The General American Politics Thread

[Nepenthe]

To be fair, he didn't specifically tell people how to feel. He actually said the opposite; to vote with your conscience. Hue.

[Candescence]

Still, it was an implicit "fuck you" to Trump. The salt being scattered around the convention is incredible, one donor actually had to be restrained from assaulting Cruz. The media outlets who aren't immediately attacking Cruz are already taking advantage to fuel a narrative of a divided GOP.

[-Robin-]

I'm not really surprised that members of the party espousing family values, respect, support, and the perfect American family ideal booed Ted Cruz for not endorsing the man who attacked Cruz's wife and fanned that "Rafael Cruz helped assassinate JFK" rumor.

Just seems like par for the course at this point.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

3 hours ago, Mikyeong said:

As for me, I lean towards the right. As someone who moved to this country, border control is kinda important and I can understand how others feel about illegal immigrants taking up their jobs. Border control doesn't mean keeping all non-Americans out, it means they need to go through the steps to enter the country legally and make sure that no one flies through the cracks. Also make the legal process easier.

That and healthcare is also important as getting it is very expensive especially when most people have our type of income. That and getting the best medicines shouldn't require going overseas or paying an arm and a leg. 

Border control and illegal immigrants taking up jobs has less to do with the immigrants and more to do with the people hiring them. And while I also think they should enter the country legally, they're taking jobs that no one else wanted at the time - native-born citizens and such are only complaining about them nowadays because they're in a rut and want the jobs they actually never wanted simply to survive. And given what the right has been saying about certain non-American, they're pretty much saying "keep them out" - what do you think their support of Trump building a wall (that would be a colossal waste of money) and a ban on Muslims meant all this time?

Nevermind that if you're voting for healthcare, the right have been against making it cheaper for whatever reason.

[Dizcrybe]

4 hours ago, Mikyeong said:

As for me, I lean towards the right. As someone who moved to this country, border control is kinda important and I can understand how others feel about illegal immigrants taking up their jobs.

I, on the other hand, do not.

First of all, if you're applying for a job, by definition, it's not yours to take. You have to earn it just like everybody else whose employer isn't some sort of family member.

Second, correct me if I'm wrong, but is the job market not inherently competitive? If immigrants are "taking your jobs", guess what? So are other Americans. That's just how it works. There are thousands of people vying for a job that get picked over someone else; why are we only focusing on the immigrants?

[Nepenthe]

On top of the fact that most jobs people think illegal immigrants are the majority of are actually from native born citizens (hint: not every Latino-looking person is an illegal immigrant 8'D), with illegal immigrants only having a majority in less than 1% of the study's tallied occupations available to Americans, most illegal immigrants are doing unskilled work that no American wants to do because we all believe we're special snowflakes and grow up thinking that certain lines of work are beneath us. I mean, I don't know a single person- whether or not they have a hate boner for immigration- that wants to go out and be a vegetable picker for 13 hours a day in the hot sun with no breaks while earning little to nothing. If you want to, I mean, good on you for truly understanding the value of that kind of labor, but if you're complaining about illegals taking jobs and not privileged trust fund babies or people who get lucky with connections versus the actual merit of their work, then you're not aware of the bigger picture.

[Meta77]

6 hours ago, Mikyeong said:

As for me, I lean towards the right. As someone who moved to this country, border control is kinda important and I can understand how others feel about illegal immigrants taking up their jobs. Border control doesn't mean keeping all non-Americans out, it means they need to go through the steps to enter the country legally and make sure that no one flies through the cracks. Also make the legal process easier.

That and healthcare is also important as getting it is very expensive especially when most people have our type of income. That and getting the best medicines shouldn't require going overseas or paying an arm and a leg. 

Believe what you believe. That is what politics is about. Never let anyone make you feel just cause you like strong borders your some sort of illegal immigrant hater or something else that seems to get made up on a daily bases. Their is a legal process, most just like to skip it.

[Dizcrybe]

4 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Never let anyone make you feel just cause you like strong borders your some sort of illegal immigrant hater or something else that seems to get made up on a daily bases.

I mean the two do have frequent overlap so...

