Difference between revisions of "2009-05-31 Why do people persist in voting Republican/woozle/2009"
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
(→Midian's Response: formatting fixes -- no changes to text) |
(→Midian's Response: part one; more later) |
||
| Line 231: | Line 231: | ||
# Provide incentives to save money, as the military does. If an idea works better and saves money, 10% of the savings of the first year goes to the person who provided the idea. | # Provide incentives to save money, as the military does. If an idea works better and saves money, 10% of the savings of the first year goes to the person who provided the idea. | ||
# Implement what works elsewhere. If NH does better with a 75/25% classroom/administration spending split, implement the same. | # Implement what works elsewhere. If NH does better with a 75/25% classroom/administration spending split, implement the same. | ||
| + | ===Woozle Responds - in progress=== | ||
| + | '''Left vs. Right''': I think we agree on this overall; see [[political ideological axis]] for an overview, and [[political ideological axes]] for other ways of mapping political ideologies. | ||
| + | |||
| + | I would add the caveat that there are a few politicians who are honest and are genuinely working for the public good, and from what I can tell there are substantially more of them on the Dem side than the GOP side. ''Both parties'', however, tend to marginalize such people, yes. | ||
| + | |||
| + | [M] ''"I don't support either party, but vote with the politician more willing to cut back central control and return control to the states."'' | ||
| + | |||
| + | Can you give some examples? Abortion rights are the obvious one where we would disagree, but I assume the principle extends beyond that. | ||
| + | |||
| + | [M] ''"Typically, it has been the republicans who are more willing to cut taxes and special projects..."'' | ||
| + | |||
| + | They like to promote themselves as doing this, but as far as I can tell they are the worst about pork projects and irresponsible spending. They howl about the horrors of pork and special interests, then vote themselves more of it and sponsor legislation written by their biggest donors. Got any counterexamples? | ||
| + | |||
| + | [M] ''"Money is power, and the more tax dollars the government takes, the more power our government has to infringe its will on upon us."'' | ||
| + | |||
| + | So you would rather do away with it? What do you see as the proper role of government? How do you propose to protect average individuals from abuse by the powerful? How do you propose that basic non-profit infrastructure (like roads, and safety rules) should be maintained? How do you propose that basic rights will be protected? | ||
| + | |||
| + | [M] (referring to the [http://www.lorencollins.net/tytler.html Tytler quote], "...From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the Public Treasury...") ''"While the attribution of the above quote is under dispute, the contents are not."'' | ||
| + | |||
| + | Actually, they are -- it is demonstrably untrue. I maintain that, as David Brin puts it, | ||
| + | <blockquote><p>...this spurious "quotation" has also been repeatedly proved to be utter and complete drivel. It has taken an unprecedented propaganda campaign to drive wedges into and between components of the middle class, in America. And even so, it is still the bourgeoisie that not only puts up most of the taxes but also relentlessly proves to be the caste the least interested in "largesse" and the most willing to pay for the civilization that they live in.</p> | ||
| + | ... | ||
| + | <p>The "people" after all, have repeatedly been polled as much more willing to invest in new energy than our aristocracy ever was.</p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p>Moreover, there are plenty of counter-examples that suggest the opposite. For example, recall the era of the "Clinton Surplus?" Members of Congress salivated over spending it all on favored programs. Others promoted giant tax cuts, especially for the wealthy classes. Amid all of this, only two groups spoke up for using the surplus instead to retire the national debt. Those two groups were economists and ... the general public.</p> | ||
| + | |||
| + | <p>It was the middle class "populace" who wanted to pay off the debt before getting a tax cut! Their forward-looking citizenship was far greater than the "gimme!" attitude of most of the aristocracy.</p> | ||
| + | </blockquote> | ||
| + | |||
| + | One example I recently came across is the popular demand for welfare cuts, which Bill Clinton [[1996-08-01 Clinton backs Republican welfare cuts|signed into law in 1996]]. This was ostensibly the population of the US demanding that they be given fewer benefits. Perhaps it was selfish and greedy: the middle class didn't want to see poor people benefiting from "our money... our paychecks, from the sweat of our brow", and were quite willing to see those people painted as lazy and undeserving in order to justify that greed. Consequently, they voted to take money away from their own neighbors, communities, and towns, ultimately leading to a wealth gap which is now [[2009-08-05 The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States|worse than at any time prior to 1917]]. Greedy and selfish it may have been, but you can hardly call it "voting largesse"... unless you mean for the wealthy who pocketed the lion's share of the savings. | ||
| + | |||
| + | I put it to you that you need to demonstrate a consistent pattern of ''the citizens'' putting pressure on their legislators to vote for bread and circuses -- rather than the elite corrupt or confused legislators, in the pockets of economically elite interests, selling such spending to their constituents as being "for the common good". | ||
| + | |||
