What is a republican?

Author: TheUnderdog

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#31
Swagnarok
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@TheUnderdog
To be left wing is to be against people enduring pain that they don't want to endure... If the GOP takes the opposite approach, it either means they would support people enduring pain that they don't want to endure either for pure sadism or for a consistent reason (that I'm trying to find out).
This is political messaging. Nobody in either party has said: "Manna is coming down from heaven and providing for everyone's needs, in limitless quantities and with no strings attached, but we're such HUMBUGS who hate the poor that we'll make sure they can't tap into it!"
Anything that can be distributed to the masses was taken from somebody else, either with or without their consent (i.e. theft). There are no free lunches except for those freely given.

What can be done is to expand the size of the economic pie. I'll give you a hypothetical.

Suppose that it's the year 1890. You seize control of America at gunpoint and proclaim: "Come all ye poor, I will give you free food and free housing." The urban and rural poor are given dirty cots to stay in, free of charge, and barely expired gruel to eat, three meals a day. They get a bar of soap a month to clean their five pairs of clothing, and a free sewing kit to patch up whatever holes emerge in their clothes. They get a free cow and a free milking pail. They get free crutches whenever they catch polio. House visits by their leech doctor who balances their humors by draining blood and black bile are free of charge.

In short, let's say you have redistributed all of the resources in 1890 America "equitably". The price, in this hypothetical, is that, 134 years later in 2024, they're still living the same way. No private property means little to no economic growth. Think North Korea.
Now, imagine the average poor person in today's America, real life. By American standards, their lives aren't very good. But that's because we keep setting the bar higher and higher and higher. What would their ancestors in 1890 say if they could see it?
They'd conclude that the poorest (non-homeless) Americans, who can eat a huge variety of meals and drink beer while watching TV in their air-conditioned living room, were inoculated against many deadly illnesses as children, and only work 40 hours a week on a job which isn't back-breaking labor in the fields or factories, are living like royalty. And they'd be right, minus the palaces.

You might think this is an extreme hypothetical, and you'd be right. 90% of Democrats aren't literal communists. Nonetheless, anything that negatively skews the cost-benefit of putting in effort and resources ("conducting commerce") to turn a profit will harm the economy through disincentivizing commerce. So-called progressive taxes do this, as do NIMBY-style restrictions on doing business. It's common sense that penalizing something will get you less of it, and rewarding something will get you more of it.
These things add up over great stretches of time. For example, if country A had a GDP growth rate of 2.5% over 100 years, and country B had a rate of 3.5%, and assuming they started out with evenly matched economies, then 100 years later the average citizen of country B will have nearly 3x as much wealth as their counterpart across the border. The difference between 2.5% and 3.5% doesn't seem that big, but the consequences can be dramatic. And no, this is not fiction or a hypothetical. This has played itself out across the world the past 100 years and will continue to do so in the future.

Let's say free market capitalism by itself cannot lift a given person out of poverty. That's a big if, but just for the sake of argument. Even if that's true, then his suffering is not "for no reason" but so that his children and grandchildren will enjoy a better standard of living than he ever did.
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#32
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Every dollar the government steals could have averted unwanted pain.
So is taking $1 from globalists like Jeff Bezos and George Soros to fund the college bills of an American Patriot from West Virginia really causing more pain to the globalists than it is reducing pain to the college kid from West Virginia?

Pro lifers being pro lifers isn't a tribe. 
Yet you said:
Like if I asked the goal of the pro life tribe
I used the term, "tribe" in different contexts here.  The first was used in a cultish sense; the 2nd was used as just the summation of pro lifers.

They supported slavery. 
Which party supports flying the confederate flag the most?

But nobody supports slavery now, so it's a strawman fallacy.  It would be like if I accuse Trump of being homophobic based on stuff Cruz said in 2006.  Trump has a lot more in common with Cruz than Obama does with Robert E Lee.

They are now pro-war and their leaders have cut off any attempt at a negotiated peace in Ukraine. 
You don't believe what I'm about to say (and neither do I as we both are isolationist with the Ukraine war), but the democrats believe that since Putin is killing more civilians in Ukraine than the US military would kill in the name of protection, the war in Ukraine is much more like WWII than the Viet nam war.

and yet Jesus explicitly stopped that from happening...?
Jesus believed in rehabilitation unconditionally.  I forgot about that verse.

So then the Christain theocrats would favor Scadinavian style rehabilitation for all crimes, including murder and rape.


#33
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@TheUnderdog
I'll put this another way.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that it makes immediate utilitarian sense to redistribute wealth from the rich and put it into welfare. That still doesn't mean it's a good idea.
That's like me saying: "Hey look, using heroin one time will be an amazing euphoric experience, despite the downsides of repeated use, so the most rational thing is for everybody to try heroin once and never again." What this misses is that our behaviors are habit-shaping and character-forming. If we cross the line into trying heroin once, then we're at risk of trying it again. And again. And again.

And if we cross the line of disregarding property rights once, and if we scapegoat a few rich people and confiscate 50% of all their stuff as an act of compassion for the poor, then cross our fingers and say "We promise we won't do it again, it was a one time thing because the poor needed us to do it", then who would believe us? How could we restrain ourselves from doing it again? What self-control would we have?
I mean, think about it. Every time a new welfare program (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, etc) is put in, it becomes politically unthinkable to not reauthorize funding for it each subsequent year. The popular appetite for dole money never shrinks. It only grows. Forever and ever more, even as fewer and fewer people are actually paying for these programs.

We're now more than $30 trillion in debt. That number will only continue to mushroom out of control. Because at some point our ancestors made the "utilitarian" choice and compromised their moral character, and now we their descendants can't shake the habit either.
The only way to avoid this is to uphold property rights and trim the size of the government beast even when it hurts. Even when it's hard and will make life harder for many people in the short term.
#34
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@TheUnderdog
Every dollar the government steals could have averted unwanted pain.
So is taking $1 from globalists like Jeff Bezos and George Soros to fund the college bills of an American Patriot from West Virginia really causing more pain to the globalists than it is reducing pain to the college kid from West Virginia?
Pain, especially general emotional dissatisfaction which you seem to be including is unquantified. As such no absolute argument about comparisons can be made and that especially highlights the absurdity of claiming anything "undeniably" increases or reduces pain.

