04-26-2017, 05:36 PM
(04-25-2017, 05:39 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(04-25-2017, 04:46 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:(11-14-2016, 02:52 AM)Warren Dew Wrote: So the Democrats are going to double down on their losing strategy? Excellent.
Yes, I do believe you're correct there.
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/na...trategy-in
We Democrats need to dispense with assorted litmus tests and ideological rigidity. What plays in Sacramento for example, will not, ever fully play in Oklahoma City. Yeah, I've been thinking this over, ... a lot. After all, there are, believe it or not, a lot of planks what will work in both places. As such:
1. Adopt a 50 state strategy, like yesterday, man. Let's look at issues that make , lil ole me a Democrat.
a. Access to health care, NOT health insurance. Democrats need to grow a pair and just go with Medicare for all. That of course includes a funding mechanism. I'd ditch payroll taxes. [I can't figure out the infatuation with Democrats with payroll taxes. Going forward, this can't possible work. The number of employed folks is falling which means the tax base is rotten. Let's take Trump's "border tax" and substitute a VAT tax. Yup, lots of folks here know my own favoritism wrt VAT. So, just 2 things need to happen to implement that plank. The first is to discard the Medicare part of the payroll tax. Next set the age of Medicare eligibility to 0. Now put Tricare, Medicaid, and any other government program out of business since they now are redundant. With a single program, the administrative costs will go down. A counter to Republican nagging wrt a tax is simple. The VAT tax will replace insurance premiums. [I don't care if health insurance companies sell Medigap insurance, or concierge insurance for those who want that]. Republicans can bitch all they want about "new taxes". I'm betting most folks would love to just ditch private health insurance because of coding hassles, THEY are hopelessly bureaucratic entities like no other.
b. Legalize drug imports. There was a bill drafted by Bernie Sanders. YO, Democrats, make the vote on that an issue. It's Republicans who want to deny folks access to cheaper alternatives. I've nagged my representatives about voting no on this. I in fact called them shills for Big Pharma!.
c. Legalize weed. Weed is a veritable pharmacopoeia, Schedule I is just some lame political thing. Rags wonders if Big Pharma/ Big Cotton are behind said scheduling.
d. Tax reform: I don't think any destitute/working poor/lower middle class/middle class voter benefits from our spaghetti code tax code. Here's the place for repeal/replace. All income, regardless of source shall be taxed at the same rate. There shall be no loopholes/special cases/ etc. Just tote up your income and apply the proper bracket. I don't care if HR block /accountants lose business. Tax preparation is an utter waste of economic resources, man.
e. The immigration/farm worker mess. Let's try this out. Dunno what others think. And.. so. I think a good compromise would be to have a "guest worker" program. If Mexicans , for example are doing stuff US citizens won't do, then here's a plan. A Mexican citizen can register as a guest worker. This person would then be issued a legit TIN and thus would not be underground anymore and subject to exploitation. Worker exploitation screws all workers, not just those who are not legal. The guest workers would be afforded the same rights as citizen workers, except for access to social programs. That's the compromise. Nextly, if certain states want to pay for additional benefits, then that's OK as well.
f. Global warming. I think us Democrats have that issue pretty well settled. No change needed here.
g. Trashing the environment. Hopefully , add some sort of deposit on plastic stuff. Most plastics are forever. Plastic in future rock layers will be a good marker for the Anthropocene.
You might be surprised. Just now the urban / non-hick part of CA is ruling with an iron fist but there are plenty of hick areas that are very pissed. Among the more recent insults are gun laws (and now, ammo laws) on top of the existing pile of them, which essentially put shooters with limited means out of business. Another recent insult hitting the inland / rural folk is a plastic bag ban. Bag bans are really neat for hipsters (and their moms and dads - EtG's subculture) who buy all their groceries and stuff at Trader Joe's and Whole Paycheck but for salt of the earth folk at Walmart / Food Inc / Grocery Outlet they are hell.
1. I get the gun debate stuff. I'd prefer a compromise where that's just a state option and leave the Federal Government out. I see no reason to have the BATF around. Alcohol and tobacco are just legal drugs, so the FDA should run the show there. Arkansas legalized weed and Oklahoma would have legalized weed if it weren't for our lame , dumb fuck Attorney General who rewrote the petition language such that the petition writers vacated there stuff. We'll give it another go in 2018 but that doesn't solve the basic problem, GOP control. Oklahoma will forever be a polluted , education stunted state , unless we wise up to the GOP agenda. Look, I'm kicking myself for moving back here to be with family. If there's a way, any way, I'd move away from this hell hole. Oklahoma keeps regressing, more and more. My youngest sister tried to get on Obama care, BUT guess what? Oklahoma didn't do the Medicaid expansion and she literally blew up when we applied for her Obamacare. She was fucked, literally. She made too much for the regular medicaid , and too little to get the subsidy. She has Bipolar like I do. So damn the GOP to hell, damn them forever for fucking over family. Anyone who makes less than $30,000 / year is an idiot.
I'm just venting , sorry, there XY_MOX_4AD, it's not you, it's not the forum, it's not even the DNC's screw ups, but shit , man, the GOP is just getting to be just plain evil. If you're a member of the working poor economic class, the GOP has no use for you. They are the party of the MIC, the party of Big Pharma, the party of Big Ag, the party of just plain simple evil. They are also the party of "who gives a fuck about privacy". Damn, them to hell, damn them to hell, may the GOP and especially the "Freedom Caucus" burn forever in hell. So... perhaps Eric is right, some people do in fact choose ignorance over enlightenment. I read Eric's posts. Perhaps he's right. As time passes, the more I long for that second choice, Leadville, CO. I fucking should have moved there instead of Oklahoma. I think the folks of Colorado are more aligned with my own political views. I also know that living at 10,000 feet up is actually healthy. You get "free exercise" there.
2. I'm a give and take sort of person. I'm not going to dictate the rules for California because I don't live there. As for Oklahoma, I think the DNC has a chance if they drop the regressive left stuff about being PC. PC is something that really grates. Oklahoma does have a lot of mixed Native American/Euro Americans. With that said, there is no use for PC stuff at all. We do want a race agnostic government. So the DNC , if it were wise , would just drop that, because it doesn't work.
3. Hicks: Guns/ammo are yeah, a big deal. I'd prefer the DNC just let sleeping dogs lie on that one. As for the plastics problem, there is an opening. Plastic litter winds up in water ways. Hicks go fishing and hunting. One needs to link plastic pollution to some sort of degradation of wildlife supply. Some plastics via endocrine disruption turn male species into females. Now, tie that into feminiziation of humans. So, if you're a "real man", do you want "man boobs", infertility, shrunk penises, and etc. ?
4. I grew up with paper sacks. Clue me, clue me, why do paper sacks suck so much? I know they hold more groceries. The only folks I can see who may have a problem are the Walmart cart drivers. If yer fat as a sow, perhaps 5 pounds is all your body can carry allow. Just look how Walmart clashes with the human genome.
Humans are the penultimate predators. We attained that status as being the ultimate endurance predator.
The lack of fur, the ability to store away calories as fat, and the smarts to know the prey did that. Walmart really messes that up with the fact there's no hunt , no effort to get the calories.
---Value Added