the dynamite politics thread

hyena: Word. I had such an experience today, though I was the tolerant leftist and my/our opponent was the narrowminded neoliberal one. There were absolutely no bad sides with privatizing the public sector.
And, which is a little more debatable, he stated that it was a completely fair starting-point in life if some where born with money and others not. *sigh*
 
well, this brings back the point that rahvin made on the q&a thread: we are subjected to non-economic unfairness day in and day out, and nobody even thinks of rebelling because it wouldn't make any sense. i know that master moderator didn't mean it as a political point, but i take the responsibility of turning it into one. in my opinion, the unavoidable inequality of skills at birth should tell us something about the fact that any resulting skewness in income distributions is just a part of life... not to mention that if i work hard all my life and my kids get a head start because of this there's no way of removing inequality without destroying something that i built. but i'm not calling you an idiot if you don't agree (we'll sort it out at the commission eventually), and yes, there's plenty of conservatives who are intolerant as well, although in italy at the moment it's cooler to be an intolerant socialist than an intolerant neocon.
 
hyena said:
well, this brings back the point that rahvin made on the q&a thread: we are subjected to non-economic unfairness day in and day out, and nobody even thinks of rebelling because it wouldn't make any sense. i know that master moderator didn't mean it as a political point, but i take the responsibility of turning it into one. in my opinion, the unavoidable inequality of skills at birth should tell us something about the fact that any resulting skewness in income distributions is just a part of life... not to mention that if i work hard all my life and my kids get a head start because of this there's no way of removing inequality without destroying something that i built.
Click to expand...
But what about my answer to rahvin there?

Of course skills and ambition do and should play a role in determining one's income, and as a result of course there will be income inequality. But what if one's skills are determined, for just one example, not by how much effort he was willing to put forth in school but by the quality of the teachers and programs his school offered? And what if that inequality in resources followed clear patterns of racial and economic prejudice on the part of the government?

I speak from an American standpoint of course, and I only know snippets of the Italian political climate from rahvin, but I can't imagine that Italy has absolute equality of opportunity. The U.S. certainly doesn't.

Then second, even if you don't think equality of opportunity should be a goal, what about the social ills that arise from not just poverty but the extra ills from having a wide gap between the top and bottom income groups? Poverty produces violence, crime, etc, but that income gap also affects social cohesion, innovation, patriotism -- qualities I think you value, right? Again, maybe in Italy the cost of alleviating these problems doesn't outweigh the cost (both social and monetary) of the problems themselves, but in the U.S. I would beg to differ.
 
nah, i'm all in favor of equal opportunity. i just don't like the concept of the state having to provide it.

now tell me i'm an idiot (been there all day so i shouldn't be affected anymore), but i really find the whole concept of compassionate conservatism very appealing. people should make their own decisions and good will come out of it. in the case of schooling, for example, i'd like to see a privately run school system where good schools further invest in their reputation by way of offering scholarships to deserving but poor kids: so if you're rich and you want to go to the good school you pay your fees and implicitly decide to subsidize the poorer students, if you're an alumnus who succeeded in the world and want to contribute to the school prestige you set up your own scholarship, and if you're a school manager you go knocking on doors (companies, public institutions, churches, whatever) and ask for money for these scholarships. this is what choice is about: letting individuals have power over the transfers they make, so that they can decide to help others if they want, and mind their own business if they don't.

as for poverty, of course you are right. i agree on the fact that the state should let people out of deprivation, for the reason you cite (although i would resort to government only if private charities fail, and i redirect you to any good republican website for the well-known argument about involvement and dedication versus obligation). but poverty and inequality are two different problems altogether - read the works of martin feldstein for a persuasive explanation, he won the nobel prize while i never did so probably he's more to the point than i could ever be.

now, the typical point that is made against the whole small-government stand is: people are evil, so they won't really provide for others unless forced. i don't agree, and i could expound for pages on this, but i need to go to bed so i'll just say that i recognize that this point is based ethically, so it's pre-analytical and you sort of either believe it or not (but no, you're not stupid if you don't).
 
i offer no comment on the neutrality...

... but it's well done. some of the movies are pretty funny.
 
Observations on the Internet(s) from various countries of the world:

America: *connects to georgewbush.com* "Ahaha, what a prick", "He's no flip-flopper"
Finland: "'Access denied'? W.T.F?"
A bit like me, the Brits, Frenchies, Norwegians, Austrians and Taiwanese are probably thinking the same, if among others I don't know.

What exactly do they think they will gain with this kind of thing? I'm just a bit disillusioned.
 
you don't need to be a republican or a statistician or both to understand that the "what if the world could vote" site is totally unbelievable. the figures are based on the fact that people visit the site and click on their preference - first of all, there might be a selection bias in the sample. for example, if the site has been highly publicized on left-leaning sites and mailing lists and it's not been linked on conservative forums it's easy to imagine the effect. take this very forum: i think that about 80% of the regulars would vote for kerry. but i am positive that if i post the link at rumsfeldfan@yahoogroups the outcome is going to be extremely different. secondly,
there's a friendly request not to vote twice or more times, but it's not impossible to do so as it would be, say, in one of the UM polls. so if i want to push my candidate up all i have to do is write a code snippet that votes 300000 times for him and he's going to be in the lead.
 
i pretty much agree. moreover, i think it's a more or less acknowledged fact that it's mostly those who feel things are not going well that go through the trouble of voting on line and all. not to say that there's anything wrong with that, but it just makes sense that a sensation of discomfort is more effective in making people take any kind of action.
 
Oh, of course. I, however, didn't realize one could vote multiple times. I still want to see what happens when they 'announce' the winner before the election, as was said they would do. Just to see the reaction here and how the media spins it.

~kov.
 
Kovenant84 said:
Oh, of course. I, however, didn't realize one could vote multiple times.
Click to expand...
i don't think there's any effective way as of now to prevent multiple voting as long as it comes - or as long as it appears to come - from different ip's. but some knowledgeable person could prove me wrong, and it'd be interesting to read how it works.
 
rahvin said:
i don't think there's any effective way as of now to prevent multiple voting as long as it comes - or as long as it appears to come - from different ip's. but some knowledgeable person could prove me wrong, and it'd be interesting to read how it works.
Click to expand...
Look, in the sky! It's the Salmy signal!

~kov. :p
 
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