U.S. Politics Thread

[Roger Rambo]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

You know who are there the biggest moochers in the 47%?

U.S Combat troops who were in "active" combat during the tax year. Just because they were willing to take a bullet for Uncle Sam, does not exempt them from the IRS there 40,000 a year salary damn it!

This is ultimately the thing that makes the Republican party really schizophrenic about taxes. On one hand they absolutely loathe having to pay income taxes...yet hate people who don't make enough income to qualify for the income tax, acting as if those people are freeloading (and as if things such as sales, and payroll taxes don't exist). Even Romney partially defined the 47% as people who didn't pay income tax.


Look at Cain's 999 tax plan. That would have increased taxes on 84% of US households. And many Republicans thought this was a GOOD plan. Why? Cause it got those deadbeats who didn't pay income tax to "have a foot in the game."


That's really what's so fascinating about the Republicans. It's not just that they think that benefits should be cut. There seems to be this quite agreement that poor people should be paying more taxes.

[willx]

^ Oh dear, Herman Cain's tax plan, I remember so many people came out in favor of it from the beginning as a great way to simplify the tax system. Then it was widely debunked as absolute nonsense and garbage by anyone that had half a brain.

Yes, the tax code needs to be simplified, but that abomination was not it ..

[speedyexpress48]

The problem is, so-called "swing voters" still often identify with one party in some shape or form (I remember a Gallop poll showing that swing voters voted for 1 party at least 3/4 of the time, or something...can't find the poll right now.)

Of course, "center" in America=right wing in any other Western nation. True liberals like myself have almost no power in Washington.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Roger Rambo

That's really what's so fascinating about the Republicans. It's not just that they think that benefits should be cut. There seems to be this quite agreement that poor people should be paying more taxes.

How can it be quiet if they shout it every chance they get?

[ganbaru]

If some are interested, here is the ''growth and opportunity project'', a auto-critic from the Republican National Comittee
http://growthopp.gop.com/default.aspx
I wouldn't be surprised if much of the tea-bagger dissagree with it.

[Ridwan]

This article should be posted here.

Spoiler for Rob Portman & Empathy:

The GOP's problem trying to fit in the 20th century, let alone the 21st, have been discussed elsewhere, but I think this article brings a new perspective on the issue. Recently Ohio Senator Rob Portman and potential Vice President (for alternate history fans) came out in support of Gay Marriage after finding out his son was gay. This is of course causing rifts and fissures in the Republican party, as we still have people claiming that Gay marriage will destroy all marriage (it must be true, if we have a 50% divorce rate with only half a dozen states allowing it, imagine if it was legalized nation-wide!) to "of course there's no evidence Gay marriage will destroy America, all Social Sciences have been corrupted by Liberals!" to John Boehner's "If my son was gay, I wouldn't care", but that was a rather predictable reaction.

The article does bring up interesting issues about the evolution of politics regarding gay marriage and how some people make decisions on subjects like this:


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...ead_wrong.html

Rob Portman’s Empathy Problem

Lefty bloggers call him obtuse for endorsing gay marriage only after his son came out. They should look in the mirror.

Hypocrite. Narcissist. Wingnut. Bigot. Those are some of the epithets—not counting the expletives—that have been hurled at Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, since he announced Friday that he now supports same-sex marriage because his son is gay. But these epithets aren’t coming from the right. They’re coming from the left.

According to liberal columnists and bloggers, Portman’s conversion—the first on this issue by any Republican senator—is too little, too late, and short on “empathy.” But it isn’t Portman who’s having an empathy problem. It’s his critics. They don’t really understand Portman, conservatives, empathy, or how people change.

Portman’s detractors claim he “didn’t take a stand for … other people’s children” and showed “absolutely no genuine empathy … for the other approximately 11,699,999 LGBT in the United States.” That isn’t true. In an op-ed explaining his conversion, Portman wrote that “all of our sons and daughters ought to have the same opportunity to experience the joy and stability of marriage.” He said Congress should repeal the part of the Defense of Marriage Act that denies federal marriage benefits, such as joint tax filing, to legally married same-sex couples.

