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TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#52326: Apr 4th 2013 at 10:48:51 AM

Dammit Silasw, how many times do I have to tell you not to discuss the nukes in public??!

It was an honor
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#52327: Apr 4th 2013 at 10:50:16 AM

Can I build you a Metal Gear to help?

Anyone think any third party could handle the issues better than either party?

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#52328: Apr 4th 2013 at 10:54:25 AM

[up][up] None, you're a weak willed liberal like that, you really need to start putting your foot down and imposing authority on those bellow you, have you never heard of doing something for the young for their own good?

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#52329: Apr 4th 2013 at 10:55:28 AM

I'm feeling the Greens, but they have zero voice, no doubt as a result of the Big Two to ensure no one can actually make any changes.

Who was it that said "if voting actually changed anything, they'd make it illegal."?

[up] That's it Mr. Silasw, you're GROUNDED!

edited 4th Apr '13 10:57:07 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#52330: Apr 4th 2013 at 10:55:36 AM

When I see either party follow this common sense approach and not instead go with the current system which locks up black and brown people and makes money for the State, then we can talk.
Well weed is being legalized at a slow rate (but potentially a good sign) at the state level. The Democrats are the ones legalizing it, tho'. It's just not popular/viable enough yet at the national/federal level, and would require a change to the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970.

Though this also requires a push back against the Private Prison industry, who need to fill their prisons to make a quota, and non-violent drug related crime is a great way to do it.

Basically a lot of things that would help require a general public acceptance that "More government interaction/intrusion in your life isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as it's done right." and that "Private enterprise in some places will never make things better."

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#52331: Apr 4th 2013 at 10:59:22 AM

Well, part of the problem is that the government doesn't want to intervene where it's actually needed, and instead pokes it's nose in things that it has no business in.

Hence why the right-wing is like "the Government needs to mind its business."

It was an honor
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#52332: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:20:53 AM

You might be surprised to know, Starship, that polling of American citizens generally finds widespread support for most liberal/Democrat platform positions, such as "taxes should be higher on the rich", "climate change is a serious problem", "everyone should have access to healthcare", "people shouldn't be sent to prison for minor drug offenses", etc.

The problem is that movement conservatism has, over the past 40 years, successfully packaged "Republican versus Democrat" as "small government, religious freedom, and free markets" versus "big government, suppression of religion, and commie-style socialism". These myths persist in the public consciousness because they are simple and because they are self-reinforcing among their voter base. It doesn't hurt that they have a well-funded media empire dedicated to selling it.

You may be surprised to know that, in the days of Eisenhower, there was general agreement between the two parties as to how the government should run things. Social programs were accepted by both sides as necessary to maintain standards of living; taxes were high on the wealthy; income and wealth equality were at levels never before seen and unheard of prior to the New Deal; and these were seen as good things. The major sticking point between red and blue was civil rights, and that's the wedge that eventually helped drive things apart to where they are today.

We can trace the shift in party demographics and the consequent rise of movement conservatism to the Civil Rights Act, which is the point in time when the Southern states broke from the Democrats and went over to the Republicans over issues of racial integration. Distaste for integration was also the reason that FDR failed to incorporate universal health insurance into the New Deal.

Ronald Reagan was a pioneer of the modern brand of conservatism, and he rose to power in California by exploiting fears of race. His "welfare queen" speech is the key example of that — preying on a fictitious stereotype to garner support from white voters upset that blacks were being raised to their level.

I've been reading Krugman's The Conscience of a Liberal, and he makes a compelling case that the roots of the modern fight over social programs, health insurance, drugs, guns, education, taxes, etc. can be found in people who don't want those dirty blacks and Hispanics to get their hands on the same rights as the whites.

Hence why the right-wing is like "the Government needs to mind its business."
The right wing wants government to butt out of providing social programs to poor people, but it is only too happy to get government butting into marriage, abortion, and so forth. Republican governments over the past few decades have consistently presided over economic crises and created more federal debt than Democrats. So the ideas that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility and small government are balls-out lies that people accept because they simply don't know better.