To state the obvious, there aren't enough Jeff Bezoses and George Soroses in the world so that $1 from each would pay for much of anything. It's more like people like me who have lost 40% of my income to inflation, 30% to taxes and can't afford to hire anyone to help me with me improve my property as a consequence (which would have alleviating the pain of those people whom I paid).


They supported slavery. 
Which party supports flying the confederate flag the most?
Does allowing someone to fly a flag cause more pain than chattel slavery complete with lashings?

See if you try to dodge with a question, two can play that game.


But nobody supports slavery now, so it's a strawman fallacy.
What is the date of expiration so I need not waste your time with other examples that don't matter? I believed you mentioned that democrats are anti-war, but that was in the past you see.


It would be like if I accuse Trump of being homophobic based on stuff Cruz said in 2006.
No, it would be like saying the republican party was anti-pain when they circulated uncle tom's cabin and refused to ignore the suffering of the slaves. Recall the point is about consistency:

Neither faction is consistently about anything. 
How are the democrats not anti pain? 
Coming back with "yea but they changed" proves my point.


but the democrats believe that since Putin is killing more civilians in Ukraine than the US military would kill in the name of protection, the war in Ukraine is much more like WWII than the Viet nam war
You should decide what you're arguing for. If you're arguing that the democrats always believe they are reducing pain, ceded. It's simply not a point of differentiation as republicans right-tribers believe exactly the same thing.

You asked for
How are the democrats not anti pain? 
I gave you answers. They are not anti-pain because they're wrong, and if they get to use the excuse of "short term pain to reduce long term pain" then so do republicans.

In fact that reminds me of another left-tribe agenda point that certainly caused unwanted dissatisfaction ('pain'). The COVID lockdowns, and lo and behold their excuse was exactly that short term vs long term average.

The truth is that left-tribers believe what they're told to believe and justify it later. Empathy may be the most common emotion at the root but anger at perceived injustice is definitely in there and it easily turns to rage. This is no different from republicans or any other group of humans.

The real asymmetry is the gap between reality and perception between the two factions. You know, because they're zoned out on mainstream propaganda. You must believe in that sort of thing because you accused me of being brainwashed in a similar manner.

Whatever they may believe the fact is that ceding Donetsk and Luhansk after an internationally overseen referendum would have averted war but most left-tribers and many republicans would be outraged by the notion because the deep state is gaining enormously by this war both in terms of money and cementing US hegemony.

They can call themselves the party of divine righteousness but that doesn't make everyone else devils be default and that is exactly what you implied by threatening to write of the right-tribe as sadists (still shaking my head at that, you must be very desperate for attention; which I guess you got).


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#35
TheUnderdog
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@Swagnarok
Anything that can be distributed to the masses was taken from somebody else, either with or without their consent (i.e. theft). 
The money was taken from the globalist elite silicon valley origarchs and used to fund the mediciaid and education and police services of small town American Patriots.  If you are against that, alright; you side with the globalists (and there is nothing wrong with that, just be upfront with it).  Like cutting taxes means poor children from Tennessee and West Virginia are going to starve to death, but I'm alright with that.


Now, imagine the average poor person in today's America, real life. By American standards, their lives aren't very good. But that's because we keep setting the bar higher and higher and higher. What would their ancestors in 1890 say if they could see it?
I can really see how Scandinavia is a really underdeveloped place

were inoculated against many deadly illnesses as children
What a weird way to support Dr. Fauci.

Nonetheless, anything that negatively skews the cost-benefit of putting in effort and resources ("conducting commerce") to turn a profit will harm the economy through disincentivizing commerce. 
What about life from 1940 to 1980?  Taxes on the globalists were very high back then and decent technology was still developed.

 It's common sense that penalizing something will get you less of it, and rewarding something will get you more of it.
This argument can be used to justify extreme corporate welfare.  "If we pay people who have a lot of money because they have a lot of money, lets tax everyone at 100% and give all the money to Elon Musk.  This way, we encourage people to become as fiscally productive as Elon Musk".  I know this isn't your position, but it's the logical conclusion of your position,

That's a big if, but just for the sake of argument. Even if that's true, then his suffering is not "for no reason" but so that his children and grandchildren will enjoy a better standard of living than he ever did.
The left argument is they want to turn us into Scadinavia; not North Korea.  Scadinavia is a relatively pain free society.

 "Hey look, using heroin one time will be an amazing euphoric experience, despite the downsides of repeated use, so the most rational thing is for everybody to try heroin once and never again." What this misses is that our behaviors are habit-shaping and character-forming. If we cross the line into trying heroin once, then we're at risk of trying it again. And again. And again.
Well with economic theory, the elected left isn't advocating the use of heroin, but instead, the use of something like music; it reduces pain and it's not addictive.  Music actually treats drug addiction.  The Scadinavian model is like music; the North Korea model is like heroin.  Heroin produces more long term pain; music reduces long term pain.

I mean, think about it. Every time a new welfare program (e.g. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP, etc) is put in, it becomes politically unthinkable to not reauthorize funding for it each subsequent year.
That's because the American public is fiscally left wing.  The government should work for we the people, not for we the globalists.  If you would get rid of these government programs, then fine (and fiscal conservative politicians secretly do, they just don't want their poor voter base to know about it because they know it's unpopular).  If the idea is unpopular, maybe it doesn't make sense for them to do it because it actually makes life better.

We're now more than $30 trillion in debt. 
The vast majority of this debt was because Reagan cut taxes for the globalists and every president (democrat and republican) since then has followed suit.

The only way to avoid this is to uphold property rights and trim the size of the government beast even when it hurts. 
More taxes means a smaller debt (assuming government spending stays constant).  