To cast Portman as a hypocrite, his critics point out that he voted to prohibit adoptions by gay couples in the District of Columbia and to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. What they don’t mention is that these votes took place 14 and nine years ago, respectively. In the evolution of this issue, that’s an eternity. Until 10 months ago, no major presidential candidate in either party had endorsed gay marriage.

The critics claim that in an interview last year, Portman—knowing at that point that his son was gay—opposed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and was “endorsing discriminatory policies.” That isn’t true, either. The transcript shows he ducked the question, changed the subject, and concluded that while “no one should discriminate,” we “have to be careful” how we write such bills. In the video, you can see how uncomfortable he is. Around the same time, a lesbian met with Portman’s staff about a job discrimination complaint and came away hopeful that he’d support ENDA. She doesn’t really know what he’d do. Neither do we.

Portman says his longtime opposition to same-sex marriage “was rooted in my faith tradition.” His critics, apparently baffled by religion, ignore this explanation. Instead, they depict his position as an emotional void, concluding that he “did not care about any of the country's gay people.” According to my colleague Matthew Yglesias, “what Portman is telling us” is that “his previous position was driven by a lack of compassion and empathy.”

This insensitivity, in the eyes of Portman’s hecklers, explains conservative positions generally. What defines conservatism, they argue, is a “total absence of empathy,” a “fundamental lack of compassion,” and “an inability to give any weight to the perspective of the disadvantaged.” As Yglesias puts it: “Rob Portman doesn't have a son with a pre-existing medical condition who's locked out of the health insurance market. Rob Portman doesn't have a son engaged in peasant agriculture whose livelihood is likely to be wiped out by climate change. Rob Portman doesn't have a son who'll be malnourished if SNAP benefits are cut. So Rob Portman doesn't care.” The possibility that anyone might limit the food-stamp budget or the government’s role in health care for reasons other than indifference—say, a belief in markets or in fiscal self-restraint—goes unmentioned.

The bigger this empathy critique gets—the more it reaches beyond Portman and his son toward a grand theory of the GOP—the less it’s about empathy. At its core, empathy is one person’s feeling for another. That’s what gets lost in the political indictments. “Why must empathy among conservatives be tied so directly to their own personal interactions?” asks one writer. Another objects that Portman:

“was only able to realize the error of his ways when his own flesh and blood bravely stood up and said ‘Hey, you're talking about me too.’ That's what it took. None of the studies, the rallies, the protests, the legal victories, the testimonials, the documentaries, articles, books, plays, movies, television shows or anything could sway him … To me that indicates that there's a pretty thick wall separating his political convictions from the rest of the world.”

Really? To me it just confirms that flesh-and-blood relationships are more powerful than studies, rallies, or documentaries. That isn’t a conservative defect. It’s human psychology. In academic circles, it’s called contact theory. It’s how President Obama explained his conversion on gay marriage last May: “Over the course of several years, as I talk to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are incredibly committed in monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together …”
Where were all these critics then?

Portman, like Obama, initially resisted gay marriage on religious grounds. Like Obama, he took years to integrate his beliefs with his experience. “I wrestled with how to reconcile my Christian faith with my desire for Will to have the same opportunities to pursue happiness and fulfillment as his brother and sister,” Portman writes. “Ultimately, it came down to the Bible’s overarching themes of love and compassion and my belief that we are all children of God.”

Some critics, contemptuous of religion, sneer at Portman for consulting scripture after his son’s revelation. Others, unable or unwilling to see the son’s effect on the father as moral, reduce their relationship to a cost-benefit transaction. Jonathan Chait likens Portman’s shift to changing your position on the estate tax based on a “newly discovered self-interest” in your kids’ inheritance. Paul Krugman, disappointed that Portman changed positions only after realizing that “his own family would benefit,” laments the “cramped vision of altruism in which it’s considered perfectly acceptable to support only those causes that are directly good for you and yours.” But what’s truly cramped is this sort of hyper-rational analysis, which misconstrues parental love as economic calculation.

