Political Red Pill Thread: wtf, 'Murrica

I’d love to hear the widely accessible source of news that you subscribe to.

The only Republican that ran in the primary that could hold a candle to Hilary in foreign policy was Marco Rubio. Cruz has some loony FP views, as evidenced by the loony advisors he surrounded himself with.

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Listen, the comment was in regards to the fact that Hilary is a shitty debater and Cruz is a good one. Maybe in your your mind she could match him with her foreign policy of regime change and arming radical islamists, but other than that she wouldn’t stand a chance.

Which is why, given multiple opportunities to meet Trump on the debate stage, Clinton was driven out of the race, and then Cruz decimated Trump’s bid for the presidency. Wait –

I’m not talking about what I think about it as a person. I’m talking about my ability to see that other people think differently because they do not share my experiences. Personally, I’m pro-life in most situations. I used it as an example because it’s one where I can be more libertarian in terms of public policy, since so many good people are so deeply divided on it.

at Bitches! I’m going to assume that’s a gender-neutral expression directed at all the people on the thread. Smiley.

Cute. But you can’t act like what Trump and Hillary do is debate. It’s pandering, speaking in cliche, and quips. It keeps the seals clapping, but does none of us any good. (Trump is even worse at debate than Hillary btw.)

Yeah, he’s certainly a polished debater. Hilary isn’t exactly inexperienced, however. That isn’t to imply that she can match how dynamic Cruz can come across. It’s a moot point. Cruz may have the ability to sugar coat shit, but it’s shit nonetheless. He views don’t reflect the world that is, but rather the world as he imagines it ought to be. He hardly embodies the best his party has to offer, especially considering how strong the GOP’S national security community is. You stated facts are on his side. They aren’t.

To be a good debater is to win debates under the conditions that obtain in reality. In some idealized world of long and detailed policy battles, the best debaters would be the Congressional staffers who actually write and understand complex legislation. In this world, debates require a baseline command of policy and a baseline projection of presidentiality.

Clinton is the only one among the three who manages to satisfy both sets of criteria. Trump, of course, manages neither, which is why he lost the three general election debates by a wider margin than any candidate in recent memory. Cruz is an odd case: a smart guy who is enough of a moonbat that his smartness is blunted…who can’t speak to a room full of people without making half of them feel like they need to take a shower (this last part isn’t fair, but then neither is the real world). The result is not a terribly effective debate style, as evidenced by Cruz’s inability, over the course of a comically large number of debates, to materially damage the candidacy of the stupidest presidential contender in American history. (Although to be fair he was up against something even more formidable: the emotional attachment of a plurality of Republican voters to the white identity politics they would go on to choose over reason, probity, and electoral victory.)

smh_23 wrote
the emotional attachment of a plurality of Republican voters to the white identity politics they would go on to choose over reason, probity, and electoral victory.)

Buyers buy on emotion rather than facts. Oldest lesson in the How to sell curriculum.

Forget Trump for 5 seconds.
Logically Hillary is a pitiful product - failed attorney, failed Congressman, failed SOS. And all wrapped in a web of corruption, pathological lying, and perhaps psychopathy. Top this with the well founded suspicion of having a neurological disorder.

Yet thousands and thousands and thousands are spending their every waking effort to sell this lousy offering as the Taj Mahal, when upon the slightest inspection, all we get is a mud and corrugated hut in Haiti (no pun intended).

That sizzle you hear and smell will quickly fade,once one realizes that it isn’t a 2" Porterhouse on the grill - just the neighbor’s cat that climbed into the engine bay.

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I agree that entitlements are a huge problem (have brought it up many times) and neither candidate is addressing the problem. However, I view that as a fiscal position, not a social one.

I know successful families large and small that are socially liberal, I’m not really sure how social conservatism = large successful family and if you’re not social conservative you won’t be a successful family. Or am I misunderstanding your point?

My question was how social conservatism leads to small governemnt. I am again missing your correlation of social conservatism and family success. Are you talking in generalizations or specific policies?

Go to impoverished neighborhoods. Knock on the doors and ask for the father of the house.

How do you touch entitlements (actually cut them), when the elderly didn’t even have replacement level quantity of offspring? Who is going to take care of them? What multiples of children and grandchildren will pool their own resources together to care for their retired and ailing elderly after “Small Government” Republicans eviscerate entitlements. What large network (to share the burden and load) of aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers, and grandparents are there to send the family’s children to college after “Small Government” Republicans eviscerate Financial Aid? What large family network (to better share the load) is there to take over financing the healthcare of its members, including its children (whatever few they have) after “Small Government” Republicans have their way?

