Let's talk POLITICS

[ZHASH]

If in the U.S., what is your political affiliation?

Who do you think the next U.S. President will be?

[DevNull]

I wish Jeb would run. I'll bet on Romney for the win. If he can take Massachusetts, he can take the US.

I was a Libertarian until last month when the state/local law dictated that I would not be able to vote in the primary for a Republican unless I changed from Libertarian to Republican. So now I am a Republican.

[KuJo]

pretty liberal, and i have heard so many names thrown around regarded the next presidential election that i have no idea whats going on in terms of candidates. and our media is straight-up retarded, so trying to get good information about american politics is pretty hard.

[s0978]

Who do you think the next U.S. President will be?

Don't wanna jinx anyone, like I musta in the past.



Moved fr Welcomes.

[file cabinet]

s0532 for president!

[s0978]

s0532 for president!

lol, wtf.

[FuelShopTech]

If in the U.S., what is your political affiliation?

Who do you think the next U.S. President will be?

(I put this into the wrong category--can someone move it into the correct one?--Thanks)

I'm a proud registered voter of the "No Party." And I'm betting the next president will be a white, rich, heterosexual, Christian male.

[ZHASH]

RUDY! RUDY! RUDY!

[nittanylion302]

politics is taylor-made for SJs. Dem vs Repub, Good vs Evil, holy upheld traditions batman

I'm libertarian, but vote dem and vote for more fiscally conservative dems and libertarians when they're on the ballot.

[Zephyrus055]

I do not have allegiance to any party, and I hate politics. My reason is simple, no political party shares my values: maximize profit and minimize cost, and base all beliefs of reality on experience.

Since every political party I have seen makes core assumptions that can not be empirically tested, I do not care for them. And I do not like the libertarian party, since they do not quite understand that they are deluded in believing in natural law, and do not understand that all rights are legal rights. They also make the is/ought fallacy too often.

[ZHASH]

politics is taylor-made for SJs. Dem vs Repub, Good vs Evil, holy upheld traditions batman

I'm libertarian, but vote dem and vote for more fiscally conservative dems and libertarians when they're on the ballot.

Politics is for everyone because it governs the way your pocketbook is spent. I urge everyone to be interested in politics because you learn so much about history through politics.

I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I don't care what people do but I am interested in how the money that I earn from January through April of each year is spent. After all, it all goes to the government. Makes sense?

[LuridLemur]

Contempt.

[omnirook]

Nearly a socialist. That means that I have no choice but to vote for whomever the Democratic Party nominates. Whoever wins will be either a Republican or a Democrat, and any Democrat would be preferable to any Republican. Third party candidates are a waste; they neither leave nor even make a mark on American politics, do only one thing more than raise and waste a lot of money: they siphon off votes from main party candidates who might win otherwise. Both parties have lost elections because of 3rd party candidates.

[macr0]

I am very happy the Dems won the house and senate in the recent election.

I am not a Dem. I just think that it's better when the different branches are driven by different political parties. As long as they are fighting amongst themselves, they can't hurt anyone else.

If I had to call myself anything, it would be a libertarian.

[Zephyrus055]

The problem with libertarianism is that it assumes that everyone has natural and inalienable rights, and then it proceeds to define what those rights are. The problem here is that A). what empirical basis is there for these rights? and B). how do we distinguish between what a natural right is and what is not a natural right? Personally, I think all rights are legal rights and that natural law theory is bankrupt of any intellectual value.. Libertarianism is extremely dependent on natural law theory, and the intellectual failures of natural law theory compels me to dismiss libertarianism.

[FranG]

Politics is for everyone because it governs the way your pocketbook is spent. I urge everyone to be interested in politics because you learn so much about history through politics.



Yeah you're right, everyone should be concerned. But what do you do when people are stealing elections? Election fraud in this country is rivaling that of thirdworld countries. When that happens, you need to revolt or continue getting taken advantage of. So I'm a revolutionist. Then after that a libertarian :)

[ApeTheDog]

Nearly a socialist. That means that I have no choice but to vote for whomever the Democratic Party nominates. Whoever wins will be either a Republican or a Democrat, and any Democrat would be preferable to any Republican. Third party candidates are a waste; they neither leave nor even make a mark on American politics, do only one thing more than raise and waste a lot of money: they siphon off votes from main party candidates who might win otherwise. Both parties have lost elections because of 3rd party candidates.

