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The thing is, both positions (Conservative and Libertarian) take the stance that there is no ethical requirement to help someone else.

Thats also the policy of the US government. Based on lots of case law, the government has no obligation to help you in any way.

Both parties are like that. They only care about their special interests.

Don't worry, in an enlightened HRC administration, her friends on WS will be taken care of.

Inversely the Trump Economic Plan will be the best plan ever. If he gives the military illegal orders will some enterprising colonel (because its always a colonel) turn around and perform a coup? If we're going banana republic lets do it right.

"Vote for El Presidente Frazzled! Or else."

What I am worried about as an American-Chinese is his trade plans for China. China is a bit like Russia in that we do not like it when other countries mess with our sphere of influence and I fear that his attempts at playing strong with China will result in a black eye for the USA. Trump's promises for a stronger presence in the Pacific are a danger to the delicate balance of power that the countries maintain.

If Trump's rule does lead to the collapse of the USA's economy, that should leave Taiwan ripe for the taking though.

 Frazzled wrote:
"Vote for El Presidente Frazzled! Or else."

Or else the wiener dogs?

 Frazzled wrote:

The thing is, both positions (Conservative and Libertarian) take the stance that there is no ethical requirement to help someone else.

Thats also the policy of the US government. Based on lots of case law, the government has no obligation to help you in any way.

Both parties are like that. They only care about their special interests.

I would disagree about this. It is part of the Democratic position that social safety nets are a good thing and needed. Compare that to the Republican position that we should do away with them...


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 sebster wrote:


And I think that's kind of the dynamic that's defined the Democratic race so far. Its a race between a candidate that a lot of people are really excited about, and a candidate that a % more people are happy to vote for, even if they're not anywhere near as excited about it.

People who've been really confident of Sanders chances have been looking at the enthusiasm he's generated, while forgetting that a really enthusiastic vote is worth the same as any other vote. As you say, it doesn't mean jack crap compared to actually getting people to the polls.

Then you have people like me. i'm all for Sander's policies. However, I realize that there is no way he'll get any traction on them if elected. I'd rather go with Hillary who will move things towards that goal based on what can be achieved. Plus Hillary has the political ability to get things done. I'm not sure Sanders would have that ability.

sebster wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
... neoliberalism (saving brown people through control of their economies because they can't make the right decisions) can be fairly rascist.

Okay, these terms can get tricky because 'liberal' has two very different meanings. You used ‘neoliberalism’ but then described something that’s not neoliberalism in the slightest. it’s actually using the classic meaning of ‘liberal’, which is about economic freedom, ie let the markets do as they please. It refers to the resurgence of classical microeconomics as the dominant basis for assessing policies, instead of the Keynesian economics that had dominted prior to that. So the term really had nothing at all to do with what you were talking about.

I comment on that because your whole post is really very broad, sweeping and not particularly accurate. I agree that there’s racism everywhere, I saw a thing the other day where Bill Maher was saying the most racist kind of claptrap, and then saying it can’t be racist because he’s liberal. But in terms of describing of actual intellectual groups you were trading in very broad and quite contrived generalisations.

In Iraq we very much went in to impose an open economy amongst other objectives. There was an attempt to privatize much of Iraq's nationalized industry (Paul Bremer tried to do it to their oil industry.) Establish neoliberals supported these measures that were not successful. Neoliberalism isn't a liberal concept at the social level but amongst liberal policy makers (at least in the US) it can be popular. Neoliberalism can create or support rascist economic concepts overtly, systemically or plain unknowingly. It isn't specifically going to but crap happens, the idea is to root it out when able.

I mostly try to generalize at the ideological level. You can't generalize at the person level. People pick up an drop ideology or harvest only part of it which makes it very complicated. Liberals wouldn't be the people who are liberals but in the royal they as an ideology. If something is proposed by A liberal and other liberals either support it in full or part you would probably need to address the issue as just liberals with maybe the caveat of some but not all.

Bill Maher is arrogance at its most distilled state.

sebster wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:
I get the distinct feeling that you wouldn't accept evidence. I discussed the liberal support of an invasion of Afghanistan (specifically to save people from their own life style…

Yeah, this is pretty much the ridiculousness that leftist ideology disappeared in to in the late 70s, a kind of self-righteous open mindedness that ends up being comical and scary in equal measures. Moral and cultural relativism taken to the point of self-parody.

I mean holy crap, there is nothing racist about saying Afghanistan under the Taliban was a horrible mess. To describe wanting to remove corrupt and malevolent warlords as ‘wanting to save people from their own lifestyle’ is ridiculous. I could pass your comment on to some Afghanis living here and back in Afghanistan, just to get some really colourful language asking you to never, ever talk about that country again, but I’m not all that interested in upsetting them just to prove a point in an internet debate.

