Conservative politics and assumption

Askthepizzaguy · Aug 30, 2016

Preface:

What this thread is about: Conservative politics, as defined by conservatives.

Spoiler :

Premise:

Conservative politics are generally speaking a set of unsupported or already debunked assumptions, made into policy by those with power, often at odds with basic science, logic, or economics. These policies are supported through a combination of things, namely: (1) apathy (2) lack of empathy (3) self-centered focus (4) discrimination and cliquishness. Fundamentally, these policies are not only flawed, but actively bad for society. The worst examples of these politics are those policy positions which create an imaginary national interest where none exists, and seeks to exclude and disenfranchise many groups at the expense of one. When taken as a whole, conservative politics are morally reprehensible in practice.

Examples:

The assumption that we all want the same things.

(From the SND link)
"We all want the same things in life. We want freedom; we want the chance for prosperity; we want as few people suffering as possible; we want healthy children; we want to have crime-free streets. The argument is how to achieve them…"

That's a good premise, and it would be nice if it were true, but that's wrong. We don't all want the same things, if we're not willing to take any steps to achieve them. For example, if your solution to healthcare is to simply pray the disease away, for those who have no money, that's wishing everyone ended up at the same place (healthiness) without being willing to take any steps whatsoever to get us from where we are, to that destination for all. It means only being concerned with my health, me, and no one else.

I went to the doctor the other day, and back again the next day, with my wife. We both had issues that would have cost thousands of dollars out of pocket in the United States. Instead, we ended up paying the equivalent of under $100 total. And the doctor lives a good and decent life here. We're a first world country. It's called Norway. Their policies regarding healthcare are liberal (US) or socialist (Europe). The building was first rate, clean, and well-built, the hospital was staffed, and the government is not in debt. In fact, it runs at a surplus. In the United States, I would be refused a doctor, or seeing the doctor would have taken a massive chunk of my income for the entire year, for a simple procedure that took the doctor only 5 minutes.

What's the difference? The difference is one country is actively taking steps to ensure that the destination is reached. I needed to buy no insurance. I am an immigrant. Their economy didn't collapse because the government subsidized those doctors and I got treatment. In fact, their economy is doing better than ours, by the standards of living wages for the working poor, and unemployment rate, higher and lower respectively.

An immigrant in the United States would not receive the same level of care if they weren't rich, because (4) discrimination.

The assumption that a free market will pop out of thin air without government intervention.

The assumption that higher demand causes higher wages, because our market is free.

"Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense. Believe the role of government should be to provide people the freedom necessary to pursue their own goals. Conservative policies generally emphasize empowerment of the individual to solve problems."

Nowhere is this more bull pucky than in the minimum wage debate, but it extends to other areas of the economy. Free market makes the assumption that there is a fair and even exchange between the worker and the employer. That the market is not monopolized in favor of the employer, nor unionized in favor of the worker, thus, the negotiation that takes place is simply between the individual hiring manager or manager in charge of wages, and the individual worker.

What happens instead in the United States is the vanishing free market, being replaced with multi-national corporations and businesses which own dozens of different employers, with wage control decisions being made at the corporate level, not at the level of the manager-on-duty. That means the negotiation which takes place between an individual, non-union worker, and the manager, is often a negotiation between a worthy worker, and a manager who cannot run his own shop, but is micro-managed from above and punished if his wage controls exceed company standards. That means there's no negotiation at all. And this is enforced because many employers across the United States, from Wal-Mart to McDonald's, and their competitors, own several companies

Yum! Brands began as a branch of Pepsico, and currently owns Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, Wingstreet, Long John Silvers, and A&W restaurants. They are also in the business of buying up other businesses which employ people at the wage floor level. This business decides that no matter which particular store out of the nearly 43,000 stores controlled by this business that you work at, your wage will be within a certain range they set, and enforce. That means within the company, there is little competition for wages, across many regions of the United States, there is little competition for wages, even if a region is short on workers, and between this company and other, similar companies that own the inaccurately named "competition", there is little competition for wages. What's the difference between Pizza Hut and Papa John's in terms of wages? Nearly nothing.

When left unregulated, when laws favoring employers who bust unions are passed, when the government intervenes in this marketplace in favor of the richest employers, the individual worker is now negotiating with the Borg Collective. There is no negotiation, you will die or be assimilated. In other words, you will accept the artificially depressed wage, or you will remain unemployed and starve.

When this disparity is pointed out, (1) apathy (2) lack of empathy (3) self-centered focus, all kick in.

That's the disparity between the model of a free market (ideal) and the market that exists for labor in the United States.

Now compare between countries like Norway and the United States, to demonstrate what happens when liberal policies are put in place.

At the local McDonald's in Oslo, the starting wage is 156 Norwegian Kroner per hour.

The exchange rate is about 1 dollar for every 8 Kroner. That's a starting wage, if converted directly to USD, of almost $20 per hour. Our unemployment rate is BELOW the rate of the United States. And there are still jobs to be filled, that aren't being filled, because fast food work is beneath the average Norwegian, so even wages of nearly $20 per hour don't attract enough workers to cause all positions to fill. But enough get filled that the business is in business. And it turns a profit. And they're expanding. McDonald's and Burger King are both expanding in Norway, not shrinking due to the higher cost of labor. It's passed right along to the consumer in the form of slightly higher prices. But the difference is not 3 times the wage equals 3 times the price of a burger. The price of the burger is about 20% higher. 300% of your wages, 120% of your prices. Sound like a better deal? It should, because math is the same concept from one side of the ocean to the other.

In practice, the disparity is a little smaller, because although wages are about triple on the wage floor level, prices and taxes are higher, so it ends up being more like 1 dollar is worth about 10 kroner, making the actual purchasing power closer to $15.60 instead of almost $20. That's still a huge difference when you're making less than half that in the United States.

Compare the employment situation in the United States, where many of these restaurants and fast food places are always hiring. My old employer, Pizza Hut, had a store I worked at where the turnover was 300% per year, making the average lifespan of any employee roughly 4 months, and making it pointless to offer extensive training. Serving an economy where there are still plenty of unemployed persons looking for a job, and the only job requirements are to show up on time in uniform, the current wage doesn't attract enough people who care about the job, intend to keep the job, care about customer service. This was true throughout the recession- Pizza Hut was always hiring. We were the business that couldn't keep workers in a recession, because we artificially deflated the wage below the point where the average worker could pay for both rent and food.

Look at all the employed persons who live in government subsidized housing and receive EBT in order to make ends meet. How is the market free when the government has to help subsidize the costs of maintaining a workforce that gets paid an indentured servant's wage, creating the kind of poverty that makes the workforce dependent upon both the employer and the government, as opposed to creating a workforce that has economic and physical mobility, can move, can get an education, can pay for their own rent, can pay for their own tuition. Which is better for the country? A country of dependent poor with no options, or a country that has professional working class workers who can move within the economy and to different parts of the country where demand exists? These policies aren't just affecting teenagers who just want a summer job and don't need real wages. There's a profound misunderstanding of who works those types of jobs. It's a big chunk of our work force, millions of adults who are dependent, not independent.

The assumption that a cluster of undifferentiated embryonic cells is more valuable and has more rights than the mother.

"Human life begins at conception. Abortion is the murder of a human being. An unborn baby, as a living human being, has separate rights from those of the mother. Oppose taxpayer-funded abortion. Taxpayer dollars should not be used for the government to provide abortions. Support legislation to prohibit partial birth abortions, called the “Partial Birth Abortion* Ban”"

For length-of-post reasons, I'll reserve discussions about these issues for a more in-depth look in future posts.

The assumption that an embryo has separate rights without a separate body means that some conservatives want to tell a woman she has no right to say no to a pregnancy already in progress, so if they're underage and got raped by their uncle, they're forced to give birth to a child unwillingly. That's (2) lack of empathy.

It begins with the assumption that the clump of cells, which often wash naturally out of the mother's body unnoticed if it doesn't attach to the uterine wall, which no one mourns with a funeral if there's an early miscarriage, has the same or greater value than the mother's bodily integrity, because of the concept (assumption) of a soul, and that consciously ending the growth of those cells is the same as murdering a person.

Assumption of a soul in a clump of cells versus all the consequences that result in preventing access to contraceptives and women's health clinics, and interfering in the personal decisions made by patients and recommended by their doctors. That doesn't cry "individual freedom" to me.

The assumption that discrimination ends when affirmative action does.

"Individuals should be admitted to schools and hired for jobs based on their ability. It is unfair to use race as a factor in the selection process. Reverse-discrimination is not a solution for racism. Some individuals in society are racist, but American society as a whole is not. Preferential treatment of certain races through affirmative action is wrong."

If it's wrong to encourage hiring of more minorities, then it's wrong to discourage hiring of those same minorities. Pretending racism or sexism or genderism or ageism doesn't exist in the hiring world is conscious ignorance. My former employer didn't like to hire women because in his mind, the women we hired did a lousy job, but he didn't apply that same metric to the male workers he hired who also washed out, because he is a man and he likes to blame women for his bad hiring decisions. Affirmative action is an imperfect way to push back against that kind of discriminatory hiring practice. Himself a minority who at one time couldn't get hired anywhere, is now in position to be sexist. That's why there needs to be a government. To prevent you from being homeless because someone with power thinks you're weaker because of the set of genitalia you were born with. That is better than the alternative, which is doing nothing. There may be even better solutions. But (1) apathy means that conservatives don't care enough to find better ones.

(1) apathy ends up supporting (4) discrimination that exists without government intervention.

The assumption that the state should get to decide who lives and who dies, because they're a legal authority.

Excusing the hypocrisy of being both against abortion, a decision made by an individual and her doctor about her own body, and for capital punishment, a punishment doled out unequally by the state against an involuntary and sometimes innocent victim, and is worse for society than the alternative, let's take them separately.

"The death penalty is a punishment that fits the crime of murder; it is neither ‘cruel’ nor ‘unusual.’ Executing a murderer is the appropriate punishment for taking an innocent life."

