Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Iuz the Evil]

I blame Newt Gingrich for many things. His interview on crime remains timeless, when he stated (to paraphrase, in response to declining FBI crime rates) “you can have your facts, and I’ll take how people feel every time”. 
 

That’s pretty much where we are at with American politics these days. 

[Lord Liaden]

6 hours ago, Iuz the Evil said:

I suspect this is something of a campaign by conservatives in the same way liberal took on negative tones, and it’ll likely be similarly effective. While I describe myself as a liberal, in the sense of classical liberalism, pretty much nobody running for elected office does so using the term “Progressive” instead. 

 

And ironic, in that during the 19th Century the term "liberalism" also stood for freedom for enterprising people to accumulate capital with minimal government interference. Many economists of the day assumed that a free marketplace was essentially self-correcting.   Although to be fair, ethical capitalism including social responsibility also had many adherents through the first half of the 20th Century.

[Iuz the Evil]

5 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

And ironic, in that during the 19th Century the term "liberalism" also stood for freedom for enterprising people to accumulate capital with minimal government interference. Many economists of the day assumed that a free marketplace was essentially self-correcting.   Although to be fair, ethical capitalism including social responsibility also had many adherents through the first half of the 20th Century.

True enough, that’s not the 20th century use really. The point definitely is supported by that, that these terms in common usage tend to change and don’t belong to the originators (who would have balked at the “classical liberalism” evolution which is typically socially liberal, fiscally conservative, and extremely moderate by today’s political standard). Individual autonomy, limited government, social freedoms, and particularly a focus on political freedoms and freedom of speech. Government by rule of law. All of that remains very appealing to me. 
 

 

[Lord Liaden]

59 minutes ago, Iuz the Evil said:

I blame Newt Gingrich for many things. His interview on crime remains timeless, when he stated (to paraphrase, in response to declining FBI crime rates) “you can have your facts, and I’ll take how people feel every time”. 
 

That’s pretty much where we are at with American politics these days. 

 

In a republican democracy that's usually a winning strategy. For actually governing it's an incredibly irresponsible strategy that leads to great harm to most members of a society. The GOP today is the logical conclusion of the path they were started on by Gingrich and Reagan: Winning is everything. It's the only thing. Winning by any means necessary, at any cost. Not even winning to be in a position to do something, just for the sake of power. When in power, pursue whatever policies one believes will keep power. Their other effects on the populace are irrelevant.

[Starlord]

Jon Stewart takes down anti-drag queen senator with a single question.

 

Essentially - So basically it's ok to infringe upon someone's first amendment right to protect children?

 

Then he hits him with the number one killer of children - firearms

 

 

[Hugh Neilson]

14 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

And ironic, in that during the 19th Century the term "liberalism" also stood for freedom for enterprising people to accumulate capital with minimal government interference. Many economists of the day assumed that a free marketplace was essentially self-correcting.   Although to be fair, ethical capitalism including social responsibility also had many adherents through the first half of the 20th Century.

 

As my intro Economics professor was fond of noting, in Economics, the real world is often a special case.

 

A perfectly free marketplace would be self-correcting  but it requires perfect competition with no barriers to entry. When there are three employers, and thousands of workers, the workers are much closer to "perfect competition" than the employers, especially if they get together and agree on hiring practices.  In the entertainment industry, stars and superstars have a lot more power - given the choice of 100 drummers, one of whom is Ringo Starr and the rest of whose names you do not recognize, who do you want at your concert?

[Lord Liaden]

I've always maintained that any system involving humans would work well if the type of human being postulated by the system in theory was in the overwhelming majority. For example, if most people were motivated to cooperate collectively for the greater good, rather than selfishly for themselves, communism would be a great political system.

[DShomshak]

Hey, you know Adam Smith? The Wealth of Nations guy, prophet of the Free Market that infallibly regulates as by an Invisible Hand? That wasn't what he said at all.

 

Several weeks back, the Freakonomics radio program/podcast devoted three episodes to Adam Smith, tracing his biography, the development of his thought, and how ideologues have used and abused his writings ever since. Number One thing to know? He wrote *two* books, and his Theory of Moral Sentiments was jusgt as important as The Wealth of Nations -- and they are both necessary to understand Smith's full inquiry. He was primarily a moral philosopher, who ended up studying economics to examine what people actually did, and why.

