Presidential election, 2016

[Kinser79]

(11-14-2016, 08:05 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

Kinser79 Wrote:

I Wrote:

Kinser79 Wrote:The wage gap is a myth.

Well, no.  This is one of the places where we live in different realities.  Your politics does blind you, can render you unable to perceive the real world.  I'm not interested in trying to remove your blinders at this point, though.

Yes, it is a myth.  Since we agree that we live in a mostly-capitalist society now, and since we agree that it is the class interests of those capitalists to maximize profits, it therefore holds that if said capitalist could get away with paying women 75 or 80 or however many cents on the dollar a man earns then the obvious solution would be fire all then men and hire only women.

Any other explanation simply doesn't stand up to Occam's Razor.

On the other hand, if we hold that men and women are different, and because of those differences they make different choices, then it should be self-evident that any differentials in income between men and women are the result of them making different choices.

Here, you are reminding me of your father.  Saying something doesn't make it so.  The Times has not apologized, he did advocate more countries acquire nuclear weapons, but he seems to think by repeating lies over and over reality will shift to fit the lies.  Women don't get equal pay for equal work.  No amount of sophistry, closing your eyes to facts which clash with your world view or repeating lies with persistence and ever increasing volume will change this.

The Times is unlikely to appologize or retract. The Wage Gap Myth is part and parcle of the necessary journalistic virtue signalling that occurs in the press. That being said, when controlled for hours worked, and fields chosen men and women are making the same amount of money in wages. Women do earn less than men, however, that is two fold--first is their biology, women may take several months or even years off to have children and raise a family (men do not), and secondly women are more prone to taking more time off than men.

To conclude that women earn less then men over their lifetime because of any reason other then their own choices is itself sophistry. Institutional sexism as described by the mysandrist landwhales feminists simply does not exist. No serious economist will even touch the topic. To attempt to argue otherwise indicates you are values locked on this matter.

Quote:My own notion of an arrow of progress works far better on issues than political parties.  If one favors giving more wealth to the existing elite ruling class at the expense of the working people, one is conservative on that issue.

Let us suppose we agree on that. And, honestly, Bob, I think we agree far more than we disagree. But let us for a second look at the works of the two parties. Everything from the bank bail outs to attempting to deregulate the economy have been championed by the Establishment politicians of both parties. This has been the case since at least the 1990s. As such I'd say that whether one is progressive or regressive in this 4T cannot be determined by who is and who is not a Republican or a Democrat.

I would counter that the divide is between Nationalist-Populists and Globalist-Corporatists. The old party labels aren't really working right now because the bases of both sides of that divide have not yet settled. That being said, I would say that Trump's election indicates that the GOP will take up the Nationalist-Populist mantle, and leave the Globalist-Corporateist to the Democrats.

I really can't go too far down this path with you without getting into Alex Jones territory and that will make folks' heads explode.

 

Quote:In any given S&H crisis, those advocating for continued dominance by the existing ruling elites would be conservative.  This doesn't mean that someone conservative on economic issues can't be progressive on on women's health care or marriage equality.  Not every Republican is conservative on every issue.  Thus, I don't care all that much to assign labels in this case, though on most of the issues we are talking about here, the Republicans do come up as conservative under my definition.

I think we're in agreement here. My boyfriend and I are both economically conservative--in some cases even reactionary because I advocate the demolition of a lot of the tacky 20th century whatevers so we can have new less tacky 21st century whatevers. I'm using whatever here because I really don't have a good word to describe what I'm trying to say.

As for marriage equality, I favor it though I wish gays wouldn't. I'm in favor of keeping abortion legal--mostly as a public safety measure. And of course I don't oppose all immigration, but I do think that we need to limit it for a time so as to absorb the people already here. America is a nation and as a nation it is a historically constituted group of people with a common language, culture, territory and economic life. I'm in favor not only of legalizing marijuana (which I do enjoy myself) but also legalizing all other recreational drugs as well. The argument being that prohibition allows for unsafe and impure products to get into the hands of those consuming them, and that the lack of common sense regulations as happens in illegal markets means that it is far easier children to acquire them and perhaps become addicted to them.

I'll give an example for the last. My son is 17 and it is far easier for him to buy pot, and for that matter cocaine or heroin, than it is for him to buy e-liquid. He's decided he likes using nicotine so I've pretty much insisted he use the least harmful method of ingesting it apart from snus--which he didn't care for.

Quote:The side that gets to write the history books is progressive?  There is some sort of truth in that, but I can't judge which party is which by that definition, and won't be able to until after the fact.  I'm more interested in resolving issues that assigning labels.  My definition is focused towards examining problems and suggesting the sort of answers that traditionally have fixed them.  Retroactive labeling after the fact is useless for what I'm trying to do.

Essentially. Whatever is progressive, or whomever is progressive during this 4T will be labeled so sometime during the 1T.

Quote:I am happier with saying the capitalist class -- the owners of the means of production -- still exist and that the computer folk are a subgroup of the robber barons as a whole.  They will be pushing somewhat different agendas than those invested in oil, armaments, automobiles, or any other industries, but computer industry robber barons are not basically different from other robber barons.

Then as a consequence then one should see that at least one subset of the "robber barons" are in fact in bed with the Democrats. I'm not so concerned about what party had what position in the 1960s or for that matter the 1890s. I'm concerned about who is with whom now. That is because I realize that Lincoln was right when he described both parties as being like drunken men who are struggling into and out of each other's coats.