171–180 of 343 posts
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Oh, I'm aware. I'm arguing for universal lottery, and I think it would work.
Would you volunteer for it, or would you be conscripted like jury duty?
I always hate the framing as “polarized”. There’s tons of things Democrats and Republicans agree on. Military spending goes up every year. Save for Dodd-Frank, deregulation has been common across presidencies for 30 years along with corporate tax cuts... The establishment gets things done, they really do, it’s just not things that help everyday people. I’m not sure how this would help that.
I find this kind of thinking dangerous, because it falls into the "they're just 2 sides of the same coin" mindset. Not to mention, it is also false. The DoD budget for 2019 is below the budget for 2008, and much lower as a percentage of total expenditures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... Yes, there are things the parties agree on, but that minimizes the huge, material differences betwe…
I always hate the framing as “polarized”. There’s tons of things Democrats and Republicans agree on. Military spending goes up every year. Save for Dodd-Frank, deregulation has been common across presidencies for 30 years along with corporate tax cuts... The establishment gets things done, they really do, it’s just not things that help everyday people. I’m not sure how this would help that.
Basically they disagree on how to treat their fellow citizens. Democrats are against outright hostility and blatant marginalization of certain classes. But both have largely been ok with everyone being exploited by feudal trade economics, bombing other nations to satisfy global political norms, and swindling developing nations out of their resources, while emotionally coddling elites. It means something to not be out…
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Basically they disagree on how to treat their fellow citizens. Democrats are against outright hostility and blatant marginalization of certain classes. But both have largely been ok with everyone being exploited by feudal trade economics, bombing other nations to satisfy global political norms, and swindling developing nations out of their resources, while emotionally coddling elites. It means something to not be out…
"Democrats are against outright hostility and blatant marginalization of certain classes." There are tons of YouTube videos on college campuses that prove otherwise.
I always hate the framing as “polarized”. There’s tons of things Democrats and Republicans agree on. Military spending goes up every year. Save for Dodd-Frank, deregulation has been common across presidencies for 30 years along with corporate tax cuts... The establishment gets things done, they really do, it’s just not things that help everyday people. I’m not sure how this would help that.
Basically they disagree on how to treat their fellow citizens. Democrats are against outright hostility and blatant marginalization of certain classes. But both have largely been ok with everyone being exploited by feudal trade economics, bombing other nations to satisfy global political norms, and swindling developing nations out of their resources, while emotionally coddling elites. It means something to not be out…
What rock are you living under?
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So in other words, still slavery. Right? I mean, there's still slaves. "Your kids can be free! But only the ones born after the next Vernal Equinox falling on a Tuesday. Oh, and by the way, You can never be free." Again, a solution that's ludicrous on its face and doesn't really get rid of slavery. Kind of like the compromise we had here, where you could "technically" have slaves in the North. (Of course, occasionall…
There is an unresolvable tension between the quantitative and the qualitative, and it's hard to imagine a more extreme example than erasing ineffable human dignity in order to turn a human into a commodity. Let's flip this around to today: imagine a hypothetical future 100 years from now, that honors the qualitative dignity of all animal life, and views factory farming with the same horror that we view slavery now. F…
Travel to Asia or Africa, and ask who the leader of the US was when the slaves were freed? Then ask who the leader of the British Empire was when their slaves were freed? Or the leader of Brazil? There's a reason people in Asia revere Lincoln and not the leader of the British Empire, or the leader of Brazil at the time, or the leader of Cuba, or what have you. That reason is because Lincoln is viewed as having done the right thing in the face of enormous risk. We did the right thing in a way that transcended America. It even transcended the slaves to be perfectly frank. What we did has inspired humanity ever since. Whether you are at an elite University in Beijing, Shanghai, or Singapore, Lincoln is a leader all of the most promising students are drawn to.
This is not simply the result of marketing either. For instance, the king of Siam was famously drawn to Lincoln over all of the others as well. The Czar lamented his comparison to Lincoln. Insisting people should instead venerate him, because he had done more for the serfs than Lincoln did for the slaves. And he felt he'd certainly done more than the British or the Portuguese, who he felt had done nothing at all. All of this was long before professional marketing really existed. Even long before the US was really even a power. So our solution to slavery paid us off over a thousandfold in untold influence and soft power alone. Influence and soft power throughout the world. Now, I'll concede that it's influence and soft power that we seem to have squandered, but it's also influence these wishy washy incrementalist approaches never conferred on their proponents.
You say it was a cost, (and presumably a loss?). I think you might believe that because you haven't properly accounted for the many benefits we've enjoyed in your cost-benefit analysis.
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"Democrats are against outright hostility and blatant marginalization of certain classes." There are tons of YouTube videos on college campuses that prove otherwise.
Reminder: having shitty ideas is not a protected class, and “free speech” does not mean you get to say whatever batshit crazy thing comes to mind without other people expressing themselves
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Those were always pretty interesting ideas to me, and I always used to wonder why the Founders did not replicate those facets of the Athenian Republic? It would solve a lot of our problems today.
In general, the founders thought Greek style democracy was a horrible system of government. Inevitably incompetent, bloody, unjust, rash, and would quickly self destruct. When the French Revolution happened - with chaos, purges, wars, and then an emperor taking over the country - the founders basically said “I told you so”. Here’s an example. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-6371
I always hate the framing as “polarized”. There’s tons of things Democrats and Republicans agree on. Military spending goes up every year. Save for Dodd-Frank, deregulation has been common across presidencies for 30 years along with corporate tax cuts... The establishment gets things done, they really do, it’s just not things that help everyday people. I’m not sure how this would help that.
Basically they disagree on how to treat their fellow citizens. Democrats are against outright hostility and blatant marginalization of certain classes. But both have largely been ok with everyone being exploited by feudal trade economics, bombing other nations to satisfy global political norms, and swindling developing nations out of their resources, while emotionally coddling elites. It means something to not be out…
Republicans are against outright hostility and blatant marginalization of certain classes.
Not the same classes, perhaps even classes that many don't want recognized, such as the unborn, but the statement is still just as true.
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> it's that the natural evolution of the two-party system has forced us into choices that are more polarized than ever before in the history of the US I don't think this is supported by the evidence. Polarization in the US hasn't been unidirectional (there are many long periods during which the US became less polarized) and the recent massive spike is, well, a recent spike--it's not a natural evolution at all. Someth…
> Something happened in the last twenty years or so that increased our polarization. This has happened all over the world. The obvious major thing that's changed is this thing right here: The internet. Social media has replaced "mainstream media" as the source of our news and our opinions. And so we have a new opinion landscape.
This gives license to all sorts of denialism and conspiracy theories--the right denies climate change, the left denies biological gender differences, and both sides have their anti-vaxxers and flat-earth theorists. Without common "truths" to counter our tribalist tendencies, we are being pulled toward extremes.