 

But people tend to pick phrases from Wealth to support whatever beliefs they want to push, and ignore everything else. (A bit like the Bible, that.) The cartoon version of Smith's analysis of markets pushed by the Austrian School and its Chicago School offshoot is particularly egregious.

 

For the rest... hear the episodes, I can't possibly do them justice. Here's a link to the first episode, which has a link to the podcasts if you prefer that format.

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/season-12-episode-19/

 

Dean Shomshak

[Hugh Neilson]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

I've always maintained that any system involving humans would work well if the type of human being postulated by the system in theory was in the overwhelming majority. For example, if most people were motivated to cooperate collectively for the greater good, rather than selfishly for themselves, communism would be a great political system.

 

It's less a political system than an economic system. However, as you note, it fails because it relies on human nature being voluntarily overridden. We are not altruistic by nature.

 

4 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

But people tend to pick phrases from Wealth to support whatever beliefs they want to push, and ignore everything else. (A bit like the Bible, that.) The cartoon version of Smith's analysis of markets pushed by the Austrian School and its Chicago School offshoot is particularly egregious.

 

Like the Bible.  Like Marx's communism.  Like any scientific study. Few have the interest to read and consider the entire discussion, but pull out the points that, taken out of context, justify what we wanted to do anyway, and we're good to go.

 

There's that human nature again.

 

 

[unclevlad]

Twitter has another substantial outage.  2nd in a week, 3rd in a month.  

 

Also, from the BBC:

 

Quote

Twitter insiders have told the BBC that the company is no longer able to protect users from trolling, state-co-ordinated disinformation and child sexual exploitation, following lay-offs and changes under owner Elon Musk.

 

EDIT:  one more.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/twitter-bots-guns-n-word-1234690018/

[Pattern Ghost]

14 hours ago, Starlord said:

Then he hits him with the number one killer of children - firearms

 

I saw that. Stewart's argument is kind of weak when "children" are defined as up to 21* years old in those stats, and the majority of those deaths are gang violence related. The more accurate conclusions from that "statistic" are that a) statistics can lie to play on emotions, and b) gang violence and diversion needs to be addressed. To address the number one killer of children, as Stewart laid it out, you would first spend massive funding on gang diversion and gang intervention (encouraging and teaching gangs how to resolve conflicts without killing one another) programs across the country.

 

The fact that we have a politician sitting there who couldn't come to that simple counter to Stewart's argument and that Stewart has (I've recently watched several of his "take down" videos regarding different topics recently) has begun restoring to poor research and talking over his interviewee are both disheartening.

 

My takeaway? The best argument for taking weapons from the population is that we have become an infantile society who as a whole doesn't possess the capacity to be trusted with the power over life and death. People can't even sit down and weigh the pros and cons of an issue with each other from different ideological standpoints without resorting to dirty debate tactics (Stewart) and without the awareness required by their office of public responsibility (any of his victim "interviewees").

 

I'm saying this as a fan of Stewart who mostly agrees with him and respects a lot of the things he's done. He's become deeply (or at least demonstrably) emotional and "fed up" when it comes to 2nd Amendment issues the last few years. He needs to get back to good research and critical analysis of all of his information sources, and be more aware of his own confirmation bias.

 

 

*Edit: That 21 is likely wrong. It looks like the CDC is currently using 19 years old as the break point, and that's likely the source Stewart was using. That same data shows that firearms take over as the leading cause of death starting at age 15. Which reinforces the point about gang activity being the root cause here.

 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Pattern Ghost

[Iuz the Evil]

2 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I saw that. Stewart's argument is kind of weak when "children" are defined as up to 21 years old in those stats, and the majority of those deaths are gang violence related. The more accurate conclusions from that "statistic" are that a) statistics can lie to play on emotions, and b) gang violence and diversion needs to be addressed. To address the number one killer of children, as Stewart laid it out, you would first spend massive funding on gang diversion and gang intervention (encouraging and teaching gangs how to resolve conflicts without killing one another) programs across the country.

 

The fact that we have a politician sitting there who couldn't come to that simple counter to Stewart's argument and that Stewart has (I've recently watched several of his "take down" videos regarding different topics recently) has begun restoring to poor research and talking over his interviewee are both disheartening.

 

My takeaway? The best argument for taking weapons from the population is that we have become an infantile society who as a whole doesn't possess the capacity to be trusted with the power over life and death. People can't even sit down and weigh the pros and cons of an issue with each other from different ideological standpoints without resorting to dirty debate tactics (Stewart) and without the awareness required by their office of public responsibility (any of his victim "interviewees").

