What does a MAGA hat stand for?

[hobbsyoyo]

And if that's the case it's a coin flip on whether or not they buy into the entire alex jones/glenn beck/rush limbaugh package deal.

Hahaha yeah it's kind of easy to string together a profile

One day I 'racially profiled' (his words) this tutor at my community college. I knew he was home schooled and from that I was able to deduce:

Spoiler :

• He lived outside of city limits
  
• He had a cistern or well
• He had satellite tv
  
• He drove a pick up truck
• He had a shotgun
• Kept shotgun in the truck
• Truck was tuned to AM conservative talk radio
• Home TV was tuned to Fox
• He loved Limbaugh
• He was evangelical
• His mom did not work outside the home
• His mom only wore dresses and skirts (never pants)
• He voted GOP straight ticket
  
  

He got really offended and started yelling at me and this other guy went, 'sshh, he's batting a thousand'.

 

[IglooDame]

Ding ding ding. We have a winner.

The same people who fear the government for all sorts of reasons don't seem to have a problem advocating for a system whereby they would practically be owned by their employers. Although I would say I've met more than a few conscientious people who simply hand-wave away the more draconian possibilities of such a society out of hand because they are simply inconceivable to them.

If you want to know where the moneyed interested really stand just realize that the Libertarian Party, who officially support things like open borders and legal abortions, was created by the Koch brothers. These are the same guys who funding damn near every "Build the Wall" and anti-abortion Republican in congress.

This makes for interesting reading: https://www.lp.org/david-koch-we-owe-you-signed-liberty/

Notably, "They [the Koch brothers] specifically did not support the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump because of his proposed Muslim travel ban and anti–free trade policies."

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Ding ding ding. We have a winner.

The same people who fear the government for all sorts of reasons don't seem to have a problem advocating for a system whereby they would practically be owned by their employers. Although I would say I've met more than a few conscientious people who simply hand-wave away the more draconian possibilities of such a society out of hand because they are simply inconceivable to them.

If you want to know where the moneyed interested really stand just realize that the Libertarian Party, who officially support things like open borders and legal abortions, was created by the Koch brothers. These are the same guys who funding damn near every "Build the Wall" and anti-abortion Republican in congress.

The Koch brothers are pro-immigration because they like that it can be used to suppress wages. That has been a significant source of tension and I believe the Koch brother (one is dead) has not given full-throated support to Trump specifically over that.

Edit: Sniped by @IglooDude

 

[cardgame]

hahahaha I have had almost the same experience with a homeschooler too @hobbsyoyo.

Bonus points when the conversation turned to LGBT and he said, in defence of the "lifestyle" argument, in his own words, "I choose to be straight," which translated to he's gay, even to the other LGBT-unfriendly guys at work. That provided a lot of ammunition to mock him. (I tried to pull him out of the closet later when it was just the two of us, even coming out to him, but he remained firm on it. Which only amplified my opinion that he was closeted gay tbh, with his general attitude and phrasing.)

 

[stinkubus]

This makes for interesting reading: https://www.lp.org/david-koch-we-owe-you-signed-liberty/

Notably, "They [the Koch brothers] specifically did not support the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump because of his proposed Muslim travel ban and anti–free trade policies."

My post didn't mention Donald Trump. I mentioned the Republican congressional delegation.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The Kochs don't support anti-immigration policies in Congress either

 

[stinkubus]

The Kochs don't support anti-immigration policies in Congress either

They have given MILLIONS to Ted Cruz who single-handedly killed the last attempt at comprehensive reform.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Fair enough. But I imagine they were lobbying Cruz to change his tune on immigration and they surely had a million other reasons to support him.

 

[stinkubus]

Fair enough. But I imagine they were lobbying Cruz to change his tune on immigration and they surely had a million other reasons to support him.

If you truly buy into the premise that they support open borders for the purpose of depressing wages it's not all that much of a stretch to realize that the best of all possible worlds for them would be a system which combines ease of crossing the border with draconian enforcement against those on US soil. The only way for the laborers to stay at all safe is to give themselves over completely to their employers.

The Koch Network has been one of the key players in what has been the largest grift in human history. When such people take actions that don't match their rhetoric there's literally zero reason to take them at their word on anything.

 

[Naskra]

Libertarian Party, who officially support things like open borders and legal abortions, was created by the Koch brothers

Koch bros did not found the party - they bought it.