Life in prison ends up being cheaper, because the imperfect safeguards in place protecting an individual from being wrongfully executed are largely based on lawyers and the appeals process. This process is far more expensive than imprisoning someone for life. And if someone is exonerated, they walk free. You can't un-execute someone. And to throw lives away because we're unwilling to allow those expensive but necessary appeals processes is (1) apathy (2) lack of empathy and (3) self-centered focus. You know what's worse than spending $1.26 million dollars trying to execute someone? Doing so, and having that be the wrong person.

The justice system, from the police with racial biases, to three strikes laws, to unequal application of drug laws (see difference between crack and cocaine sentencing, and the typical demographics of each, how pot is illegal but alcohol is legal), to a judicial system where mostly white judges and juries decide the fate of minority or immigrant suspects. Even in a fairer state, humans make mistakes. Allowing the state to decide to execute someone doesn't deter crime (violent crimes and murders are higher in nations with capital punishment) and ends up killing innocent people. None of that matters if you don't care, i.e. (2) lack of empathy.

More minorities end up executed by the state than non-minorities, as a percentage, because of state level and individual (4) discrimination.

The assumption that the United States has the best model of free enterprise or competitive capitalism and it cannot be improved upon.

"The free market system, competitive capitalism, and private enterprise create the greatest opportunity and the highest standard of living for all. Free markets produce more economic growth, more jobs and higher standards of living than those systems burdened by excessive government regulation."

Simple: Norway. We're kicking your butts on every level. A smaller percentage of our population is unemployed, we have much higher standards of living, and competition exists on the local level between markets because they're not all monopolized transnational entities like much of the United States. Here, American companies have to compete with local ones, and thus, have to pay more to survive.

Fact: That provides the better standard of living. Not depressed stagnant wages decided by monopolistic corporate entities that hide their profits in offshore accounts to avoid paying taxes that keep the economy running and the state from being in debt. By the way, Norway runs at a surplus and has a massive rainy day pension fund for the state which ensures the economic stability of the country and security for all the state programs that allow it to run better than the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway

How's your national debt running these days? Pretty good? Man, the US sucks at math. This could be the USA, but it's not, because of "fiscally responsible" conservatives that lower taxes and allow the elites to funnel money away from tax collectors, while propping up a slave wage class with subsidized housing and food, creating a dependent and state-funded underclass. None of that exists here.

The assumption that the school system will be better if privately funded.

"School vouchers create competition and therefore encourage schools to improve performance. Vouchers will give all parents the right to choose good schools for their children, not just those who can afford private schools."

That sounds nice, but it allows religious entities to pass themselves off as schools and skirt laws against beating children in schools, and are subject to less regulation and inspection, so child abuse that occurs goes unseen and unreported.

http://www.salon.com/2014/05/07/cha...rt_reveals_massive_fraud_mismanagement_abuse/

http://cashinginonkids.com/blogs/report-100-million-lost-waste-fraud-abuse-charter-schools/

Same stuff happens at a public school? The government steps in and shuts it down. And that's what a government is supposed to do. Make sure people aren't being abused by the system. It's the only proper use for a government in the first place. Conservative-pushed charter schools brings the idea of keeping legal systems and just oversight out of the dark places where profiteers make money off of a system that's supposed to be egalitarian and fair. Like for-profit prisons, the business is in the business of making money, not serving the human beings under their care.

The assumption that the prison system will be better if privately managed.

https://www.aclu.org/issues/mass-incarceration/privatization-criminal-justice/private-prisons

The reason the Department of Justice is dropping private prisons is precisely because they're wasteful, mismanaged, and provide a profit motive to promote recidivism. That's the opposite of what a penal system should be doing. That would be like paying hospitals to make people sicker.

(2) lack of empathy.

Seems like self-interest should compel conservative politics to abandon this, due to its wasteful and mismanaged nature, kind of like the death penalty, but (1) apathy.

"I don't care enough to learn about it, and not principled enough to oppose it when it turns out it doesn't work as well as a state-managed system."

^Conservative politics in a nutshell.

There's more assumptions, lots more. However, it takes more words to debunk than it does to assert. So I'll leave these issues on the table for now:

Spoiler :

The bottom line is, for each and every one of these self-identified conservative policy positions, there is an ignorance of the facts about what happens when those policies are put into practice, ignorance of the facts about what happens when liberal policies are put into practice instead, and these policy positions are justified by and supported by (1) apathy (2) lack of empathy (3) Self-centered focus and (4) discrimination.

Note: I'm separating conservative policy positions from conservative-leaning people.

This is intended to be a dialogue.

I am not assuming that people are conservatives because they're bigots, apathetic, lack empathy, or are simply self-centered. However, some people are, and they come up with policies that are then supported by other people who don't have such failings, because part of our politics is tribal. Sometimes it's just a political football game, and it's more important to cheer for our own team than to examine its faults. Sometimes those above mentioned moral failings are the reason for supporting conservative policies even when they obviously fail. And that's a problem.

Note also, I'm not a Democrat. Their center-right watered-down partisan politics aren't very interesting to me. But there's no liberal party to vote for except the Green Party and Jill Stein is a wacko. Feel free to bash the Democratic party for their failings. I recognize that they suck and vote that way simply because there's nothing better in the two rich-party system. The party of oligarchs and the party of plutocrats. They go through a cycle where one is better than the other, barely. Right now the Republicans are worse.

Summary:

That's my premise, with several examples. I'm going to go through more.

The main issue I have with conservative politics is the idea that something worse is actually better because it's more traditional in some cases, or because there are some bad assumptions being made and examining data and determining a winner is too much work, and comparisons and facts have a liberal bias.

If the underlying assumption of the conservative person is that they want their country to be better, then the status quo does not accomplish that. But establishment and traditionalist politics, xenophobia, hysteria, and lawlessness do not accomplish "better".

I'd like to talk policy with conservatives. I'd be appreciative of any that want to step up to the plate. If no one volunteers, then I'll simply sit here talking to myself, pointing out the emperor has no clothes, unopposed.

warpus · Aug 30, 2016

Askthepizzaguy said:
What this thread is about: Conservative politics, as defined by conservatives.

Isn't this awfully location specific? Not all conservatives agree on political agenda, not by a long shot.

Lohrenswald · Aug 30, 2016

As far as I see, Conservatism is the ideology of giving more to those that have most, on the premise that they somehow deserve it. That position has gotten less popular over the years, so they've had to mask in in different ways, usually by form of traditionalism and nationalism

Askthepizzaguy · Aug 30, 2016

I'm an impatient man, and you can respond to any post you like in your own space and your own time.

I'll keep going down the list in this separate post.

Embryonic Stem Cell Research: See the above assumptions regarding abortion debate.

Assumption that human life begins at conception.

"Support the use of adult and umbilical cord stem cells only for research. It is morally and ethically wrong for the government to fund embryonic stem cell research. Human life begins at conception. The extraction of stem cells from an embryo requires its destruction. In other words, it requires that a human life be killed. Adult stem cells have already been used to treat spinal cord injuries, Leukemia, and even Parkinson’s disease. Adult stem cells are derived from umbilical cords, placentas, amniotic fluid, various tissues and organ systems like skin and the liver, and even fat obtained from liposuction. Embryonic stem cells have not been successfully used to help cure disease."

Even if that were true, when the life of the mother is also involved, decisions have to be made. Keeping the government out of the decision is one policy, making the government enforce a decision is another. And how far do you want to take it? If the 14 year old rape victim is forced to get a back-alley abortion, do you want her to raise her unwanted child from prison? What's the just punishment for this criminal?

I doubt this will be debatable, because few are so lacking in moral fiber that they will go this far. But until you're willing to have that debate, you may want to stop supporting anti-choice politicians who want to criminalize it. If you aren't willing to have that debate, then you shouldn't be willing to vote that way.

Once there is a legality in terminating pregnancies, there's human tissue that can be used by doctors and scientists to perform miracles, like helping paralyzed people walk. That's an undoubtedly good outcome.

Unused and unwanted embryos are destroyed whether we use them for research or not. You could attempt to implant each and every embryo into willing recipients at your own expense instead, if you prefer. Just find the willing recipients and come up with the funding. It's a free country. No? Okay then, I guess you're okay with those unused embryos being destroyed rather than making them grow up into a person. Because those are the outcomes of legal abortion (and human fertility research), which is the morally correct position and what is best for society as well.

We also do research and use cadavers for education purposes. Do you take issue with that? If not, what's the difference between a cadaver donated for research and a discarded embryo? The embryo is more likely to result in cures and treatments if research is done with that tissue, so... it can't be lack of viable results.

Fact: supporting embryonic stem cell research doesn't prevent placental stem cell research.

Lack of results from embryonic stem cell research is directly related to the research being banned. Those cells are just as good if not better for research. The lack of results is due to politics, as of the time of the writing of the article I cited in the OP. That article was updated in 2010, and as late as 2009, research using these tissues was still in its infancy, and only going through its first clinical trial, which was blocked due to fears about cancer that never were observed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryonic_stem_cell#Clinical_trial

Step out of the way of the scientists and let them do their jobs, and watch diseases get cured. That's better for society than the status quo.

Assumption that clean renewables will never provide enough energy.

"Oil, gas and coal are all good sources of energy and are abundant in the U.S. Oil drilling should be increased both on land and at sea. Increased domestic production creates lower prices and less dependence on other countries for oil. Support increased production of nuclear energy. Wind and solar sources will never provide plentiful, affordable sources of power. Support private ownership of gas and electric industries."

Fact: Germany gets over 30% of its power from the sun. Why? Because the government builds solar power plants.

Fact: Norway generates 98.5% of the power it consumes from hydroelectricity.

The United States could get 65% of its power from wind alone. And given how sunny certain parts of the country are, solar power shouldn't be much of a problem. We also have a lot of mountains and rivers, just like Norway. Seems like more hydro power is also a viable option. The reason why we don't do that is because we're sitting on a literal mountain range of coal and the coal industry funds the politicians who are in office. It's as simple as that. Coal is not better for us, and we can power our country without it. And we will have to do so when our non-renewables run out, so maybe it would be a good idea to begin the process of switching.