 

I'm saying this as a fan of Stewart who mostly agrees with him and respects a lot of the things he's done. He's become deeply (or at least demonstrably) emotional and "fed up" when it comes to 2nd Amendment issues the last few years. He needs to get back to good research and critical analysis of all of his information sources, and be more aware of his own confirmation bias.

 

 

Agreed. There’s also a massive historic spike in Suicide rates following the social isolation and disruptions associated with the recent pandemic. Firearms are heavily associated with Suicide death rate, due to high lethality as a method. So that’s also a contributor, in addition to the questionable statistical modeling (increasing the age of a “child” for CDC data is at best questionable).

[Starlord]

11 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I saw that. Stewart's argument is kind of weak when "children" are defined as up to 21* years old in those stats, and the majority of those deaths are gang violence related. The more accurate conclusions from that "statistic" are that a) statistics can lie to play on emotions, and b) gang violence and diversion needs to be addressed. To address the number one killer of children, as Stewart laid it out, you would first spend massive funding on gang diversion and gang intervention (encouraging and teaching gangs how to resolve conflicts without killing one another) programs across the country.

 

The fact that we have a politician sitting there who couldn't come to that simple counter to Stewart's argument and that Stewart has (I've recently watched several of his "take down" videos regarding different topics recently) has begun restoring to poor research and talking over his interviewee are both disheartening.

 

My takeaway? The best argument for taking weapons from the population is that we have become an infantile society who as a whole doesn't possess the capacity to be trusted with the power over life and death. People can't even sit down and weigh the pros and cons of an issue with each other from different ideological standpoints without resorting to dirty debate tactics (Stewart) and without the awareness required by their office of public responsibility (any of his victim "interviewees").

 

I'm saying this as a fan of Stewart who mostly agrees with him and respects a lot of the things he's done. He's become deeply (or at least demonstrably) emotional and "fed up" when it comes to 2nd Amendment issues the last few years. He needs to get back to good research and critical analysis of all of his information sources, and be more aware of his own confirmation bias.

 

 

*Edit: That 21 is likely wrong. It looks like the CDC is currently using 19 years old as the break point, and that's likely the source Stewart was using. That same data shows that firearms take over as the leading cause of death starting at age 15. Which reinforces the point about gang activity being the root cause here.

 

 

Obviously I'd agree that using the words 'take down' is gotcha or clickbait phrasing.  However, this specific politician is also lobbying to loosen gun control restrictions.  The point Stewart was making was that it's apparently ok to infringe on 1st amendment rights to protect children but not ok to infringe on 2nd amendment rights.  I thought that point was made well regardless of the specific age range used to define children.

[TrickstaPriest]

Normally I like the bringing up of issues and the providing of information but I don't like the proposed solutions.  Stewart's interview is probably a reverse of that - there are great ways we could correct for these problems and make it more viable to solve gun-related crimes (including gang violence) through methods like marking of bullets (if it's effective)

 

So while I don't agree on his child-death rate point (as per some of the provided information), it's still a set of solutions that I think are generally reasonable.

[tkdguy]

Tucker Carlson attempts to rewrite the January 6 Capitol riot.

[TrickstaPriest]

Yep, knew this was going to happen.  While they say at the same time 'next time it'll be with guns'.  😕

[TrickstaPriest]

Best thing I can suggest is to find good video footage of the events.  There are some sources I've found but I have nary the time to dig through it.

 

https://thepatr10t.github.io/yall-Qaeda/map.html

[Iuz the Evil]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/07/politics/gigi-sohn-withdraws-fcc-nomination/index.html
 

Gigi Sohn will not be an FCC regulator, this is challenging because her personal politics were heavily the reason for this versus her competency to hold the office. I don’t love that as a trend, and it is a good reminder why I have no social media accounts (Facebook, Instagram, etc.). 

[Cygnia]

More reason to fear Florida

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-bloggers-florida-governor-register_n_6403757fe4b0c78bb743004b

[Pattern Ghost]

12 hours ago, Starlord said:

I thought that point was made well regardless of the specific age range used to define children.

 

I understand, and I agree with you on the hypocrisy of said politician. But I don't like Stewart's tactics, either.

[Lectryk]

1 hour ago, Cygnia said:

More reason to fear Florida

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bill-bloggers-florida-governor-register_n_6403757fe4b0c78bb743004b

More examples of unenforceable laws being enacted for the click-bait susceptible base...

