The Four Stages of Republican Misinformation

I strongly urge you to take the time to watch this.

PARENTS are legally responsible for the welfare of their own children

CHILDREN have some level of autonomy, but do not have full SELF-OWNERSHIP

Which is why Thett is willing to die on that hill to protect a 13 year old.

Society would be worse off if there were no CPS institutions to keep abusive parents in check.

please explain

I also think it’s interesting that the federal GOP is basically a clown show but a lot of GOP politicians are very capable of governing at the state level. Certainly if we take how people and business “vote by their feet” into account. I don’t know why this is

I completely agree with this. The election of Trump and the subsequent undermining of his presidency really drove this home to a lot of people which is part of what’s causing the psychosis among his most fervent supporters. He didn’t do himself any favors of course and a stronger president probably could’ve beaten the forces that set themselves against Trump. But it’s obvious to any fair minded person that powerful elements, including from his own party, did what they could to undermine him from day one. Look at how Paul Ryan played Trump by lying about working with him on immigration as soon as they got the tax bill through. We’re still paying for that one with illegals streaming through massive gaps in the wall near populated areas 

The whole congress not reading the bills they vote on thing is a total travesty. I understand that governance is complicated but few things need to be 1000+ pages. I’ve never seen a good justification for this 

Yah, I really wish the people who virtue signal about "Mah Democracy" would at least address that problem.

they should probably be required to at least pass a 20 question quiz

If the proposals were made specifically as you described both parties would reject them. I mean the government creating factory jobs and deciding to put them in rural areas? No one would go for that. The point I was making though was that the root problems you are highlighting are problems democrats would be far more likely to consider worthy and a government responsibility to address.

The only philosophy inherent in this issue is the idea that people should be able to live their lives as they see fit, provided they aren’t hurting anyone else.

Well, that is a theory…

The article seems like projection of far left tactics. 

Man I’m a bit backlogged heh.

Before I start let me reiterate something, that you appear to be still missing - even after multiple posts. It’s typified again by your response here.

We are comparing the right and the left. As I keep pointing out, the way in which you are drawing that comparison is not to compare left and right - but to say the left has done bad things - and is thus just as bad ; that is not at all a reasonable basis for comparison, it’s not really a comparison at all.

For example:

On the one hand, the right attempted to overturn a free and fair election - opposes making voting easier, or opening up voting, they mostly oppose RCV, they maintain felony disenfranchisement (remember Florida - the population votes to allow felons to vote - republicans immediately pass law to make it very hard for felons to vote) gerrymandering, voting restrictions and limits on voting rights, and have been electing officials that agree with those views.

On the other hand - Democrats have been opening up voting, making it easier, support voting rights and reform, have passed multiple laws to that affect; and those more open and free laws have been consistently opposed by Republicans.

So, the overwhelming balance of democratic policy, introduced laws, and support within the party is definitively better for American voting rights - and far more favourable to third parties on balance - than republicans. And it’s not really even close. 

Is every aspect of Democratic behaviour ethical, and does every individual member or operative of the Democratic Party act perfectly - no. 

But pointing to a few specific examples of democrats being bad - which they absolutely are - does not refute or disprove this overall picture: it’s cherry picking. Even if they were just as bad, and you questioned their motivations, the policies and actions they are taking are on balance beneficial; the other is not.

Again - you seem to fixate only on criticizing one side: instead of making a comparison.  We are comparing two sides. One of the sides platforms, and most of that sides supporters - a critical point - support policy that actively shifts wealth and power to that oligarchy - the right. That one side during Reagan, Bush and Trump,  with the deregulation and tax policies they have pursued have systematically shifted wealth and power to that oligarchy, created the patterns of wealth inequality we see today that are fundamentally fuelling much of the social angst we see today.

You are absolutely right : Clinton didn’t do enough to lower wealth inequality, and raise taxes on wealth enough, and stop runaway control of many corporations; nor did he really defend labour enough.  Obama - didn’t do enough either; still both limited military spending, Clinton raised taxes on the rich; there was various restrictions like the CFPB and Dodd Frank. And more.

I absolutely agree that Obama should done stuff like breaking up the big banks; absolutely should have done way more to prosecute bankers and done so much more. And I would agree that not enough is being done now.  Clinton shouldn’t have signed the Republican championed deregulation of the banks that in part led to the financial crisis

But complaining about the inaction of Obama and Clinton, when the Republicans have systematically transferred power and wealth to these groups; and whose policy platform is to explicitly empower them; and who’s misinformation machine is actually fighting to attack and poison any conversation about an alternative: branding people trying to talk about how to disempower them as socialists; it demonstrates - yet again - how democrats are held and compared to this dishonestly high standard; in part a product of the muddying the waters caused by the very misinformation machine we’re talking about.

