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Forums - Politics Discussion - How about those elections?

Torillian said:
that one really hurt my balls as a Wisconsin state employee. Really thought we'd get rid of Walker finally. The strange part is when it came to policy questions most voters agreed with my own viewpoints, voting for increased minimum wage, a constitutional amendment to counter citizens united, and to take federal money for programs in the future when possible. But then we vote in a governor diametrically opposed to any and all of those. Oh well.


People seldom ever vote in their best interests......



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Aielyn said:
thranx said:

When Obama was elected for a second term I was pretty dissapointed. But I did see the silver lining. I hoped that after 8 years of his "rule" people would be awakened and see what the dems are all about. Here we are 6 years in, and the people have lost more faith in the dems than I could have imagined. Just as bush blew it for over spending over reaching repubs, Obama has done it to the Dems. So will americans start going back to the center, and not to the xtreme left and right? What are your thoughts on the electon results?

As an Australian, I'd like to say that, if you think Obama is "extreme left", then you are completely and utterly wrong. By the standards of most of the world, Obama is a right-winger. He's closer to centre than the Republicans by a fair margin... but the Republicans have moved so far to the right that I'm pretty sure that, if they were in Smash Bros, they'd have already been KOed. There are few Democrats who could legitimately even call themselves left-wing (with Elizabeth Warren being the only one I know off the top of my head).

What's more, the election result is pretty obviously an example of republicans being lying manipulators and democrats being too spineless to stand up to the republicans. Even from Australia, it's obvious that Democrats have spent their whole time running away from what should be a strong platform - lower deficit, lower jobless rate, stronger economy, better healthcare coverage at a lower cost (both to the individual and to the government), etc. And all of that with a hostile House that refused to compromise on anything.

Rather than actually emphasising these points to the electorate, the Democrats let the Republicans define the terms of the election, and ran away from Obama's record. And they should have been emphasising that, if voters get out there and support them, they can achieve even better things if given the chance. Instead, all of the talk was about how they needed to minimise their losses.

In short, the Democrats lost the moment that they decided that it was a matter of trying to "hold onto the senate" rather than going full-force towards reclaiming the house.

The Labor party here in Australia did a similar thing - instead of talking up their achievements at the last election, and emphasising a bold vision for the country, they instead let the Liberal party (the Liberals are a conservative party) define the terms of the election, and seemed to keep trying to reduce the gap between the two parties, with things like anti-asylum attitudes. They lost, massively, as a result.

The Labor party would have had to have achieved things to talk up for that to work as a strategy.

They ran up a large deficit, introduced highly unpopular new taxes and tried to implement an internet filter within Australia.



This is the Game of Thrones

Where you either win

or you DIE

Aielyn said:
thranx said:

When Obama was elected for a second term I was pretty dissapointed. But I did see the silver lining. I hoped that after 8 years of his "rule" people would be awakened and see what the dems are all about. Here we are 6 years in, and the people have lost more faith in the dems than I could have imagined. Just as bush blew it for over spending over reaching repubs, Obama has done it to the Dems. So will americans start going back to the center, and not to the xtreme left and right? What are your thoughts on the electon results?

As an Australian, I'd like to say that, if you think Obama is "extreme left", then you are completely and utterly wrong. By the standards of most of the world, Obama is a right-winger. He's closer to centre than the Republicans by a fair margin... but the Republicans have moved so far to the right that I'm pretty sure that, if they were in Smash Bros, they'd have already been KOed. There are few Democrats who could legitimately even call themselves left-wing (with Elizabeth Warren being the only one I know off the top of my head).

What's more, the election result is pretty obviously an example of republicans being lying manipulators and democrats being too spineless to stand up to the republicans. Even from Australia, it's obvious that Democrats have spent their whole time running away from what should be a strong platform - lower deficit, lower jobless rate, stronger economy, better healthcare coverage at a lower cost (both to the individual and to the government), etc. And all of that with a hostile House that refused to compromise on anything.

Rather than actually emphasising these points to the electorate, the Democrats let the Republicans define the terms of the election, and ran away from Obama's record. And they should have been emphasising that, if voters get out there and support them, they can achieve even better things if given the chance. Instead, all of the talk was about how they needed to minimise their losses.

In short, the Democrats lost the moment that they decided that it was a matter of trying to "hold onto the senate" rather than going full-force towards reclaiming the house.

The Labor party here in Australia did a similar thing - instead of talking up their achievements at the last election, and emphasising a bold vision for the country, they instead let the Liberal party (the Liberals are a conservative party) define the terms of the election, and seemed to keep trying to reduce the gap between the two parties, with things like anti-asylum attitudes. They lost, massively, as a result.


Not going to lie. I dont focus too much on global politics. I know america is more conservative than other countries as a whole. Democrats and repulicans here have not moved to the right though. We just started farther on the right when the nation was born. Since the begning of our nation all government policies and political parties have moved to the left. Its the only direction they could go, we we're as right as we could get in the begining. No pun intended.

But Obama, and the dems that supported him, are as far left as i have ever seen. I even live in CA one of the most left states there is. The reason that the dems failed is that their policies have failed. America is a country with 350 million people, it can not be controlled by a centralized government in washington that is too far removed from the people. The dems, the federal government, and big government repubs are feeling the backlash of voters who do not feel their voices heard. The federal government should not be dealing with many things that they are. Most things should be left on a city, county, or state level. That way when a government program fails, it wont be a failure for the whole country. It also makes it easier for people who live close together to get problems solved for their area as they dont have to deal with convincing an entire nation to change poliies or views, only their surrounding neighbors.