[Old Man]

Texas conservatives succeed in getting a book featuring graphic descriptions of violence and sexual assault pulled from school library shelves

[Hermit]

7 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Texas conservatives succeed in getting a book featuring graphic descriptions of violence and sexual assault pulled from school library shelves

I'm a believer, and I approve this consequence

[Pattern Ghost]

10 hours ago, TrickstaPriest said:

methods like marking of bullets (if it's effective)

 

Note: I'm responding to this quote first, but don't take the length of the post as I continue on into the weeds personally, Tricksta. I just found myself expanding on a thought that started here.

 

Microstamping isn't really viable. But, let's say it works exactly as advertised. The police recover a spent casing at the scene of a crime. They run it through a database and determine who the last owner was. Does this solve the crime?

 

Another point Stewart makes is that it should be easier for the ATF to trace gun transfers. Which they can already do.  Do gun traces solve crimes? These are essentially the same result as microstamping. I don't know the answer to that, because Google doesn't return any results for searches for crimes solved by ATW traces (and you can't prove a negative). I suspect the number of crimes actually solved by ATF transfer traces is low, because most crimes are committed by people who aren't the original owners. In the case of mass shooters, most of those (I'm guessing) seem to be legally obtained, but ATF traces are a moot point, because the person is usually caught or killed without the need for a trace.

 

But, let's look at this more optimistically and say that microstamping and better ATF tracing of firearms increases the solve rate for homicides by a significant amount. Does that prevent gun violence? I don't think it would. The death penalty isn't a deterrent, so I doubt an increased chance of getting caught would be.

 

So, even with the best rose-colored glasses on, these things that sound like good, "common sense," ideas just aren't going to curtail our murder rate.

 

Which is another lie told by Stewart in that interview, using statistics. Here's a decent, unbiased (as far as I can tell), analysis of gun death data from Pew:

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/

 

So, how is Stewart lying about the increased number of murders? He isn't. But he is using the numbers disingenuously to sow fear.*

 

Quote

How has the number of U.S. gun deaths changed over time?

The 45,222 total gun deaths in 2020 were by far the most on record, representing a 14% increase from the year before, a 25% increase from five years earlier and a 43% increase from a decade prior.

 

So far, so good. The number of gun homicides has clearly gone up. Horrible. We must do something. Stewart says we must reduce the number of guns (probably won't do squat), fund the ATF (agreed), research gun violence (agreed), require microstamping (disagreed), while Fox News says we all need to fund the police better (agreed, but not for their idiot reasons), and all go out and buy a gun (disagreed), because blood is flowing in the streets! Chaos! Calamity! (disagreed, as denoted by the sarcastic exclamation points).

 

OK, so what's the problem? The problem is that the number doesn't have context. Fortunately, the Pew report seems to be pretty clear at providing context:

 

Quote

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2020 than in any other year on record, according to recently published statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That included a record number of gun murders, as well as a near-record number of gun suicides. Despite the increase in such fatalities, the rate of gun deaths – a statistic that accounts for the nation’s growing population – remains below the levels of earlier years.

 

OK, we can all breath a sigh of relief. Numbers are up, but it's not quite as bad as the raw numbers show, since our per capita rate is only slightly up.

 

Well, there were still 45,222 gun deaths in 2020, according to CDC data. That's a lot of people dead. This is a picture of a 44,000 people protest in Vienna, and it doesn't even have all the people in it:

 

 

Imagine the United States losing all those people in 2020 from gun deaths. If we could reduce that, we could save a lot of people.

 

According to the CDC, there were 3,358,814 deaths in the US in 2020. I don't think I can find a picture of that many people in one place.

 

The percentage of people who died that died from firearms:  45,222/3,358,814 = 0.013463, so about 1.35%.

 

Now, saving some of those 45k+ lives is a good thing. But you aren't very likely to get shot just walking down the street or engaging in normal daily activities like going to school, going to the movies, going shopping, etc. You might, but it's unlikely.

 

How's our overall death rate looking? Surely we're dropping like flies, right?

 

Here's a sortable ranking of death rates from World Bank. The numbers are from 2020 and per 1000 population. The whole list is rather long, but here are some highlights:

 

Bulgaria is the winner with 18

Ukraine is 3rd with 15.9

Russia is 7th with 14.6

 

OK, that was just to show the higher end of things and the Ukraine/Russia pairing. Not to pick on them, but to give a baseline. Let's look at some countries who have it "good," or at least should: Canada, Sweden and Japan. Just pulled those out of a hat b/c they're frequently mentioned as pretty decent, civilized places.