I mean, yeah, it's a fair point that racism and ignorance about the rest of the world can, potentially, lead to wrong headed intervention, even when there’s good intentions. But to take that point to such an extreme that you’re willing to call the Taliban the ‘lifestyle’ chosen by Afghanistan is absurd.

I've spent sometime in Aghanistan and spent a lot of time there talking to Afghanis. My buddy is pen pals with most of the Afghans we worked with an keeps me up to date on how their lives are going. I'm not blind or oblivious to what they have and are going through. However, I wasn't actually referring specifically to the Taliban and should of made that more clear. There was a lot of assumption that all of the Afghans cultural practices were due to the Taliban imposing it upon them amongst liberal elites in the US and Europe. They assumed that once the Taliban lost power the Afghanis would rush head long into the greatness of a secular liberal democracy. They never considered that maybe the Afghans like Islam and like their culture (pre-Taliban) largely as it was. Furthermore, Afghanistan is a complex place with a diverse and complex culture that will not fully agree on what exactly do they want and need.

This isn't to support cultural relativism which is probably an over sensitive reaction to the fear of appearing racist. Somethings in a culture are bad an absolutely should be pushed for their abolishment, though with the people behind it not a foreign force doing it for them.

I don't even subscribe to these theories or schools of thought. I just stay mindful of them as there are nuggets of goodness in a lot of things. I didn't go to Afghanistan with a gun to hug it out with the Taliban lol. As I've explained I was annoyed by the snide remarks to push the narrative liberals can't be rascist.

Kilkrazy wrote:@BrotherGecko,

Thank you for the info about your readings. I do get some of what you're talking about, and I shall look into those writers.

Thank you



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 Frazzled wrote:

The thing is, both positions (Conservative and Libertarian) take the stance that there is no ethical requirement to help someone else.

Inversely the Trump Economic Plan will be the best plan ever. If he gives the military illegal orders will some enterprising colonel (because its always a colonel) turn around and perform a coup? If we're going banana republic lets do it right.

You can feel the big green weenie...and you can feel the big green weenie....big green weenies for everybody!!!!

Best slogan every for a military coup. Now every civilian can wake up and have to prelube themselves for the daily feth feth games.

 skyth wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

The thing is, both positions (Conservative and Libertarian) take the stance that there is no ethical requirement to help someone else.

Thats also the policy of the US government. Based on lots of case law, the government has no obligation to help you in any way.

Both parties are like that. They only care about their special interests.

I would disagree about this. It is part of the Democratic position that social safety nets are a good thing and needed. Compare that to the Republican position that we should do away with them...

.

Anecdotally, the conservatives and Libertarians I know are more in favor of privatizing much of the safety net, not removing it altogether. The govt does things in a bloated, beaurucatic inefficient, costly manner that is fraught with unintended consequences and funds it all by confiscating money out of our paychecks under threat of imprisonment. If the govt did less and took less of our money and got out of the way of charitable organizations then people would have more money to donate and private groups would be able to use that money more effectively and efficiently. The govt that supplies the safety net, that often ensnares the people it's intended to help into generational codependency and the inability to fend for themselves, is the same govt that prevents churches and charities from handing out food to the homeless/hungry because those organization don't have the wherewithall to fill out all the red tape obtacles the govt puts in their way to prevent them from doing good things because it interferes with the govt claiming moral authority to be the sole arbiter of what is good.

Conservatives don't want to not help people, they want to not be forced to fund govt programs that don't accomplish their stated goals but constantly require increased budgets and more authority.

would disagree about this. It is part of the Democratic position that social safety nets are a good thing and needed. Compare that to the Republican position that we should do away with them...

Yet the Democratic position also actively supports open borders, which eliminates the safety net of jobs for millions of citizens who want to work.

They also apparently can't tell when their drinking water goes from clear to brown, that that is a bad thing...


Compare HRC policies to Trump policies. They are almost identical.

 Frazzled wrote:

would disagree about this. It is part of the Democratic position that social safety nets are a good thing and needed. Compare that to the Republican position that we should do away with them...

Yet the Democratic position also actively supports open borders, which eliminates the safety net of jobs for millions of citizens who want to work.

They also apparently can't tell when their drinking water goes from clear to brown, that that is a bad thing...


Compare HRC policies to Trump policies. They are almost identical.

They are trying to get the Hispanic vote, so they duplicated what the water looks like in Mexico

(for the record Frazzled believes everyone from dog catcher on up in any way even remotely related should be fired or resign for that).

 Gordon Shumway wrote:
@whembly: funny, I watched the democratic debate last night and didn't see a single mention of size of dicks, endless shouting matches, yelling "liar" back and forth, vows to round up and deport 11 million people, turning sand to glass, promoting the use of torture, or hunting down families of terrorists. Maybe we have different criteria of what constitutes clown shows.