That's an undoubtedly wise and prudent policy position that shouldn't be a matter of partisan politics, but it is.

Assumption that legalized voluntary euthanasia will necessarily lead to state-enforced murder for fiscal reasons.

"Neither euthanasia nor physician-assisted suicide should be legalized. It is immoral and unethical to deliberately end the life of a terminally ill person (euthanasia), or enable another person to end their own life (assisted suicide). The goal should be compassionate care and easing the suffering of terminally ill people. Legalizing euthanasia could lead to doctor-assisted suicides of non-critical patients. If euthanasia were legalized, insurance companies could pressure doctors to withhold life-saving treatment for dying patients. Many religions prohibit suicide and euthanasia. These practices devalue human life."

That all sounds like we care about the human lives in question.

However, the human beings who are asking to die are the ones who are suffering and do not want to continue suffering, and there's only so much medical science can do to ease their suffering. So there's also a fear that insurance companies might not do a bang-up job providing care (wait... I thought the free market and capitalism would provide everything that is needed in every situation? Why are you backing away from that position selectively in this instance?). Yeah? So some of these suffering patients might not get the proper amount of pain relief as it is. Denying them the same ability to end their own lives than all the rest of us could freely choose at any moment, based on that excuse, is bogus, because you didn't address one of the problems that you're defending your political position over, which is the lack of "easing the suffering" due to insurance companies valuing profit over people. That still exists, all you've done is remove the freedom to choose what to do with your own life, on top of the suffering that already exists in your broken profit-based system.

Here's another clue: a centrally funded universal healthcare system wouldn't need insurers at all, and doctors would get paid the same whether someone can afford care personally or not. Maybe that's the way to address the "easing the suffering" problem you're worried about with the current profit-motive system, rather than removing rights and choices from patients and doctors.

Like the abortion debate, like the stem cell debate, get out of the way of doctors and scientists trying to do their jobs, and let patients choose the care they want. The same care we offer to our own dying pets when they're unable to move and are constantly in pain. We show them compassion.

And you cannot simply ignore the debate. Whether euthanasia is legal or not, patients already get to decide whether or not to refuse resuscitation. If they are able to make that decision themselves. Sometimes loved ones make that decision for them, and often make the decision that serves themselves best, meaning... grandpa dying would make me sad, so I'm going to insist that the nurse resuscitates grandpa 12 times over the course of 10 hours, breaking all his ribs, damaging his already failing organs, keeping alive his already oxygen-deprived and essentially already dead brain, prolonging his suffering, and he's completely unable to tell them to stop. But if given a choice when healthy, that same patient signs the DNR, saying they're ready to die. Then the doctor is allowed to stop giving care. Not only allowed, but ethically obligated.

I don't see a ton of difference between that request and the request of a terminally ill and suffering bed-ridden cancer patient who cannot jump in front of a train, to simply be given an injection to end it. But then again, I am not suffering from (1) apathy and (2) lack of empathy. So that might be part of it.

A soldier on the battlefield gets ripped in half by an improvised explosive device, but still can reach their service pistol and can shoot themselves in the head to spare them from several moments of suffering that they will not survive anyway.

They have that option. Everyone should have that option. Because (4) discrimination is wrong. Put in place every safeguard you need to protect patients who don't want to die, and want the suffering-easing drugs. You'd get my full and total support, because I don't suffer from (1) apathy and (2) lack of empathy.

I can do both things. They're not in opposition. That's one of the reasons why partisan politics is ridiculous. It doesn't have to be A or B, sometimes it should be A and B together.

Just know that if you did both things, both of them would be liberal ideas. Neither idea is currently supported by Republicans. So much for the focus on easing the suffering.

(2) lack of empathy.

Climate Change:

Assumption that we don't affect the environment, and ourselves in the process, by carbon pollution, and that carbon taxes do nothing.

"Change in global temperature is natural over long periods of time. Science has not shown that humans can affect permanent change to the earth’s temperature. Proposed laws to reduce carbon emissions will do nothing to help the environment and will cause significant price increases for all. Many reputable scientists support this theory."

Science: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveys_of_scientists'_views_on_climate_change

You lose on the science. The greenhouse effect is not only unquestioned in science, (Actually, more like questioned, examined, re-examined, peer-reviewed, and upheld countless times) but we've seen the effects of it in Earth's history. The Earth has had hothouse periods and snowball earth periods. The Earth is not unique. Venus was not always as hot as it currently is. Venus is the prime example of a runaway greenhouse effect. And scientists agree that it not only exists, but is one of the main culprits for record-breaking temperatures, and the rise of temperatures when the Earth's natural cycles indicate that we should be headed for another ice age, but we're not, we're entering a rapid warming period and global temperatures are rising every year. Sounds good until deserts expand, ruining farmland, and seas rise, displacing a billion people, and ecosystems go extinct. How'd you like to see polar regions covered in mosquitoes which are the number one killer of human beings among all animals, biting populations which are not as immune to the diseases they typically carry? This stuff takes many years to happen but it's all happening.

Carbon taxes do not in and of themselves stop pollution. You take those monies and build solar farms, wind farms, and water turbines, and eventually, coal goes obsolete and we produce fewer carbon emissions.

The Earth does go through natural cycles of hundreds of thousands of years. Global warming in 100 years is a very different animal and results in mass extinctions and collapsed ecosystems and deserts where there was farmland. Maybe we even want to save some coal for the worst of a global cooling period, so we can artificially create more atmospheric CO2, turning carbon into a gentle space heater rather than a sudden blast furnace and runaway forest fire. That's an option, if we haven't burned all our fossil fuels already.

But if you don't care about something whose effects won't affect you in the next 10 years, then (2) lack of empathy for the kind of planet we're leaving for the next generation.

Gun Control.

Assumption that gun restrictions don't result in lower rates of murder, violence, and crime.

"The Second Amendment gives citizens the right to keep and bear arms. Individuals have the right to defend themselves. There are too many gun control laws – additional laws will not lower gun crime rates. What is needed is enforcement of current laws. Gun control laws do not prevent criminals from obtaining guns. More guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens mean less crime."

The second amendment talks about well-regulated militias. In other words, the military of its day. With ball and musket weapons of its day. It basically says that the military should be allowed to have weapons, and that the states shouldn't have their weapons removed. As would be the case if we were still a territory of the British Empire. They were worried we wouldn't be able to fight the government if the tyrants came a knockin'.

Our government has weapons that can obliterate us from orbit. Missiles they can fire with great precision from locations unknown. Tanks you can't penetrate with small arms fire. Bombers. Fighter jets. An immense intelligence network and surveilance system. If the government wanted to oppress us in that manner, it's game over. There will be no meaningful armed resistance.

In the meantime, there are two arguments remaining for gun possession: Home and personal defense against criminals, and "because I like 'em."

Let me show you how bogus the defense argument is. The same politician who says your right to bear arms for personal defense shall not be infringed, is the politician who makes sure you're checked for guns and other weapons at the airport, at the border, at the courthouse, at the department of motor vehicles, most government offices, AND HIS POLITICAL RALLY. You get anywhere near the President or most important US politicians running for office, you step inside that town hall meeting, and they will make sure no one in that building has guns except for the people protecting the important VIP. All the rest of you can go screw yourselves, sayeth this principled gun-loving politician.

If guns made us all safer, shouldn't everyone at the political rally be encouraged to hold a gun? If guns made us all safer, shouldn't everyone around our most important politicians be required to carry a gun? Safety is important, after all!

No? It would actually make those rallies more dangerous for all of us, including the same gun-loving politician who exists in a world where there's a 1-mile bubble of no guns allowed around their bodies at all times, except of course for their personal army of government agents with guns and body armor. That's nice for them, but you don't have that, and you might live in a crime-filled ghetto, where everyone with a gun should have their gun confiscated, so fewer people get shot. People get the guns for their own protection in those ghettos, it's not a lack of guns that is the problem. It's the fact that everyone has them that is the problem.

Conversely, look at Australia, and other nations which severely restricted gun ownership. Violent crime and murders are down, suicide is down, crime in general is easier to police, because the police don't need to be armed like the military in order to do their jobs. In Great Britain, the police actually do their jobs without shooting everyone. And they're far safer than cops in the United States.

AND they won't get out of control and ruin everyone's lives if they have bad training, because THEY'RE NOT ARMED EITHER and won't accidentally shoot you because you looked slightly black in the skin region. It's utterly amazing.

How do those other first world free countries with functioning democracies and economies manage to get along without constant mass murders and police shootings? Answer: Gun control.

It does work. It's called other countries that have tried it out, and have a record of excellence. Look 'em up on the internet sometime.

In the laboratories of democracy, sometimes you have to actually check someplace liberal to see if more liberal policies actually work. That would the the scientific thing to do, if you know, you were actually interested in learning about things and comparing differences to see which is better. Instead, you have the limited gun control laws of liberal states where we debate what size gun you can carry, which doesn't do a lot. It does something, but it doesn't really address the underlying issue. Handguns are the main problem.

You know where anyone can have any kind of gun they want, and no government exists to tell people what to do? Somalia. It's a great place, everyone wants to live there. We're all moving there in droves next summer, come with us. It couldn't hurt, right? Or maybe it would and we actually know better but can't admit it to ourselves out loud and in public.

Healthcare:

Assumption of a free market in the healthcare system, and that socialized medicine results in higher costs, rather than profiteering monopolists.

"Support competitive, free market health care system. All Americans have access to health care. The debate is about who should pay for it. Free and low-cost government-run programs (socialized medicine) result in higher costs and everyone receiving the same poor-quality health care. Health care should remain privatized. The problem of uninsured individuals should be addressed and solved within the free market healthcare system – the government should not control healthcare."

Read the above very carefully. Notice how the actual problem, people being too poor to see a doctor, is never actually addressed. At all. In the slightest.

Look no further than my most recent home state of Florida to see how well the "free market" handles healthcare. The governor Rick Scott refused federal money to allow more of its people to get on medicare and medicaid. The same governor also ran the company that systematically committed fraud against the government and had to pay one of the largest lawsuit settlements in United States history because of that fraud.