 

Canada in 84th place at 8.1

Sweden in 50th place at 9.5

Japan in 29th place at 11.1

 

OK, I thought those numbers were going to be better, especially Japan.

 

How about the US?

 

USA in 38th place at 10.3

 

What does this mean? Means we're not quite as horrible as some people would have us think, but we're also not as awesome as others would have us think. We can do better, but we could do much worse.

 

And why did I zoom out to deaths in general vs. gun deaths? Partly for the obvious perspective. We could reduce gun deaths to 0 and it wouldn't move our death rate dial by very much at all. The panic is disproportionate to the threat. This does not mean we do nothing, it means, as the Hitchiker's Guide reminds us:

So, my first point in all of this is we can, and should, approach the problem rationally.

 

My second point is that just as "national death rate" is too broad in scope, so is "gun violence" or even "homicide rate."

 

I'll reiterate my basic stance on the issue again: We need to solve root causes. We need to interpret the data not for the sake of drumming up fear for our proposed solution (including that of "do nothing" that some hold), but for a study of the causes of violence and homicide. At the end of the day, acting like guns alone can cause or prevent homicides is not productive. Neither position is true.

And that's why both Stewart and his interviewees annoy me.

 

How much has been spent by either side on root cause analysis and removing the root causes? I'm betting it's a low number.

 

My point is this: We are not a society of Mutant Biker Cowboy Barbarians.

 

We're a Confederacy of Dunces ruled by an Idiocracy.

 

 

 

 

*Note: That sounds nefarious. I don't think Stewart is nefarious. I think he cares deeply and is simply engaging in his own fears and spreading them around due to not looking at the subject dispassionately.

[Ranxerox]

On 3/6/2023 at 7:06 PM, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I saw that. Stewart's argument is kind of weak when "children" are defined as up to 21* years old in those stats, and the majority of those deaths are gang violence related. The more accurate conclusions from that "statistic" are that a) statistics can lie to play on emotions, and b) gang violence and diversion needs to be addressed. To address the number one killer of children, as Stewart laid it out, you would first spend massive funding on gang diversion and gang intervention (encouraging and teaching gangs how to resolve conflicts without killing one another) programs across the country.

 

The fact that we have a politician sitting there who couldn't come to that simple counter to Stewart's argument and that Stewart has (I've recently watched several of his "take down" videos regarding different topics recently) has begun restoring to poor research and talking over his interviewee are both disheartening.

 

My takeaway? The best argument for taking weapons from the population is that we have become an infantile society who as a whole doesn't possess the capacity to be trusted with the power over life and death. People can't even sit down and weigh the pros and cons of an issue with each other from different ideological standpoints without resorting to dirty debate tactics (Stewart) and without the awareness required by their office of public responsibility (any of his victim "interviewees").

 

I'm saying this as a fan of Stewart who mostly agrees with him and respects a lot of the things he's done. He's become deeply (or at least demonstrably) emotional and "fed up" when it comes to 2nd Amendment issues the last few years. He needs to get back to good research and critical analysis of all of his information sources, and be more aware of his own confirmation bias.

 

 

*Edit: That 21 is likely wrong. It looks like the CDC is currently using 19 years old as the break point, and that's likely the source Stewart was using. That same data shows that firearms take over as the leading cause of death starting at age 15. Which reinforces the point about gang activity being the root cause here.

 

 

3 hours ago, Pattern Ghost said:

 

I understand, and I agree with you on the hypocrisy of said politician. But I don't like Stewart's tactics, either.

 

Whether or not Stewart's tactics are underhanded depends on whether he legitimately considers teenage gang members to be children.  At a certain age, it is not a hard thing to do.  Personally, I consider everyone under twenty a quite a few people over 20 to be children. 

 

No one is born a violent gang member and no one needs to die one.  Of course if you die young, you  lose the ability to walk away from that life.  Gang diversion and gang intervention programs age great, but why are we limited to those solutions.  We could do those things and make gun access harder to get.  Yes, they could still stab one another, but knives simply are not as good at killing people as guns in the hands of the untrained.  Everything that reduces the chance of dying young gives the young and foolish more time to turn their lives around.