You chose goal posts at all when you declared the Democrats as Center-Right because of Taxation brackets.
So which arbitrary goal posts do we use since are are for using goal posts just not this one.
Ones that only show your argument as correct?
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
CNN: The California Democratic Party Endorses Kevin De León over incumbent Dianne Feinstein
- Thread starter Lunar Wolf
- Start date
- Status
You chose goal posts at all when you declared the Democrats as Center-Right because of Taxation brackets.
So which arbitrary goal posts do we use since are are for using goal posts just not this one.
Ones that only show your argument as correct?
if you would use stimulus in a recession as the economic policy bar, i would say it separates the hard right from the centre-right (i.e. left wing, centre-left and centre-right parties all would pursue it), not the centre-right from the centre-left
Dear, we chose this "goalpost" because I got told in this very thread that social issues are nice but we need to look at economics to see why people say the Democrats are center-right. Last night I cited a few of Democrats' policies as examples of their being center-left:
But some people still refuse to concede the point.
On the American political spectrum we Obama was liberal. Whens the last time Congress consreuctively worked together for solutions? Part of the Bush presidency or was it back to Clinton?
Partisinship has made our Congress ineffectual.
No, Republicans being the dominant party since 1968 and the Democrats only having brief periods of unified control has made our Congress ineffectual.
again, i think you would struggle to find any political scientists who would say "stimulus in recession" is the best single objective measure of where someone is on the left-right economic spectrum. a criterion that would make shinzo abe economically left-wing is not a good criterion
i would think almost all would agree that tax to GDP ratio is a better measure
still, after-tax gini coefficient after preferred fiscal policies would probably be an even better parameter than preferred tax to GDP ratio. (but one that would me much harder to estimate.) again, you would find that most democratic party politicians would fall quite far to the right of the international centre (talking strictly about economic policy) using such a criterion
Go deeper
Congress actually works for some things. See bipartisan tax bill.
Benefits donors. Works.
Benefits average constituents. Doesn't work.
Both parties paid by same donors
I applaud you for writing a forum post in the vein of William Carlos Williams - how literary of you! - but you're still not right.
You realize the tax bill got ZERO Democratic votes in either chamber, right?
Wait, what? The tax bill that just passed recently was voted on by party lines in the Senate. I definitely would not call it a bipartisan bill.
There's a second one that had massive benefits for local banks/credit unions. Wasn't a tax bill though, was bipartisan because of how big an interest group the smaller banks are due to so many states having banned large-scale branching till the '80s deregulation hit.
My point is that as a country, as a socio-political entity, we've been doing the bare minimum for anyone who isn't a straight, white man and calling ourselves champions of progress for it. The idea that we need more centrists in either party only continues that ideology; continuing the status quo for white men. We need to pin the needle so hard to the left just to move this country back ACROSS the line from Conservative to Liberal, let alone to make any real, genuine progress.
I mentioned it earlier, but it is a symptom of the political system that functions as a vetocracy. I agree that being a self patter is not a good look.
I don't disagree that our representatives should be more progressive, but in the case of partisan gridlock, that has less to do the ideological orientation of Democratic representatives and more to do with the fact that there are a large number of veto points in our presidential system (unlike a parliamentary system in which relatively fast change can occur if any party/coalition gets a majority). Republicans have polarized asymmetrically to such an extreme degree, and the movement of people into cities has caused the political power of mostly urban Democrats to be inefficiently allocated and thus diluted vs. the mostly rural Republicans; that's the major cause of congressional dysfunction. Like, look at this article from 1994 complaining about gridlock; it's only become worse since then for the reasons I mentioned. Basically, presidential systems are bad.
Regarding this race in particular, I wish Feinstein would have chosen not to run for reelection. Given how rancorous some of the responses have been (like, accusing Feinstein of basically being a Republican, really?), I think some of the reaction has to do with the fact that she's old and a woman, which gives me some pause. But on the merits, I do think that there's a strong case to be made that California should be represented by someone more progressive (esp. where civil liberties are concerned). I voted for Kevin De Leon in the primary, but he's still relatively an unknown and serves more as a protest candidate (better candidates didn't run since Feinstein was running). So I'm amenable, but I really need to take a look at his record, and I hope that newspapers really dig deep to make sure there aren't any skeletons in his closet that we have to worry about. The main thing for me right now is that the sexual harassment scandal in the state senate happened on his watch; it's still an ongoing issue/story, complicated by the fact that he shared an apartment with one of the accused, and it would be a big deal if he knew about the cases but did nothing.
Yes, I appreciate you being receptive to that correction. I imagine quite a few Americans wouldn't take to that view, because in separating those as orthogonal issues, you'll find the libertarian "socially progressive fiscally conservative" gobbledygook meaning "sure you can marry, just don't you dare be poor".
Last edited:
This is from 2016, but Dem politicians saying shit like this does not give me any faith in them to do the right thing:
There Dems are much better than the GOP by far, but they're still bad. Obama, Harris, Booker, and Biden could be out there doing stuff like Sanders did tonight with his CEOs vs. Workers town hall.
There Dems are much better than the GOP by far, but they're still bad. Obama, Harris, Booker, and Biden could be out there doing stuff like Sanders did tonight with his CEOs vs. Workers town hall.
- Status