This guy had a company that went around buying up hospitals, so that he could reduce competition in the marketplace for those seeking employment in the medical profession, and depressed staff wages in Florida for medical workers (most of the friends I had in Florida over the past 10 years were doctors and nurses and told me all about it) and in return, those who managed the hospitals (the CEOs of the hospital) got million dollar signing bonuses and massive salaries while reducing staff pay and tightening access to medical supplies, making the jobs of nurses and doctors harder because they had to jump through extra hoops just to get the medicine their patients needed. All for the purpose of turning an already functioning hospital with a professional and well-paid staff that was turning a profit, into a profit-centric business which sacrificed care for patients and care for staff for CEO bonuses and profits, resulting in a marketplace with less competition and higher prices for an inferior product. Then, that criminal became the governor of my state.

Rick Scott. Look him up. That's the "free market" allowed to do whatever it wants.

Substitute the word "free market" for rich jerkwad with no government oversight in any sentence which uses the words "free market". Then it's closer to reality.

Those hospitals were making a profit and serving their patients before Rick Scott. All Rick did was buy it all up, shaft the consumer, and make everything more expensive and give you less choice. Supply-side economics is nothing but that.

Conservative politics is half supply-side economics, half religious nonsense.

Gonna skip the homeland security / airport screening thing for now, because the argument will take a bit to deconstruct, and what is happening now is the unholy blend of both "liberal" compromise policies and conservative racist ones. It's garbage all around.

Assumption that a secure border is possible without cutting off international trade and tourism.

"Support legal immigration only. Oppose amnesty for those who enter the U.S. illegally (illegal immigrants). Those who break the law by entering the U.S. illegally do not have the same rights as those who obey the law and enter legally. The borders should be secured before addressing the problem of the illegal immigrants currently in the country. The Federal Government should secure the borders and enforce current immigration law."

The part where it says "the borders should be secured before addressing the problem of illegal immigrants currently in the country" tells you all you need to know about conservative policy positions. They don't have a policy position about what to do with the illegal immigrants here. They literally dodge the entire question and say "we'll address it later".

They also offer solutions that don't work. You know how easy it is to scale/destroy/dig under a wall? A multi-billion dollar wall won't stop illegal immigration and will be an enormous and embarrassing wasteful expense to have to man and maintain for decades thereafter, until we wise up and realize it didn't do us any good. Also, illegal immigrants are typically legal immigrants who have overstayed their visas. A wall doesn't stop that from happening.

Deporting them is a logistical nightmare. They're here, and no one is offering a workable solution for how to make them leave. Can catch them and release them, and they just wind up back on this side of the border. Incarcerating them carries a heavy cost as well.

Since they typically already have jobs or are willing and able to work, and don't usually have a criminal record outside of their overstaying their work visa, the cheapest and best possible option is a path to citizenship. Not blanket amnesty, but paying taxes and not being able to vote or hold public office, doing jobs above board so they can't bring wages down for others, paying a fine over time through wage garnishment, that sort of thing.

But since those are fiscally prudent and reasonable options, and would benefit the country greatly, far more than inaction, or wasteful walls and ineffective deport programs, obviously conservatives are opposed to them, because certain kinds of immigrants (hint: Latin America and the Middle East) are less desirable than immigrants from Canada and Europe.

(4) discrimination. :rolleyes:

No one wants to build a border wall with Canada. The racism is kind of blindingly obvious here. Did you really not notice that the white people border is wide open too and literally no one cares, not even Donald Trump?

The colonists who made this country in the first place were all illegal immigrants. We have a proud tradition of just showing up here and making it our home. There should be a system in place to deal with the people who overstay their visas. But we can't have a reasonable discussion about that because (1) apathy.

I don't care enough to be informed enough on the issues to have a meaningful policy position, hence the utter lack of one from the conservative side, on their own list of policy positions, on their very own website.

There's plenty more to deconstruct. But as I said before, all of these policy positions are terrible for the country. Objectively speaking.

All they do is making certain privileged classes feel special and important, like the folks that live in gated communities who get scared of the idea of not living in one. Not even realizing the gate provides no security at all, while holding up emergency responders.

Much like speed bumps. Driving fatalities not reduced, since people who want to speed just speed up after the bump, and response time of EMTs and Fire Department and police officers increased.

The border wall is a speed bump. All it does is hinder our efforts to maintain a society. It creates more problems than it solves.

Being able to examine the evidence and recognize that would mean having to take a critical look at one's own policy positions, realize they don't work, and then change your political position.

That largely doesn't happen in US politics, because it's a team sport and we have to show team spirit, even if our head coach sucks and our QB sucks and our special teams suck and our defense sucks and we haven't won a game in several seasons.

There comes a time when you need to come up with a different game plan. But if you're trapped in a conservative media bubble where all you hear about are hypothetical successes of stagnant wage policies and feel-good stories about religion and you hear literally nothing about how things are done in liberal land, then you're going to continue to support conservative politics.

It's like reading one holy book and deciding it is the BEST and the only book you'll ever need, and saying all the other books are garbage.

It's like saying USA is number 1, having never experienced any other first world country.

Blind nationalism, blind patriotism, blind respect for the establishment and the status quo and traditionalism, will by rule NEVER make our country improve in any way.

Only critical thinking allows that. Critical voices are absent in conservative publications. Everything is always fine, until a liberal becomes President. Then nothing he does works, even if he hasn't even enacted the change yet.

Note how people were calling the Seattle minimum wage raise a bad idea before it happened, then employment went up, wages went up, hours went up, median incomes went up, businesses didn't close, and prices didn't even increase. But it was a failure from the start and it will continue to be a failure until it disappears from the forefront of Tim Worstall's opinion pieces, because tilting at that particular windmill was embarrassing after a while.

You look at a place like Kansas, where the conservatives got everything they wanted, and they ruined their schools, healthcare, budget, and property values, and median incomes stayed the same and wages remained stagnant.

That's the laboratory of democracy in action. Conservatives had their policies, they tried them out. It did not work.

Try something different? Look at New York, Washington, DC, California, Oregon, look at the UK, Norway, Australia, Germany?

TRY liberal policies? They work elsewhere. You just have to embrace them and not actively try to destroy the country whenever a liberal is in power just to prove a point. I fired all the Wal-Mart greeters the instant Obama got elected, that proves he's bad for employment. Except you didn't need the greeters in the first place, so all you did was cut some jobs out of spite. You didn't do it because profits were down either. Profits remained the same.

Papa John's complained that medical care for employees would cost his business an extra 25 cents per pie sold. It was outrageous! He said he'd cut hours and force everyone to work 20 hours a week, and it would all be the government's fault.

By the way, we're running a promotion where we give away 2 million free pizzas, at the same time.

Also, we're still hiring. It seems like we actually needed those positions filled, and only announced that as a scare tactic to cow workers into submission to the corporate entity. I got that same speech at Pizza Hut. Our hours were all going to get cut.

Meanwhile, we hadn't had a full crew of drivers in years, and the existing employees were working 50 hours a week because we were constantly understaffed.

I laughed in my boss's face, and he couldn't even fire me for doing so. He was already working 60 hours a week himself.

Which proved my point even harder.

It's bad when you can prove your point merely by laughing at your opposition. I didn't even need to use words to win that exchange.

Tee Kay · Aug 30, 2016

Lohrenswald said:
As far as I see, Conservatism is the ideology of giving more to those that have most, on the premise that they somehow deserve it. That position has gotten less popular over the years, so they've had to mask in in different ways, usually by form of traditionalism and nationalism

Less popular? The naked agenda of rewarding the rich and powerful is being less masked by traditionalism and nationalism over the last thirty years if anything.

Western culture particularly in the English-speaking world is now utterly wedded to the idea of exclusive individual ownership of success and privilege, whereas in the past that might have been tempered by a sense of obligation to country, community, and religion.

abradley · Aug 30, 2016

A conservative's view of 'Conservative politics and assumption':

Conservative vs. Liberal Beliefs - Student News Daily
https://www.studentnewsdaily.com/conservative-vs-liberal-beliefs/
Liberal policies generally emphasize the need for the government to solve problems. Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense.

Link to video.
Simple ... yes.

choxorn · Aug 31, 2016

You've done a lot of work compiling all these takedowns of conservative ideas, so here, let me help you with one:

Same-sex Marriage

"Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Oppose same-sex marriage.
Support Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in 1996, which affirms the right of states not to recognize same-sex marriages licensed in other states.
Requiring citizens to sanction same-sex relationships violates moral and religious beliefs of millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims and others, who believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman."

Assumption here: That some silly books written 3000 years ago means it's okay to violate the rights of humans living today.

W|M · Aug 31, 2016

Tee Kay said:
Less popular? The naked agenda of rewarding the rich and powerful is being less masked by traditionalism and nationalism over the last thirty years if anything.

Western culture particularly in the English-speaking world is now utterly wedded to the idea of exclusive individual ownership of success and privilege, whereas in the past that might have been tempered by a sense of obligation to country, community, and religion.

That description also applies to self-described liberals in the US, not just their self-described conservatives

Bugfatty300 · Aug 31, 2016

Well I'm not a conservative and I agree with all of your points so far, except for the section about gun control.

Askthepizzaguy said:
How do those other first world free countries with functioning democracies and economies manage to get along without constant mass murders and police shootings.Answer: Gun control.

Almost every other highly developed rich nation also has vastly superior social safety nets, greater socio-economic parity, dramatically different approaches to policing and police training, justice systems that are aimed primarily at reform and mental health rather than punishment. How did you conclude that gun control is the answer as opposed to the tons of other factors that can effect crime and police brutality?

It does work. It's called other countries that have tried it out, and have a record of excellence. Look 'em up on the internet sometime.

So specifically what kind of gun control works exactly? There really isn't a consensus on the matter. For instance the restrictiveness of gun control among other developed western countries ranges from relatively lax to near total prohibition but murder rates are uniformly low in all of them but neither of these two things seem to correlate.

