[quote=“politbureau”][quote=“suiyuan31”]That’s all fine and dandy in theory, but in practice, might it be that what you call Sociocrats are fighting for the very opposite of what you are arguing? There would be no reason to fight to repeal laws that single out specific groups if those laws had never been passed in the first place. Sociocrats, as you define them, would be the same people who fought for women’s suffrage, desegregation, and the ending of DADT. Indeed, I find it hard to hide my disdain for an American public that 40 years ago was dead set against desegregation of schools.
The argument that there are “activist judges” out trying to legislate from the bench is a tired one. This is the same argument, to the letter, people were using during Brown v Board of Education. The people in favor of that ruling were also said to be having a disdain for the will of the people. Do you really want to use the argument of George Wallace?
If there were not so many bigoted laws, there would be no “Sociocrats.”
Edit: And if the will of the people is so important for DADT, then I don’t understand your point in this context. The last poll done shows that more than 60% of say DADT is discriminatory. Every poll I have seen over the last two years shows an overwhelming majority think it should be overturned (one poll shows even 66% of self-identified conservatives). If you think the military personnel are more important, only 37% of those surveyed in 2006 said they thought gay people should be banned from open service. So who are the politicians ignoring the people?[/quote]
If the majority of American people (myself included) want DADT repealed and “democrats” failed to do so then my point is maybe it’s because they failed to govern from the center by larding up their legislation with a left-wing agenda and attempting to railroad it through Congress without sufficient debate.
Question to you. Do you think there’s a significant left wing in Congress or only a center and right wing?[/quote]
Can you give some examples of the left wing agenda? As a Canadian, well aware that even our genuine socialists are pretty tame by world standards, I am curious what the nervous-nellie rightist voter in America thinks is a left wing agenda.
[quote=“Mucha Man”][quote=“politbureau”][quote=“suiyuan31”]That’s all fine and dandy in theory, but in practice, might it be that what you call Sociocrats are fighting for the very opposite of what you are arguing? There would be no reason to fight to repeal laws that single out specific groups if those laws had never been passed in the first place. Sociocrats, as you define them, would be the same people who fought for women’s suffrage, desegregation, and the ending of DADT. Indeed, I find it hard to hide my disdain for an American public that 40 years ago was dead set against desegregation of schools.
The argument that there are “activist judges” out trying to legislate from the bench is a tired one. This is the same argument, to the letter, people were using during Brown v Board of Education. The people in favor of that ruling were also said to be having a disdain for the will of the people. Do you really want to use the argument of George Wallace?
If there were not so many bigoted laws, there would be no “Sociocrats.”
Edit: And if the will of the people is so important for DADT, then I don’t understand your point in this context. The last poll done shows that more than 60% of say DADT is discriminatory. Every poll I have seen over the last two years shows an overwhelming majority think it should be overturned (one poll shows even 66% of self-identified conservatives). If you think the military personnel are more important, only 37% of those surveyed in 2006 said they thought gay people should be banned from open service. So who are the politicians ignoring the people?[/quote]
If the majority of American people (myself included) want DADT repealed and “democrats” failed to do so then my point is maybe it’s because they failed to govern from the center by larding up their legislation with a left-wing agenda and attempting to railroad it through Congress without sufficient debate.
Question to you. Do you think there’s a significant left wing in Congress or only a center and right wing?[/quote]
Can you give some examples of the left wing agenda? As a Canadian, well aware that even our genuine socialists are pretty tame by world standards, I am curious what the nervous-nellie rightist voter in America thinks is a left wing agenda.[/quote]
I’ll be happy to answer that once my day-old question as to whether there’s even a left wing in Congress or not is answered.
No one is answering this question because it’s irrelevant, especially in the context of this debate. How is deciding who is left wing and who is right wing going to solve the problem? From my viewpoint, we have a hateful law (initiated by a democratic president) and people across the political spectrum playing politics with it.
I don’t like Rush Limbaugh, not because he is right wing, but because he is a hateful populist and a hypocrite (who wants drug addicts to spend life in prison, unless that drug addict is Limbaugh himself). I don’t like Harry Reid because (in this case) he was playing politics with this bill and for some reason thought that getting the Republicans to vote against this would energize his base. I don’t know why it is so important for you to have me or anyone else label this kind of stupid behavior that went against the wishes of people in his own party as left of center or center.
I would rather look at individual actions of the people involved, regardless of what party they claim to be part of, than label them with rather meaningless adjectives that don’t really serve to solve the problem. You say that most people feel democrats govern from left of center, and that’s part of the problem-it’s easy to just place a person or group of people into a box. People are too simple minded and would rather just put things into the context you are trying so hard to get us all to play along with. Why not just discuss what actually happened as opposed to making it all simple for simple-minded people?