3rd party candidates have also lost elections because of the 2 party thing. One isn't worse than the other. I hate this argument not to allow democracy.

I think if you're going to need to have 2 parties, you need to at least have internal votes, or public votes, so people can choose which democrat(ic stream of thought) they want to run the party.

[Ferrus]

They also make the is/ought fallacy too often.
Who cares? Politics isn't a philosophy lesson, it is the thrill of history on the wing, of power and of the attempts to do what is best. It is of the battle of ideas. Politics isn't entirely what you characterise as 'Good vs. Evil' - real politics concerns far more intractable questions and most politicians, barring the Bush style conviction politicians, are in fact full of guile and a healthy suspicion towards 'SJ morality'. Partisanship is for the camera, real politics is conducted in a far more complex arena. The political world is fascinating to analyse, fascinating to watch. It suits extrovert, but not necessarily SJs who can be cozened with ease. The greatest politicians are ENTJs, for they have a calculatingly manipulative streak that is essential. President Nixon was probably one of the greatest political minds of the century (and was fairly amoral) even though he was unlucky eventually - he and Kissinger were artful in their dealings with China and the Soviet Union.

[macr0]

The problem with libertarianism is that it assumes that everyone has natural and inalienable rights, and then it proceeds to define what those rights are. The problem here is that A). what empirical basis is there for these rights? and B). how do we distinguish between what a natural right is and what is not a natural right? Personally, I think all rights are legal rights and that natural law theory is bankrupt of any intellectual value.. Libertarianism is extremely dependent on natural law theory, and the intellectual failures of natural law theory compels me to dismiss libertarianism.

I am not familiar with the term "natural law theory", but I will suspect that it's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

And as such is subject to the naturalistic fallacy. And might I say that as an applied political philosophy, it is a complete joke.

My interpretation of libertarianism can be summed up from wikipedia:



In the United States and other English-speaking countries, libertarianism is a political philosophy maintaining that every person is the absolute owner of his own life and should be free to do whatever he wishes with his person or property, as long as he respects the liberty of others.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian

but then it goes on with:



Natural rights and consequentialism

Some libertarians such as Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard view the rights to life, liberty, and property as natural rights, i.e., worthy of protection as an end in themselves. Their view of natural rights is derived, directly or indirectly, from the writings of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke. Ayn Rand, another powerful influence on libertarianism, despite rejecting the label, also viewed these rights as based on natural law.


This looks like a word game to me. On one hand, natural rights are worthy of protection as an end in themselves. On another hand, it links to "natural law theory" which says



As a genre, natural law is the law of nature?that is, the principle that some things are as they are, because that is how they are.


Something being lawful an end as itself and something being lawful because things are as they are are not the same things. Maybe this is just another example of a nut job hijacking a perfectly good idea.

Rights are given to people because people ought to be endowed with those rights. These rights are decided by other people. What rights are given are based on our advancement of knowledge and discourse. It's a balancing act between the rights individuals have to perform actions and the rights of people that are affected by the actions of others.

The tenant of libertarianism as I understand it (every person is the absolute owner of his own life and should be free to do whatever he wishes with his person or property, as long as he respects the liberty of others) is anything but the natural order of things.

Nature does not have a "live and let live" philosophy.

EDIT: I'm not very political, and as such I don't read books on politics in my spare time. However I find that basic tenant of libertarianism fits well with my world view (regardless of any libertarian crack pots that can be drug in and beaten on), and as such provides a good measure of what I consider good legislation and bad legislation on a number of issues.

[sbw]

I was a Libertarian until last month when the state/local law dictated that I would not be able to vote in the primary for a Republican unless I changed from Libertarian to Republican. So now I am a Republican.


I'm libertarian, but vote dem and vote for more fiscally conservative dems and libertarians when they're on the ballot.


I'm fiscally conservative and socially liberal.


If I had to call myself anything, it would be a libertarian.

:wub:

I am not sufficiently familiar with the above "word games" regarding libertarian politics (or is it metaphysics)...but the 2 major parties believe in demonstrably horrible things--and agree with each other about most of them--so I am left with no one to support EXCEPT those probly-too-utopian libertarians.

Scott

[ApeTheDog]

I'm a socialist, and so would all of you be if you were in your right minds.

[FuelShopTech]

I'm a socialist, and so would all of you be if you were in your right minds.

Wouldn't that be left minds? Sorry.

Anywho.....


Politics is for everyone because it governs the way your pocketbook is spent. I urge everyone to be interested in politics because you learn so much about history through politics.