 

[Lexicus]

FPTP's continued existence is a conspiracy of the two major parties

Except this simply doesn't make any sense, and I'll direct this reply at @IglooDude as well. The parties in the United States are exceptionally weak by international standards and in fact a system of proportional representation drastically strengthens party organizations relative to any individual candidate. Every country with proportional representation has parties much more relatively powerful than those in the United States.

A lot of USian-flavored libertarians tend to be less opposed to immigration than our socially conservative brethren, and "if you don't like it GTFO" isn't a common libertarian response, it's more the 'Murica-first types.

To libertarians the right of exit is a crucial point without which the entire concept of contractual freedom collapses. "If you don't like it GTFO" is the typical libertarian response to people complaining about how they are treated at work.

If you truly buy into the premise that they support open borders for the purpose of depressing wages it's not all that much of a stretch to realize that the best of all possible worlds for them would be a system which combines ease of crossing the border with draconian enforcement against those on US soil. The only way for the laborers to stay at all safe is to give themselves over completely to their employers.

@hobbsyoyo the Kochs and libertarians support "open borders" so that migrants can cross and work in the United States under de facto police state conditions. Libertarians and Koch-types do not support the sort of "open borders" where migrants can come to the US and enjoy the rights of citizens. To the extent that they support something that could be called "open borders" it is exactly what stinkubus is saying: open border migration into a two-tier labor system where everyone's wages are driven down by the existence of a class of people with no legal protections.

This is the basic confusion with Bernie Sanders claiming open border is a Koch policy. Truly open borders where there is no class of people in the US with no legal protections is something the Kochs will fight tooth and nail to prevent.

 

[cardgame]

I don't think I fully grasp what you are trying to say. It's no accident that the FEC is controlled by party members.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't think I fully grasp what you are trying to say. It's no accident that the FEC is controlled by party members.

In countries with proportional representation, where more than two parties are viable because seats in the legislature are allocated based on percentage of a vote, the parties generally outright choose the candidates that sit in the legislature because people vote for party, not candidate. The parties are much more powerful in such a system than they are in the US. The US parties are weak by international standards and they are exceptionally weak by US historical standards (they were far more powerful than they are now before the change to primary elections in the 1970s).

Basically, you want us to believe that the Republicans and Democrats are simultaneously so powerful as to ensure that the entire structure of US elections is kept in place to benefit them, but simultaneously the Republican Party is so weak it could not stop Donald Trump from winning its Presidential nomination in 2016, while the Democrats are so weak they cannot stop Bernie Sanders from getting 13 million votes in 2016 (and possibly winning the primary in 2020 - fingers crossed).

FPTP in the United States literally predates the existence of any political parties. It just makes no sense to claim that it is a creation of the parties. The party system came into existence and evolved the way it has due to FPTP, not the other way around.

 

[cardgame]

OK, I see and partially agree. I still think we should have a real voting system instead of FPTP, though, and I blame its continued existence on the current two parties, maybe not so much intentional conspiracy but apathy because they won with FPTP. I also don't anthropomorphize the entire party as an entity but a collective made up of its party members individually. Not so much 'The DNC' but 'The Elected Democrats' if that makes sense.

 

[Lexicus]

OK, I see and partially agree. I still think we should have a real voting system instead of FPTP, though, and I blame its continued existence on the current two parties, maybe not so much intentional conspiracy but apathy because they won with FPTP.

It makes far more sense to me to attribute it to two things: the general difficulty of amending the Constitution under our system, and the fact that there has, to my knowledge, never been a real constituency for changing from FPTP to some kind of other system. FPTP is arguably more entrenched in the Constitution than anything else because statewide FPTP elections for the Senate cannot be gotten rid of without the unanimous consent of all the states - "no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."

 

[Naskra]

"no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate."

This clause was ignored for the 17th amendment, so ....

 

[Lexicus]

This clause was ignored for the 17th amendment, so ....

No it wasn't.

 

[stinkubus]

This clause was ignored for the 17th amendment, so ....

Could you explain this in a bit more detail? Every state still gets two senate votes, by my reckoning.

 

[cardgame]

This clause was ignored for the 17th amendment, so ....

Only if you count state legislators as the state, Louis XIV style.

 

[Naskra]

Could you explain this in a bit more detail?

The Constitution was originally a contract between sovereign states. States are the signatories, not "We the people". Senators represented the states qua states; sort of as voting ambassadors to a NATO/common market/Schengen type arrangement. After the 17th amendment, senators represented the people in the states - states as mere administrative districts. The states' loss of suffrage in the senate was total, hence the need for unanimous passage.