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Forums - General Discussion - So... how about that Tea Party?

SciFiBoy on 23 May 2010
HappySqurriel said:

(As usual) there seems to be a lack of understanding of libertarianism. In general libertarians tends to separate what they believe is right and what they thing the government should encourage or enforce; and you could say that a libertarian truly believes that the government should not be involved in legislating morality. It would be a fairly consistent position for a libertarian to be entirely opposed to something (say racism or forced racial segregation) and yet believe that the government has no right to force people to behave any differently than they are.

hmm, then how could they justify any sort of military or legal system?

military - would be forcing OTHER people to behave differently (not invade, kill, et al)

legal - forcing people NOT to commit crimes

?



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Kasz216 on 23 May 2010
lostintheodyssey said:
badgenome said:
lostintheodyssey said:

You have more faith than me then. All you have to do is look at history most people don't seem to act right unless they have the federal government breathing down their neck.

Perhaps I have more faith in people than you do, but you have infinitely more faith in the federal government than I do. I'm not really inclined to go into a point by point response to your lengthy post, but suffice to say that I fear the feds (and the rapid expansion of the federal government) far more than I do some fringe-of-a-fringe-of-a-fringe group like the fucking Klan.

Also, this was posted earlier in the thread but maybe you missed it:

The tea party is pretty representative of America, demographically speaking. There are proportionately less blacks, but that is to be expected given their extremely high approval for Obama.

You do know that polls can be manipulated to show anything that the user wants right?  Hispanics are a larger minority than blacks they were estimated at 13.7% in 2003 and are probably over 15% now.  So you mean to tell me that the tea party has 13.7% of hispanics in the party and x amounts of asians, biracials etc I seriously doubt it.  So let's assume and it's a big assumption that they represent america demographically they won't win an election over a democrat unless the state is extremely conservative.  The tea party seems to be splitting the republican party up in to two factions those that are extremely to the right and those that are moderate.  The United States in the past 20 years has been either moderately to the left or moderately to the right and the Tea Party is too far to the right to be taken seriously on a national stage.  I doubt they will have a serious contender for the presidency in 2012 and I doubt they will win a senate seat.

Also why do you fear the feds and the expansion of the government I hear people say this all the time but they never give a reason for it?

 

 

Except... the Tea-party doesn't care about social issues.

 

They would elect a Black Gay Senator who has forced people to have aboritions so long as that person is going to lower government costs.


They're fiscally conservative above all else.  Which most of America is.  Which is why a lot of people try to paint them as fringe lunatics... because they're scared, because they in reality fall right in the middle of Republicans and Democrats.

Because they're fiscally responsible and are willing to compromise.


If any people from the left come over, you'd end up with a Fiscally conservative, socially moderate party....

They wouldn't lose any elections with a makeup like that.



Kasz216 on 23 May 2010
lostintheodyssey said:
makingmusic476 said:
lostintheodyssey said:
 

All you have to do is look at history most people don't seem to act right unless they have the federal government breathing down their neck. 

How can you expect a government elected by and consisting of the people to be morally superior to the general public?  If a majority of the people don't want to act this way, then why are they electing officials that will force them to act this way?

Well if you have noticed most candidates don't give away where they stand on the issues until they get elected.  They take a middle of the road approach and they also switch positions on a issue sometime after getting elected.  When Lincoln got elected even though he didn't approve of slavery he said he would not end it he just wouldn't allow it to spread to the new territories.  After the civil war started due to south carolina trying to secede from the union he saw an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone by using the war to free the slaves.

But you asked a good question and it does happen.  In recent years polls have shown that most americans are in favor of legislation that prevents illegal immigration and terrorists from coming in to the country even if it discriminates against hispanics and people of arab descent.  Of course the federal government isn't going to pass any legislation that discriminates on those groups though.

Polls have recently came out saying that most americans approve of the immigration bill in arizona even though it has gotten a lot of opposition the majority seem to support it.  A few days ago Obama mentioned that discrimination shouldn't be considered acceptable when trying to capture illegal immigrants so go figure.

 

So... we can trust these people to do good... because they lie to us directly to our faces when they want us to vote for them?

That's your arguement. 

Also, you should REALLY do some research on Lincoln... because your interpretation of why he got rid of slavery... is just kinda funny.



