POG Politics Thread - Page 221 - Puzzles and Other Games Forum

Well, the idea that Obama was going to come in and make huge structural changes to government was always kind of silly, and yes he bears plenty of blame for selling that idea. The president doesn't have that much power anyway.

As far as the list, I'm not going to debate just how much change has actually occured w/r/t lobbyists, or interrogation, or whatever because I don't have a great way to quickly find or present evidence but just in terms of stated policy, they are real differences.

But I think what you're really saying is that Obama's policy ideas don't really represent the kinds of changes you'd like, and I'd add that in the areas that are most important to you, the differences between the major parties are small, and on those issues there is unlikely to be substantial change as much due to structural/procedural issues as due to the parties being the same. But nevertheless there are still real differences.

They just aren't ones that matter to you so much. I can't wholeheartedly disagree with that opinion either, there's lots of areas where the differences aren't big enough for me either.

i guess what i'm saying is that on policies regarding 95%+ of govt spending, most of which is deficit/borrowed/printed, there is no difference between the parties. given the current economic state, that is quite disheartening. this is a time when there should be some serious differences between the 2 parties - instead the debates focus on WHO to bomb and WHAT to spend, rather than how to stop both

02-08-2010 , 02:10 PM

#5502

amplify

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you know what, I withdraw my argument, I don't really care about lobbyists in the administration, I just wanted to argue.

of course there are some policy differences between administrations, they couldn't keep up the fiction that the two parties don't represent the same interests if there weren't.

02-08-2010 , 02:11 PM

#5503

clowntable

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Quote:

Originally Posted by dmk

i think that he's kind of obligated to bring some money home to his district. the funny thing is he'll tack it on to a bill that he opposes, vote against it, the bill passes, and his district gets the monies. dunno, i'm not a huge fan, but i see why he does it too. its tough to give him a lot of crap for it when he's the only one trying to cut *actual* spending

w/ regard to the whole immigration thing, i honestly go back and forth on the whole "issue". but i've recently realized my beef has to do with other policies rather than immigration itself - i.e. the welfare/etc programs that immigrants take advantage of that i'm paying for. if you eliminate the welfare-state and price/wage controls, then the immigration "issue" pretty much goes away and you're left with a free-market economy in which the "best" labor is employed as needed. i don't really care where that labor comes from, especially if it results in cheaper products for me

Pretty much 100% spot on with regards to immigration. Of course I'm an idealist and human=human in my book and I'm not very fond of the idea of a state-membership itself (states in my ideal-wonderland they are mostly freeflow join/leave at any time deals) so immigration doesn't really exist in my ideal world anyways :P

The first part however is more complicated. While I agree that it's any politician's duty to gain the maximum for people that vote for him it is also this exact reasoning that makes me think democracy as practiced is a pretty horrible system of politics.

02-08-2010 , 02:12 PM

#5504

kokiri

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Quote:

Originally Posted by well named

i wonder to what extent he believed his own rhetoric and thought he would be an all conquering angel, and to what extent it was a tool to get elected. He does seem to some extent to expect people to hear him speak and swoon, yet the only people who've really dropped their knickers for him are we the socialist european public at large (and the nobel committee, i guess, but they're part of us, too).

I'd still rather have him in the white house than anyone since GB the first.

02-08-2010 , 02:12 PM

#5505

well named

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Quote:

Originally Posted by amplify

what did the policy prevent

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...112602362.html

So this is a new one, no lobbyists period on advisory panels (Nov 2009)

http://www.democracy21.org/index.asp...-59C6778C3FEF}

Details on some of the rules + analysis from some open government group whose biases I'm unaware (i.e caveat emptor)

02-08-2010 , 02:13 PM

#5506

well named

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Quote:

Originally Posted by dmk

I agree with you on this one.

02-08-2010 , 02:13 PM

#5507

amplify

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yeah the whole pork barrel thing is an amazing scam. lets send all our monies to washington, and then send a guy to get it back for us. and if possible a bunch from neighboring communities, or ones 3000 miles away.

02-08-2010 , 02:13 PM

#5508

well named

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Quote:

Originally Posted by amplify

02-08-2010 , 02:15 PM

#5509

dmk

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Quote:

Originally Posted by amplify

but it gives politicians a cute little campaigning platform

"i'm against pork-barrels!!!"

ya, because thats why our economy is in the tank. the couple of million here/there that gets thrown to districts for whatever

02-08-2010 , 02:15 PM

#5510

kokiri

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i think the whole libertarian, get your hands of my money you bastards line of argument is simultaneously one of the best things and the worst of us politicas, as viewed as a largely ignorant vaguely interested (red) outsider.