 

for the bold and underlined- Its the fact that those policies have failed that the dems lost. Obamacare did not lead to lower costs or more coverage. it lead to higher cost and less coverage. the economy is not better, unemployment is down yes, but that is a non statistic do to the way they calculate it. we have more people not working now than we should, they are just not counted as unemplyed since they are no longer looking for work. the defict is not lower, its far higher than it has ever been. Not sure were you are reading that health care, the economy, or deficit has improved. Besides them failing at their own policies, they have left our allies in need. look at ukraine, look at israel. I dont know how safe europeaons feel with russions knocking at the door.



SlayerRondo said:
The Labor party would have had to have achieved things to talk up for that to work as a strategy.

They ran up a large deficit, introduced highly unpopular new taxes and tried to implement an internet filter within Australia.

They saved Australia from recession that all of the other developed countries suffered from (and were praised by the IMF for it), they kept interest rates low, they kept jobless numbers relatively low, they set up the emissions trading scheme (which Gillard stupidly allowed the Liberals to call a "carbon tax" - it was never a tax at all) which meant that the biggest drop in emissions ever occurred in 2013 (and the only other two times it dropped at all was in 2009 and 2010, when talk of the ETS first began), removed Work Choices, boosted funding to education significantly, invested in new infrastructure that private companies weren't willing to invest in but are going to reap the benefits of, and much more.

Yes, there were downsides. All governments have downsides. But the point is that they let the Liberals define the terms of the election, with all of the focus on the downsides and none on their achievements. And what's more, the Liberals are set to do even worse on all of the same fronts (and it was obvious that would happen, yet Labor never called them out on it).



people were voting for a party that was pretty much blocking anything in the last years... nuff said...



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SlayerRondo said:
thranx said:
SlayerRondo said:

At least you have different political parties in America.

In Australia and the UK, it's basically the social democrats or the social democrats and if they don't take your fancy you can vote for the other social democrats.


for awhile that is how it was with repubs and dems. bush caused the repubs to get somewhat back to their roots of small government. More importanlty i think the tea party has had an overall positive effect on the repubs too. My hope though is that the tea party becomes its own party, and that the republicans stop being a party altoghter. than we can have a small government party and the dems. i know who i would vote for

I am with you on that front.

It always struck me that when the tea party struck they focused on the 1% of racist and extremist in the media.

But when occupy wall street occured, despite having an absurd number of condlicting ideologies between those attending they received very little criticizm.

What I want out of a political party is both social and economic freedom.


Ditto. I lean conservative myself, but I don't really mind safety nets if they're put together smartly. Take Obamacare; many of the ideas were decent, but no one writing the law did research on what the effects would actually be. Most minimum wage jobs got cut back to 30 hours a week, and millions of plans got cancelled because our politicians failed to ask McDonalds, "what would you do if you had to pay healthcare for every employee who works more than 30 hours a week?"

Is doing some basic due diligence before passing a bill which affects 300 million people too much to ask?

 

On the elections, I like it when the president is one party and the legislature is the other. When people bicker, less gets done, and when less gets done the rest of us can just go live our lives in peace.



Yeah... People can have all their opinions, but when things like this happen:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/06/climate-denier-jim-inhofe-in-line-for-senates-top-environmental-job
...I can confirm some things in the US are fucked up.



Egann said:
SlayerRondo said:
thranx said:
SlayerRondo said:

At least you have different political parties in America.

In Australia and the UK, it's basically the social democrats or the social democrats and if they don't take your fancy you can vote for the other social democrats.


for awhile that is how it was with repubs and dems. bush caused the repubs to get somewhat back to their roots of small government. More importanlty i think the tea party has had an overall positive effect on the repubs too. My hope though is that the tea party becomes its own party, and that the republicans stop being a party altoghter. than we can have a small government party and the dems. i know who i would vote for

I am with you on that front.

It always struck me that when the tea party struck they focused on the 1% of racist and extremist in the media.

But when occupy wall street occured, despite having an absurd number of condlicting ideologies between those attending they received very little criticizm.

What I want out of a political party is both social and economic freedom.


Ditto. I lean conservative myself, but I don't really mind safety nets if they're put together smartly. Take Obamacare; many of the ideas were decent, but no one writing the law did research on what the effects would actually be. Most minimum wage jobs got cut back to 30 hours a week, and millions of plans got cancelled because our politicians failed to ask McDonalds, "what would you do if you had to pay healthcare for every employee who works more than 30 hours a week?"

Is doing some basic due diligence before passing a bill which affects 300 million people too much to ask?

 

On the elections, I like it when the president is one party and the legislature is the other. When people bicker, less gets done, and when less gets done the rest of us can just go live our lives in peace.


I manage a restaurant, and fortunatly we are an independant so we dont have to give health care to workers who work over 30 hours a week. so most of my coworkers get 30-40 hours a week. But all of their freinds have to work two jobs to get those hours, and still get no health care. Most places only give 20 or less hours a week. I agree very much that if you are going to regulate it has to be smartly, and with the assumption that companies and poeple will walk the line with these regulations. Its sad that reguation intened to help the most unfortunate usally hurts them.



Racism, mostly. Ebola, ISIS, and Immigrants, or "darkies, brownies, and brownies."

That and some terribly spineless candidates on the democratic side. Seriously, Grimes?

At least we got rid of hustlin' Tom Corbett.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

Obama was never a extreme left candidate those people that think he is or was are clueless about politics.