Fighting The Fourth Reich

[Kinser79]

(08-31-2017, 09:22 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Kinser

Obamacare is more the best anyone could get through.

Actually I'd say no it wasn't the best anyone could get through. It was maybe the best the Democrats could ram through Congress before they lost their seats in a largely failing presidency. I voted to re-elect Obama in 12 but did so begrudgingly because I didn't trust Romney, he was too much for something before he was against it, if you know what I mean.

I said at the time about him that he had more flipflops than a surf shop on Daytona Beach.

Quote:  I’d still rather that it be there until something better can take it’s place.  For me, it qualifies as better than nothing.

I completely disagree. The whole thing has been a disaster from the drafting in Congress to today. Nothing would be better than this. In some ways there is merit to the conspiracy theory that has floated around that it was designed to make people call for single payer. I would give credence to that theory, but don't because I'm not convinced that the political class is smart enough to play such a long game. Their usual M.O. is to operate from poll to poll, from election to election.

Quote: Your backing of better is fine, but goes nowhere until it is passed.

A repeal is going nowhere until after Obamacare collapses under its own weight because people are convinced that they have half a loaf when in fact if they have anything at all they got the slice that's on the heel end of the bread.

Quote:Congress is getting more partisan.  People are caring more about balance of power and serving campaign contributors than serving the people effectively.  The partisan divides between urban and rural, rich and poor, are becoming more significant, and with the cultural divides has come legislative divide.  There are other areas I’d put the blame rather than generation mechanisms, but whatever floats your boat.  That's one of the things I dislike about this forum, however.  There are some contributors into prejudice and blaming groups.  S&H offers new opportunities to break folks apart and build prejudice and hatreds.

Congress has always been partisan. The difference is that at the end of the legislative day the GIs and Silents would both go to the same bars and get drunk together. That changed in about 1992, which was the same year that the Boomers took up majority in both houses (the House always leads the Senate for a pretty obvious reason). This could be a coincidence, but I find that unlikely.

I can only speak for myself but I've been at odds with Boomers since before I even read S&H. I rather stumbled upon S&H's books. I was at the library for early voting in the 2006 mid-terms and while I was waiting on my mother to cast her ballot (it seems that it takes her twice as long to vote as it takes me and she's a partisan Democrat, I think the last Republican she voted for she voted for on accident but it was a non-partisan local election anyway) and I was perusing their politics section as I've always been a student of that. The book called out to me as something interesting so I got it and read it.

At most you can say that their books clarified for me the whys as to why I had always more or less felt the way I've felt for years if not decades.

Quote:Replacement can come at the same time as repealing.  Repealing without replacement gives the opportunity for complete nothing.  As bad as the current mess is, it can be made worse.

No it can't. If you have Obamacare in place and you pass its replacement, which law is in effect. Both are. Since in the courts laws cannot logically contradict then one would have to be picked. Furthermore there is no reason to say that nothing would be worse than a system that essentially is going to fail since it is at worst a designed failure and at best a Rube Goldberg Machine. I tend toward the Rebe Goldberg Machine hypothesis since I have no indication that the intentions of the legislators were deliberately malicious.

Quote:You can go on and press your identity as a black guy, but that’s just another form of identity politics.  For me, if a door is close and locked, I’d as soon open it.  If you don’t like it, let others walk through.

And see here's the problem. I expect that it is a Boomer's natural inclination to think in terms of identity. As someone who is from one of these "historically marginalized groups" specifically a "person of color" that informs my identity. It only indirectly informs my politics. As someone from a group which receives this affirmative action, I've obviously taken a different stance. To me the objection that because someone is black they cannot go to a university and cannot become a super-duper scientist or whatever is demeaning, it is racism. It is a racism more pernicious and hurtful than any neo-nazi or klansman screaming nigger at me.

I don't fear the racist I see for the racist he is, I fear the racist I don't see for the racist he is. The wolf in sheep's clothing is far more dangerous to a flock than the largest pack of wolves in wolf's clothing. But let us see if we can expand this further.

Let us suppose that because we have a quota system that admits some people who are underqualified to a school or what have you, what about all those people who are qualified and sometimes over qualified. If we assume that there are X number of student spots at "Ye Olde Super-Duper Scientist School" and that Y% have to be of each race what happens to those who would otherwise make it but aren't admitted because they are the wrong race.

My son's boyfriend is first generation American (his folks are Korean). Should he be barred from taking a mathmatics program because he is Asian to make way for a black or a latino or a white who is less qualified? I don't think so. Your result of opening a door has only resulted in slamming doors in the faces of others. Rather the best course of action is as simple as it is radical (and you know I like my radical solutions) instead of trying to determine who should be a student at "Ye Olde Super-Duper Scientist School" on the basis of what race they are, or what genitals they have, how about we go about determining the form that student body takes by their qualifications.

If it is racist to bar or admit a student on the basis of their race then it is inherently not racist to admit them on the basis of their abilities. Or have you completely jettisoned MLK's Dream for a failed government policy? MLK dreamed that his children (and by that I'm essentially including all black Americans not just his literal children) would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I would say that academic ability is part of that content of character.

But then again Bob, I've often said that of whites the most racist whites I've ever encountered are usually the liberal ones.

Quote:The spirals of rhetoric and violence are real.  There is much to be learned from history, much to be learned of the present.  I can sympathize with a goal of a meritocratic society, but it isn’t here yet and we still have work to get it done.

A meritocratic society will never happen so long as there are those willing to allow themselves to be divided on the basis of race or sex, and it will never happen so long as there are those who achieve political or social power by sowing such division.

But of course I'm a faggot coon what with a toilet seat completion having sodomite lover and a cracker boy what lives off my hard work (or something) and thus a total embarrassment to my race and all.

Needless to say my sperm donor didn't like it when I told him the only difference between him and Hitler was Hitler had a mustache that looked like Dirty Sanchez on his lip. He is unlikely to speak to me until I remove "those honkeys" from "my grandmother's" house. Never mind she left the house to me, it was my maternal grandmother anyway so he was never really related to her except by marraige, and who I live with is none of his goddamn business I'm a grown ass man.