You forgot to mention that White people cannot be poor and do not live in the ghetto.

Prestor Jon wrote:

 skyth wrote:

 Frazzled wrote:

The thing is, both positions (Conservative and Libertarian) take the stance that there is no ethical requirement to help someone else.

Thats also the policy of the US government. Based on lots of case law, the government has no obligation to help you in any way.

Both parties are like that. They only care about their special interests.

I would disagree about this. It is part of the Democratic position that social safety nets are a good thing and needed. Compare that to the Republican position that we should do away with them...

.

Anecdotally, the conservatives and Libertarians I know are more in favor of privatizing much of the safety net, not removing it altogether. The govt does things in a bloated, beaurucatic inefficient, costly manner that is fraught with unintended consequences and funds it all by confiscating money out of our paychecks under threat of imprisonment. If the govt did less and took less of our money and got out of the way of charitable organizations then people would have more money to donate and private groups would be able to use that money more effectively and efficiently. The govt that supplies the safety net, that often ensnares the people it's intended to help into generational codependency and the inability to fend for themselves, is the same govt that prevents churches and charities from handing out food to the homeless/hungry because those organization don't have the wherewithall to fill out all the red tape obtacles the govt puts in their way to prevent them from doing good things because it interferes with the govt claiming moral authority to be the sole arbiter of what is good.

Conservatives don't want to not help people, they want to not be forced to fund govt programs that don't accomplish their stated goals but constantly require increased budgets and more authority.

Privatization just boils down to only helping people because they are people like us rather than helping people in general. Plus privatizatoon means there are even less resources to help people with. It's been tried in the past and didn't work as people will not 'donate' enough to help. This just supports my position that Republicans see no ethical duty to help other people.

This just supports my position that Republicans see no ethical duty to help other people.

But Democrats feel its ok to use guns to force someone else to do it. Got it.

 Frazzled wrote:

This just supports my position that Republicans see no ethical duty to help other people.

But Democrats feel its ok to use guns to force someone else to do it. Got it.

You will be *made* to care.

Am I doing that right?

Democrats and Republicans are both horrible.


Go Bull Moose party!

 BrotherGecko wrote:

In Iraq we very much went in to impose an open economy amongst other objectives. There was an attempt to privatize much of Iraq's nationalized industry (Paul Bremer tried to do it to their oil industry.) Establish neoliberals supported these measures that were not successful. Neoliberalism isn't a liberal concept at the social level but amongst liberal policy makers (at least in the US) it can be popular. Neoliberalism can create or support rascist economic concepts overtly, systemically or plain unknowingly. It isn't specifically going to but crap happens, the idea is to root it out when able.

Good reading list earlier, and you are right that post-colonial policies (Liberal or Conservative) can lead to racism, implicit and explicit. If you were arguing against "Liberals can not be racist", of course you are correct. Liberals can be racist as well.

However, let's not create a false equivalence between scale and intent in this current political climate. It is relatively clear that Trump's (and Republican) policies are more closely aligned to the rascist side on the "Sliding Scale of Racism" than Democratic policies.

Can we agree on that point or am I still not getting it?

 Frazzled wrote:

This just supports my position that Republicans see no ethical duty to help other people.

But Democrats feel its ok to use guns to force someone else to do it. Got it.

Just like Republicans believe in using guns to force people to contribute to a religion they may not follow

All hyperbole aside, Liberals believe that if you are part of a society, you have an ethical and moral duty to help out others. I have no problem with law enforcement action against people who refuse to do that, the same as I have no problem with law enforcement action against (or as you say using guns to force) people who run red lights.

Im not sure how I feel about the government enforcing ethic and morals.

 Easy E wrote:

 BrotherGecko wrote:

In Iraq we very much went in to impose an open economy amongst other objectives. There was an attempt to privatize much of Iraq's nationalized industry (Paul Bremer tried to do it to their oil industry.) Establish neoliberals supported these measures that were not successful. Neoliberalism isn't a liberal concept at the social level but amongst liberal policy makers (at least in the US) it can be popular. Neoliberalism can create or support rascist economic concepts overtly, systemically or plain unknowingly. It isn't specifically going to but crap happens, the idea is to root it out when able.

Good reading list earlier, and you are right that post-colonial policies (Liberal or Conservative) can lead to racism, implicit and explicit. If you were arguing against "Liberals can not be racist", of course you are correct. Liberals can be racist as well.

However, let's not create a false equivalence between scale and intent in this current political climate. It is relatively clear that Trump's (and Republican) policies are more closely aligned to the rascist side on the "Sliding Scale of Racism" than Democratic policies.