You keep insisting that the two sides must be equally at fault, but there is no example of this type of craziness on the Democrats' side. Sure, there will always be feet getting shoved in political orifices, but the Democrats, as a party, have nowhere near the level of ideological cohesiveness that the Republicans do, and they have barely shifted at all from a right-left perspective since the sixties.

edited 4th Apr '13 11:25:32 AM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#52333: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:21:42 AM

Hence why the right-wing is like "the Government needs to mind its business."
Right wing as in an actual normal Republicans or the reps. :V Because the latter keeps sounding "There shouldn't really be a Federal government doing much of anyhing at all."

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#52334: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:33:01 AM

But 'Teer, right there in your "welfare queens" speech, I see the issue I have with liberals. That's not a fictitious stereotype. It happens. Often. Liberals act like dismissing the truth makes it disapper. It doesn't

Are there whites who wish to suppress everyone who isn't WASP like them? For sure.

But there are those who are saying, "Look, I had help yes, but I still had to work for mine. Is it so much to expect they do the same rather than crying 'racism' all the time." And the liberals just go "You're just an elitist".

I'm sorry 'Teer but you guys do just as much handwaving and outright dismissing of the facts as those other guys. Yes, you present your message of the rich should pay more, climate change is an issue, and folks should have equal rights, quite well. But when folks start pressing for how you tout equal rights but then support the right to kill off unborn human life, it gets the same handwave. (NOTE: I don't mean you Fighteer, I mean the folks at Huffington Post and MSNBC and some of the folks at Free Thought Blogs).

I support all the things you mentioned, and you know that. But you have to stop blaming Republican brainwashing and start accepting some of the liberals flatly unrealistic ideas of how society should work is part of the reason there's so much opposition even with your recent poll success.

It was an honor
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#52335: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:39:01 AM

"Your just an elitist" I thought for sure that was the republican stereotype of democrats. Some of those unrealistic ideas have worked in other countries though, and some have no reason they wouldn't work here.

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#52336: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:42:37 AM

Yes Card, and in other countries people don't play the victim card and rather they use the tools at hand to make a way.

That too can, and has, worked here.

[up] Oh, I see what you did there. Well played Mr. Card. Well played.

edited 4th Apr '13 11:43:19 AM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor
Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#52337: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:48:30 AM

Who's playing the victim card and how can we stop them?

The "all Democrats are college fedora kids or rich people who don't know the common man" is probably the oldest political stereotype still used. Can't you at least use the right stereotype when discussing what us commie's say about republicans?tongue

RadicalTaoist scratching at .8, just hopin' from the #GUniverse Since: Jan, 2001
scratching at .8, just hopin'
#52338: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:50:05 AM

some of the liberals flatly unrealistic ideas of how society should work
Judgments of what constitutes realistic and unrealistic policy require evidence-based reasoning. There are a number of large and powerful agendas whose profitable stake in the status quo requires the denial of evidence. They have one party in their pocket and the other scared shitless.
When I see either party follow this common sense approach and not instead go with the current system which locks up black and brown people and makes money for the State, then we can talk.

No one will be saying anything for a while bro.

edited 4th Apr '13 11:50:37 AM by RadicalTaoist

Share it so that people can get into this conversation, 'cause we're not the only ones who think like this.
TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#52339: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:52:42 AM

You got me there.

And some people really do play the victim card. This was what Dr. Ben Carson was talking about when Toure went after him, cowardly shill he is.

Fighteer had a kickass analogy about the plucky girl who invents The Next Big Thing in her basement, but can't because she's struggling to pay doctor bills, or worried about getting raped in her dilapidated neighborhood.

As a proud libertarian/capitalist, of course, we should siphon money toward doing things that'll give her a chance to become the next great American success story.