Why I'm politically neutral:

1. It seems most people choose their political orientations based on what they feel is in their best interests, and being it's usually absent logic or science, it almost appears like a game for F's.

2. I can't choose a specific orientation because I can't start talking politics without considering I don't know what the point of our society is, and it seems to me that if I am going to suggest what we ought to do, I should have an idea of where we want to go.

3. There are too many variables with human behavior. I'm not omniscient; therefore, I don't know what horrible things any particular course of action might bring down upon our heads.

[ZHASH]

Yeah you're right, everyone should be concerned. But what do you do when people are stealing elections? Election fraud in this country is rivaling that of thirdworld countries. When that happens, you need to revolt or continue getting taken advantage of. So I'm a revolutionist. Then after that a libertarian :)

What do you do? You get involved so that it doesn't happen. If you have a cause, get on a political committee and fight that it doesn't happen.

[FranG]

What do you do? You get involved so that it doesn't happen. If you have a cause, get on a political committee and fight that it doesn't happen.

OK you get involved and you vote. But then some criminal element (kinda like the mafia used to do it) have moles within the voting system. You find out it's criminal in the voting system, so you tell the police. But the police are on the take too. But if you're lucky enough to get somebody on charges, now you have to deal with the judges that are on the take.

Right now, our legislative branch is corrupt (signing of Patriot Act and funding of Iraq War for the sake of saving face with the American sheople), the executive branch (for orchestrating 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion of sovereign nations in the middle east to extort their natural resources and to set up military bases to promulgate the goal of American world hegemony), and the judiciary branch (Supreme Court enforcing currupt new bankruptcy laws in essence making it a crime to be in debt and ruling that the property of individuals can be taken for either public or private development).

What do you do when you have criminal elements in all major facets of our society dictating the direction we travel? In third world countries, they perform coup d'?tats and put in place a new just government. It's now America's turn. If we don't do it, the world will do it for us like they did for Germany.

[ZHASH]

OK you get involved and you vote. But then some criminal element (kinda like the mafia used to do it) have moles within the voting system. You find out it's criminal in the voting system, so you tell the police. But the police are on the take too. But if you're lucky enough to get somebody on charges, now you have to deal with the judges that are on the take.

Right now, our legislative branch is corrupt (signing of Patriot Act and funding of Iraq War for the sake of saving face with the American sheople), the executive branch (for orchestrating 9/11 as a pretext for the invasion of sovereign nations in the middle east to extort their natural resources and to set up military bases to promulgate the goal of American world hegemony), and the judiciary branch (Supreme Court enforcing currupt new bankruptcy laws in essence making it a crime to be in debt and ruling that the property of individuals can be taken for either public or private development).

What do you do when you have criminal elements in all major facets of our society dictating the direction we travel? In third world countries, they perform coup d'?tats and put in place a new just government. It's now America's turn. If we don't do it, the world will do it for us like they did for Germany.

You sound like a typical INTP--are you convincing me or yourself? I want you to provide actual data not just generalizations.

[ApeTheDog]

He's black. Generalisations ARE actual data to them.

[FranG]

He's black. Generalisations ARE actual data to them.

I'm sure you don't need me to tell u that this is ignorant so I won't.

Yes I generalize, but I stay at odds with many people over this (some blacks). But in general, we come from an environment of scheming and hustling so we recognize that sleight of hand more than some others. So we're bred for it and always on guard for it. A lot of people who aren't from the streets get totally swallowed up by them if they for some reason ever find themselves caught there. So not that we're always right but we're pretty good at finding the angle on shit. Kinda like Louis Winthorpe III and Billy Ray Valentine from Trading Places (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places) :).

[zhang_bob]

Nearly a socialist.That means that I have no choice but to vote for whomever the Democratic Party nominates. Whoever wins will be either a Republican or a Democrat, and any Democrat would be preferable to any Republican. Third party candidates are a waste; they neither leave nor even make a mark on American politics, do only one thing more than raise and waste a lot of money: they siphon off votes from main party candidates who might win otherwise. Both parties have lost elections because of 3rd party candidates.

Omnirook, that's what the Liberal Party probably would have said to Keir Hardie in 1900. When Mr Hardie organised a meeting of various trade unions and socialist groups and they agreed to form a Labour Representation Committee, and so the Labour Party was born.

Stop pissing in the wind, square pegs in round holes doesn't work.