02-08-2010 , 02:16 PM

#5511

clowntable

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Quote:

Originally Posted by well named

1) signing statements
2) lobbyists in federal positions
3) torture/interrogation techniques
4) process to end DADT
5) Healthcare
6) ending some federal policies wrt to prosecuting marijuana offenses in states where weed is legal

Granted I'm not following US politics as closely as I used to but I'm pretty sure there are
a) More or the same number of lobbyists, only different ones (i.e. a boatload of healthcare lobbyists)
b) Torture is still being used or people are just shipped to "torturing countries" which is technically different but really it's the same thing
c) Healthcare while different can pretty much only become worse if more is changed (i.e. my pessimistic worldview of any change by politicians will in the long term be extremly likely to make matters worse)

Can't commen on 1,4,6

02-08-2010 , 02:17 PM

#5512

dmk

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Quote:

Originally Posted by clowntable

want to find an island and start a new society together?

02-08-2010 , 02:18 PM

#5513

well named

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As far as I am aware the policy is unequivocally no torturing. If we're still rendering people to whereverastan and waterboarding them than I am gravely disappointed. Pretty hard for me to prove either way though

02-08-2010 , 02:18 PM

#5514

kokiri

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Quote:

Originally Posted by amplify

come on, that's amateurish. In europe, the central uk government raises the taxes, sends a chunk of it to europe, which spends ~50p in the £ on wining and dining itself, then sends some of what's left to the various bits of third world europe and gives back the change to the regional assembly of wales which then pisses it up the wall on some local initiative that ticks the boxes of some brussels based plan.

02-08-2010 , 02:18 PM

#5515

amplify

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Quote:

Originally Posted by well named

If we're still rendering people

rendering people is wai worse than waterboarding imo

02-08-2010 , 02:19 PM

#5516

clowntable

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Quote:

Originally Posted by dmk

want to find an island and start a new society together?

Does your wife have any sisters? :P

02-08-2010 , 02:20 PM

#5517

dmk

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Quote:

Originally Posted by clowntable

Does your wife have any sisters? :P

yes, 1 is engaged, the other is not. osnap

02-08-2010 , 02:20 PM

#5518

kokiri

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Quote:

Originally Posted by clowntable

b) Torture is still being used or people are just shipped to "torturing countries" which is technically different but really it's the same thing

are they really still rendering people, or whatever it's called. I'd be surprised.

02-08-2010 , 02:20 PM

#5519

well named

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Quote:

Executive Order 13440 of July 20, 2007, is revoked. All executive directives, orders, and regulations inconsistent with this order, including but not limited to those issued to or by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from September 11, 2001, to January 20, 2009, concerning detention or the interrogation of detained individuals, are revoked to the extent of their inconsistency with this order.

Quote:

Effective immediately, an individual in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government, or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States, in any armed conflict, shall not be subjected to any interrogation technique or approach, or any treatment related to interrogation, that is not authorized by and listed in Army Field Manual 2-22.3 (Manual)

Quote:

The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future.

Quote:

All departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with notification of, and timely access to, any individual detained in any armed conflict in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States Government, consistent with Department of Defense regulations and policies.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_...Interrogations

02-08-2010 , 02:24 PM

#5520

kokiri

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One thing i've never understood about the us healthcare debate is that if you are insured, you are already paying for the uninsured's healthcare through the requirement for hospitals to give emergency care, but you seem to be doing it in about the most cluster****ed inefficient way possible.

02-08-2010 , 02:24 PM

#5521

clowntable

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It is pretty naive to assume that no torture would be used in a warzone especially with most military folks being drilled into "don't snitch" pretty much from the beginning of their careers (yeah technically it's their duty object/not follow orders but military in general is mostly a we stick together no matter what kind of deal)

02-08-2010 , 02:26 PM

#5522

well named

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Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 78,078

Right, there's always the "Sure they say they don't do it" argument. I can't rebut that. I can't prove that the policies are being enforced, or that they don't have some guy at DOJ weaseling out some classified memo arguing for a loophole that lets them do whatever, but nevertheless I would much prefer that the official policy be that we don't do those things, because they morally wrong and repugnant, than for the official policy to be that these things are Great Ideas(tm) and we should be doing more of it. And there is a vocal minority of people in this country that definitely take the latter view.

02-08-2010 , 02:26 PM

#5523

clowntable

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Quote:

Originally Posted by kokiri

Same can be said about pretty much all government money-realignments programs. I mean just think streets etc, highly inefficient

02-08-2010 , 02:27 PM

#5524

kokiri

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Quote:

Originally Posted by clowntable

i'm not sure that i agree with this, but even so there's a world of difference between what might go on in the field under extreme conditions, and the setting up of a widespread and systematic mistreatment of human beings based on a lawyerly argument as to why you don't have to apply the geneva convention to certain persons. imo