Why do you think neither Candidate is addressing the entitlement issue? Because there is no issue according to the people. Though debt forgiveness for students, truly free college educations, and universal single-payer will increasingly become more popular. Why do you think even tea party members, when polled, don’t want their social security touched? Cutting entitlements is a political loser until (if it even can) the culture changes. And the culture must change in a way so that people will accept considerably more personal responsibility and consequence, up to and including facing illness, old age, and even death completely (or at least much closer to it) within the private sphere. And you aren’t convincing unanchored, highly individualistic people to do that, because they don’t have the civil structures to help them shoulder the burden.

That fiscally progressive society we’ve moved/continue to move into? It hasn’t happened in a social vacuum. You won’t ever get “Fiscal Conservatism” because you no longer have the kind of society that is willing and able to shoulder their burdens.

I always get a kick out of “if only we dump the social conservatives and run fiscal conservatives!” As if the US populace is clamoring for fiscal conservatism…It’s not. It’s lurching towards fully subsidized tuitions and “free” healthcare in addition to present, untouchable, entitlements.

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I’m not sure what you mean. I agree with you…

A libertarian position (socially liberal and fiscally conservative) goes after entitlements. I don’t see entitlements as a social issue, so when you say that Republicans need to be socially conservative, I don’t see how that involves entitlements.

I’m trying to understand your point. When you are saying the country needs to be more socially conservative, you mean we need to focus more on the fiscal growth of government and solve the entitlement problem?

I’m not saying fatherless houses do better. I agree that they don’t, but I’m trying to understand the social conservative position you’re talking about. When I take a socially liberal position, I didn’t know I was taking the position of fatherless households. I know it is possibly to have a father and be socially liberal, so maybe you are pointing to a policy that leads to the outcome you are discussing.

Let me be clear, I’m not trying to argue your points, I’m just trying to understand how you believe social conservatism leads to better fiscal outcomes. From what you’ve mentioned (entitlements and fatherless families), one I see as a fiscal position and the other is not a position that either side is arguing for.

I think the nature of our fiscal problems are going to be increasingly hard to ignore, and they will become important becaus we will have no choice but to address them. I agree with you that the fiscally liberal direction we’re going in is leading us into a precarious situation, but I don’t see what that has to do with the social positions.

[quote=“Drew1411, post:154, topic:222723, full:true”]

A libertarian position (socially liberal and fiscally conservative) goes after entitlements. I don’t see entitlements as a social issue…[/quote] How could entitlements not intersect with the social? They are used and paid for by people. The same people who will vote to cut them, leave them alone, or to expand them. [quote]…so when you say that Republicans need to be socially conservative, I don’t see how that involves entitlements.[/quote]

There are actual people, real human beings with all their weaknesses and fears, who will have to volunteer to go with significantly less (perhaps even none) support from the nanny state. If you have any hope for them to do such a thing, to actually vote for this, they will need those old institutions (like marriage, family, Church, etc.) to be deep and strong in order to help shoulder the additional burden they will now have to carry in the absence of the nanny state. The below replacement fertility generation is never going to let you touch entitlements. Who the heck is going to fund their old age? Retirement, healthcare, etc.?

NO! How are you going to focus on the fiscal growth of government when your population’s civil institutions are eroded? That population is never going to vote for the diminishment of Nanny (Mommy, Daddy, Child) state

Then you already concede that the social arrangements and institutions the people hold sacred are important in how they will want/need to be governed. Missing fathers means more money spent on welfare, Medicaid, education, and policing due to increased criminality.

Just as the missing children–because they never had any, or at least too few–won’t be there to shoulder the cost of Old man Gus next door through his doddering years. So the Nanny (or, in this case, Child) state will.

Of course…Much like having fiscally conservative parents doesn’t absolutely mean one will turn out fiscally conservative as an adult. But having a father in the house will more likely lead to yourself being there for your own children. Because you grew up seeing it as a duty and obligation.

And I fail to see how folks talk about entitlements as if only numbers were involved. And as if it was as simple as saying “here’s the numbers folks, see?” There’s a society to be convinced to do without (or at least with considerably less) security from the nanny state. And to be convinced, they will need to feel confident in their social/civil institutions. Like, the intact extended family that will help shoulder the burden. Which means elevating the intact extended family up on a pedestal. Which means not turning marriage into simply “a right of individual expression,” as we’ve now done.

