The General US Politics Thread

It doesn't need to make sense. It just needs to be an excuse to engage in crappy behavior.

Is that a helmet? VANITY! Is that a horse? SLOTH! Is that a piece of land? GREED!

Let me take those from you.

If those excuses actually work I would like to offer to take care of any of you fine ladies' lust. My number is 1-800-BADJOKE.

edited 31st Mar '15 10:45:02 AM by Aszur

The same logic was applied to Spanish and Mexican territories during the Manifest Destiny phase. Read old letters from back then and they talk about how California is a beautiful land with so much potential and how the Mexicans are totally not taking advantage of it, therefore Americans had an obligation to take it from them and turn it into a productive state.

Fuck you John Locke.

"I'm a Lockean individualist", says the right-libertarian, thinking that gives credence to their beliefs.

edited 31st Mar '15 12:44:13 PM by TheHandle

@parable- Well there were very few Mexicans living there at the time. Less than 80,000 in the entire area ceded after the Mexican-American war.

I know, my family comes from some of those 80,000. But Americans were saying this years before the war even took place.

Watch Mojo did a top 10 Embarrassing Presidential Moments video. What are y'all's thoughts?

At which point there'd have been even fewer. It wasn't entirely inaccurate.

I took a political compass test! Here's a loot at mine: https://www.politicalcompass.org/chart?ec=4.5&soc=1.13

Inaccurate if your view of using the land relies on farming. Californios were primarily ranchers, ranches take a lot of space. So the Mexicans were using the land, and the surviving Indians were using the inlands, just not in a way Americans considered the best way to use them, hence the desire to take the lands owned by Mexicans and make a profit off it for themselves.

Right, from one point of view. I'm just saying that the other view point in this case wasn't completely arbitrary.

I don't recall saying it was. Mexicans had the land, Americans wanted it, therefore they took it. It's basic Manifest Destiny, not something out of thin air.

Ah, Manifest Destiny. Because it's only naked imperialism when other countries do it!

The moral of the story is: if you're going to build an empire, be sure to exterminate the natives, otherwise they'll go to Oxbridge read law, and then and make you give them their country back.

edited 31st Mar '15 3:13:05 PM by Achaemenid

@parable I didn't say you said it was. Was just discussing it.

I'm familiar with John Locke, but could you two elaborate on this?

John Locke's theory of ownership formed an intellectual foundation for a lot of American land thieving: in order to make something your property, to Locke, you must mix your labour with it. For instance, in a state of nature, the apples that grow from an unowned apple tree become mine when I expend my labour in picking them. This theory was used to justify the expropriation of the vast natural resources of the North American continent on the grounds that the Native Americans weren't using their land "properly", and thus had never actually mixed their labour with it and owned it.

It's basically college Jurisprudence 101: Hobbes and Locke were dicks, Marx and Gramsci went too far the other way, and you must become disciples of either Hart of Dworkin.

edited 31st Mar '15 3:56:41 PM by Achaemenid

here's my political compass

edited 31st Mar '15 10:05:19 PM by Xopher001

Here's mine

I do wonder about some of the questions though. There are a bunch that are written in ways to encourage selective thinking i.e. x is sometimes a good idea/sometimes justified (if you think about it, almost anything could be a good idea under certain circumstances). It's also weird to see questions about religion and sexuality since that has nothing to do with politics per se, even though it is highly correlated with politics in the US, mostly as a result of the left right two party system that they claim to avoid thanks to the much hayed 2d chart.

Incidentally, all three posted so far are either left/libertarian or right/authoritarian. I suspect the two are correlated.

edited 31st Mar '15 11:59:31 PM by storyyeller

I am guessing that sexuality and religion, while not politics per se, are a big influence on politics. This is what it says for me, anyhow.

Considered how gay marriage became a major election issue during the lead-up to the 2004 presidential elections, I'd say so. And then there's the current far-right...

Not an American, but here's mine. I didn't expect to be that left leaning...

The Texas House of Representatives voted overnight to move funding from HIV and other STD research to abstinence education.

April fool?

That or plain fools.