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[POLL] U.S. Presidential Election 2016
- Thread starter Lacius
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South Park explained this election wonderfully 12 years ago. The candidates may be terrible every election, but I feel like this one is even worse than usual.
There's nothing wrong with being a liberal, naivety and daydreaming are not sins. Problems arise when we reach socialist territory, that's a big no-no.
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Well what about Nordic Social Democratic style of policies? Does that count in your mind?
It's inarguable that the Green Party is occupying the same niche as the Democratic Party. You have not stated valid reasons to think Greens have a niche of their own. There are not fundamental differences between the two political parties. Politicians from each party are often indistinguishable from each other. More on this in my response below.
I'll admit the platform is not entirely irrelevant and is a good starting place when comparing party politics. But as I mentioned earlier, much of what you cited as unique to the Green Party is in the Democratic Party platform, and more than that is supported by mainstream Democrats. More on this in my response below.
Let's ignore for a moment that you're literally describing only differences in degree, which is what I said would happen and was my point in my very first post on the topic of third parties (i.e. I'm not moving goalposts).
The Democratic Party's official platform includes language to legalize marijuana on the basis of both free choice and criminal reform, and many Democrats including Senator Sanders go further with regard to drug liberalization. The Democratic Party's official platform also includes language on free university education sans loans, and Senator Sanders and other notable Democrats have talked about this at length. I'm not saying you're doing it intentionally, but you can see why I would think you're being disingenuous when, in an effort to paint a divided picture of the two parties, you're citing specific differences between the Democratic Party and Green Party that don't actually exist. You also seem to be in some cases misrepresenting positions generally held by Democrats.
We can agree the two parties occupy the same political niche; this is not controversial, and it's covered in a Political Science 101 course. We can agree that differences between the two parties are generally just a matter of degree. You can argue that the difference in degree is enough to warrant the existence of the Green Party as an entity separate from the Democratic Party, and that's fine. I disagree and think the Green Party would do better by acting as a part of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. This conversation topic is more than beginning to snowball, and I think we should wind it down.
Regarding third-party ballot access, Democrats aren't going to go around being activists on the topic for obvious reasons. However, plenty of Democratically-controlled legislatures and committees give third-party ballot access. If you want to argue that Democrats don't go far enough and should endorse some sort of preferential voting system, I would agree with you.
You misunderstood. I'm not arguing that Jill Stein is a useless candidate with regard to policy because I don't think any candidate is useless. It's the Party's existence I have a problem with. I think Jill Stein should change the Democratic Party from within and/or run in a Democratic Primary election of some sort. I thought I explained this already.
In a situation where one dislikes both major party candidates, I think picking the lesser of two evils is the only logically sound thing to do if one cares who is going to be the next president.
To vote for a third-party candidate or not vote at all is to care about making a statement more than who is going to be the next president.
I can't speak for everyone, but my liberalism does not come from naivety and daydreaming. It comes from logical reasoning when trying to figure out what is most conducive to people's well-being and the well-being of the country as a whole. As I think we established a month or so ago, it's the libertarian mindset that is often idealistic.
Last edited by Lacius,
Any besides Trump or Clinton, but people are too fucking stupid to vote for anything else. Not that the general election has any bearing at all.
If a person cares who wins in a general election between Secretary Clinton and Donald Trump, then it would be stupid to vote for anyone else.
What do you mean?
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With Secretary Clinton's aggregate net favorable rating at -16 and Donald Trump's at -19, you're hardly alone in disliking both candidates. However, if you have any preference between the two, the logically sound thing to do is to vote for the lesser of two evils.
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I have multiple times stated as to why the Greens do have their own niche which is that they have clear fundamental differences between the actual parties you have just been too ignorant to recognize them. Anyone should be able to realize those issues count as fundamental differences.
Again I must state that they are actually fundamental differences. BDS, ending Nato, ending the NSA, are all much more than slight differences. Likewise the same is true for university education and the other things that i have mentioned.
Last edited by RevPokemon,
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I'd rather not go into which I like more and which I like less, it just asks for trouble, but those scores are just pathetic.
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That is different from free college as it asserts that students should not have to pay for tuition rather than universities should tuition free. They are fundamentally different perspectives. Likewise "having the right" and "should be able to" are also very different fundamentally speaking.
Last edited by RevPokemon,
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As I said (which I added in after an edit) They are fundamentally different perspectives. Likewise "having the right" and "should be able to" are also very different fundamentally speaking.
The Green plan views free higher education as a right for students while the Democratic plan views university as a privilege that brings upon benefits to society and thus should be encouraged.
Likewise the issues of something being important enough to be a free right vs. a privilege that should be promoted via government assistance are in my book different.
To a point it is like Private school that is free (which can happen via government vouchers or private scholarships based off of need or academic ability) and public school. One is a privilege the other is a right.
Although if we wanted to get down to the nitty gritty this is a whole another topic to be discuss that could take pages
Last edited by RevPokemon,
To say one should be able to do something is to describe a right, not a privilege. I think you're nitpicking word choice here, and regardless, I don't think the term "fundamentally different" applies here. A fundamentally different worldview would be to say university education is a privilege that has to be earned, whether it's through scholarship and/or tuition (e.g. the right-wing worldview).
Liberalism in the social-democrat flavour is taking money from the rich in order to give hand-outs to the poor rather than creating an environment where they can earn it themselves, which is political Robin Hoodism in my opinion. Too many safety nets out there to take advantage of. Liberals lack the capacity to see beyond Step #1, the consequences of their choices escape them. For instance, they fail to see or neglect to mention the fact that it's the rich who create jobs for the poor, not the other way around. By cutting into the profits of the rich you're not making them "less rich", nor are you "redistributing wealth", you're just killing jobs since there's a reason why the rich are rich, and it goes beyond the obvious inheritence of wealth - they're rich because they understand how a cost-benefit analysis works. The rich aren't paying the extra tax - you are, by buying dearer goods, paying more for services or by losing your job. That's not logical - it'd be logical to allow industrious people to multiply their wealth as much as possible so that it redistributes itself. That's neither here nor there though, the truth is somewhere in-between of those two polar opposite political stances, which is where I sit most times.
By the way, we haven't established squat - you just said that it's idealistic based on no evidence whatsoever - not that you could have used evidence anyways since there has never been a libertarian government - it's untested as of yet, so I can't place the blame on you in this case. We did have plenty of socialist and social-democrat governments though, and we know how that works out.
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