mjmjr25 wrote:My Bull Tekkytoro,
I'm sorry you are getting your political advice in this thread - any place is a good place to ask, but unfortunately you are being spoon fed liberal propaganda. Just make sure you take that into account in any decisions you make. Prflgmr is a liberal, but is able to put personal belief systems aside and accurately critique a lot of what is going on - the others, primarily JT and Dsh, can not.
I was going to ignore this whole post since you tossed my name in as some attempt at a personal attack. You think I am "spoon feeding liberal propaganda." I think I'm largely a liberal minded person, so I unsurprisingly hold a lot of liberal minded beliefs. I wasn't trying to tell Tektoro how to vote. I told him to demand evidence and think critically to come to his own conclusions. If evidence and critical thinking have become the exclusive domain of liberal propaganda, then the conservatives have a real problem on their hands in modern politics.
mjmjr25 wrote:
They would praise someone who:
*bullet point list*
I don't see myself as praising Hillary, and I'm not sure why you do, other than I have said she will get my vote. I was a delegate for Bernie Sanders this year and I have been critical of Hillary as part of that process. I may come back to these bullet points you've spelled out to discuss them, but for now I want to address the more fundamental issue that comes up in your simplistic characterization of liberals/democrats wherein you said...
mjmjr25 wrote:People vote for people like Hilary for two reasons: Guilt (personal, misplaced) and Free Stuff. I wish it were more complicated. It's not.
First off, you are being a jerk here, but I'm going to look past that so that we can unpack these statements to attempt a grown up discussion about some core differences between republicans and democrats. On the matter of guilt, because you haven't explained yourself fully, I'm going to have to assume you largely mean white guilt, or more generally any guilt felt by those in a majority group for their advantages over any type of minority group (not just racial). This often boils down politically to a debate between populist ideals and those of special interests. This is an important debate. Democracy depends on the will of the people, and this is determined by understanding what the majority wants and viewing populist ideals as American ideals. As a general rule, in current politics republicans more often advocate for the nation's majority, though this is not their exclusive domain and democrats also care about the majority, and thus democracy (it's in their name after all). On the other hand, there is also the issue of equality. Again, speaking in generalities, republicans view equality as largely removing government restrictions and letting everyone compete for themselves in a free market. Less government interference is considered more freedom. Democrats tend to make efforts to include minority and special interest groups in a signal of inclusivity, and as an attempt to disrupt systematic racism or other forms of bias that continually put whatever minority at a disadvantage. Republicans typically dislike that democrats organize special interest groups to give them sway against current norms and majority rule. Again, these are not exclusive tactics to one party, and I am speaking in generalities meant to highlight fundamental differences. Some of this may be done out of guilt, but my personal bias is that guilt is not a bad thing. Of course, guilt feels bad, but it is the sting of your conscience trying to motivate you towards prosocial behavior. Any reasonable person though can see that we both need to value the opinion of the majority, while also remaining an inclusive society where equality is valued. If minority opinion is valid, then it should have a level playing field to compete and possibly rise up and eventually become majority opinion when society needs to adapt to changing times. I am speaking very abstractly, but these abstract concepts are at the heart of debates over issues of civil rights, LGBT rights, feminism, etc.
As for "free handouts", this is basically a disagreement over the role of government regulation, particularly in the form of taxes, subsidies, and state social service programs. The Republican view is typically that these things impinge on freedom and that the free market will provide these services through the self-organizing principle of what Adam Smith called "the invisible hand", which is basically the idea that markets will naturally organize around supply/demand and competition, so there is no need for bureaucratic systems that drag them down with imposed rules and regulations. Under this lense, it is possible to view any government social service program as a "free handout", because some people get the benefit, while others pay for it. This again pulls us back to the ideas of majority/minority I discussed above, however, in that democrats are more likely to look at the disparity of incomes and insist that the rich give back to the poor via taxes to fund social services. Only in the current economy, things are particularly strange because a minority of financial elites have the majority of the money. If anyone wants to hear an eloquent, intelligent, and understandable description of the fiscal conservative argument for deregulation, I highly suggest you seek out
videos or writings from Martin Friedman, who I think cogently argues for privatization and deregulation as being best for the economy, best for freedom, and ultimately a source for equality. His arguments that the free market ends up being the morally best choice that benefit all peoples are quite compelling and it is a shame that there are so few republicans/libertarians in the public eye today who can explain these ideas with as much intellectual rigor and wisdom as he could. On the liberal side of this argument, there is a belief that some regulation is needed, particularly on matters that affect everyone such as the environment, or matters of providing assistance to vulnerable groups like the poor. For an interesting read on the pros and cons of regulation,
here is an interesting article that summarizes some of the major concerns.
When you really consider these fundamental party differences, it's actually hard to tell who is right, though each side does a good job of convincing themselves that they are. I bring up these basic ideas in their abstract form as a hope of getting all of us to question the validity of our own beliefs and to better understand the ideals of our political opponents so that we can engage in dialogue rather than to simply shout out our own ideas and seek echo chambers of agreement from within our respective parties. Political philosophies need to adapt to the changing times while not losing the wisdom of the past, so it's important to try to actually understand one another's diverse world views and what they mean for modern life. I don't know anyone who has all of the right answers, but as long we do not devolve into a divided nation or fall under a tyrannical government, I have faith that our American political processes have a great set of checks and balances to keep us free and prosperous.