The will of the people means nothing when such will includes the suppression of rights. Human rights are not subject to vote. Think Loving v. Virginia: the will of the people was overwhelmingly against it, but it was the right thing to do.
I take issue with your term “sociocrats” because “socio” implies “socialist”, an utterly meaningless scare word used over and over by those on the right.
There is a sizeable left wing in Congress; it’s just outsized by those on the right and center-right.
The will of the people means nothing when such will includes the suppression of rights. Human rights are not subject to vote. Think Loving v. Virginia: the will of the people was overwhelmingly against it, but it was the right thing to do.
I take issue with your term “sociocrats” because “socio” implies “socialist”, an utterly meaningless scare word used over and over by those on the right.
There is a sizeable left wing in Congress; it’s just outsized by those on the right and center-right.[/quote]
Which U.S. senators do you consider left wing? I need some knowledgeable help answering Mucha Man’s question as to what their agenda is.
Politbureau: You are asking questions just so you can argue. Do you actually have anything meaningful to add here? Or are you just intent on asking meaningless questions so that you can argue with people on the answers they give? This is why I didn’t answer you-it’s obvious you have another agenda here. If you already know the answers to the questions you are posing, why not post them?
It seems to me you are trying to explain that Reid’s method on this was directly related to him being a left wing politician. That doesn’t make sense at all. He was doing what he did for political purposes by using a favorite method of both parties-attaching one bill to another unrelated one. This has nothing to do with left/right-it’s just politics at its worst.
Instead of asking people meaningless questions, why not just directly state where you are coming from?
[quote=“politbureau”][quote=“Chris”]He’s also on the left.
You can be socialist left, socialist right, capitalist left, capitalist right.[/quote]
Is there any meaningful difference between Bernie Sander’s political agenda and that of the other four left-wing senators?[/quote]
I voted for Barack Obama even though I’m a libertarian in the hope that he and his supporters would govern from the center as Bill Clinton had. I would prefer to have a Republican in office but Republicans have proven themselves incapable of late of rising above their rigid ideological stances for the good of the country.
Unfortunately social democrats (“sociocrats”) have proven themselves to be just as inflexible with their my way or the highway legislative agenda, the failure to repeal DADT when a large majority of Americans support repeal being one recent example.
I don’t understand why “democrats” insist on behaving like neoconservatives after the train wreck of the previous eight years but what perplexes me most of all is why these left wing ideologues consider themselves centrists when they demand strict allegiance by all to their legislative agenda. There’s nothing centrist about that behavior and I was curious about the thinking behind such a mentality. I guess the answer though is there really is no good answer and will leave it at that.
Me too and me too…my problem with most modern libertarians is they just don’t follow through 100%. They still pander to the Christians and will say in one breath that the government shouldn’t be involved in gay marriage, but they will not call for repealing the government’s involvement in marriage all together. Also, I agree with nearly everything Ron Paul says about foreign policy, but he completely loses me when he says that the civil rights act was not a good thing because it is government getting involved, but at the same time he ignores the segregation laws that were also against a libertarian philosophy. Most liberal leaning social policies are a response to oppressive laws. Personally, I would love a federal government that stayed out of our social and religious lives 100%. And right now, I am a big fan of how France is dealing with the whole immigration/marriage thing-everyone gets one person they can bring in and it’s not based on whether or not they recognize the marriage (from what I understand).
I agree with what you are saying here, but not necessarily in this case. Maybe we just read the whole thing differently. I think this vote came down the way it did ONLY because this is an election season. I don’t know how they could have been more “centrist” about it-but they could have been less political about it. I think the DADT was what you would consider a “centrist” compromise, but it was probably the most political decision of Clinton’s presidency, where he was threatened that none of his legislative agenda would get through if he just repealed the ban on gays in the military. He bought it hook line and sinker, so I think Dems may be a little less eager to bargain on this issue now. Both parties play this game and it’s a sick game with little regard for the people affected by such laws. Same with health care from both sides. Same with almost every issue I can think of.
I think you have outlined exactly why the Dems will not be in charge of the house next year. And it’s predictable that when the Repubs also fail to get anything done, Obama will win reelection (short of any major G. Bush Sr. level gaffs). This is all become so predictable it’s not even fun to watch anymore. In 20 years, people will be looking at the same cycles with little changing except the players involved.
Sounds like we’re pretty much on the same page, suiyuan31. Too bad about Obama. He’s a smart, decent person and could have been a great president. I still don’t understand why he’s turned out to be all sizzle and no steak though.