[Meta77]

1 minute ago, Dizcrybe said:

I mean the two do have frequent overlap so...

 

1 minute ago, Dizcrybe said:

I mean the two do have frequent overlap so...

There will always be racist people in the world. You will never get rid of it. Regardless of who wins it will be there. You can not force though many try to make someone accept or like you. The world is not a pretty as many would like it sadly.

[Dizcrybe]

That's not even close to the point I was trying to make.

[Nepenthe]

Thank you for reiterating the implicit notion that we will never achieve perfection. In the meantime, people who already understood this will continue doing work towards more equitable futures anyway, and you can either hop aboard or complain about it.

[Rey Skywalker-Ren]

25 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Their is a legal process, most just like to skip it.

I do agree the legal process needs to be simpler and less complex or else there wouldn't really be illegals. At the same time, it's not OK to break the law and we do need better borders and while the wall idea is kinda eh, it's something that could work in the meantime.  

[Meta77]

No need of hoping on board a ship without a engine.

[Nepenthe]

Do you literally think the country has stagnated in terms of progress towards equity for minorities- that we are as bad as or worse than we were 50 years ago- or are you just being deliberately obtuse?

 

EDIT: Soooo presumably the final draft of Trump's acceptance speech has leaked. The fuck is going on at this convention???

[Meta77]

I think we are at a peak at what can be done honestly. What more do people want?

[Nepenthe]

Do you have any reasonable scientific or statistical argument for your viewpoint that America literally cannot get any better or is this just a gut-feeling thing?

[Conando]

Considering how health care options just now improved after decades of nothing, and even now there are still those without proper coverage? I think America has room to improve still, that's just an obvious example.

[Meta77]

Hmmmm gut. As there is noting scientifically that can be shown how to improve America. I mean besides financially i think people really really take for granted how nice we have it here compared to say the middle east.

[Conando]

Just because we're better than developing countries doesn't mean we have everything right. This last decade alone has made pretty damn sure of that.

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

24 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Hmmmm gut. As there is noting scientifically that can be shown how to improve America. I mean besides financially i think people really really take for granted how nice we have it here compared to say the middle east.

Ah yes, my folks reminisce about the old days when people content with living in segregation used that form of piss poor excuse for the condition of the country as well. 

[Dizcrybe]

20 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Hmmmm gut. As there is noting scientifically that can be shown how to improve America. I mean besides financially i think people really really take for granted how nice we have it here compared to say the middle east.

I guess when you compare it to a box on the sidewalk a crappy apartment in the slums looks pretty good.

[Nepenthe]

37 minutes ago, Meta77 said:

Hmmmm gut. As there is noting scientifically that can be shown how to improve America. I mean besides financially i think people really really take for granted how nice we have it here compared to say the middle east.

Bullshit and you know it. We can compare our standards of living to other countries to see where we can improve (we are not the best in things like education, wages, healthcare quality for the average citizen, and general happiness, but we are number one in how many people we jail and our military spending.) We can look at recurring systemic issues and statistics that consistently and constantly point out unexplained inequalities between different demographics and say that there is an issue. This doesn't take some leap of faith, because the legwork has already been done by the scientists, statisticians, and educators despite what people who are "both sides" advocates like to say, hence why I asked you for some proof of some kind.

No one is saying America is as bad as the Middle East, and it's honestly annoying to have to constantly set aside these kinds of strawman and relative privation fallacies because people can't be assed to care about what's going on in the world beyond their own myopic point of view. We're saying there are problems in the country and we can improve upon them, a fact which literally doesn't hinge on how the rest of the world is doing or what you feel in your subjective gut is really going on or how you feel people should be happy with their lot in life.

So again, you can either continue trying to undermine the participants in this thread who are knowledgeable and give a damn, or you can at least have the fortitude to admit that you're significantly ignorant about political matters and have nothing else to really contribute. There's nowhere to go with the discussion beyond this if you can't even take the time to find basic statistics on Google.