Please explain why the Scandinavia model can't work for the US.  They don't have a lot of debt.  They also tax their globalists a lot.

Now me personally, if some stranger I know dies from lack of healthcare, I'm fine with that, I prefer tax cuts to saving their life because I don't love the poor enough to be willing to take care of them and their pain is irrelevant to me.  But my reasoning isn't that I'm pro pain; me reasoning is the government should only protect those who are being harmed (not lack of help, but harmed) by someone else and in all other situations the people should be left alone.

Sounds conservative?  Except it's not.  I am 100% anti ICE, I want to drastically cut the military budget, and I think the best way to reduce theft would be to not have the police go after thieves anymore and if you get robbed, you are expected to use lethal force to protect your property if necessary (so maybe you should be getting guns and ammo and training with them).  So you could say that to a very big extent, I support defunding the police (because I want people to rely on themselves for protection; not the government).  If that means more black (or redneck) robbers would get shot by people defending their homes, hey man, you loot, we shoot.  But in order to help make that a reality, we should to a large extent defund the police.

The only way to avoid this is to uphold property rights and trim the size of the government beast even when it hurts. 
How would you cut government spending by $1.7 trillion?  Conservatives don't have a plan that they are willing to be open with to the American public about because they know it will hurt them.  But you aren't running for public office.  What's your plan to cut government spending by $1.7 trillion?
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#36
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@ADreamOfLiberty
To state the obvious, there aren't enough Jeff Bezoses and George Soroses in the world so that $1 from each would pay for much of anything.
If you take $120K from Jeff Bezos and use the money to pay the student loan of a redneck STEM major from the University of Florida, do you think you have created or reduced pain overall?  I think you would not be making a good argument if you answer anything other than reducing pain.

 It's more like people like me who have lost 40% of my income to inflation
It's the fed that produces inflation, and the fed is appointed by various presidents.

Do you want the fed officials to be elected positions?

 30% to taxes 
That means you earn about $570K/year.  You still have about the salary of the president after taxes.  If you are okay poor Floridian children starving to death due to lack of welfare (if their parents just don't want to get a job but vote red because of transgender culture war), honestly, I would be fine with that because I don't care how your parents vote, I don't want to take care of you.  If you agree, be honest about it like I am.  You aren't running for POTUS, you don't have to be agreeable, but be honest/transparent/blunt (all syninoms with different connotations).

They supported slavery. 
Which party supports flying the confederate flag the most?
Does allowing someone to fly a flag cause more pain than chattel slavery complete with lashings?

See if you try to dodge with a question, two can play that game.

It wasn't a dodge; neither party supports slavery to this day, but if you believe the former confederacy broke away due to slavery, then you would believe the confederate flag is pro slavery.

But to answer your question, obviously flying a horrible piece of cloth causes less pain than chattel slavery.  But flying the confederate flag should get treated the same way as the N word; I don't think either are inherititely racist, but most black people would disagree.  Does it produce more pain for a white person to not be allowed to say the N word to a black person or to be a black person that hears the N word from a white person?  I personally think BLM should grow thick skins and not care if white people say the N word (just like I think redneck MAGA conservatives who are pro deportation and pro ICE should grow thick skins if Yankees call them undocuphobic bigots).

But an anti pain person would try and ban insults whether they effect people from Harlem or West Virginia.

What is the date of expiration so I need not waste your time with other examples that don't matter?
Jan 8, 2024.  Tomorrow, it would be Jan 9, 2024, and so on.

 I believed you mentioned that democrats are anti-war, but that was in the past you see.
Democrats believe being involved with the Ukraine war reduces more pain overall because they believe short term US involvement would be more like WWII than the Viet-nam and Iraq war.  If you were alive in WWII's time, would you have been, "America first; let Germany do it's thing"?  I can see the argument for yes, but the democrats would have answered no to that.

No, it would be like saying the republican party was anti-pain when they circulated uncle tom's cabin and refused to ignore the suffering of the slaves. Recall the point is about consistency:
The 1860s republicans are a party the modern left and the modern right want on their team.  The modern right's argument is "Lincoln called himself a republican, so Lincoln would be with us if he was alive today".  The modern left's argument is, "The Geography Lincoln won and lost is very similar to the geography we win and lose, so Lincoln would be with us if he was alive today."

Either the parties switched (what the left believes) or the geography switched (what the right believes).  Both modern day parties are pro Lincoln.

Although if you believe Lincoln (the republican) freed the slaves, then you would believe the civil war was about slavery and equate flying the confederate flag to saying the N word to a black person (free speech, but racist).

Coming back with "yea but they changed" proves my point.
The republicans largely changed on gay marriage.  I'm not going to accuse the entire party of being homophobic now based on what they said 20 years ago.  Just like you wouldn't claim in 2024 that democrats support mask mandates.

If you're arguing that the democrats always believe they are reducing pain, ceded. It's simply not a point of differentiation as republicans right-tribers believe exactly the same thing.
On the Ukraine war, you would be correct.

Not every issue is the Ukraine war.  Tell me how banning aborting zygotes reduces pain in the short or long term?

In fact that reminds me of another left-tribe agenda point that certainly caused unwanted dissatisfaction ('pain'). The COVID lockdowns
The pain they tried to reduce was the death rate from COVID.  Censoring people like Joe Rogan was done in the name of trying to reduce pain from dying of COVID and the pain family members would feel when their family member died of COVID.  Me personally, I'm willing to have a small number of people die from COVID to keep the economy open because I don't believe human pain must be avoided at all costs; to me, the economy is more important than saving people's lives with COVID, as well as realizing that free speech is more important than reducing pain and suffering (even if that speech is pro Shariah law; advocating for Shariah law is free speech).  But the democrat's goal was reducing the pain from COVID, so it's why they did the lockdowns that I didn't agree with.

The truth is that left-tribers believe what they're told to believe and justify it later. Empathy may be the most common emotion at the root but anger at perceived injustice is definitely in there and it easily turns to rage. This is no different from republicans or any other group of humans.
That's because people are stupid; people are sheep, and I want to try and get people to be their own shepherd.

