issues, such as black-on-black crime, or that blacks commit more violent crime than whites; that blacks are more liable to be killed by other blacks; that cops kill more whites than blacks, etc. (
http://www.dailywire.com/news/7441/7-statistics-you-need-know-about-black-black-crime-aaron-bandler and
https://infogr.am/Black-34991937313. I don't know why this is so. It is very sad and disturbing. I don't for a minute think blacks are any more inherently violent than any other racial group. But it certainly has to make life for most blacks more difficult.
I found it equally sad, for example, that Hillary solicited for blacks, women, and other special groups to vote for her. They needed to. Why? Did she think they were going to run across the aisle and vote for Trump? Most likely, it was because she wanted to portray herself and the Democrats as their "savior and benefactor", once again trying to maintain a manager-subordinate relationship. But that kind of pandering is one kind of divisiveness that turns people off and does not help resolve anything. Clinton's special groups did not run to Trump, of course. They simply stayed home.
rickyp wrote: Are these manufactured complaints? Did the Democratic party manufacture these complaints or the conditions that cause the complaints?
Are they offering policies that they believe will redress these complaints? Are the republicans.?
Well, in some cases, they
are manufactured. The idea that police (as a group or entity) have a vendetta against blacks and feel they are entitled to kill them with impunity (a common BLM accusation) is without foundation. News media and advocacy groups concentrate on those cop-on-black crimes, but ignore the black-on-black shootings and cop-on-white shootings. Police officers are entitled to due process, just like anybody else. And if the court/jury/prosecutor feels they are not guilty, that is how the system works. Just for the record, I am all for roasting any police officer found guilty of criminal action.
rickyp wrote: I think you are complaining about democracy. That people with power, in their votes, are seeking to affect change in their lives. And the find only one of the two parties offering something theybeleive will help.
Note sure at all what you are talking about, Ricky. I'm talking about Democrats, not democracy. Well, the common people of the land (of which I am one) are surely interested in programs and people that will help improve our lot, our future, and our country. Change is a meaningless buzzword (e.g. "Hope and Change"), and most people don't like change. They either want things to remain as they are or just to get better. Democrats like to claim they are there to help, but I rarely see it happen. Cities, esp. mid-to-large-size, tend to be Democratic in government and voting. Yet that is where you find the biggest problems with education, crime, and poverty. And it rarely changes. It seems to me that, if I were still a Democrat, I'd be wondering just why the hell these politicians keep blaming Republicans for the ills, when the Democrats are the ones in charge at the local level.
rickyp wrote: If you want to say that Democrats have failed to deliver on their policeies. well, okay. For instance I agree that Obama fell well sort of properly regulating and properly punishing Wall Street for their almsot willful destruction of the western economy. The current regulations may not be sufficient to forestall another such event. But in a convoluted system of governance, a President cannot effect change without much compromise.....And who's responsible for those compromises? The other party. Who claim that none of the "interest groups" complaints are genuine, or if genuine not worthy of action...
I think you complain about the fact the system is working the way it was designed. Or at least the way it evolved over time...
.
Sorry, Rick. This seems muddled. Is the system working or not? And what system are you talking about? Presidents actually have little they can actively do, other than cajole Congress and the population to favor or disavow whatever the current topic of the day is. Sure, they can issue Executive Orders, though they can be overturned. Congress is partly to blame for this loophole. As for compromise, it is a rare piece of steak these days, as neither party is really interested in sharing. Obama, for his part, talked the talk, but failed to walk the walk. He set the tone when he decided to let the Democrats write up the ACA without input from the Republicans, until it was completed. I don't let the Republicans off the hook, either, as their "Just say No" approach was equally absolutist some of their tactics were just plain childish.
On the other hand, keep in mind that it is the "job" of one party to oppose the other. It is SUPPOSED to be difficult to pass laws. That is why we have the government we do and why we have it based on the notion of checks and balances. Laws are not supposed to be pushed through like groceries moving from shopping cart to grocery bag.
rickyp wrote:george
Today, Parties look at issues and voters from absolutist positions. The notion that Platforms are merely positions from which to move forward, today Platforms are positions from which to draw lines and pontificate.
well, at least with your current president elect, you have no real idea what his policies are since he really hasn't given them much thought.
When you have a two party system, with primaries, the fanaticstake old. Thia ia much more a fact in the Republcian party than with Democrats however... Part of the charm of having a collection of disparate one issue pressure groups is that none of them dominate.
Well, that is part of the great adventure, no? Nobody has any idea what Trump is actually going to try and do. Even with his Cabinet, there are more questions than answers. However, you must have been getting tired or too hyper at the end, as your text breaks up and I have no idea what you were trying to say. If you are trying to say that fanatics tend to be found in the Republicans, I would argue. It is the fanatics that have driven the Democrats far to the left, and away from their centrist positions of old. With regard to the single-issue groups you mention, I say more power to them.
Sorry for the length. I got carried away again.