Kasz216 on 23 May 2010
SciFiBoy said:
HappySqurriel said:

(As usual) there seems to be a lack of understanding of libertarianism. In general libertarians tends to separate what they believe is right and what they thing the government should encourage or enforce; and you could say that a libertarian truly believes that the government should not be involved in legislating morality. It would be a fairly consistent position for a libertarian to be entirely opposed to something (say racism or forced racial segregation) and yet believe that the government has no right to force people to behave any differently than they are.

hmm, then how could they justify any sort of military or legal system?

military - would be forcing OTHER people to behave differently (not invade, kill, et al)

legal - forcing people NOT to commit crimes

?

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."

 



HappySqurriel on 23 May 2010
SciFiBoy said:
HappySqurriel said:

(As usual) there seems to be a lack of understanding of libertarianism. In general libertarians tends to separate what they believe is right and what they thing the government should encourage or enforce; and you could say that a libertarian truly believes that the government should not be involved in legislating morality. It would be a fairly consistent position for a libertarian to be entirely opposed to something (say racism or forced racial segregation) and yet believe that the government has no right to force people to behave any differently than they are.

hmm, then how could they justify any sort of military or legal system?

military - would be forcing OTHER people to behave differently (not invade, kill, et al)

legal - forcing people NOT to commit crimes

?

Libertarianism is not the belief in anarchy, and most libertarians still believe that there are certain rights of an individual that need to be protected (justifying a legal system) and that everyone has a responsibility to collectively protect their nation (justifying a military). Saying that someone should be arrested for stealing (undermining someone’s right to property ownership) or for murdering someone (undermining someone’s right to live) is quite a bit different from arresting someone for saying something that hurts someone’s feelings.



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SciFiBoy on 23 May 2010
HappySqurriel said:
SciFiBoy said:
HappySqurriel said:

(As usual) there seems to be a lack of understanding of libertarianism. In general libertarians tends to separate what they believe is right and what they thing the government should encourage or enforce; and you could say that a libertarian truly believes that the government should not be involved in legislating morality. It would be a fairly consistent position for a libertarian to be entirely opposed to something (say racism or forced racial segregation) and yet believe that the government has no right to force people to behave any differently than they are.

hmm, then how could they justify any sort of military or legal system?

military - would be forcing OTHER people to behave differently (not invade, kill, et al)

legal - forcing people NOT to commit crimes

?

Libertarianism is not the belief in anarchy, and most libertarians still believe that there are certain rights of an individual that need to be protected (justifying a legal system) and that everyone has a responsibility to collectively protect their nation (justifying a military). Saying that someone should be arrested for stealing (undermining someone’s right to property ownership) or for murdering someone (undermining someone’s right to live) is quite a bit different from arresting someone for saying something that hurts someone’s feelings.

Racism and Segregation are considerably worse than "hurting someones feelings", its that kind of callous attitude that allowed both to flourish for so long in human societies...



HappySqurriel on 24 May 2010
SciFiBoy said:
HappySqurriel said:
SciFiBoy said:
HappySqurriel said:

(As usual) there seems to be a lack of understanding of libertarianism. In general libertarians tends to separate what they believe is right and what they thing the government should encourage or enforce; and you could say that a libertarian truly believes that the government should not be involved in legislating morality. It would be a fairly consistent position for a libertarian to be entirely opposed to something (say racism or forced racial segregation) and yet believe that the government has no right to force people to behave any differently than they are.

hmm, then how could they justify any sort of military or legal system?

military - would be forcing OTHER people to behave differently (not invade, kill, et al)

legal - forcing people NOT to commit crimes

?

Libertarianism is not the belief in anarchy, and most libertarians still believe that there are certain rights of an individual that need to be protected (justifying a legal system) and that everyone has a responsibility to collectively protect their nation (justifying a military). Saying that someone should be arrested for stealing (undermining someone’s right to property ownership) or for murdering someone (undermining someone’s right to live) is quite a bit different from arresting someone for saying something that hurts someone’s feelings.

Racism and Segregation are considerably worse than "hurting someones feelings", its that kind of callous attitude that allowed both to flourish for so long in human societies...

Systemically forced segregation is wrong, but so is systemically forced integration ...

