Senate The US Politics discussion

We 100% agree on that last part. But I think it's worth pointing out too that it's hard to really know if left wing policies would be supported here or not because nobody is arguing for them. And the only guy who is just so happens to be insanely popular. Go figure, I guess. I really think if Sanders built a left-wing coalition that consisted of more than just him and Elizabeth Warren and a couple others, they could really get something going.

It doesn't help that the media equates them to crazy right wingers who bring snowballs into the Senate and claim that snow disproves climate change.

 

Unfortunately, that one is very easy to figure: popularity doesn't translate into people deciding it's what's the best to vote for. Sanders' clear-cut loss to Hillary Clinton in strict number of votes says all you need to know on the topic.

 

This is re-litigating a two year old issue but I think you're ignoring the fact that most people hadn't even heard of him by the time the primaries started, the DNC was very clearly biased against him in ways that did affect votes particularly in New York, he clearly scared Hillary Clinton and pushed her to the left, and if the Democrats really thought that he poses no threat, they wouldn't be passing this recent DNC rule that exists solely to exclude him from the 2020 primary.

I'm not a "Bernie bro" but I strongly think the only thing the Left is missing in this country is more voices at the national level. Many of the policies they agree with are already pretty popular (http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/351928-poll-majority-supports-single-payer-healthcare ; https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/01/over-60-of-americans-back-tuition-free-college-survey-says.html ; https://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/poll-trump-policies-234801 ; https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/...ans-favor-overhaul-of-campaign-financing.html ; http://thehill.com/homenews/335837-poll-bipartisan-majority-supports-raising-minimum-wage).

 

Of course the DNC was very clearly biased against Sanders, but if there really were a groundswell of support available for the political issues Sanders pushed, that would have been a non-issue. It clearly wasn't.

Electors flipping the script completely is a thing that exists.

 

You can Godwin Trump...says Godwin

Take the argument that our treatment of those seeking asylum at our border, including children, is not as monstrous as institutionalized genocide. That may be true, but it’s not what you’d call a compelling defense. Similarly, saying (disingenuously) that the administration is just doing what immigration law demands sounds suspiciously like “we were just following orders.” That argument isn’t a good look on anyone.

The seeds of future horrors are sometimes visible in the first steps a government takes toward institutionalizing cruelty. In his 1957 book “Language of the Third Reich,” Victor Klemperer recounted how, at the beginning of the Nazi regime, he “was still so used to living in a state governed by the rule of law” that he couldn’t imagine the horrors yet to come. “Regardless of how much worse it was going to get,” he added, “everything which was later to emerge in terms of National Socialist attitudes, actions and language was already apparent in embryonic form in these first months.”

By all means cite GL if you think some Nazi comparison is baseless, needlessly inflammatory or hyperbolic. But Godwin’s Law was never meant to block us from challenging the institutionalization of cruelty or the callousness of officials who claim to be just following the law. It definitely wasn’t meant to shield our leaders from being slammed for the current fashion of pitching falsehoods as fact. These behaviors, distressing as they are, may not yet add up to a new Reich, but please forgive me for worrying that they’re the “embryonic form” of a horror we hoped we had put behind us.

 

One could equally--arguably more cogently--point out that if there was some clear groundswell of support for Hillary Clinton, it wouldn't have been necessary to create a debate schedule that minimized voter interest or media covered, leak questions to her campaign in advance, and create essentially fraudulent joint fund-raising agreements that transformed an innovation for state parties into a money laundering side-step of campaign contribution limits.

 

http://wjla.com/news/local/undocume...mpregnating-non-verbal-montgomery-county-girl

Trump uses this to stereotype all immigrants in 3,2,1.....

Remember, if its a white American citizen, its an isolated incident by a sick man. If its an immigrant, its a grand plan by all of them to take down the USA.

 

@anakinfansince1983

Again, to be fair, it's one thing denying doing a job, such as making a custom wedding cake, based on what was involved with the job and another thing denying services you provide to someone based on their political persuasion.

If Sanders had walked in and asked for a lamb gyro, for instance, and was denied because they don't make gyros but was shown a menu and offered anything on that menu then you'd have a situation closer to what the baker did.