[Meta77]

23 minutes ago, Nepenthe said:

Bullshit and you know it. We can compare our standards of living to other countries to see where we can improve (we are not the best in things like education, wages, healthcare quality for the average citizen, and general happiness, but we are number one in how many people we jail and our military spending.) We can look at recurring systemic issues and statistics that consistently and constantly point out unexplained inequalities between different demographics and say that there is an issue. This doesn't take some leap of faith, because the legwork has already been done by the scientists, statisticians, and educators despite what people who are "both sides" advocates like to say, hence why I asked you for some proof of some kind.

No one is saying America is as bad as the Middle East, and it's honestly annoying to have to constantly set aside these kinds of strawman and relative privation fallacies because people can't be assed to care about what's going on in the world beyond their own myopic point of view. We're saying there are problems in the country and we can improve upon them, a fact which literally doesn't hinge on how the rest of the world is doing or what you feel in your subjective gut is really going on or how you feel people should be happy with their lot in life.

So again, you can either continue trying to undermine the participants in this thread who are knowledgeable and give a damn, or you can at least have the fortitude to admit that you're significantly ignorant about political matters and have nothing else to really contribute. There's nowhere to go with the discussion beyond this if you can't even take the time to find basic statistics on Google.

What is wrong with wages. I do not need to hear the oh we need 15 dollar wages. Anyone knows you raise the wages all around prices for everything else raises as businesses can say oh your making more you can pay more. And I do not mean those people you see on tv and yahoo yelling about how its hard to raise a family of 4 on a minimum wage at MCDs, and most often its just to spend it on things they do not need. Prime example, I have a lets just say a guy i known for awhile. He does not make a lot of money but gripes about his boss not giving him a raise and how big corporation managers make so much why cant they give more to the works. Well I told him 1. the boss owes you noting, its a business, he is out to make a profit for it first, then himself, he most likely did not open it to make everyone happy but to help himself first, 2. You complain about money yet every week i watch you spend it on things you do not need such as uneeded anime figures or lobster legs and then complain you do not have enough. Sure if you had kids to feed I would be more understanding but even then many times people need to think before just wanting kids that they are not cheap and you need to be somewhat well off or working somewhere that pays better. As it was never meant to support a family. Before you have a family you set out to get an education. But again everything is built that you have to work to achieve these things. Noting is going to be handed to anyone just cause someone feels its a feel good moment or right to do. I do enjoy seeing how flustered people get when I am simply stating my own beliefs, and how I see the world everyday and how I am ignorant if I do not fall in the line and views of what some think the world should be. And no you are right no one said were as bad as the Middle East but it is just sad and annoying when someone thinks not being able to make 15 dollars an hour for small scale jobs is as bad as what they have to go through.

 

But again, some of you are really taking this as hard as bernie fans when he finally lost. No need to come off so mad sounding. Im literally just sitting here typing and just enjoying a talk on politics. No need to literally get that upset if someone is not as left leaning as you think they should be

[Nepenthe]

Wages have stagnated since around the 1970s in lieu of increased human productivity and more expensive standards of living, meaning people are working more for far less, and more people are living paycheck-to-paycheck. While not every state or city needs an increase to $15 due to different state medians for the standard of living, an increase is necessary across the board to make the minimum wage meaningful and to properly reward people's work. Otherwise, you might as well abolish it and indirectly bring back the ability for corporations to engage in slave wages, which isn't good for the economy nor the country because it requires people to have the ability to spend money to be able to run. You can't fix bridges, pay public officials, or indeed run your amoral corporate shithole without money.

And I'm being hard on you because you're not even trying to contribute meaningfully to discussion. You admitted that you have no real proof for the things you believe a big huggy bunch, and as far as I've seen you have yet to take the time to try and gather any, but you are insistent on arguing with people who have some inkling about the real-world documented effects of policy. This is like going into a hacking thread and trying to tell people about your beliefs on the best ways to hack despite having absolutely no idea what hacking entails. It doesn't make sense.

You can also drop the fucking martyrdom complex; several other centrist and conservatives in here like Mikyeong and Tornado have at least had the ability and honesty to engage with more left-leaning people on the issues with good arguments and pulled statistics. I'm simply trying to hold you to the same standard if you're serious about the conversation.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Brah. Where da fuq is your evidence at the very least?