To use a non-racial example, saying that women must use separate fitness facilities as men is just as wrong as saying that women must use the same fitness facilities as men; and there is nothing wrong with a chain of fitness facilities existing that exclusively caters to the needs of women, while having other facilities that choose to target both men and women. The only time anyone ever questions this is when someone would choose to make a gym that exclusively caters to men; and depending on the reason for this segregation people would have varying levels of disapproval, for example segregating because you wanted to focus on the specific approaches that work best for men would result in far less disapproval than segregating because you thought women should be doing more womanly things.

Now, for legislation to be fair it has to treat all groups equally; and therefore legislation to eliminate segregation and to force integration also eliminates reasonable segregation. To put this in the context of my gender based example, this means that Curves and Spa-Lady (and any women only gym, or any gym with a women’s only area) would be forced to allow men to join their gym.

 

This isn’t to say that a libertarian would approve of all cases of segregation; but that they would tend to see the appropriate way to deal with this segregation was to put social pressure on a business to integrate, or to boycott the business on principle, not to legislate against it. By dealing with it socially rather than legally it allows it to be dealt with on a case by case basis, and for the status to reflect the prevailing views of the community. If (for example) the Ginger Club of America formed and denied access to people of various visible minorities because they were not "Ginger" society on the whole can decide whether that is an appropriate discriminatory policy far better than the legal system can.

 

Does that mean that a gym doesn’t have the right to segregate based on gender, and as a man I have the right to demand that Spa Lady gives me access to their facilities?



Mr Khan on 24 May 2010
makingmusic476 said:
lostintheodyssey said:
 

All you have to do is look at history most people don't seem to act right unless they have the federal government breathing down their neck. 

How can you expect a government elected by and consisting of the people to be morally superior to the general public?  If a majority of the people don't want to act this way, then why are they electing officials that will force them to act this way?

Because that's the nature of a Republic. We have better people than us making our choices for us, and that while the People are responsible enough to choose who should be making those choices, we are not responsible enough to make those choices ourselves. Which i agree with, largely. People can be scarily stupid, and while there needs to be a popular voice in government, true populism never really ended up well.



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

lostintheodyssey on 24 May 2010
badgenome said:
lostintheodyssey said:
badgenome said:

lostintheodyssey said:

Bush is bad! His debt was bad! Democrats are good! Their debt is good! I have proof that the tea party is 150% white, but I won't link it because it's super secret! LOLOLOL!

Wow way to put words in someones mouth I just pointed out the fact that the budget was balanced before he got in there which is true.  I didn't say democrats were 100% good I just made the opinion that given time I believe the reform would pay off which may or may not happen and if it doesn't I wouldn't have a problem saying I was wrong.  And I can link the sites if you want be judging by your tone you would just say sites like bloomberg, university polls, etc were from the liberal media.  And I also notice where you ignored where I doubted the promise of Obama where he said he would withdraw the troops but you just see what you want to see.

 

Edit) Well I might as well do you as well.  I'm a white man from mississppi and I'm afraid of the hispanics coming in and taking over all of our jobs.  No matter what we must keep em out of our country.  Who cares if we may have falsified a war much like the Iraq war because we wanted to take California from them as well as Nevada and Arizona. The nerve of the government stepping in and trying to make things somewhat fair for all people in the country no matter their race, class, or religion we need to keep the government out of our lives so we go back to the old days when only a certain group could prosper and we could get away with whatever we wanted to. I also think that everything the modern republicans do is right and the tea partyers are my heroes. They say they are anti government and anti big business but they get elected and they expand the government, turn the other way when it comes to big business and raise taxes but that's ok I'm not going to hold them accountable for what they say I am just going to keep rooting for them. Because they are definitely better than those democrats. 

I'm going to pick the one poll where it says the party is similar to the demographics of america and ignore the other polls like cnn, bloomberg, and university polls that show that whites make up 88-89% of the tea party.  Clearly that is an attack by the leftist media with an agenda while the poll I picked doesn't have any agendas because I say so.  But even if the party was 150% white who cares I am white so they represent my america so who cares about those other groups anyway we should have kept them out of the country. 

Also I don't want to pay taxes for anything.  If I get hurt in an accident I don't need the police or hospital or any government services I can limp myself back home and treat my own wounds.  I don't need to call the police if someone breaks in to my home that's what my shotgun.  I don't want to pay taxes for education if I have kids I will put them through school and pay for it myself.  What do I look like I don't want to use my tax money to help others.  Helping others is unnatural and unhealthy for me.