In the meantime, there are two arguments remaining for gun possession: Home and personal defense against criminals, and "because I like 'em."

Let me show you how bogus the defense argument is. The same politician who says your right to bear arms for personal defense shall not be infringed, is the politician who makes sure you're checked for guns and other weapons at the airport, at the border, at the courthouse, at the department of motor vehicles, most government offices, AND HIS POLITICAL RALLY. You get anywhere near the President or most important US politicians running for office, you step inside that town hall meeting, and they will make sure no one in that building has guns except for the people protecting the important VIP. All the rest of you can go screw yourselves, sayeth this principled gun-loving politician.

If guns made us all safer, shouldn't everyone at the political rally be encouraged to hold a gun? If guns made us all safer, shouldn't everyone around our most important politicians be required to carry a gun? Safety is important, after all!

You're addressing the fringe positions that guns automatically make you safer and that unrestricted gun proliferation to anyone and everyone will make society safer.

This is not the same as the argument for being able to have a gun for home and personal defense purposes.

You know where anyone can have any kind of gun they want, and no government exists to tell people what to do? Somalia.

The fact that there is no government presence in much of Somalia doesn't not mean they're aren't people in control of local areas who enforce all sorts of rules which presumably includes dictating who can have and carry weapons.

The only example of a place that has practically no weapon restrictions for civilians is Yemen.

Not exactly a top destination, especially with the recent political fighting and insurgency yet it's still not the murder-filled diplopia that people think think will result lax laws regarding weapons.

Lohrenswald · Aug 31, 2016

Tee Kay said:
Less popular? The naked agenda of rewarding the rich and powerful is being less masked by traditionalism and nationalism over the last thirty years if anything.

Western culture particularly in the English-speaking world is now utterly wedded to the idea of exclusive individual ownership of success and privilege, whereas in the past that might have been tempered by a sense of obligation to country, community, and religion.

Yea, but I think I could say that's masquarading as freedom.

But you're probably right

Cutlass · Aug 31, 2016

abradley said:
A conservative's view of 'Conservative politics and assumption':

Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, limited government, free markets, individual liberty, traditional American values and a strong national defense.

Click to expand...

Simple ... yes.

Ironic, isn't it then, that conservatives oppose all of those things. :crazyeye:

But none moreso than personal responsibility.

Askthepizzaguy · Aug 31, 2016

Been away learning foreign language at school. Haven't been able to log in all day. To continue where I was;

Skipping the eminent domain argument because the liberal and conservative positions in the screed are the same, just phrased differently.

Eminent Domain / private property issues:

"Liberal
Government has the right to use eminent domain (seizure of private property by the governmentwith compensation to the owner) to accomplish a public end.
Conservative
Respect ownership and private property rights. Eminent domain (seizure of private property by the governmentwith compensation to the owner) in most cases is wrong. Eminent domain should not be used for private development."

I wonder if the writer of this article noticed that there wasn't any difference when they were trying to write how much better the conservative position was. They simply added that the conservatives were motivated by morality to only support eminent domain when the property is going to be used as public property thereafter. Same as liberals, just with an added insinuation that only conservatives are motivated by morals. Good stuff.

Moving on, since this was irrelevant...

Separation of Church and State:

Assumption that one's own religion should be endorsed by the government or perpetuated by the government.

"The phrase separation of church and state is not in the Constitution. The First Amendment to the Constitution states Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof This prevents the government from establishing a national church/denomination. However, it does not prohibit God from being acknowledged in schools and government buildings. Symbols of Christian heritage should not be removed from public and government spaces (eg., the Ten Commandments should continue to be displayed in Federal buildings). Government should not interfere with religion and religious freedom."

This paragraph is very carefully phrased. Here's the neutral position:

You can believe what you want, you can personally pray to yourself all you like. The government shouldn't tell you what to believe or what not to believe. And that's the point. When you have the Ten Commandments being referred to and endorsed by federal judges, that is the government telling you what to believe. When the teacher at school insists that you refer to God, pray to god, respect a god, pledge allegiance to the flag of a nation "under God", that is the government telling you what to believe, and what to say.

Here's the difference:

What you do in your own space, on your own time, is your business. When you are an official that works for the government, your rights continue to be the same. You can worship/pray/believe in whatever you want, on your own time, in your own space. That's your business.

When you are acting as an official of the government, that is no longer your own time. That is no longer your own space. That space belongs to ALL OF US, including those who believe differently, or choose not to believe.

You must take a neutral position while acting as a representative of the government, because the government is FOR ALL OF US, not just for religion 1,023 out of many thousands of religions that have existed. That is how you can personally be a Catholic while also serving as an official of the government, but, you can represent Protestants who do not believe in the papacy, while acting as that government official, because your official position is neutral. You're respecting religion but not establishing Catholicism as the state religion.

This isn't even a difficult concept. Why in the blue Jesus are you even struggling with it?

Neutral is not the same as denial. Neutral means "I believe, but it's ok for others not to believe." Neutral means "The government doesn't take a position, even if I do."

That's why Kim Davis couldn't keep her job as a clerk of the court, citing her personal beliefs as a reason to FAIL to execute the FUNCTION of her OFFICIAL duties while acting as the government that exists to serve ALL OF US, not just the extreme right wing gay-bashers. That's how she gets to have HER religion in her own mind, her own heart, her own home, in her own private place, in her own church, and out on the street.

By the way, it's disgusting how her lawyers used her as a martyr for their cause and kept encouraging her to do this, because it pretty much ruined her reputation and disrupted her life. She probably would have been perfectly content to back down and rubber stamp things had she not been an unwitting pawn of her lawyers who liked to sacrifice her so they could make a name for themselves. She's not totally innocent, but she's nowhere near the scumbags her lawyers were, using her like that. She was clearly in over her head. The penalty for being dumb should just be having to live as a dumb person forever. It shouldn't put you in the headlines as "dumb person behaves dumbly" where you get made into a public spectacle for believing in a religion literally. That's overkill and I'm not a fan of it, by the way. Not understanding the difference between public government and private religious views shouldn't be a crime that ruins your life, and it could have been avoided had she not been goaded into continuing by everyone she knew and trusted. I bet most people don't even know their names. But I digress.

In the government itself, you are supposed to be neutral. You don't take a position. You keep it to yourself and you do your danged job.

That is basic pluralism. It allows for us all to coexist. You start messing with that, then I'm going to go ahead and insist that atheism becomes the state's official position if I ever get into a government office, and deny anyone any kind of religious freedoms, because in MY PERSONAL VIEW, it's all garbage and nonsense. But if neutrality is abandoned, then I'm going to impose MY view that it's all nonsense, and declare all marriages that happen only in a church, and not in a courthouse, to be invalid, because religion is meaningless to me. (That's not actually what I would do, but this is an example of where a person serving as an arm of the government has NO RIGHT to impose their beliefs or lack thereof on you.)

Neutrality is not denial of religion. Neutrality is not endorsement either. It's taking no position. It's secular, not atheistic, not religious. Secular government that takes no position. People can have whatever position they want. The government takes none except to respect everyone's belief or lack thereof.

Get it? This is government and freedom for everyone 101. It's the basics of the basics. If you don't understand this, ask your pastor why JFK was a Catholic president but everyone in the United States wasn't required to acknowledge the Pope. That's how this whole system works. JFK can be Catholic, the nation isn't.

Okay? I don't have to acknowledge the Pope, and I don't have to acknowledge the Ten Suggestions. So don't force them on me in a neutral setting like a courtroom where the judge is supposed to take no position while executing his official duty as a representative of the government. He can have it in his private chambers in the back, where that's his personal space, I don't care. He can put a prayer rug in there and pray to Allah on it. Doesn't bother me. It bothers me when he starts quoting the Koran while judging me.

How would you feel if I was the atheist judge, and in my courtroom, I put up a big sign that said "religious people have it all wrong, God isn't real and it's quite silly to think he is" and then I started inserting that into all my judgments. That would be a very rude and imperfect version of my beliefs, but it sure would get to the point in a hurry. How do you feel about my ability to treat you fairly and justly while shoving that in your face during your trial? Does that feel good?

How would you like me, as the teacher of your children, to take a position, and tell them directly, as a fact, that God isn't real. That's the difference between denial and neutrality.

Keep it neutral. The instant you don't, I'm going to insist that all scientists, politicians, teachers, judges, even the clerk at the courthouse, anyone who isn't religious, specifically deny God to your face while they're doing their official duties. Loudly, and rudely. Because I promise you, religious nutjobs can get very rude and very loud with their supremacist viewpoints. Turnabout is fair play.

Not so pleasant, is it? But, it would be very fair. That would be the fair response to public school teachers teaching God, insisting on a pledge of allegiance containing references to God, judges insisting on displaying the Ten Commandments, and the money that we use referencing God. Would you appreciate a Department of the Treasury that printed "God is a hoax" on all of our money? How would that feel?

Is ok?

If you don't mind, let's split it up by population percentage. I'd even go for what, 10 percent of the money, however many people in the USA are avowed atheists and agnostics? Let's get representative in this endeavor. Have 10 percent of the money specifically deny God in big bold letters across the top. "God isn't real, trololol". Whoops, sorry. "GOD ISN'T REAL, TROLOLOL." That's more like it. That's all I'll have in my wallet and that's the only kind of currency I'll pay people with. I'll trade in all the god-endorsement money I receive and withdraw only atheist bills, and carry them around proudly. Heck, let's not stop there, have some more money talk about Allah and Vishnu and Xenu as well. Let's be very inclusive and support everyone's beliefs.

No? That's horrific to you? Then take the neutral position instead of forcing your beliefs on everyone else.

Neutrality. It's not a difficult concept. Stop crossing the line.

When a gay couple gets married, your job as a government official is to execute the law. The law says it's legal. You can take your personal happy touchy-feely beliefs that don't apply here and keep them to yourself, or find another job. Those are the only two options.