But right-wingers don't want to hear that she needs help, and left-wingers don't want to hear that she can take even small steps to better her situation.

Dammit, can folks just shut the fuck up and stop sniping each other long enough to figure it all out?? (Yes, I know I'm wishing)

It was an honor
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#52340: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:53:53 AM

But 'Teer, right there in your "welfare queens" speech, I see the issue I have with liberals. That's not a fictitious stereotype. It happens. Often. Liberals act like dismissing the truth makes it disapper. It doesn't
How often? Proof? How are we defining "Welfare Queen" here by your standards? 'cuz I'm pretty sure there isn't some secret underground black market of poor single mothers buying Rolls Royces (exaggeration, yes.), or are you referring to people "Too lazy to get work"?

left-wingers don't want to hear that she can take even small steps to better her situation.
Personally speaking, from experience, most of the time, to better situations requires more money, Starship. And if Ms. Plucky is Blue Collar~Lower Middle Class in terms of income, she's generally shit out of luck acquiring the necessary capital to extensively better herself, hence government aid.

And the whole "acquire more capital thing" is not helped by the skyrocketing income inequality in America.

edited 4th Apr '13 12:01:51 PM by PotatoesRock

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#52341: Apr 4th 2013 at 11:59:25 AM

Numbers on how welfare is not being used is a bit difficult to gather Potatoes, partly because of the left-wing bias in the media.

What is telling is the numbers of white women in college and grad school versus black men. And what's also telling is the numbers of black men in college who come from already affluent neighborhoods rather than the ghettos where that education is needed.

Also telling is how occassionally free literacy, college prep, and other such programs go unused and wind up shutting down in said neighborhoods.

It was an honor
DrTentacles Cephalopod Lothario from Land of the Deep Ones Since: Jul, 2012 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
Cephalopod Lothario
#52343: Apr 4th 2013 at 12:02:58 PM

What left wing bias?

I expected a little better of you, Starship. You're pitching the canned lines kinda hard.

Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#52344: Apr 4th 2013 at 12:04:32 PM

We need more evidence of left-wing bias though. Also I'd appreciate it if we had a popular conservative news channel that didn't think anything that opposes their point of view is "left wing bias".

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#52345: Apr 4th 2013 at 12:06:18 PM

Yeah, proof for liberal bias would be nice.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#52346: Apr 4th 2013 at 12:07:38 PM

Okay, perhaps left wing bias, was a bit strong, but I'd hope we can get past that to the bigger point I'm making.

It was an honor
PotatoesRock Since: Oct, 2012
#52347: Apr 4th 2013 at 12:08:08 PM

What is telling is the numbers of white women in college and grad school versus black men. And what's also telling is the numbers of black men in college who come from already affluent neighborhoods rather than the ghettos where that education is needed.
That strikes me as being a cultural meme issue with lower class Blacks in blighted communities. Which I think has a variety of reasons.

Dammit, can folks just shut the fuck up and stop sniping each other long enough to figure it all out?? (Yes, I know I'm wishing)
Drag back the Republicans to Right of center where they belong and we can talk.

Wildcard Since: Jun, 2012
#52348: Apr 4th 2013 at 12:08:39 PM

Okay then.

Also telling is how occassionally free literacy, college prep, and other such programs go unused and wind up shutting down in said neighborhoods.

Would they go over better in the ghettos?

TheStarshipMaxima NCC - 1701 Since: Jun, 2009
NCC - 1701
#52349: Apr 4th 2013 at 12:09:18 PM

[up][up]I'd have better luck getting Democrats to stop trying to get taxpayers to foot the bill for abortions.

edited 4th Apr '13 12:09:34 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

It was an honor
DeviantBraeburn Wandering Jew from Dysfunctional California Since: Aug, 2012
Wandering Jew
#52350: Apr 4th 2013 at 12:09:29 PM

Reagan would have backed gay marriage, daughter says

Everything is Possible. But some things are more Probable than others. JEBAGEDDON 2016

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