One governors actions in the middle of a health crisis to enforce a temporary health measure : vs a widespread pushing of a narrative an election was stolen, pushes to politically control elections, attempts to overturn the results of an election; explicit ideological interference in education…. And more

Again: your argument is “This is bad” - not “all of these bad things are equivalent to all these bad things”

If you want to assert a comparison - you must compare things.

Read this again:

One side committed egregious human rights abuses, the other rolled back many of the policies that caused them, and pushed to end some of the ongoing issues; but as they didn’t prosecute their political opponents that committed the abuse - they’re just as bad? Come on.

Absolutely I have no doubt that Obama should absolutely have prosecuted them - other than, I think, two failed prosecutions. And a lot of democrats agree. But again - look at context. Dodd Frank came after (opposed and partly repealed by republicans), the next administration put Wall Street bankers alumnis, oil executives, billionaires, in critical top roles, decimated regulation; gutted the CBFP. The administration before massively decreased regulation and oversight of almost every industry; the Gramm Leach Bliley act that sort of lead to the crisis proposed by republicans, and only opposed by democrats - including most democrats in the senate at the time. Not all - and the bill was signed by Bill Clinton - but let’s not forget where it came from.

The good thing, is that the democrats have been relying more and more on small dollar donations, they championed this with act blue. And it’s important because the more and more political campaigns and actions are beholden to their supporters and not rich backers - the better. It will mean they are going to be beholden to those who feel strongly enough to donate - but it means to win and to maintain power - you have to do stuff that your base likes. To their credit, for a time Republicans did well with Trump for small dollar donations.

HR1 amplified that power by federal fund
matching funding - and would amplify that - but is, of course; universally opposed by republicans.

And this is the real level of the comparison you’re not making. The reality is one side supports and empowers the people you oppose; actively support and promote policies that support them, and attempt to undermine the voting power of their opposition. Whilst the other side doesn’t do that quite enough to clean up after them.

I absolutely and very strongly agree with you on this, wholeheartedly and completely - the biggest risk from the current levels of polarization and nature of political conversation ; for both sides is that the counter narrative is often trolling, snipey comments, or plain insults.

I am incredibly left wing when it comes to how things *should* be; but am an incredible realist and am much further to the Center when I consider how things *can* be. I think that Post-scarcity communism - as with Star Trek - could potentially be possible, but it took a hundred years, first contact and global nuclear war; and A -> B is not practically possible right now.


All forms of social or governmental change has risks, even if policy isn’t driven solely by ideologues; without robust intellectual challenge and criticism from the right - the current political environment there is not enough valid scrutiny that is taken seriously. After all if you have 999 / 1000 people screaming at you for wanting to destroy the county with socialism for suggesting people should have free healthcare - it’s harder to hear the one remaining voice.

So I agree with you here, we need a strong, coherent, intellectually honest conservative voice in the country.

Saying that: from a purely subjective position - I don’t think market liberalism and traditional conservatism is going to cut if right now, but that’s a story for a different thread.

Not really - don’t get me wrong, I think that’s true, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a subjective opinion on many , but not all fronts either - but that’s not actually the point I was making.

The point I was making - to you specifically - was to defend the broad thrust of the list; and the criticism that many of the things on it occur similarly on left and right. I pointed out a number of the material ways both left and right react and approach similar events and situations is often completely different - and of course, thats only really measurable in anecdotes.

We see the those disinformation systems operating here in real time right now.

I actually think both sides have broadly equal issues with critical thinking ; with the potential that the right has a larger contingent of unhinged crazies. The republicans just have better exploited the media landscape way better - in many ways - with a broader push from the top in a way that I don’t think is fully matched on the left.

While I could go deeper and broader isn’t my more generalized beliefs - the biggest and most pressing crisis right now is an inability to have a rational discourse; as it will literally poison any other issue that could ever come up.

REPUBLICANS = CORPORATE GOONS

DEMOCRATS = SLIGHTLY NICER CORPORATE GOONS

i'm not suggesting you should vote republican

i'm merely suggesting that you be very careful which specific democrats you decide to support

keeping in mind that BOTH SIDES routinely erect barriers to entry for third parties

Or even within their own party. You don't think Biden had competition during the primary, do you?

bernie was pretty effectively torpedoed

just another good reason to eliminate "primaries" and replace them with RCV

That will take another armed revolution

this conversation matches our conversation