| + | I also put it to you that it is not "the majority" voting themselves "largesse" (Tytler) or "more money and more power" (as you put it), but that aristocratic elite -- a group which has been singularly well-defended by your favorite party. (True, they have not been without help from the Dems too, but most of the Dems do at least pay lip-service to the idea that money shouldn't be able to buy votes; the GOP, however, seems to think that this is somehow representative of the proper functioning of capitalism, and therefore the American Way.) | ||
| + | |||
| + | [M] ''"Second, everything the government does that costs anything is being foisted on society because it comes from OUR money."'' | ||
| + | |||
| + | And you vote for how it is spent, too. Can you say the same for the money you give to, say, insurance companies? | ||
| + | |||
| + | I think your real beef comes from the fact that the federal government has become corrupted by special interests -- or perhaps the corruption is just more obvious now, given that we have access to much more information than we did a few years ago, and also that it seems to be getting worse -- and thus you aren't seeing the economic benefits of a properly-functioning government. | ||
| + | |||
| + | I ''don't'' see that making government "smaller" will solve the problem; that just gives the special interests more power to either corrupt the system further and control you directly (if the government's power to intervene is reduced). | ||
| + | |||
| + | Republicans have made it clear that they support taking away the power of the government to intervene on your behalf, and support giving more power to those special interests which can afford to buy it. Republicans seem to see this as a sound investment with a good return, and that makes it ok. | ||
| + | |||
| + | I ask again: how would ''you'' provide the services government is supposed to provide? | ||
| + | |||
| + | Are we agreed that the following government services are necessary for ''someone'' to provide?: | ||
| + | * defense against foreign invasion | ||
| + | * regulation of business, to prevent abuse of workers and investors and to prevent cheating (allowing unproductive businesses to get ahead via unethical means) | ||
| + | * maintenance of infrastructure such as highways, ports (air and sea) | ||
| + | * protection of basic human rights (overruling cultural isolationism which might hold sway in a given state) | ||
| + | |||
| + | I'll agree that there might be better ways -- more competition-driven ways, even -- to handle some of these things, but the point is that you need to propose and implement a new solution before you do away with the old one. As flawed as it may be, having nothing at all would be disastrous. | ||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | Again: we're not a frontier anymore, where a man can protect his family with a shotgun and a gritty look in his eye; how do you propose protecting the lay citizenry against the powerful? Against disasters? | ||
| + | |||
| + | I put it to you that we are a sufficiently wealthy society that even the poorest and least capable of us should be able to have a comfortable and safe place to sleep, enough to eat, and basic medical care. I'm tired of seeing homeless people begging on the corner -- and I don't care how useless they may be as people; they should be taken care of. '''How do you propose ensuring that this happens?''' | ||
| + | |||
| + | Over the past 15 years or so, more than half of the growth in our economy has gone [[2009-08-05 The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States|to the wealthiest 1% of our population]]. Shouldn't you be agitating that those folks should be paying more, to contribute their fair share back to the society that has done so well by them, rather than arguing that we all need to tighten our belts a bit? | ||
| + | |||
| + | I put it to you that your opinions are being manipulated by that [http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0928-31.htm extraordinarily well-off 1%] -- playing on your sense of virtue -- so that ''they'' can "vote themselves largesse" in the form of undeserved tax cuts, making it necessary ''for you and me to pay more to get the same services we all need''. | ||
| + | |||
| + | [M] ''"Should a state decide gay marriage should be allowed, it should be able to do that."'' | ||
| + | |||
| + | When a state outlaws a basic human activity for certain people, isn't that government interference? | ||
| + | |||
| + | That said, as far as I know there is no initiative to make gay marriage a federal law. There are initiatives to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell", which is a military law and clearly under federal jurisdiction, and federal laws to ensure that gay (and bi, and trans) people are given the same protections as everyone else, which is pretty clearly a power granted by the Bill of Rights. I would argue that if marriage is a right, gay marriage is also a right, and states should not be allowed to ban it any more than they should be allowed to ban a particular religious custom. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Furthermore, the forces of anti-gay seem to have no qualms about interfering across state lines on this issue (e.g. the huge support from various outside interests to deny gay marriage in California and Maine) -- which ''makes this a matter of interstate commerce'', which means that the federal government has the power to regulate it. | ||
| + | |||
| + | [M] ''"The only things the federal government should be doing is providing for the common defense (the military), insure domestic tranquility (interstate commerce, FBI), and promote the general welfare (serious gray area here, covered later)."'' | ||
| + | |||
| + | As I said, ensuring human rights is also something pretty clearly under the federal government's jurisdiction; if you think it shouldn't be, then you should be calling for a repeal of the Bill of Rights. | ||
| + | |||
| + | ''Out of time for now; will respond to other sections later. --[[User:Woozle|Woozle]] 16:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)'' | ||