Whatever they may believe the fact is that ceding Donetsk and Luhansk after an internationally overseen referendum would have averted war
Their argument was that it would only create short term peace and the war would continue.

 the deep state is gaining enormously by this war both in terms of money and cementing US hegemony.
  1. Russia has a deep state too, and theirs is more powerful over Russia than America's is over America.
  2. US hegemony is based.  If this flag offends you, I'll help you pack.
They can call themselves the party of divine righteousness but that doesn't make everyone else devils be default and that is exactly what you implied by threatening to write of the right-tribe as sadists (still shaking my head at that, you must be very desperate for attention; which I guess you got).
I was giving the right wing tribe a chance to defend themselves, but you haven't done a good job so far.  I have to assume the right is still a pro pain absolutist party, whereas the left is an anti pain absolutist party. For me, if you aren't harming anyone else fiscally or otherwise to a significent degree and you are old enough, I'm a pro freedom guy.
#37
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@ADreamOfLiberty
For fifty years after the civil war the federal government barely did anything (by today's standards). We know the world doesn't fall apart
Well, I guess it can work, but right now most countries resort to wealth redistribution.

"I wont do anything" rarely wins elections.

#38
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@ADreamOfLiberty
From my point of view, wealth redistribution can have negative effects, but not having wealth redistribution doesnt solve poverty.

You can make arguments that wealth redistribution makes things worse, but there are no studies to confirm anything close to that, as richest countries usually have wealth redistribution.

And the point is not just "give poor people a job". One can have a job and still be in poverty.

The wealth in capitalism naturally goes more to top. People with most money buy the most, and prices and production are adapted to those with most money.

The main point of wealth redistribution is to create better chance for people. 
If people can succeed in most cases only if born in rich family, them capitalism just becomes an economical monarchy.
#39
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@TheUnderdog
To state the obvious, there aren't enough Jeff Bezoses and George Soroses in the world so that $1 from each would pay for much of anything.
If you take $120K from Jeff Bezos and use the money to pay the student loan of a redneck STEM major from the University of Florida, do you think you have created or reduced pain overall? 
The total can be more than the sum of its parts. If you bleed Bezos down to his last private jet each theft may have reduced average pain up till that point but still created more pain overall by:
A) increasing the cost of tuition
B) reducing the value of degrees (wasting the students time)
C) creating a generation of relatively useless people who can't produce, and suffer a loss of buying power when there are no more Bezoses to steal from
D) making sure anyone who would over produce moves to a freer society before doing so (ever shrinking territory for prosperity as the flawed policy spreads)


I think you would not be making a good argument if you answer anything other than reducing pain.
Oh well


 It's more like people like me who have lost 40% of my income to inflation
It's the fed that produces inflation, and the fed is appointed by various presidents.

Do you want the fed officials to be elected positions?
I want the fed destroyed and the debt cancelled. That is neither here nor there, however clueless the right-tribe may be about the economic poison the government is constantly spewing the left-tribe is worse and the deep state is worse than either.

There is a difference in values here certainly. The left-tribe and the right-tribe are both doing what they think is best for everyone. The deep state may have more than a few people that delude themselves into thinking that, but they're also cunning bastards and probably know they're doing what is best for themselves.


 30% to taxes 
That means you earn about $570K/year. 
No it doesn't. Sometimes you have such naive assumptions and oversights that I wonder if you are American (like confusing the white house and capitol building)


If you are okay poor Floridian children starving to death due to lack of welfare (if their parents just don't want to get a job but vote red because of transgender culture war), honestly, I would be fine with that because I don't care how your parents vote, I don't want to take care of you.
No idea what you're on about.


But an anti pain person would try and ban insults whether they effect people from Harlem or West Virginia.
Then you have another example where a typical democrat is not anti-pain. They don't care if calling people racist causes pain.


Not every issue is the Ukraine war.  Tell me how banning aborting zygotes reduces pain in the short or long term?
Well for a christian participating in murder is likely to end up in hell and that's pretty painful for the 'doctors' and mother. See how that works? You use left-tribe perception to argue they are "anti-pain" so it would only be fair to use right-tribe perceptions to counter.

Now personally I don't care if a murder reduces unwanted pain over the short or long term. I morality (the objective morality) is based around liberty, not pain. which (again) was one of the ways your dichotomy fails. Using a different concept for moral evaluation is not taking the inverse position of someone else. If they value non-pain and I value liberty, that doesn't mean my morality is pro-pain.


I want to try and get people to be their own shepherd.
Start with the guy in the mirror. Go look up a few things:
1) The evolution of the word "terrorism", did the battles at Lexington and Concord always qualify as "terrorism"?
2) A map of DC, specifically the national mall and the location of key buildings
3) The concept of multi-jurisdiction taxation


Russia has a deep state too, and theirs is more powerful over Russia than America's is over America.
A) Plausible, but detecting it and its extent would only be possible for someone who spoke Russian and paid close attention to events in Russia over a long period
B) You can't destroy a deep state from outside without total war, total war against a nuclear power is definitely not "anti pain", in fact it is futile and insane.

Therefore the Russian deep state is a problem only Russian people can solve. When my country removes the beam in its own eye I might consider wagging a finger disapprovingly.


US hegemony is based.
It's every bit the disaster that the Athenian hegemony was and it won't end well (lots of unwanted pain). A man needs to earn the respect needed to lead constantly and so does a people. The American people no longer deserve to lead.

America at this point in time is exception for only two reasons:
How it imports real goods and services and exports extortion and war
How much money it invests in the military (with no real enemies who can be defeated by conventional military)
How arrogant the deep state propaganda makes its people, everyone else in the world can see the obvious: America sticks its nose everywhere and yet has proven time and again that it can't solve social or international problems any better than others

America was exceptional when it had exceptional legal momentum protecting liberty, especially economic liberty. The world has gotten freer and the US has gotten more oppressive. It's over, and it's not coming back unless the American people return to the course of true progress.


because you're entitled to the land and I'm not? Try to get rid of me and there will be some unwanted pain involved I guarantee it.