Let's get medical for a second. Are you a member of a religion that opposes the donation of organs, or blood transfusions? Then don't be a doctor that will have to do those things. It's really that simple. How are people not getting this? Don't want to support contraceptive care for women, or allow abortions as a choice? Don't be a doctor. Take your personal feelings and leave them at the door, or don't bother trying to get that job. If you don't believe in Western Medicine and would rather use Reiki and energy crystals and homeopathy to cure patients, that's great. Don't be a doctor. Take that nonsense to the street corner and make sure you put "for entertainment purposes only, not intended to treat or cure any disease" to cover your butt on the legal front, and then go ahead, you're free to be a charlatan. Just don't advertise yourself as a doctor. That requires special training and also requires that you not sell voodoo as science. They're different things.

Let's take it down to the non-critical business enterprise level. In order to be a business, you need to register the business with the government and say I'm going to follow the law or lose my business license.

So now your job is to make cakes, but you refuse to make cakes for gay people. Sound familiar? Well then you can lose your business license and never make cakes for the general public again. Instead, you can bake cakes at home and sell them to your religious friends that you know. Easy peasy. Very simple stuff. Take your bigotry and fantasy out of the public space and keep it in your private space where it belongs.

PS, I happen to know it says nowhere in your Bible that you must refuse to do business with men who lie with other men. I've read it.

The real question is, how do you not know that? Even if it did say such a thing, which it does not, I have books that say your books are full of it. It appears we are at an impasse, since book versus book is logically a draw. My books contain more facts about reality than yours, but let's call it even, for expedience sake.

Thus, neutrality.

Even if more voters are religious than non-religious. Popularity doesn't enter into this. The minority has rights as well, and they have a right to not subscribe to your religion. The state cannot impose it on us. Period. But this also extends to any business licensed to do business in any state. From hospitals all the way down to bakeries. Until you put "church" on the outside of the building, you have to do business as a non-church. Church or business, pick a side. Church or state, pick a side. Those are the rules.

Would you like to have an irreligious doctor specifically prevent you from seeing a priest before you die, if you request it? Or how about laughing in your face for thinking you're about to meet God? Not cool at all? Okay, then how about leaving your position on religion out of the medical profession as well. Seems fair to me. Your job is medicine, not clerical work. You don't offer religious positions on anything until asked by the patient or their family.

In summary:

Private = your own opinions matter.
In Public, as the state or a business licensed by the state = neutral. Your own opinions don't enter into it at all. Not even close.

The state takes no position, so when you're acting as the state, you do not take a position either, or you can go work at the church. State or church. You pick, because they are not the same thing. Separation of church and state. Say it with me: Separation of church and state. Separation... Of church... And state. They're not the same thing. That's what makes them separate.

For a business, you can choose to sell only Christian things. But the moment you refuse to sell your Christian things to an entire class of people, that's when you screwed up and cannot be a business anymore. It's a bit lighter, but it still applies.

All clear? Can we NEVER have this conversation again please? It really gets tiresome after so many decades of having to do it over and over and over and over. This should be the very first class you're required to take before you take any government job, or before you volunteer to be a doctor, or open up a business that serves the general public. If you fail the class, you don't get the job or the business license. End of story.

I wish we were done, but we're not done. Gay Marriage:

Assumption that having to be neutral as a government entity means the end of your religious freedom.

"Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Oppose same-sex marriage.
Support Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), passed in 1996, which affirms the right of states not to recognize same-sex marriages licensed in other states.
Requiring citizens to sanction same-sex relationships violates moral and religious beliefs of millions of Christians, Jews, Muslims and others, who believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman."

Blatantly ignores the beliefs of millions of gay persons, and millions of OTHER Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others, and the NON-religious positions of millions of other citizens, and imposes one group's opinions on the other.

That's where you screwed up.

You don't have to personally wed gay people in your private church. If and when liberals insist on that, I'll be on your side. They rarely take such a position. You can hate gay people all you want in your church, and refuse to marry them in church. That's all fine. Expect people to think you're a bunch of bigoted butt holes when you do, but that's just life when you're a bigot. It has consequences to your popularity. But sure, discriminate away in your private religious club.

But marriage isn't a religious institution, or isn't only religious. The legal aspect of marriage is carried out by the courthouse. The courthouse might employ persons with religious beliefs, but the courthouse belongs to the state. It belongs to all of us.

And the law says that you cannot deny marriage licenses to gay people, because that's a violation of the Constitution. The courts have ruled on this point.

Oppose same-sex marriage in your church or home, or in your mind. Feel free.

But when the gay couple applies for a marriage license, that's NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. They do not require your personal approval. You can keep on hating them. Just as much as I really, really despise you for doing so. See? Freedom. It's a two-way street. And there's nothing more wonderful in the entire world, to have two factions that can't stand each other actually living together respectfully and civilly in a free and fair society. It's almost magical, almost enough to make a skeptic like me believe in frigging miracles.

But that only works when you think it, but keep your mouth shut and do your job and follow the law. Otherwise the magic doesn't work, and there will be violence. I promise you, if I were a gay person, and you denied me the ability to wed my fiancee, after I fought hard and obtained the legal right to do so, I will stop following the social contract of our society and I will beat your face in. If I felt the way about that person that I feel about my current wife and spouse, you'd be lucky to be alive.

The society doesn't work as a civil one when you take your religious mores and impose them on me, not a member of your church, and not attending your church when I'm applying for a marriage license. That's when your opinion and your consent are both not only not required, but invalid. The instant you start denying me my civil liberties, based on your private bigotry, that's the moment we become a society of barbarians and you and I are going to fight. That's the alternative to a civil society; an uncivil one. Guns are everywhere, might not wanna take that risk. I might not be able to take you in fisticuffs but there's pistols on every street corner.

Not a threat, just saying what happened historically when you, for example, denied slaves their freedom. Some of them revolted and killed some people in the proces. It happens when you act in an uncivil fashion, and deny people their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness: those who are oppressed return the favor. And I'm not gonna cry about it when it happens. Sorry not sorry.

It's a pattern of behavior you can expect from people. Not endorsing it, just surprised you're willing to gamble with your life like that. If that's the hill you want to die on, I mean, that's a real possibility. The alternative is to shut your mouth and stamp the document and do your job. Then we all go home winners. Civility: it works better than being jerks.

Assumption that the Social Security system can't be fixed by adding more money, i.e. raising taxes or not wasting so much money elsewhere in the budget.

Assumption that private investment in the stock market will provide the future elderly with a safety net, forgetting about stock market collapses, or people withdrawing all their money when the prices are low, in a panic.

"The Social Security system is in serious financial trouble. Major changes to the current system are urgently needed. In its current state, the Social Security system is not financially sustainable. It will collapse if nothing is done to address the problems. Many will suffer as a result. Social Security must be made more efficient through privatization and/or allowing individuals to manage their own savings."

We could talk about actually fixing the Social Security system all day. The above position, however, is very simple: End social security as a system entirely, and have people save on their own, putting them at the mercy of con artists, predatory hedge fund managers, day traders, short sellers, and faux entrepreneurs who can get you rich quick with just a minimal investment. Or how about bankers who embezzle the money or re-invest it in credit default swap schemes and derivatives markets or really bad real estate deals.

No, that's all a bad idea. Super bad. We have a long and rich history that you can look at to see how cripplingly mentally defective such an idea would be. It's why the economy collapsed recently. Give me a break! And those in office think we're still regulating the markets too much, after all that. Don't listen to bankers who tell you they can regulate themselves, because they can't, and they end up writing the laws and financing the regulators and then BAD THINGS HAPPEN repeatedly and it's always a friggen mystery as to why that is. This isn't rocket surgery.

Nevermind the corrupt white collar criminals who should all be lined up and shot in the streets without mercy, if we're going to have a death penalty, let's start there. Nevermind those people. How about the consumer who has no idea how to invest or where to invest or simply chooses not to invest? Then they become old with no ability to feed themselves at all, and we can have them lying in the streets, begging and starving and crying out for medicine in about 20, 30 years. That's really great for property values.

Social security takes up a very small percentage of our GDP, and frankly, most other industrialized nations know how to do it. So fix it. Fix it, don't throw it away. But we can't fix it because certain people are dead set on destroying it and deny all attempts to fix it, because they (2) lack empathy and are (3) self centered, and only care about their own personal ability to survive when they get old, and screw everyone else.

You shouldn't be in charge of fiscal policy when your serious, for-real recommendation is "everyone goes to Vegas and bets on black! Now let it ride, you're on a hot streak! What could possibly go wrong?"

No. Just no. You shouldn't even be around money, you're so bad at handling it. Nevermind handling other people's money. I pictured fiscal conservatives as responsible people who care about not wasting money, but it's the complete opposite. They encourage people to waste their money and make sure there's a casino just around the corner to expedite the process, and make sure all the de-regulated markets are offering great investments that are guaranteed to make a ton of money 1% of the time. And if you lose, that's just economics. It happens. Should've been wiser with your investment strategy. Didn't the Wu Tang clan tell you that you were supposed to diversify your bonds? I could have sworn I saw that on the Chappelle Show. That's required viewing in schools by now, right?

Continuing on....

Askthepizzaguy · Aug 31, 2016

Let's tackle trickle-down supply-side economic theory:

Assumption that lower taxes results in more jobs and higher wages, somehow. Supply-side economic theory has been repeatedly debunked, put in practice, and debunked again.

"Lower taxes and a smaller government with limited power will improve the standard of living for all. Support lower taxes and a smaller government. Lower taxes create more incentive for people to work, save, invest, and engage in entrepreneurial endeavors. Money is best spent by those who earn it, not the government. Government programs encourage people to become dependent and lazy, rather than encouraging work and independence."

Norway has higher taxes than the United States in almost any category. Wages are much higher, standards of living are exceptional, we have the closest to full employment you can find, and even people on the very bottom of the economic ladder have enough left over each month, after the necessary living expenses, to save.

There is nothing about working for Pizza Hut that encourages people to become dependent and lazy, but their low pay and high rent certainly forces them to accept EBT in some cases. The line about people who accept government benefits such as subsidized housing and EBT being lazy ignores the high cost of living and the stagnant and very low wage floor.