Many of these writers—Yglesias, Chait, Krugman, Steve Benen, and others—are people I respect. When I try to understand their misperceptions of Portman, my best guess (which, to take my own point, could be wrong) is that they haven’t experienced what Portman is going through. When your parents and peers are liberal, reaching liberal conclusions is no sweat. You don’t support SNAP benefits because you know malnourished kids, any more than you support climate-change legislation because you know peasant farmers. It isn’t empathy that leads you to these conclusions. It’s inertia.

At its heart, Portman’s story isn’t about politicians or parties. It’s about moms, dads, sons, and daughters. That’s what Ari Ezra Waldman captures in his beautiful, perceptive essay in Towleroad. Waldman understands Portman’s struggle because he has lived it. He came out to his mother at 21—not much older than Will Portman. “The reflection and evolution that changed the Portman family are the same changes and evolutions going on in countless families across the world right now, as more bright young men and women come out,” Waldman writes. When parents “learn that their child or their friend is gay, they put a human face to the phenomenon and suddenly, being gay doesn't seem so strange.” But absorbing this revelation takes time. For most parents, Waldman observes, the revelation “is just the beginning of a journey. It is a journey we can neither deny them nor rush for them. We can only support them and teach them along the way.”
Rob Portman’s journey, and ours, will take time. Be patient. Be welcoming. Be kind.

[SaintessHeart]

Note : Things change faster because they are simply created and destroyed. People take time to because they are mired in their comfort zone.

Rob Portman should at least stand in the middle and help write a bill to prohibit affections between the same-sex from being displayed in full public view.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by Ridwan

This article should be posted here.

Spoiler for Rob Portman & Empathy:

The GOP's problem trying to fit in the 20th century, let alone the 21st, have been discussed elsewhere, but I think this article brings a new perspective on the issue. Recently Ohio Senator Rob Portman and potential Vice President (for alternate history fans) came out in support of Gay Marriage after finding out his son was gay. This is of course causing rifts and fissures in the Republican party, as we still have people claiming that Gay marriage will destroy all marriage (it must be true, if we have a 50% divorce rate with only half a dozen states allowing it, imagine if it was legalized nation-wide!) to "of course there's no evidence Gay marriage will destroy America, all Social Sciences have been corrupted by Liberals!" to John Boehner's "If my son was gay, I wouldn't care", but that was a rather predictable reaction.

The article does bring up interesting issues about the evolution of politics regarding gay marriage and how some people make decisions on subjects like this:


http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...ead_wrong.html

Rob Portman’s Empathy Problem

I'll call bullshit on the article author (William Saletan). Read his other articles. At best, he's contrarian just to be so.

The fact remains that this behavior by people like Portman shows a seriously short range ability to empathize. They don't get it until it smacks them in the face - that means if there's a problem facing the general community they are often a hindrance and may bring the whole community down because it isn't their problem.

[Ridwan]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I'll call bullshit on the article author (William Saletan). Read his other articles. At best, he's contrarian just to be so.

The fact remains that this behavior by people like Portman shows a seriously short range ability to empathize. They don't get it until it smacks them in the face - that means if there's a problem facing the general community they are often a hindrance and may bring the whole community down because it isn't their problem.

That's the point : he's a typical republican, if not politician in general

In turn, the article also indicates the ongoing general current of things. Still it seems that GOP will persist on entertaining us along the way.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The fact remains that this behavior by people like Portman shows a seriously short range ability to empathize. They don't get it until it smacks them in the face - that means if there's a problem facing the general community they are often a hindrance and may bring the whole community down because it isn't their problem.

I would say that is because the Republicans are too busy sealing deals with major interests. See the amount of lobby/donations by big companies and major industries last election?

The film Thank You For Smoking sums up everything quite nicely; the big interests lobby to sell their products, and the media lobby to report in whatever way they want. It is a transparent democracy, sure. A type of transparent democracy where politicians allow themselves to be bought out by the highest bidder in full public view.

[willx]

Originally Posted by Ridwan

That's the point : he's a typical republicanperson, if not politician in general

In turn, the article also indicates the ongoing general current of things. Still it seems that GOP will persist on entertaining us along the way.