See, there is a huge difference: you are psychoanalyzing a person about whom you know nothing, while I simply distilled your overly verbose bullshit down to its essence.

You might, I dunno... stop calling someone a racist for two goddamn seconds (if it's possible for a leftist to do that) and link these other sources you keep talking about?

Its amazing how you call yourself calling me out on my bullshit but you fail to recognize your own.  And I'm not a leftist I have voted for a republican in the last 6 years and if the republican candidate I'm rooting for runs for governor I will vote for another republican in the next election can you say you have voted for a democrat in the past 6 years?  I will say that I miss the republicans who had sense like Bob Dole and Colin Powell there are no good republicans out here today.  The only republican/independent at the moment that I would root for to be president is Charlie Crist simply because he has pissed off republicans and democrats on occassion which shows he is conservative on some issues and liberal on others. 

I look at the candidates not the party and vote based on who I think is the smartest person and most qualified for the job.  I can call out plenty of Obama flaws starting with the way he got in office.  I never liked the way he spoke in his speeches making it sound like he was going to get elected the sun was going to shine there would be rainbows, the streets would become paved with gold and the world would automatically change for the better.

He lied about getting the troops out of Iraq quickly, he spoke about change and getting rid of the business as usual that takes place in washington but as soon as he got in office he hired a lot of Clintons old croonies to fill his cabinet, he said he would go through the budget line by line and find a way to save money but so far he has added on to the debt with financial reform that the country didn't want and he hasn't passed the healthcare reform that people did want, and has exaggeratted the number of jobs he has created since being in office should I keep going?

Now on to the polls the reason I didn't link them the other times is because I was using firefox and for some reason I can't paste when I use that browser.  Also one of the polls did show that at least earlier in the year they did have 10% of hispanic votes even more recent polls show that they have lost that support so I will admit I was wrong because I doubted they ever had that kind of support.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002529-503544.html

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x1295.xml?ReleaseID=1436

http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1109a4TeaParty.pdf

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2010/images/02/17/rel4b.pdf

 



lostintheodyssey on 24 May 2010
Kasz216 said:
lostintheodyssey said:
makingmusic476 said:
lostintheodyssey said:
 

All you have to do is look at history most people don't seem to act right unless they have the federal government breathing down their neck. 

How can you expect a government elected by and consisting of the people to be morally superior to the general public?  If a majority of the people don't want to act this way, then why are they electing officials that will force them to act this way?

Well if you have noticed most candidates don't give away where they stand on the issues until they get elected.  They take a middle of the road approach and they also switch positions on a issue sometime after getting elected.  When Lincoln got elected even though he didn't approve of slavery he said he would not end it he just wouldn't allow it to spread to the new territories.  After the civil war started due to south carolina trying to secede from the union he saw an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone by using the war to free the slaves.

But you asked a good question and it does happen.  In recent years polls have shown that most americans are in favor of legislation that prevents illegal immigration and terrorists from coming in to the country even if it discriminates against hispanics and people of arab descent.  Of course the federal government isn't going to pass any legislation that discriminates on those groups though.

Polls have recently came out saying that most americans approve of the immigration bill in arizona even though it has gotten a lot of opposition the majority seem to support it.  A few days ago Obama mentioned that discrimination shouldn't be considered acceptable when trying to capture illegal immigrants so go figure.

 

So... we can trust these people to do good... because they lie to us directly to our faces when they want us to vote for them?

That's your arguement. 

Also, you should REALLY do some research on Lincoln... because your interpretation of why he got rid of slavery... is just kinda funny.

I said they take a middle of the road approach until they get elected not giving away their positions.  For example candidates say they are for family values which sounds good but they haven't given anything away about what those values are.  They say they are for education and reform which are populist messages but they give absolutely nothing away about what they are going to do.  While they do that they also try to show that they are the most qualified for the position that's why governors tout that they have executive experience running their respective states.  Some tout a expansive educational background to show that they have intellectual capacity to take on tough challenges.

Which part about Lincoln did I get wrong?  Was it the part where I said he intially made the civil war about preserving the union or was it the part where I said he seized the opportunity to free the slaves?