I have to assume the right is still a pro pain absolutist party, whereas the left is an anti pain absolutist party. For me, if you aren't harming anyone else fiscally or otherwise to a significent degree and you are old enough, I'm a pro freedom guy.
So... how aren't you a pro-pain absolutist?
#40
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but there are no studies to confirm anything close to that
100 million dead.


And the point is not just "give poor people a job". One can have a job and still be in poverty.
If everything is too expensive.


The main point of wealth redistribution is to create better chance for people. 
The main point of the pyramids was to resurrect everybody. Things don't always work as advertised.


If people can succeed in most cases only if born in rich family
That does not describe the United States of America between 1870 and 1910.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
I am curious.

How much wealth redistribution is acceptable for you?

Should we have no food stamps?

Should we have no public schools and no private schools supported by government?

Should we have no government involved in healthcare?

Should the government not help poor children at all?
#42
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@Best.Korea
How much wealth redistribution is acceptable for you?
By force? None.

The context was slightly different. The least discomfort over all is probably achieved by some kind of UBI. This isn't a new moral theory by the way it's called utilitarianism and it has two fundamental problems:
1.) It is unrooted in universal values
2.) Utility (whether you call it pain, good, satisfaction, benefit) is unquantified and unquantifiable for the foreseeable future. The closest we can get is seeing what people choose for themselves at the price of their own effort, also known as a free market.


Should we have no food stamps?
We should feed those in danger of malnutrition through no fault of their own. We should not be forced to feed them. We should not feed them through things like food stamps which have consistently raised food prices anywhere they are accepted (just like all variants of this same strategy for public safety nets where the government steals money and then pays private suppliers).

In lieu of more effective systems (systems where motivations are proper) it would be less corrupt to simply adopt a UBI and let the poor decide how to spend the money.


Should we have no public schools and no private schools supported by government?
Governments can't support anything. They produce nothing but violence.

They can use that violence to steal money and pay for schools, that we should stop doing.

Society should (by choice) make quality education available to anyone who shows aptitude and interest.

The idea of student loans is not fundamentally flawed, but they must be executed under the corrective influence of the market. Loans to be a doctor or an engineer are likely to be paid back. Loans to study the effect of colonialism on vaginal emissions are not a good idea.


Should we have no government involved in healthcare?
A moral government should try to do everything (after careful planning factoring in everyone's motivations and using self-interest to prevent waste and corruption). That which it cannot do effectively it will not do because people will stop paying for failure.


Should the government not help poor children at all?
The government should not steal to help poor children. Neither should you. Neither should I.
#43
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@ADreamOfLiberty
 it would be less corrupt to simply adopt a UBI and let the poor decide how to spend the money.
So would you agree that everyone gets income that is enough to buy food?

Universal basic income doesnt have to be 1000 dollars. It can be 100$, which is 34,000,000,000 per month, which is about 400 billion dollars per year.
Its a lot of money, but extra 100$ per family member would encourage high birth rates as well as reduce poverty. USA anyway prints trillion dollars each year.
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@ADreamOfLiberty
The total can be more than the sum of its parts. If you bleed Bezos down to his last private jet each theft may have reduced average pain up till that point but still created more pain overall by:
A) increasing the cost of tuition
B) reducing the value of degrees (wasting the students time)
C) creating a generation of relatively useless people who can't produce, and suffer a loss of buying power when there are no more Bezoses to steal from
D) making sure anyone who would over produce moves to a freer society before doing so (ever shrinking territory for prosperity as the flawed policy spreads)
Nobody is running on take all of Bezos'es wealth away.  The most I've heard is, "Let Bezos have only $1 billion and use the $166 billion to pay for 3 years".  One person's pain that they experience by only having $1 billion when they could have had a nominal increase, there is no cost for college for 18 million college students for that time.  B is kindof a false statement; stupid people don't get productive degrees, this doesn't mean if you don't have a productive degree, then you are stupid, but it means that if you are stupid, then you don't get a productive degree.  If P, then Q is not logically equivilant to If Q, then P.  It makes it more of a meritocracy rather than a moneytocracy, where the best skilled people get the best jobs irrespective of what their family's income was.  Your 3rd concern isn't too relevant; the stock value of Amazon will still go up and other billionaires will still get more money.  Free college costs less than 1/10 the military budget.  It's very cheap for the government to fund compared to the military budget (which conservatives get more upset at $70 billion a year of free college than $800 billion/year military budget).  If that makes me anti troop, so be it; your label doesn't matter to me and there are a lot of people who meet that definition.

 30% to taxes 
That means you earn about $570K/year. 
No it doesn't. Sometimes you have such naive assumptions and oversights that I wonder if you are American (like confusing the white house and capitol building)
I'm American.  US income taxes 2023.

If you are okay poor Floridian children starving to death due to lack of welfare (if their parents just don't want to get a job but vote red because of transgender culture war), honestly, I would be fine with that because I don't care how your parents vote, I don't want to take care of you.
No idea what you're on about.
Do you support cutting welfare for poor Floridian trailer park kids?

But an anti pain person would try and ban insults whether they effect people from Harlem or West Virginia.
Then you have another example where a typical democrat is not anti-pain. They don't care if calling people racist causes pain.
Their argument is that calling someone racist in the short term causes pain (dare I say, if it causes rednecks to act like fragile snowflakes because they can't handle a bad name) hopefully in their view hopefully causes the redneck to appeal to be more left wing on RSG (they don't know their effects backfire because the liberal and the conservative have different definitions of racist, they are both unaware of the different definitions, and the conservative is racist by the standards of the liberal (the left believes being anti BLM, pro Trump, and pro border wall counts as racist), but not by the standards of the conservative (their standard is more strict; you have to hate someone for being a race in order to be racist).