 

I don't follow the judicial side of American political life on an everyday basis, so considering a number of those would inevitably result in serious criminal charges if it happened on my end of the pond, I'd very much like to know what's going on on the legal front about those before speaking further about them. Politicians facing criminal courts on corruption affairs is commonplace on my end of the pond, and approximately four charges out of five either fail to stick or end with the charged party being cleared.

But notice I pointed out "groundswell about issues", not the candidates themselves. This is why I didn't particularly respond to articles pointing out "a majority of Americans are for single-payer healthcare" - by themselves, issues don't go very far unless they become so urgent you can't campaign against the "political winds" and hope to win. And clearly, the desires for better health care, higher minimum wages or tuition-free college did not result in massive mobilization for the candidate willing to go the farthest in their direction. American opinion is at a stage where the majority response is "yeah, that would be nice", not "I want that now and I won't vote for you if you don't promise to do it".

I do respect that you're willing to stand against all to defend your positions, but no, in this case, it was really a case of denying services one provides based on their sexual orientation - which is just as unacceptable as basing denial of service on one's political persuasion. Both cases are discriminatory, just on a different basis.

 

The cake that was asked for wasn't custom made for a gay wedding. The conversation between the baker and the customers didn't even go as far as how they wanted the cake to be decorated. What was asked for was a wedding cake that the same baker would have provided to any other couple. The baker selectively discriminated against same sex couples when providing a product that he would have happily provided to anyone else, which contravened California's civil rights laws.

If the baker didn't make that wedding cake for any couple, then it would be more akin to your gyro metaphor.

 

It's a quirk of American campaign finance law even most Americans aren't well-versed in. But the major policing body is essentially a group of partisans drawn from the ranks of both major party apparatuses, not professional or independent investigators. There's very little that results in serious penalties. That besides, it wasn't technically illegal. Very briefly, the idea was that candidates could have joint fundraisers with state parties so long as both groups substantively benefited from the event. So, an event that yielded $1,000 in contributions could give $500 to the candidate's personal campaign and $500 to the state party. Except the exact ratio that defines substantive benefit is never really spelled out. So Hillary Clinton ran a bunch of "joint" fund-raisers where the ratio was more like $999 to her personal campaign and $1 to the state party. Candidates have a cap on how much money they can receive from an individual, but state parties do not. So people gave huge sums to the "joint" fundraiser as if it would go to the state, whereas in practice everyone knew it was being funneled to her. And that's the closest to being illegal. The rest are not even in question. All have been freely admitted by key participants and independently verified with journalism.

I'm simply pointing out that you can't argue Sanders defeat says anything about American policy preferences. At some level, all of the above is entirely the point. That contest was as much about everything else as it was about the ideas either of the candidates purported to stand for.

 

@Lordban
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...to-make-wedding-cake-for-same-sex-couple.html
At issue was a July 2012 encounter. At the time, Charlie Craig and David Mullins of Denver visited Masterpiece Cakeshop to buy a custom-made wedding cake.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opin...ign-cakes-same-sex-weddings-column/917631001/

What I didn’t say was that I wouldn’t sell them a cake.

I’m happy to sell a cake to anyone, whatever his or her sexual identity. People should be free to make their own moral choices. I don’t have to agree with them.

 

Sanders is part of a government that constantly attacks migrants and gets denied service to protest against this behavior.
A baker denies a cake for gays. To protest against what? Did the gays make propaganda against bakers?
I think those two examples are hardly comparable as one of them is self defense and the other one is intolerance.

 

Alright, but J-Rod, that's not answering his concern. While the baker feels that selling any sort of product would constitute an endorsement of gay marriage, that opinion is unique to him. You want the determining principle in law to be how the seller feels about what they are doing. Most others are arguing instead that laws governing how businesses behave should be adjudicated by how they actually behave.

 

I can't find the actual legal documentation right now, but here's the wikipedia piece on the case.

If by custom you mean the number of layers on the wedding cake, or the thickness of the frosting, then yes, it may have been an attempt to order a custom cake. But what they were ordering was a wedding cake that, in this case, Jack Phillips refused to sell on the basis of sexual discrimination, which broke California's civil rights laws.

 

Neither is self-defense - nobody at the Red Hen was going to end up in an internment camp or be separated from their children off Sanders' visit. In both cases, someone wants to speak up about what they don't tolerate, at very little risk to themselves.