Rather than empty platitudes about hard work being aimed at people who work 30 hours a week in one job and 25 hours a week in a second job for no overtime, it would be nice if conservatives could either shut their mouths about benefits for the poor, or improve wages via a higher cost of living increase to the minimum wage and then tracking the wage with inflation, so we never have to discuss this issue again, and wouldn't have to offer subsidies to people who work full time, and since money is fungible, subsidize the profits of Wal-Mart and McDonald's with the tax dollars of people who neither shop nor eat there.

Unemployment insurance runs out after a certain amount of time. People are not being paid to not work. When they work, they pay into the system, and they can get back a certain percentage of that. That system is sustainable, because almost all unemployed persons seeking unemployment benefits are only temporarily unemployed.

Permanently unemployable people aren't "encouraged" or "discouraged" to work or not to work. If you're physically disabled, mentally challenged, psychologically disabled, chronically ill, etc, you might get permanent government benefits if you qualify for them and the courts literally give a ruling on it, but there are close to zero people who sit around getting paid by the government to not work without a reason. There is no societal safety net which encourages people to earn 2/3rds of the minimum wage just for funsies. That's a myth, and supported by anecdotal evidence only. Actual abuse of the system is very rare. You might get people who earn a stipend from the government for adopting a lot of children, but that's not doing nothing. It might be a system ripe for abuse, but it's not the same as being paid not to work by lazy unemployed people, which is the myth.

The myth is that poor people just love to have no money and hate working. They somehow live a decent life never having a job. Let me know if you meet someone like that, it would be an interesting story to tell. It would also not be reflective of the multitudes of people who actually accept help from government assistance programs. So it would be an interesting red herring, useful only in helping to close any extant loopholes in the system that haven't been closed already.

I should also point out that cutting taxes only causes the federal budget to go in the red. That doesn't have any positive economic effects. Taxes are currently lower than they were under William Jefferson Clinton, remember that big decade-long economic boom and the fact that we even balanced the federal budget on top of it? Higher taxes existed then. Higher, not lower.

That kind of throws the entire trickle-down theory into the garbage doesn't it? George W. Bush's tax cuts destroyed our budget, then all the wars made it even worse, and by the end of Georgie's term, unemployment had spiked to 10%.

Ten, not five. Obama's current unemployment rate is 5%. Norway's is lower, and they have even higher taxes than the United States under Clinton.

Saying these rules about the economy, i.e. "lower taxes makes X happen" when they don't match the record kind of makes it seem like you have no idea what you're talking about. Would people please stop doing this?

Just saying things doesn't make them true. You have to back it up by citing examples. After Reagan destroyed the economy in the first few years of his presidency and unemployment spiked to 11%, through trickle-down tax cut theory, he had to start raising taxes, again, and again, and again, and after many years of doing this, he finally got unemployment to be temporarily lower than when he started. For about two years. Then it was higher again. He also made it so a large number of poor people got a 15% raise even though wages were stagnant, because they suddenly stopped having to pay taxes. That didn't help our federal budget, but it's the definition of economic redistribution, having the wealthy classes fund the social safety nets and the government, while the poor people get a refund of more money than they paid in, through the earned income tax credit, a thing that didn't exist until Reagan. And that temporarily helped the poor, but then reality caught up and the economy collapsed again under Reagan and even worse under George H. W. Bush. That means for almost the entire time Reagan and George H. W. Bush were President, the unemployment rate was worse than Carter.

WORSE THAN CARTER. The Democrat's worst president, the one no one thinks did a great job.

That's the Republican's success story. The guy who managed to hit 11% unemployment and utterly ruined the federal budget and began the great economic redistribution experiment of EITC, which is less efficient than simply pumping up the minimum wage. It makes the government give paychecks to Wal-Mart workers instead of collecting taxes. That socialist who couldn't survive a Republican primary in today's political climate. He's the right-wing hero they all worship. It's pretty ridiculous, if you think about it. Probably best to continue not thinking about it if you're a Republican.

I wrote an essay about it, I researched it, I looked at the government's own numbers on the unemployment rate since Truman, and the minimum wage, and noted the tax policies of each President. I can provide the materials online so you can examine the neutral, non-partisan, government, fact-only data at your leisure. You don't even need to take my word for it. Take me up on this offer, I'd love to debate anyone who still believes in supply-side hocus pocus. It's the homeopathy of economics.

We can talk all day long about all the poor assumptions that go into supply-side economic theory.

In short, just to save space, the theory is, you cut all the taxes of the rich people so they can keep their money, and they'll invest it all and create new wealth for everyone under them. Trickle-down economics.

Problem: Pizza Hut stops paying taxes. Their CEO stops paying any taxes. What incentive does Pizza Hut have to hire more drivers?

If I have 30 deliveries on the screen, I need 6 drivers to deliver 30 pizzas an hour. 6 or 7. Hell, make it 8, and get delivery times down.

I do not need 16 drivers.

The CEO does not benefit from spending even one additional dollar on added labor after the 8th driver is on the payroll, if there are a maximum of 30 deliveries in an hour.

Supply doesn't create jobs.

Demand creates jobs.

Duh?

When was this ever even a question? Did anyone stay awake past the first day of economics 101? Yeah, they say in economics class that, generally speaking, the higher the price of something is, the lower the demand becomes. That's generalities, though. That's not enough to make you an economic expert.

If Bill Gates suddenly became twice as rich as he is today, how many jobs would that create?

Add 'em up. It might be in the single digits. Those are some VERY expensive jobs to add to our society.

Now, suppose every single person earning $8 per hour and was spending it all on necessities suddenly had an extra $7 per hour in take home pay.

How many jobs would that create?

How many hundreds of THOUSANDS of jobs would that create?

Poor people demand consumer goods. I know, it's crazy right? Consumers want to consume. It's unbelievable. What stops them from buying more goods? Answer: They are all out of money. No more money. Wages have been stagnant for a decade and prices on necessities are rising. That means disposable income (insert the word "demand" whenever you hear the words "disposable income", and you're pretty close to the mark) is at one of the lowest points. Not as bad as G.H.W. Bush era, but pretty close. Things were better when the wages rose 10 years ago, and the economy rapidly improved once those changes were in place, but it's been 10 years.

Prices still have gone up. Wages did not keep pace. Disposable income (thus, demand) is down. That creates anemic growth that the Republicans complain about. Sure, the economy has recovered, it just didn't recover fast enough.

Well? Stop blocking periodic wage floor increases. If rent went up by 20% in a decade, and medicine costs 20% more, and education costs 20% more, and wages are the same, guess what? Real wages are down. Real wages means purchasing power.

These sound like complicated concepts, but they're really, really not. It's 4th grade math, at worst. If you don't understand these concepts fully, it's time to stop voting, because you have no idea what you're doing to the economy.

Productivity is up. Earnings for the super rich have never been better. Clearly lack of wealth to go around is not the problem. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages. It's wages.

Disposable income = better economy. The simplest economic formula you'll ever have to memorize. You can fit that on a tiny slip of paper and keep it in your front pocket in case you ever forget it.

Supply =/= Demand. There, two slips of paper, and they solve all the supply-side voodoo economic problems. All of them.

8 simple concepts in two short blurbs:

Disposable income = better economy.
Supply =/= Demand.

Memorize this, there will be a pop quiz.

The United Nations:

Assumption that the UN is a failure and that our military keeps us safe, and that this is money well spent and it's effective.

"The UN has repeatedly failed in its essential mission to promote world peace and human rights. The wars, genocide and human rights abuses taking place in many Human Rights Council member states (and the UN’s failure to stop them) prove this point. History shows that the United States, not the UN, is the global force for spreading freedom, prosperity, tolerance and peace. The U.S. should never subvert its national interests to those of the UN. The U.S. should never place troops under UN control. U.S. military should always wear the U.S. military uniform, not that of UN peacekeepers. [Opinions vary on whether the U.S. should withdraw from the UN.]"

No one is talking about placing US troops under the command of the UN.

The UN is an imperfect body which has done a lot of good in the world. We can talk about those things if you want, but I'm going to save space by assuming that's not in question. Ping me about it or google it yourself if you want to know what good they are.

But let's talk about who else has failed in their mission to promote world peace.

How many armed conflicts has the United States voluntarily inserted itself into in the past 30 years?

How many innocent civilians have died by our hands and our weapons?

How many innocent people are under the oppression of dictatorships which wield weapons of US origin and point them at their own people?

Let's talk about it from an I-hate-people and only-care-about-money standpoint. How much money have we spent to NOT eradicate al-Qaeda, NOT stop ISIL from forming, NOT utterly defeat the Taliban, and NOT end "terror" or "terrorism" as concepts?

Forget the mountains of bodies both innocent and impure. Let's talk numbers. How effective has several trillion dollars been in stopping a small group of poorly armed and barely funded rebels?

Considering the fact that neither they nor their ideology isn't wiped from the face of the Earth, I'm gonna call that an abject failure. You cannot end terrorism by wiping out 100 people at a wedding, 10 of whom had ties to terrorism, turning 90 other families into America-hating radicals who now have a really good reason to support terrorism.

There are consequences to dropping bombs on people you don't know. I'm not endorsing it, I'm specifically and vehemently condemning it. But if you deliberately punch a wasp's nest, some of them might feel justified in stinging you back.

Getting stung by a wasp sucks. It may happen occasionally. That is the full force and might of terrorism at their peak.

The response, going into the woods, finding every wasp nest, and trying to exterminate all the wasps by punching them, doesn't exterminate all the wasps. In fact, you're going to get stung more. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. RESULTS SAY.... it doesn't work. :eek:

Rhetoric says it works, reality says it doesn't work.

I could put that in rainbow colors if you prefer. But I assume my point is made? Maybe the big blisters on your skin should have been a dead giveaway. Just one man's opinion. Stop punching the wasp nests.

Terrorism is not a state versus state issue, for the most part. We can sanction Iran for supporting rebel groups. We also support rebel groups. Are we state sponsors of terrorism? I'm even saying our proxy guys ARE better. But they're not perfect.

