The (Post-Recession/Obama) Non-Batshit Politics Thread of 2015 & Beyond

[Mort Divine]

Is it really worse through?

They get paid an absolute pittance compared to the real value of their work, and you are completely deluded if you think the average working class individual can just "leave at any time" to find another opportunity.

They get stuck in dead end jobs because they have no choice but to work, else they will starve, lose their home, etc. They don't have the luxury of choice.

 

[arg]

i'm not rich i work hard for my money. and when the government takes it and gives it to the undeserving, i get pissed.

what use are the poor anyway? giving them free handouts is like nurturing a festering disease. let them fend for themselves and eventually they will die off and society will be all the better.

Not necessarily punishment. When poor, unworking, and uneducated families produce poor, unworking, and uneducated babies at a higher rate than the rest of the population, they're taking space that could be occupied by more productive members of society. If we made sure that those people had easy access to birth control and abortion, and as long as there were no incentives in place rewarding reproduction, the problem would fix itself. I think removing the stigma of suicide and even supporting a culture of self-deprecation where those unable to live happy and/or net-productive lives would be a beautifully efficient system.

yes

 

[Mort Divine]

I shouldn't be surprised, but god this place is infested with some absolute scum.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

 

[Mort Divine]

You being the king of it all.

 

[Mort Divine]

It's almost like a good 1/3 of this place has zero capacity for empathy.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

We love you too man.

 

[Dak]

They get paid an absolute pittance compared to the real value of their work, and you are completely deluded if you think the average working class individual can just "leave at any time" to find another opportunity.

I'm interested in this "real" value you speak of.

 

[Manic Ferocity]

Is it really worse through?

They get paid an absolute pittance compared to the real value of their work, and you are completely deluded if you think the average working class individual can just "leave at any time" to find another opportunity.

They get stuck in dead end jobs because they have no choice but to work, else they will starve, lose their home, etc. They don't have the luxury of choice.

It is worse because how much power the state has affects everyone.

So what the bullying businesses are doing is telling their employees they cannot leave by threat of force? What is keeping them from applying elsewhere? You are making things up about capitalism and how it works.

Businesses do not have any obligation to pay their employees anything other than what they see fit. It is their money and their property. Don't like it? Don't work there. If you want to hurt a business you don't like, that is the most practical and moral way of going about it.

 

[viewerfromnihil]

I'm a left-leaning moderate who considers the deficit to be the most important issue concerning politics.

It's disappointing that the free-market hocus pokus about the ability of all its participants to move freely throughout the economy if they are dissatisfied with their current state is still fervently believed in. Granted, the ability may be present for many, but to varying degrees. It is very difficult, for example, to escape from a broken and economically languid community without a helping hand from outside of the community, be it from family or government. To blame problems of poverty on laziness is a short-sighted and incorrect conclusion that functions only to tickle the ego of the speaker.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The problem with state regulated education and healthcare is that the quality of both suffers dramatically from lowered incentive. The private sector is perfectly capable of handling this and businesses subsequently benefit as a result of higher quality. It is not unreasonable to expect parents to take it upon themselves to put their kids through school and a free market can provide opportunities for education at a lower cost. The same economic principles apply to healthcare.

The class system is a myth surrounding an arbitrary concept like inequality. There's nothing demonstrably wrong with wealth and it's immoral to curve or limit the amount of revenue a business can make. Wealth does not come freely.

I'm going to go ahead and assume your last paragraph is sarcasm.

Huge libertarian right here, if it wasn't already obvious.

There are plenty of public school systems more efficient than ours (you're American right?). Unless you're suggesting that children shouldn't be forced to gain a primary education, there's usually not much difference in terms of efficiency between private and public sectors when purchase of the same product is mandated. As with private health insurance, if EVERYONE is forced to buy it, it effectively subsidizes businesses in that industry and costs remain high.

Is it really worse through?

They get paid an absolute pittance compared to the real value of their work, and you are completely deluded if you think the average working class individual can just "leave at any time" to find another opportunity.