That said, one of them I could respect, if their aim was to contribute towards getting their customers beaten in the upcoming elections (in case it isn't obvious, that person I could respect isn't the baker...) Getting the Republicans soundly beat, shall I point out again, should one the short-term objectives for someone determined to do something about the current administration and their policies in a legal manner (another such form of legal action being taking them to any possible court where and when possible).

 

Hey Ender, how much do you make? I’m pretty sure I’ve never shared my compensation with you (or anybody else on this board), so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t try and “wealth shame” me before having all the facts. I earned what make through years of education and training, and the cost in both time and money was considerable (today, it’s downright formidable). I also donate substantially to charity, and do what I can to help those less fortunate than myself. I’ve also chosen a profession dedicated to saving lives. And while I earn a good living, it’s just that—earned. I give back, as well I should, but please don’t expect me to feel guilty for working hard or being successful, or expect me to live in poverty until no one else does. It’s an unrealistic expectation, and does nothing to address the underlying structural issues in the West’s geopolitical system in general and America’s in particular.

By the way, what do you do for a living? I seem to remember a post from awhile back where you said you were wealthy, so I’m wondering why you feel the need to criticize what I earn (when you don’t even know how much that is).

 

I need to disagree here. The gay couple did not treat anyone in a bad way nor did the gay/lesbian community treat other people bad - if you like them or not, it is simply not the case.
The administration where Sanders is part of does.

 

I don't think there's actually anything anti-capitalist about it, just anti-American. The contrast he made is that in other countries, the Left "battles for things that matter." If he implies they've succeeded, then he is accepting the status quo as perfect, even with its numerous implied inequities and injustices. If he's simply saying they're working on the issues, then it's not at all clear how the European states he's implicitly praising are at all different than the American left, which is also working on advocacy for these issues.

 

Not sure about that. Our system is specifically designed by both parties to keep turnout low so as they're the only choices. They create rules specifically to keep voices unheard except the ones they want to give publicity to. It's not a conspiracy theory, but it is a conspiracy designed by both parties.

How Third Parties Are Kept Out Of Presidential Debates

It's but one example, but if they do this at the top, then I don't doubt it's much worse at the local level. Team based politics is the order here, but if this were really a sports league, no one would watch it with just two teams playing. Granted, football fans do go nuts for Army vs. Navy even though they're basically the same team.

 

And I never said the gay couple may have treated anyone in a bad way. I pointed out they weren't being tolerated by the person who spoke up, and that person spoke up at very little risk to themselves.

I'll give you the issue I have in the back of my mind about this situation: people who speak loudly to denounce injustice when there's little risk to themselves are rarely those you find yourself fighting alongside with when the going gets tough, and here, what happened at the Red Hen looks like precisely that: someone speaking loudly.

Side-note on the issue: I regret, right now, that the USA withdrew their signature from the ICC instead of ratifying its formation - the actions undertaken by ICE fall under the category of crimes which the ICC is competent in prosecuting. That should also be something to consider militant action about.

Thanks for the insight provided - that's a very interesting one. Until Net Neutrality stopped being a thing, I'd have said there was an upcoming means of bypassing the issue entirely, but...

I don't know that's what's Ender Sai is saying. I can say, however, that the Right in European states think twice before considering challenging the existing universal health care systems in their respective countries, and when they do, it's either in insidious ways or to argue exclusion of non-citizens. This is just one example of how different the political landscapes are in the USA and in Europe.

 

Except for the part where the baker said he had no problem selling the couple a cake. He just didn't want to sell them customized how they wanted.

However, if a bachelor party had come in wanting a cake with a nude woman made out of frosting, would you claim that the baker hated bachelor parties if he refused based on religious leanings?

 

Quite welcome. Nope, fortress America is very much a fortress to keep the inmates inside and distracted. Sadly there is seemingly no atrocity too awful for an American to support these days. Yeah, yeah, Ender can talk about how 'This is who we are' but unless you're a 180 year old slave owner or soldier that was involved in the Trail of Tears, I'd argue this isn't who current Americans are. Yes, we have some pieces of crap, but overall I'd say we're becoming more compassionate as a people--it's just that our right wing is clinging to the past and unable to make sense of the future and can tap into white resentment. To paraphrase Palpatine, "Those who are in power are afraid to lose that power," and sadly that's the case here with white people.