But the left winger insults the conservative with the hope that their insults (which are inaccurate to the conservative) produce short term pain and eliminate long term pain inflicted by the conservative on the minority (in the view of the left winger, which saying that one doesn't like BLM counts to the liberal but not to the conservative).

If I was a left winger that believed in this strategy (I don't), I would be more accurate with my insults.  If a conservative says something anti gay, the fact that gay people in the US are more likely to be non white is irrelevent; the accurate insult for the person if insulting people into submission if this was the strategy would be to call them homophobic.  A hypothetical anti gay conservative can't come back from that, and they moderate their anti gay views, which is what the left winger would want.

If a conservative says something anti undocumented immigrant (or illegal immigrant if you prefer that term), the fact that this group of people in the US are more likely to be non white is irrelevent; the accurate insult for the person if insulting people into submission if this was the strategy would be to call them undocuphobic (or illegophobic).  Even the 2nd term doesn't look good for the MAGA conservative, so they get rid of their pro ICE stance because they are afraid of the label.

Well for a christian participating in murder is likely to end up in hell and that's pretty painful for the 'doctors' and mother.
The left's concern is secular worldly pain, the pain that we know would happen to us, whereas we don't know if there will be pain in the afterlife (left wing Christains tend to believe in Universal salvation, which means even Hitler is in Heaven).  Somebody who references afterlife pain would be advocating the theocratic position (theocratic is not synonomous with conservative; the theocrats believe in copying the bible 100% with legal policy, and that means abolishing ICE and treating the stranger as the native born (as well as eating kosher, which the bible says to do and the democrats don't promote because the democrats aren't concerned with eternal life because either they don't believe in God or they believe in universal salvation).

Only the theocratic right could be argued to be anti pain consistently based on the afterlife's pain.  Not everyone in the right is religious; not everyone believes there is a hell in the afterlife; many on the right are libetarians that want a hands off government approach no matter how much pain it causes.  This is so different from the theocratic right that they should form different parties.

Now personally I don't care if a murder reduces unwanted pain over the short or long term. I morality (the objective morality) is based around liberty
Fine; you are a libertarian.  But if you are going to believe in this, back left wing freedoms too, like anti ICE, anti Back the blue, abortion is a tough one because it's possible a zygote is a human being and then you would be harming someone else with abortion, so the libertarian party can split off into anti homicide libertarians and pro choice libertarians (and anything in between such as pro life unless rape would be a separate party as well).  This would mean being pro recreational cannabis, this would even be disagreeing with the libertarian party on at least one issue (the death penalty; they are against the death penalty; preferring to give government paid for healthcare to convicted murderers, which if the libertarians don't like government run healthcare for the undocumented, I don't know how they can justify it for murderers).

Start with the guy in the mirror.
I already do.  I'll call out any party if I read something they said that I disagree with and there is not a single party I agree with 100% of the time.

 total war against a nuclear power is definitely not "anti pain", in fact it is futile and insane.
Nobody is pro nuclear war, especially not urban liberals who would be the first to die from nuclear war.

US hegemony is based.
I said this because I'm an American with national bias.  If I was Chinese, I would want Chinese hegemony; European; EU hegemony.

You didn't get the joke, did you?

So... how aren't you a pro-pain absolutist?
I'm the following:
  1. Anti rape
  2. Anti Ukraine war
  3. Anti Israel War
  4. Anti ICE
  5. Anti lockdowns
  6. Anti Qualified immunity

Those are just the 6 I can list off the top of my head spreadsheet free.

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TheUnderdog
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I think a good consistent definition of a republican would be:

A republican is anyone who believes the ideology of Donald Trump based on what Trump believed between June 2015 (when he condemned the confederate flag) and December 2021 (when he supported the COVID vaccines and boosters).

Now, I don't agree with treating Trump like the founding fathers, but at least it seems like a consistent definition for now.
#46
ADreamOfLiberty
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@Best.Korea
 it would be less corrupt to simply adopt a UBI and let the poor decide how to spend the money.
So would you agree that everyone gets income that is enough to buy food?
I remind you that just because I say A is better than B doesn't mean I find A acceptable. UBI is better than government welfare programs because there is very little room for public corruption to take advantage. Of course it would make a whole class of parasites but so long as they are deprived of any political power there should be no danger (anyone on UBI loses the ballot).

Now, within that context, what I agree to doesn't matter. This is what people who are lured in by socialism do not understand. It's not about entitlement it's about production.

I want people to be able to feed themselves and I would love it if they didn't have to work a day in their life to do so but that is not something I decide. It doesn't matter if I "agree that everyone gets income that is enough to buy food", what matters is that somebody farms, somebody ships, somebody processes, somebody sells.

You can write a law that says "UBI must be enough to eat" but that law won't help anyone. If food is getting so expensive that UBI go from sufficient to insufficient then raising the UBI will almost certainly only accelerate that collapse.

The delusion of socialist sheep boils down to this: You can't starve, it's illegal

All that being said, if we took the entire budget of the military, medicare, and all those three letter agencies and routed it to a UBI, it would be enough for food and that would be a better way to spend the money. Because it's a less wasteful way to spend the money things would improve, but not nearly as quickly as if we just stopped stealing it in the first place.


USA anyway prints trillion dollars each year.
Which is redistribution if evenly handed out. Of course in reality they are routing it to government contractors, giant banks, and favored mega corps.


#47
oromagi
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sore losers and embittered believers
#48
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Someone that wants a Slovenian sex worker to be First Lady?
#49
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@TheUnderdog
I still dont understand how pain plays a role in any ideology
#50
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The money was taken from the globalist elite silicon valley origarchs and used to fund the mediciaid and education and police services of small town American Patriots
Appeal to the language of class envy and demonizing "the other" is no substitute for a sound argument. A person's rightful property is their rightful property even if you happen to think they have too much.