Can we agree on that point or am I still not getting it?

I had no desire to push the idea of them being equivalent just the awareness that it can and does exist amongst liberal policies. Certainly you would combat the overt first and formost because it immediately effects lives. Systematic is much harder to identify and root out.

So yah I agree with you. I think you sufficiently have capped the point, thank you.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im not sure how I feel about the government enforcing ethic and morals.

Right there with you buddy.

It should be 'the people' be the driver to enforce ethics & morals to the government. Not the other way around.

 whembly wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im not sure how I feel about the government enforcing ethic and morals.

Right there with you buddy.

It should be 'the people' be the driver to enforce ethics & morals to the government. Not the other way around.

Not sure how you square this with Republican sympathies, particularly when it comes to issues like abortion. Since the country is majority Pro-Choice, according to your logic the Republicans should stop trying to use the levers of government to enforce their morals on the populace.

 jasper76 wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im not sure how I feel about the government enforcing ethic and morals.

Right there with you buddy.

It should be 'the people' be the driver to enforce ethics & morals to the government. Not the other way around.

Not sure how you square this with Republican sympathies, particularly when it comes to issues like abortion. Since the country is majority Pro-Choice, according to your logic the Republicans should stop trying to use the levers of government to enforce their morals on the populace.

Or gay marriage.

Or immigration.

Or the military.

Or drug use.

If you want to follow that path you end up libertarian and with the removal of borders.

Or traffic laws...or theft laws...or murder laws...

 jasper76 wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im not sure how I feel about the government enforcing ethic and morals.

Right there with you buddy.

It should be 'the people' be the driver to enforce ethics & morals to the government. Not the other way around.

Not sure how you square this with Republican sympathies, particularly when it comes to issues like abortion. Since the country is majority Pro-Choice, according to your logic the Republicans should stop trying to use the levers of government to enforce their morals on the populace.

I've made my feelings known on abortion and I don't want to rehash it in detail in this thread (the danger of having this thread locked).

But, suffice to say, you can be atheist and pro-life.

You can be "for" having a regulated abortion right and not have your state/federal government subsidize the practice.

EDIT: Aaaaaand, the point is being missed.

If I missed the point, do you care to state what the point is?

 jasper76 wrote:
If I missed the point, do you care to state what the point is?

skyth wrote:

...you have an ethical and moral duty to help out others. I have no problem with law enforcement action against people who refuse to do that...

hotsaucey wrote:

Im not sure how I feel about the government enforcing ethic and morals.

moi wrote:

It should be 'the people' be the driver to enforce ethics & morals to the government. Not the other way around.

You brought up abortion and others brought up things that government does enforce. All could be in name of safety or criminal activities...

Ethics and morality means different things, and having "Government" being the sole decider is a dangerous philosophy.

For example. Let's keep it simple.

Do you believe "we the people" *is* the government? As in:
the people = the government

Or, do you believe that 'the people' is distinct and separate from 'the government'?

 whembly wrote:

You can be "for" having a regulated abortion right and not have your state/federal government subsidize the practice.

So no abortions for poor people. Got it.

@whembley: I believe to a certain extent that the US government is the US people.

The US has broadened what it means to be a person, so it would probably be more accurate to say that the US Government is now a combination of people (as normally defined) and corporations.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Democrats and Republicans are both horrible.


Go Bull Moose party!

The truth has been reviled! Ghost Roosevelt for President-2016! No one needs to ask how big His Hands are!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

skyth wrote:

Just like Republicans believe in using guns to force people to contribute to a religion they may not follow

Please back that up.

All hyperbole aside, Liberals believe that if you are part of a society, you have an ethical and moral duty to help out others. If you disagree, they will call the Jem Hadar, er the IRS, and then you will die er go to prison

fixed your typo.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im not sure how I feel about the government enforcing ethic and morals.

You live in Jerry Brown's California. You love it...or else.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jasper76 wrote:

 whembly wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:
Im not sure how I feel about the government enforcing ethic and morals.

Right there with you buddy.

It should be 'the people' be the driver to enforce ethics & morals to the government. Not the other way around.

Not sure how you square this with Republican sympathies, particularly when it comes to issues like abortion. Since the country is majority Pro-Choice, according to your logic the Republicans should stop trying to use the levers of government to enforce their morals on the populace.

Sounds like a good idea. I am tired of the "Hell my Party has gone B%TSH%T CRAZY" Party also trying to tell me what to do.

So are people seriously arguing now that liberals are evil because they make you to pay taxes to help poor people?

*headdesk*

I would rather deal with the Jem Hadar than the IRS

 Crimson wrote:
So are people seriously arguing now that liberals are evil because they make you to pay taxes to help poor people?

*headdesk*

And take money from poor people for "greenhouse gases"