There, fixed it for you. I find it refreshing that 9/10 times I tend to not overestimate people -- because my general opinion of the entire world populace is this low. Queue your random forum troll post about being a genius that invented some sort of engine.

[Ridwan]

We just need more good posts around. :/

[ganbaru]

As I kind of expected, there's a bunch of conservative than disagree with the autocritic fron the top of the GOP:

The GOP's Real Problem is Simple
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/20...blem_is_simple
CSI: GOP
http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...si-gop-editors
Tea Party groups warn grassroots activism at risk in RNC proposals
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...-rnc-proposals

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Vexx

I'll call bullshit on the article author (William Saletan). Read his other articles. At best, he's contrarian just to be so.

The fact remains that this behavior by people like Portman shows a seriously short range ability to empathize. They don't get it until it smacks them in the face - that means if there's a problem facing the general community they are often a hindrance and may bring the whole community down because it isn't their problem.

I agree. The article doesn't really make its point. It tries to divert the attention, claiming that Portman was one among many who opposed gay marriage. Blame is further extended with the claim that it's only been recently that a president supported gay marriage, with some wonderment over why Obama didn't receive the same criticism that Portman did. Saletan is falsely implying that Portman somehow needed the consent of others and the president to support gay marriage, and then goes further by stating that not doing anything about gay marriage is somehow the same thing as creating laws against gay marriage. It isn't.

The fact is that Portman chose a side that was trying to restrict the freedoms of a certain diverse group of people, and when it turned out that his own son was among that group, he completely changed his ways. I don't disagree with Saletan that we should 'be patient, be welcoming, be kind,' but the accusations about there being a lack of empathy and varying amounts of hypocrisy that he is seemingly trying to deflect are correct.

[Kyuu]

Now this is a powerful read:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/d...eds_to_be_read

To anyone claiming TL;DR, here's a short summary. Basically, it's a letter from a dying soldier addressed to Bush and Cheney.

In light of the 10 year anniversary to the Iraq invasion -- it is clear today, that it was a very very poor decision to invade Iraq.

[KiraYamatoFan]

People could see and smell the fishiness of invading Iraq by a mile knowing that the job was not done against Bin Laden at all at the time.

Whoever was the secretary of communications at the time was as good as Joseph Goebbels was in deceiving people in the media for the sake of what the leader wants.

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by KiraYamatoFan

People could see and smell the fishiness of invading Iraq by a mile knowing that the job was not done against Bin Laden at all at the time.

Whoever was the secretary of communications at the time was as good as Joseph Goebbels was in deceiving people in the media for the sake of what the leader wants.

I don't get what so bad about war in Iraq, I mean, a Newspaper Baron started the Spanish American war, why couldn't an oil Baron? Maybe next time Google can declare war too

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

I don't get what so bad about war in Iraq, I mean, a Newspaper Baron started the Spanish American war, why couldn't an oil Baron? Maybe next time Google can declare war too

At least, the US gained territory and established itself as a global power with the Spanish-American War. Although, this war was started with a similar style of BS as today.

But with the Iraq War -- what the hell did America even get out of it? Easy oil access?

EDIT: Yep.

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/03/19/op...asz/?hpt=hp_c1

[Ithekro]

Do recall the general public opinion of Saddam Hussein by 2003. For the previous 12 years Americans had been wondering "why didn't we just finish him off in 1991?" and "How is that ass going to thumb his nose as us and the UN now?"

So going in to finish the job from 1991 was a popular idea. The method used to go in there might be questionable, but the idea of going in there to get him was not new nor was it unpopular. We wanted his ass on a pike. At the time we still followed more or less the rules about assassination of political leaders being off the table, but a war to get them was "fine".

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Kyuu

Now this is a powerful read:

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/d...eds_to_be_read

Thanks for sharing.

Originally Posted by ArchmageXin

I don't get what so bad about war in Iraq, I mean, a Newspaper Baron started the Spanish American war, why couldn't an oil Baron? Maybe next time Google can declare war too

That's a bit of an oversimplification about how the Spanish-American War started. More to the point, there weren't any lies that were told. Slanted articles, sure, but no outright fabrications.