I will take this to an extreme: during the literal Dark Ages, when landlords collected passive income from the fields and peasants were malnourished despite doing all the work, it was ultimately a good thing they weren't able to overthrow the landlords.
Not good for the average member of that generation, sure. They suffered plain and simple. But in the long run, the inassailability of property rights even when people had 10,000x more legitimate reason to hate the concept than today set a precedent that allowed for the success of capitalism when Europe began urbanizing around the High Middle Ages and afterward. This, I suspect, is also the reason why Japan, feudal until the 19th century, was the first non-European country to successfully modernize.
Americans are richer today than ever. But sure, by some metrics we are currently being "tested" by income inequality and other bad stuff. If we fail the test by doing what seems immediately expedient, our descendants will regret it, assuming that we ourselves won't also. A thousand years of gradually upward momentum will go flying out the window.

I can really see how Scandinavia is a really underdeveloped place
Scandinavian politicians themselves have publicly denied that their countries are socialist. For example, the World Bank reports that Denmark is ranked #4 in ease of doing business (compared to #6 for the US), and Norway and Sweden are #9 and #10, respectively. Similarly this article lists Sweden and Denmark as two of Europe's top tax havens.
As for Norway, they also have a small population and lots of oil money.

What a weird way to support Dr. Fauci.
Believe it or not, I have no problem with Dr. Fauci. The fact that some other republicans cut open their skulls and flushed their brains down the toilet as soon as Covid hit doesn't oblige me to do the same.

What about life from 1940 to 1980?  Taxes on the globalists were very high back then and decent technology was still developed.
From everything I've heard, there were a lot of tax loopholes that the rich took advantage of. It's also worth noting that we had like two good decades, immediately following WWII and the Great Depression, and then the economy fell into massive stagnation in the 70s.

This argument can be used to justify extreme corporate welfare.  "If we pay people who have a lot of money because they have a lot of money, lets tax everyone at 100% and give all the money to Elon Musk.  This way, we encourage people to become as fiscally productive as Elon Musk".  I know this isn't your position, but it's the logical conclusion of your position,
No it isn't. Give billionaires free money for no reason and they'll have more money. What's the point of working and investing if the end result will be the same regardless?
And for the most part, what's called "corporate welfare" isn't. Letting someone keep more of their own money isn't welfare. The mental gymnastics needed to justify this way of thinking are insane. As for corporate bailouts, they aren't partisan and President Obama was more than happy to bail out General Motors.

Well with economic theory, the elected left isn't advocating the use of heroin, but instead, the use of something like music; it reduces pain and it's not addictive.
Except government spending is addictive, as I've demonstrated.

That's because the American public is fiscally left wing.
The American public is fiscally selfish. Everyone wants more benefits for themselves. And everyone wants lower taxes for themselves. This is what's popular, and it's also what is destroying us.

Now me personally, if some stranger I know dies from lack of healthcare, I'm fine with that, I prefer tax cuts to saving their life because I don't love the poor enough to be willing to take care of them and their pain is irrelevant to me.
Personally, I think it's hypocritical to call somebody else evil for not wanting to pile on more government debt to service the poor and sick when you yourself give very little if anything to charity. Not calling out you specifically, but the left in general.

How would you cut government spending by $1.7 trillion?  Conservatives don't have a plan
If Democrats made a binding promise that: (1). the conservative plan will be implemented; and (2). whatever necessary steps will to be taken to ensure Republicans don't lose any congressional seats in the aftermath of said implementation, then Republicans could come up with a plan in a matter of weeks or months. It's strictly because of Dems' refusal and willingness to electorally profit from unpopular reforms that Republicans haven't done so.

The vast majority of this debt was because Reagan cut taxes for the globalists and every president (democrat and republican) since then has followed suit.
The vast majority of the debt is because spending gets approved with full knowledge that enough taxes won't be collected to make up the difference. The most I'm willing to concede is that both parties have blame, and I'm of the disposition that the lion's share of said blame falls on Democrats. But if I'm wrong about that, then it still isn't a Republican-exclusive blame.

More taxes means a smaller debt (assuming government spending stays constant).  
That may be true for one year. Or two. Or three. But eventually it'll mean an appetite for more spending, since lawmakers would now perceive that they can get away with it. Again, the federal budget is like heroin. Maybe you start out taking a pill four times a week or whatever. But eventually you'll be injecting it into your veins like twice a day.
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@Dr.Franklin
I still dont understand how pain plays a role in any ideology
The left supports:
  1. Banning AR 15s, because of pain producing mass shootings.
  2. UHC because of pain producing medical bills.
  3. Legalized abortion, because of maternal pregnancy pain.
  4. Anti ICE, because of the pain caused with deportations and forced single motherhood.

The left is consistently anti pain.



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TheUnderdog
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@Swagnarok
Appeal to the language of class envy and demonizing "the other" is no substitute for a sound argument. A person's rightful property is their rightful property even if you happen to think they have too much.
I'm sure the MAGA crowd would love you defending the elitist globalists like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerburg, and George Soros.

But in the long run, the inassailability of property rights even when people had 10,000x more legitimate reason to hate the concept than today set a precedent that allowed for the success of capitalism when Europe began urbanizing around the High Middle Ages and afterward. 
Nope; capitalism replaced feudalism because it was better.

Scandinavian politicians themselves have publicly denied that their countries are socialist. For example, the World Bank reports that Denmark is ranked #4 in ease of doing business (compared to #6 for the US), and Norway and Sweden are #9 and #10, respectively. Similarly this article lists Sweden and Denmark as two of Europe's top tax havens.
Ok then, so what's stopping you from supporting capitalism with universal healthcare and government paid for education?  Scadinavia has that and you argue they are capitalist.

Believe it or not, I have no problem with Dr. Fauci. The fact that some other republicans cut open their skulls and flushed their brains down the toilet as soon as Covid hit doesn't oblige me to do the same.
Alright; you buck orthodoxy with your party on something.  This is good.  I don't even like Fauci and the vacciene mandates, but this is good.

From everything I've heard, there were a lot of tax loopholes that the rich took advantage of.
I didn't know that.