Very true. And that’s why the people will more and more blame things like us not having universal single-payer health-care and for not taxing the wealthy to the extent of those Europe folks.

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Strictly Fox News. I only listen to Sean Hannity… Disclaimer: Sarcasm was intended here.
I just had to call out shenanigans on NPR being balanced. Maybe it’s because of where I live(Minnesota) and someone pointed out it can differ from place to place but I have listened to plenty of NPR and MPR to come to the conclusion they lean pretty left.

Anyways, I research various sites and get different perspectives. Mostly why I enjoy this place.

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Hey, to each their own.

I’m starting to feel like a total sucker for paying for my kid’s college. We plan to get our kids through their first four years without debt. Now I’m thinking that I should just have them take out tons of loans and wait for the government to forgive them. Seriously. I’m feeling pretty stupid about now. Hey, I could remodel the house with those college funds! And buy a new Suburban! wink.

Sloth, you’ve made some great but depressing points. All we can hope to do is get on the offensive in terms of reform of these programs. Try to look at outcomes, and unintended consequences, and hope for more moderate heads from both sides.

Conservatives are always on the defensive position. It’s not very sexy. “Hey, everybody! I have a great new idea of what government can do to make your life awesome!!” Then the fiscally-minded person gets the unpopular position of trying to reel it in, saying, “No! Stop! Wait!” It’s like conservatism gets to be the equivalent of Eeyore. Not very sexy.

I don’t see our society embracing any of this anytime soon. We’re moving in a secular direction on every front. There’s been NO secular structure in history that has been able to replace the socialization and glue of family and religion for an extended period of time. None. But let’s try it! We’re so evolved now, I’m sure it will work!! Haha. This isn’t opinion. It’s science. These secular societies fail on a basic evolutionary level of not being able to replace themselves. Government programs continue to grow like cancer. When their original purpose has been met, they reinvent themselves as solvers of a new perceived problem.

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I don’t see how same-sex marriage (one specific social issue) has anything to do with entitlements.

Ok, so are you saying that having a family is a social conservative position and not having a family is socially liberal? When I say I’m socially liberal, I’m not arguing for fatherless children and single moms, is that how you interpret it?

I generally don’t understand the connection you’re making to social conservatism = great family, because that opposite side would be that socially liberal means social arrangements mean nothing. For example, the socially liberal position of same-sex marriage absolutely understands the arrangement of marriage, and wants that ability to be available for couples who are attracted to the same sex.

You keep bringing this up but I don’t see how it correlates to a conservative/liberal position.

I’m not saying we need to ignore people or society, I agree with you. What I don’t see is that if somebody is LGBT friendly, non-church going, pro-choice that they are against entitlement reform. To me, I don’t see the connection in logic, and when you bring up fatherless families I don’t see how that applies to this situation.

Edit: also if the church is LGBT friendly, does that make it so it would no longer serve in the same social support structure nature?

I guess what I’m getting at is I don’t understand how you don’t believe a libertarian position (socially liberal and fiscally conservative) is possible. I generally don’t understand your position. I’m not trying to argue the point, just trying to understand your perspective.

See, Conservatism isn’t an individualistic ideology. It depends on belief in duty and obligation in the civil society in order to unburden the state as much as possible. An extremely difficult sale. And I admit, perhaps no longer possible to sale. But sale it we must if there is any hope to ever shrink the Nanny state to any noteworthy degree.

Progressivism is an ideology that says “we can help you be an individual.” Putting food on the table, needing shelter, needing health-care those aren’t the examples of individualism we think of. They’re something we all have need of. It’s once those things are provided, that we get to be individual snow-flakes. And the left increasingly offers security for those things, from cradle to grave. A very easy sale. So you’ll go to your tax-payer funded college declaring you’re some new pronoun for some new gender you saw on google.

Libertarians offer the freedom to starve. To sit in any empty house eating the food you brought instead of your prescriptions. The freedom to not have your fatherless children go without medical care and education. The freedom in your frail old age to be completely unattended to. An impossible sale.

I view that as fiscally liberal.

Maybe in an extreme state. In a more balanced view I think you can have some safety nets (like homeless shelters) while still encouraging individualism.

@ big government entitlements and gay marriage.
This is one reason I want to see the Republican Party become more socially liberal. These issues make people think, “Hey, I support gay marriage and am pro-choice so I MUST ally myself with the a big government tax and spend party.” We need to walk that back. It’s a loosing position.

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