They get stuck in dead end jobs because they have no choice but to work, else they will starve, lose their home, etc. They don't have the luxury of choice.

The "real" value is labor is less as the third world population continues to grow and every new advancement in automation reduces our demand for their services. The issue is 1) that eugenics is considered dirty and people aren't willing to admit that population control is necessary to increase the world's standard of living and 2) that many first-world consumers have very hedonistic/materialistic ideals defining their standard of living.

 

[Dak]

There are plenty of public school systems more efficient than ours (you're American right?). Unless you're suggesting that children shouldn't be forced to gain a primary education, there's usually not much difference in terms of efficiency between private and public sectors when purchase of the same product is mandated. As with private health insurance, if EVERYONE is forced to buy it, it effectively subsidizes businesses in that industry and costs remain high.

HBB is on target here, and I'm completely against compulsory education.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Including even a kind of homeschooling/local collective education? I think parents raising uneducated children is one of the most damaging things you could do to them.

 

[Krigloch the Furious]

I was going to make an actual post, but damn do I not care at all.

 

[Draehl]

Wow, we're really pushing the boundaries on both sides here...

I'll just say that the combination of corruption in government and ceding power to a faceless and truly unfeeling, unwavering machine that is the state is far more worrying than any specific issue the left or the right would like to solve via government. I'd be happy to go to a simple tax code, or even sales tax or whatever it may be at a higher tax rate. Remove all loopholes for the rich so they pay their share. Then every year pay out an equal amount to every citizen. In turn- eliminate all these government services, programs, loopholes, abuses, kickbacks, <insert term here> and let everyone spend their dollars in the free market as they see fit.

It will never happen because too many profit off this machine. The corruption and size of the monstrosity is far more problematic. The sad thing is many, and probably many here support government for the sake of government and don't recognize the inherent evil of it. Even if offered a far more progressive system with smaller government they would oppose it because they simply want people to be controlled.

 

[Mort Divine]

Eventually a stateless society is desirable, but I don't think anyone here agrees on the path to take in getting there nor the ideals that would need to be held by such a place.

 

[Manic Ferocity]

I'm a left-leaning moderate who considers the deficit to be the most important issue concerning politics.

It's disappointing that the free-market hocus pokus about the ability of all its participants to move freely throughout the economy if they are dissatisfied with their current state is still fervently believed in. Granted, the ability may be present for many, but to varying degrees. It is very difficult, for example, to escape from a broken and economically languid community without a helping hand from outside of the community, be it from family or government. To blame problems of poverty on laziness is a short-sighted and incorrect conclusion that functions only to tickle the ego of the speaker.

I think it's even more insulting to claim that these people are ignorant and therefore stuck in rough neighborhoods. That's simply not true and it's extremely counterintuitive to be excusing gang violence simply because they were born into the lifestyle.

Yes, some could use a helping hand from outside of the community and plenty of people are willing to do that voluntarily. Welfare is easily abused and does not solve this problem in the end. It prolongs it.

 

[Mort Divine]

Also will elaborate more when I am home from work

 

[Dak]

Including even a kind of homeschooling/local collective education? I think parents raising uneducated children is one of the most damaging things you could do to them.

I didn't say I was against education. I said I was against compulsory education, or more accurately - compulsory schooling. To make something compulsory you have to define what it is that one must do and when. This one size fits all approach will and does necessarily fail to properly define "Education", creates many mismatches between expectations and individual ability/progress, and subsidizes a system that subsequently poorly educates. Compulsory schooling sacrifices learning for conformity, education for exploitation.

Raising uneducated kids is damaging, and yet universal mandatory schooling is yielding a lot of kids that can't even use their native language to any professional degree in written form even at times after graduating with a college degree.

 

[Draehl]

Don't really care either way public vs. private. Just tired of seeing this level of indoctrination. The left and the right both have their own versions of it and both are shitty. Right now, in Georgia at least its the left's revisionist history. America is bad, mkay.