I don’t blame him completely. I think he was shocked, as Clinton was, that he had opposition to nearly everything that has come out of his mouth. I think the health care “debate” showed a really nasty side of the US-most of the people who are against that bill were calling it “unamerican” and were just livid about…well, nothing that had anything to do with health care.
I think he could have expressed things better. He did try to reach out, but I think it became obvious to him that reaching out was doing no good because no one was willing to meet him half-way.
As far as DADT, I think what he was trying to do was smart-get Gates and other military leaders to proceed slowly. I don’t know WHAT Reid was thinking and I would be eager to call for his ousting if his opponent was not completely nuts, lol.
Anyway, I think we are pretty much on the same page as well. As things stand right now, I have no intention of voting anymore. I’ve become completely jaded that anything will change and to me, the American dream (which was never put into practice nor has there ever been a true effort to get there) is dead. I only pray that they keep renewing my passport so that I can move around the world freely.
That will only exacerbate the problem. People on the right always vote, and they’re counting on frustration to discourage non-conservatives from voting. That’s counterproductive.
There is no “none of the above” on the ballot. You will get one candidate or the other, whether you vote or not. It’s best to vote for the candidate who best represents your views, even if he/she’s only slightly better than the opponent. Otherwise America will slide into the third-world hell that the right wants it to become.
Obama has been governing from the center. I’ve never seen any president keep a more centrist position, even Clinton.[/quote]
LOL, that’s from your ‘balanced’ point of view eh Chris? LOL you guys are funny sometimes. The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats openly belive in big government and govern accordingly where as the Republicans lie to themselves about being against big government. Really the true difference between the two is Religon and you should be happy that the Christian Conservatives exist, if they didn’t the Republicans and the Democrats would become indistinguishable from one another.
Perhaps I will change my mind in two years, and while I appreciate what you are saying, I think the whole system is such a wreck that I prefer to not be involved. It really depends who the Republicans run…if it ends up being a wacko, I will vote against that wacko. But right now, I think Obama is safe-if I were a betting man, I would put all my money on: 1. The dems losing the house; 2. Obama winning reelection mostly because the repubs have too many wackos they cannot control who split the party and cause more problems than they can handle. If the election were this month, I guarantee you I wouldn’t vote.
Edit: Clinton was on Jon Stewart recently and there are extended interviews with him on the website. If the Dems could deliver a message as well as Clinton is able to and if they were governing according to what he is saying, they would be in much better shape-and so would the country.
That will only exacerbate the problem. People on the right always vote, and they’re counting on frustration to discourage non-conservatives from voting. That’s counterproductive.
There is no “none of the above” on the ballot. You will get one candidate or the other, whether you vote or not. It’s best to vote for the candidate who best represents your views, even if he/she’s only slightly better than the opponent. Otherwise America will slide into the third-world hell that the right wants it to become.[/quote]
Ron Paul’s position (and libertarians in general) is that it was government intervention that was the source of the problem. The government passed segregation laws that were negatively discriminatory. To fix that problem you repeal the discriminatory laws. The idea is to get the government back to neutral. Passing the Civil Rights Act was just another form of government intervention. Here’s a quote from a Talking Points Memo interview on the subject:
[quote]“If some private business discriminates we think that’s unfortunate, but we don’t think the government should get involved in banning it,” said the spokesman, Wes Benedict. “That’s just a negative that we have to tolerate in a free society.”
Walter Block, a libertarian professor of economics at Loyola University, and a senior fellow with the libertarian Ludwig Von Mises Institute, went further. “I think anyone who doesn’t believe that isn’t a libertarian,” he said, calling Paul’s comment “a very mainstream libertarianism.”
“I’m delighted that Rand Paul said that,” an enthusiastic Block added. “I think it’s magnificent. I didn’t realize that he was that good.”
“The spirit of non-discrimination,” said Block “ends you right up in compulsory bisexuality.”
Harry Browne, the late libertarian activist and presidential candidate, appears to have taken the same view. “Neither before nor after the Civil Rights Act were people free to make their own decisions about whom they would associate with,” he wrote in 2003. “The civil rights movement wasn’t opposed to using government to coerce people. It merely wanted the government to aim its force in a new direction. Although the activists believed coercion served the noble objective of bringing the races closer together, it was coercion nonetheless.”[/quote]
I bolded the last part because it’s important. Most liberal social policies are no different than the oppressive social policies. They use the force of government to push a viewpoint that you agree with. It’s not good vs. evil but one type of evil vs. another type of evil. Democrats are just as likely to use the coercive power of government to push for laws that further their agenda as Republicans are.