It's also worth noting that we had like two good decades, immediately following WWII and the Great Depression, and then the economy fell into massive stagnation in the 70s.
The Nixon, Ford, and Carter years?

As for corporate bailouts, they aren't partisan and President Obama was more than happy to bail out General Motors.
I didn't agree with Obama on that.  Companies shouldn't get bailed out.  If they have a good economic plan to recover, they ask investors for money, not the government.

Except government spending is addictive, as I've demonstrated.
So then what are you willing to cut to balance the budget?  Here's what you are working with:


You got to find a way to cut 21.6% of the budget to balance it.  It's probably more now.

 I think it's hypocritical to call somebody else evil for not wanting to pile on more government debt to service the poor and sick when you yourself give very little if anything to charity. Not calling out you specifically, but the left in general.
It is hypocritical for a left wing billionaire to call on raising taxes for the rich while not donating whatever tax raise they support.  Most left wingers aren't billionaires, but the left wingers that aren't billionaires should call out the hypocritical left wing billionaires.

If Democrats made a binding promise that: (1). the conservative plan will be implemented; and (2). whatever necessary steps will to be taken to ensure Republicans don't lose any congressional seats in the aftermath of said implementation
I'd want to know what the plan is before I agree or disagree with it.  What if the conservative plan is to eliminate 100% of government spending?  That means no more social security for the elderly.  It means no more military money or Medicare or Medicaid money.  If they don't have to worry about re election, they would do that (and you may agree which is fine, but that applies to you too).


#53
ILikePie5
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@TheUnderdog
Why does it matter? Supporting Republicans doesn’t mean I’m a republican by default. I believe in people and their policies/actions, not what party they are. There are many Republicans who I would never vote for
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@ILikePie5
Why does it matter?
Because if the GOP consistently stands for no policies, I don't know what issue made you on the right (lets say abortion), but if you want to vote republican because they are more pro life, fine; I have no issue with that.

But then don't be afraid to criticize the GOP on issues where you disagree.

Like lets say there were 2 candidates (A and B). 

Here's what Candidate A believes:

  1. Nationwide 15 week abortion ban
  2. Transwomen belong in women's sports and they should be treated like women in every regard.  A woman is anyone that identifies as a woman!
  3. Vaccine mandates are horrible!  End the mandates!
  4. Abolish ICE!

Here's what candidate B beleives:

  1. Codify Roe V Wade
  2. Transwomen don't belong in women's sports and they should be treated like men in every regard.  A woman is any adult with XX chromosomes!
  3. Vaccine mandates are needed for public health!
  4. Build the wall on our southern border!

None of these issues have anything to do with each other.  But somehow, the GOP agrees with candidate A on 1 and 3 and candidate B on 2 and 4.

If you vote republican because of abortion, that's fine.  But if the GOP says a stance that is right wing because it's a GOP stance and you are left wing on that issue, criticize the GOP on that issue.

 I believe in people and their policies/actions, not what party they are.
What policies?

There are many Republicans who I would never vote for
What about Chris Christie vs Joe Biden?  Or Chris Christie vs Marian Williamson?  Or Chris Christie vs Dean Phillips?

I think you would vote for your least favorite republican (assuming it's Chris Christie) over any democrat running for POTUS.
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But then don't be afraid to criticize the GOP on issues where you disagree.
I do.

What about Chris Christie vs Joe Biden?  Or Chris Christie vs Marian Williamson?  Or Chris Christie vs Dean Phillips?

I think you would vote for your least favorite republican (assuming it's Chris Christie) over any democrat running for POTUS.
I wouldn’t vote for any of them actually. I’ve stayed numerous times in other threads that I wouldn’t vote for Nikki Haley either. Being a Republican doesn’t automatically garner my vote.
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But then don't be afraid to criticize the GOP on issues where you disagree.
I do.
Like when?

I wouldn’t vote for any of them actually. I’ve stayed numerous times in other threads that I wouldn’t vote for Nikki Haley either. Being a Republican doesn’t automatically garner my vote.
Alright; but then how is Trump different from Haley or Christie in your view that justifies you voting for Trump over Biden but not Haley or Christie over Biden?
#57
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@TheUnderdog
Like when?
Spending. Healthcare (screw John McCain). Senate Republicans, etc.

Alright; but then how is Trump different from Haley or Christie in your view that justifies you voting for Trump over Biden but not Haley or Christie over Biden?
Haley and Christie are warmongering neocons. Biden is that + other shitty policies
#58
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lol, Biden in high heels? :)
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#59
TheUnderdog
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@ILikePie5
Spending.
On what?

Healthcare (screw John McCain). Senate Republicans, etc.
John McCain is left wing on healthcare (at least by American standards in that time).

How do you criticize right wing ideology (which isn't consistent in any way)?

Haley and Christie are warmongering neocons. Biden is that + other shitty policies
So wouldn't you then vote Christie or Haley over Biden?

If X=Being a Neocon, Y="other shitty policies", Christie and Haley have X, Biden has X+Y

If all these values are negative, wouldn't X>X+Y?
#60
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@TheUnderdog
On what?
Lots of things. Go read Rand Paul’s annual festivus report that highlights dumb spending.

John McCain is left wing on healthcare (at least by American standards in that time).
John McCain ran on repealing Obamacare. He’s a fraud. Ever heard of the Hanoi Songbird or the fact he sealed all his Vietnam records.

How do you criticize right wing ideology (which isn't consistent in any way)?
I don’t vote for people I think will cause more harm than good. I would never vote for Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy.

So wouldn't you then vote Christie or Haley over Biden?
No.

If X=Being a Neocon, Y="other shitty policies", Christie and Haley have X, Biden has X+Y

If all these values are negative, wouldn't X>X+Y?
Sure, but that doesn’t mean I will vote for them lol. Youre assuming it’s a binary choice. I would vote for RFK over them. If it’s just H2H I would choose not to vote, because they’re both in negatives and would be bad, and I don’t want to condone bad.