You want to get real results? Look at Iran. No war needed, Iran has agreed to inspections, destruction and disposal of weapons-grade material. We will be able to see a bomb coming years in advance. None of that happens without diplomacy.

Where does diplomacy happen? Largely, at the UN.

Keep the UN. No one is suggesting we turn our soldiers over to them. But maybe that whole world-policing peacekeeping thing? That. That would probably be a good thing to delegate.

Keep US troops on US soil and defending US waters around US territory. Then maybe it wouldn't cost us several trillion dollars to maintain and we'd get the same OR BETTER results, and fewer dead soldiers.

Same or better results.
Fewer dead soldiers.

Same or better results.
Fewer dead soldiers.

Same or better results.
Fewer dead soldiers.

Repeat it like a mantra. Bring our troops home. The department of defense should be used for.... defense. We need to make sure Canada doesn't get too lippy. That's what our armed forces are for, not policing Afghanistan for 90 years because the local government failed. The taliban is still there. Criminals and terrorists still rule half that country. The Army is not the police. Get it?

Army =/= Police.

And for that matter, terrorism.

Assumption that terrorism requires trillions of dollars and thousands of soldiers in order to fight, because it's one of the greatest threats to the US.

"Terrorism poses one of the greatest threats to the U.S. The world toward which the militant Islamists strive cannot peacefully co-exist with the Western world. In the last decade, militant Islamists have repeatedly attacked Americans and American interests here and abroad. Terrorists must be stopped and destroyed. The use of intelligence-gathering and military force are the best ways to defeat terrorism around the world. Captured terrorists should be treated as enemy combatants and tried in military courts."

51 people die from lightning strikes per year in the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_strike#Epidemiology

Meanwhile, 25 non-combatant United States citizens died in 2010 due to terrorist strikes worldwide.

17 worldwide deaths in 2011.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-terrorism-statistics-every-american-needs-to-hear/5382818

Compare that to mass shootings within the United States that we spend zero money on because gun rights, and compare that to traffic accidents that we don't care about, compare it to the number of people who are killed by MOOSE on the highway.

That warrants several trillion dollars being spent? And the result being totally ineffective?

Let's keep funding that. That will continue to go well. The most expensive bear patrol in the history of the universe.

Link to video.

How you stop another 9/11: We've already taken such precautions, which is why it hasn't happened again despite repeated attempts. What's all this messing around ineffectively in Afghanistan for? Let's be on the look out for terror cells and explosives produced inside the United States. That's the next most likely vulnerability. Killing some guys in jeeps with AK-47s in Afghanistan is not going to stop terrorism. I don't know if you knew this.

Welfare:

Assumption: The welfare system is corrupted to any significant degree by employable people with no disabilities simply living off of the welfare system in perpetuity.

"Oppose long-term welfare. Opportunities should be provided to make it possible for those in need to become self-reliant. It is far more compassionate and effective to encourage people to become self-reliant, rather than allowing them to remain dependent on the government for provisions."

No specific plan offered.

No data offered. No statistics showing any kind of problem. It's just gospel and taken on faith that welfare helps no one and just makes people lazy.

People are already encouraged to become self-reliant. It's called being hungry and not being a fan of living in cockroach infested buildings in the slums.

Living in the ghetto in rent controlled housing and living off of EBT and social security checks is not even possible without severe disabilities. An able bodied person of sound mind can't get into that position. Those who are stuck there would prefer to have a job. They can't get one because many of them are permanently unemployable.

Those transient workers on unemployment for a few months are between jobs. There's a difference. Most of the people who are accepting temporary benefits keep them as temporary, and then return to the workforce. The sick, the disabled, and the elderly still need those benefits. They're not gonna be working at McDonald's. There's no path to fiscal solvency for these people.

Welfare of that nature also accounts for a small portion of our budget. The real costs are medicare and social security, neither of which you're going to touch in order to bring costs down while we build tanks the military doesn't want, need, or use, and build fighter jets that don't go into service, and waste trillions of dollars fighting rebel losers on horseback in the mountains of Afghanistan and not even permanently and decisively ending their control of that country after a decade of fighting. That's pretty pathetic.

Don't save money by taking it out of the hands of the sick, elderly, and disabled. You can cut all the other parts of the government first. Start with ending those tax breaks you give to multi-billion dollar corporations that resulted in economic collapse and massive unemployment rather than ending unemployment. There's your big ticket money savers. Actually taxing people and collecting it, rather than giving away more in rebates than you collect. Just a thought. History says that works, because it did, and it's obvious that it would. Why is this a debate again?

We're reached the bottom of the page! Hooray!

That's most of the positions listed that I care to address.

None of the conservative ones are workable, intelligent, viable solutions to any problems faced by our country. Since this is the marketplace of ideas, only ideas will prove any of this wrong. So let's see what ideas we get in response.

Manfred Belheim · Aug 31, 2016

I find it hard to reconcile all that with your statement that you are not a patient man. How long did it take to write all that?

civvver · Aug 31, 2016

Conservatives don't really believe most of those things you mentioned. Mainstream republicans probably do, but they're hardly conservative. And mainstream democrats also believe a lot of the things you posted.

And stop comparing the US to Norway. The US is not, nor will they ever be, Norway. Policies that work in Norway won't necessarily work in the US. How come all the other liberal european countries like france, greece and spain don't have booming economies like Norway then?

EgonSpengler · Aug 31, 2016

I think I agree with a lot of the points here, although I have to admit I only just skimmed over it all. I'm not quite sure what the thread-starter is looking for as far as a reply, but I thought I'd chip in with one point: There is more than one type of "conservative" in this country. Most political debates here can be lumped into three broad categories - social issues, economic issues, and foreign policy issues - and people on the right and the left might disagree amongst themselves over any of them. (Obviously, there's a lot of overlap between these 3 broad categories, and issues get confused or conflated, either accidentally or deliberately.) Conservatives can and do define themselves differently (progressives do too, but we're talking about conservatives here). In some cases, it's regional. A lot of Republicans in the Northeast describe themselves as "socially liberal but fiscally conservative." Parts of the South and Midwest are more religious, while Western states (and New Hampshire) are more libertarian.

abradley · Aug 31, 2016

Bono on Capitalism and poverty:

Link to video.

onejayhawk · Aug 31, 2016

Just what we need, another thread to dump on the least popular.

J

Snerk · Aug 31, 2016

Haven't read everything yet but I generally I agree on your points Pizza. And it's an impressive bulk of musings you're sharing here. But I don't think I follow your generalisation of what conservatism is and all the specific stands in different matters.

Not sure how close you've been following Norwegian politics during your stay here but I'm sure you've gathered that conservative ideologi isn't the same here as in the US. Imagine PM Erna Solberg and her party Høyre (torys) forming a coalition government with US republicans. Would have been utterly inconceivable due to extreme differences over just about every aspect of politics. So can you apply all of your assumptions to Norwegian conservatives too? If not, does your premise still stand?

classical_hero · Aug 31, 2016

I'll just talk about two of them, but boy you are on fire with your assumptions. :rolleyes:

1. Renewable energy. It's certtianly a fun thing to have but mightily expensive. You praise Germany yet fail to mention the fact Germans have the second highest prices in the world, behind Denmakr, who us even more wind than the Germans. http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaellynch/2016/02/19/negative-electricity-prices-are-not-a-sign-of-renewable-success/#8602f3d56d14

Compare and contrast with a report from Der Spiegel in September 2013: “For society as a whole, the costs have reached levels comparable only to the euro-zone bailouts. This year, German consumers will be forced to pay €20 billion ($26 billion) for electricity from solar, wind and biogas plants — electricity with a market price of just over €3 billion.”

Isn't that a wonderful thing that the consumers a subsiding big energy. I thought subsidies were bad for the government to do.

But also mentioned in the article is the massive fluctuations caused by renewable energy. The problem is that with wind and solar that when there is no sunshine and no wind, you get no power, so you need some sort of back up power so you don't have blackouts, then there is the opposite problem when you get too much power form those sources and because you have so much energy being produced you literally have to pay people t consume your power. But this shows just how bad it can be when you only have to rely on renewable energy.
South Australia intervenes in electricity market as prices hit $14,000MWh

Turmoil in South Australia's heavily wind-reliant electricity market has forced the state government to plead with the owner of a mothballed gas-fired power station to turn it back on.

The emergency measures are needed to ease punishing costs for South Australian industry as National Electricity Market (NEM) prices in the state have frequently surged above $1000 a megawatt hour this month and at one point on Tuesday hit the $14,000MWh maximum price.

Complaints from business about the extreme prices – in normal times they are below $100 – prompted the state government to ask energy company ENGIE to switch its mothballed Pelican Point gas power station back on.

Without any back up power the price sky-rocketed. This the future of renewable energy, but you might consider that we will have technology to back up us, but has anyone even looked how such a back up will be possible? The fact of the matter is that renewable energy is a big user of rare earth metals and the extraction of them is difficult and rather unfriendly to the earth as seen by this Toxic Lake in China. It's a marvel to behold to the cost of our lust for green technology costs to the Chinese and that lake.

But let's not forget about Hydro, since it's only useful with enough water, as Tasmania recently found out.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/tasmania-relying-on-150-diesel-generators-for-electricity-until-june-20160329-gnt0pd.html
What happened in Tasmania ws a farce ecause the dam level were massively mismanaged when electricity prices were higher, thus they produced more power so they could sell at a higher price, not making sure they properly managed the level so there would be enough for a rainy day, so to speak. So they were reliant on very low levels and they had to bring diesel generators to back up the power supply. The fact of the matter is the renewable energy is not reliable enough for baseload generation and will always need a back up source when it doesn't generate, which cause problems when it does generate energy.

2. Embryonic stem cells.
I'll just leave you with this website. http://www.stemcellresearch.org/
You will notice that as of right now there are 73 successful treatment using adult stem cells and none using embryonic stem cells. Considering that both have been around for the same period, it should be time to stop the fantasy that embryonic stem cells will do any treatment. But apparently we're anti-sconce for pointing this out.

Conservative politics and assumption

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