Defeatist Elitist

You say that, but there are very few (I would argue effectively no) examples of "unregulated" immigration crippling a welfare state. In general, I think having a higher immigration rate is very very good for a country. There are many states that are far more easily classified as welfare states that have a much higher rate of immigration than the United States that have avoided collapse (or indeed thrived). The idea that immigration will cripple a state, or that immigrants are more likely to be lazy/unemployable is one that is often repeated but rarely borne out. Treating citizenship as a prize to be achieved is inherently xenophobia because that's not what you're actually doing. You're saying citizenship is a prize that has to be achieved for those foreigners who aren't from the United States. Somebody born to American citizens never has to "achieve" citizenship as a prize, they just get it. As I pointed out in my post, the average undocumented immigrant has done a great deal more to "earn" citizenship than the vast majority of actual citizens have. The magic solution to integrate immigrants is to treat them like human beings and not harass and marginalize them to the point that they don't feel welcome or part of your country. It is to not use the legal and immigration system to restrict their movement and hamstring their employment opportunities, forcing them into illegal, under the table work for insufficient money and in poor conditions, or unemployment.

Other countries are not "A-OK" for limiting immigrants. Xenophobes are xenophobes, no matter if they're in Germany, Scandinavia, Japan or the United States. If you wanted to go to Mexico, have a kid and become a Mexican citizen it would actually be very easy for you, and it would be incredibly simple for your kid to gain American citizenship if you went back to the US (or even if you didn't). But I suppose I should be forthright and say that I can't even begin to understand the horrific sentiment of "yeah I slid through a birth canal in this particular geographic location so I deserve all the rights and privileges and opportunities it gives me, but those same things shouldn't be extended to some poor fucker who risked life and limb to cross a lifeless desert and enter this country only to work sub minimum wage jobs in exploitative conditions". Border imperialism is wrong pretty much no matter who does it.

:smug: You linked to what amount to a couple economic statistics and then make no attempt to actually connect them to your point, and the rest of your post is baseless conjecture about internet and social media. Other than that, you are making the argument that people have made pretty much every single generation (and most new communication technologies) since the beginning of recorded history. Generational conflict is a thing. People reacting strangely to change is a thing.

Rehab continues his trend of always posting all the correct opinions on every topic!! One generation has always complained about the next for basically the entire history of recorded civilization, and there are always just enough vaguely true aspects of their complaints to make some people in the latter start to believe it out of edge or alienation or what have you, but it's never really been particularly true. Incredibly enough, humanity has continued to survive, and dare I say even improve, and I doubt the attitude of "millennial" is going to change that.

Apparently not.

When I was younger my parents told me they'd rather I do crystal meth.

just go full ill-drazi

Get on my level

Seventeen people have never lived in the country. This guy got it right:

You guys are a bunch of fuckin' nerds.

Holy hell, this. I have major issues with motivation and completion sometimes, even with things I really like, but this helps so goddamn much. It's like having a superpower. Sometimes, when I have to read a book or something, I just say "Okay, I'm going to read a third of the book each day and not let myself stop until I've done it", and then BAM, you've read the book in three days.

You know your argument is really sound when it goes "Well yes, this total right wing dictator was good for my country because COUNTERFACTUALS" I happen to think Salvador Allende would have been just fine, probably even good for Chile. You can't just assert that he would have ruined the country, jesus christ. Honestly, as far as right wing dictators helping a country, he's not even very good. He's no Park Chung-Hee.

So, two brief things: the first is obviously that you have to have higher taxes, jesus christ, what the fuck is wrong with you people, how do you balance a budget without a revenue source, can you even do basic math, you can't just keep cutting things, goddamnit. Like seriously, your taxes are the lowest they've been in ages, and even a cursory look at things will show that, at the very least, everything was totally fine when taxes were higher. The second is that I agree with you, health care should be fixed, your weird hybrid system is dumb, just go full single payer, it's actually probably cheaper that way (I hope that's what you were implying)! Also, it never stops weirding me the fuck out when I read about American politics and people keep using Liberal as a term for left wing, as opposed to a term of derision for milquetoast centrists.

Hahahaha, no, your country is never ever escaping from that terrible pit because nobody is willing to slash military spending or raise taxes and you absolutely fucking have to do one (or both) of those things. If it's any solace, other countries are inexplicably following your lead, so you won't be alone!

poo

I'm not on any Republican or Democratic mailing lists, so I don't know how common it is, but if you think sending slightly condescending emails begging for donations is worse than dog whistle racism and fear mongering than you and I have a fundamental disagreement in our moral codes that I suspect is pretty much impossible to resolve.

There's two big issues here. One is that that's politics. I would say love it or hate it, but its really beyond that. Politics in a democratic nation (and to a certain extent in a non democratic nation) are about trying to appeal to the populace, and often being completely rational will not accomplish it. I really dislike the way politics often work, I think we should try to change them, but that is what you have to work with. The second issue is that, as I said before, they are not the same. You slammed the Democrats for appealing to emotions, which they sort of do, but that's not the whole story. Leftist strategies would help most of the people of the United States. There is significant support for this idea. However, leftist ideology is largely born out of a certain ultimately subjective moral or emotional state. In order to support leftist ideology, you kind of have to buy into that. We should all be dealing with the same facts (which incidentally is another problem in the USA), so the argument really should be the moral one. It absolutely is between whether or not we think poor people deserve to be poor, and about whether the state should provide for those in need. That is the argument that has to be had, and it has to be about whether it is right or wrong, because we already know that a certain level of government support will absolutely reduce poverty and increase quality of life. ^^ Reggie, I actually included a ton of examples of Republicans doing far worse things in my post but hey. I do think shilling for donations like that is awful, and I am opposed to that general political climate. I'm not saying it's good, I'm saying it's not nearly as bad as constant lying and racebaiting.

I didn't say the Republicans were evil. I didn't even call them obstructionist or callous (they sort of are, and I implied they might be, but that's beside the point). I said that Democrats referring to them as such was very different from the Republican tactics, and crucially is not nearly as bad.

The answer is not always in the middle. MSNBC is not the left wing equivalent of FOX, it is the left wing equivalent of CNN. The United States political culture is heavily skewed to the right. Most other first world nations' conservative parties are near or even to the left of the Democrats. Make no mistake, I don't like Obama's presidency or his policies, but that's because they haven't been nearly leftist enough. The problem for me when Democrats argue is that they refuse (or perhaps can't due to sacred cows, doing what I want would probably make them unelectable) to call Republicans out nearly enough. Go ahead and criticize both sides, they are both worthy of criticism. It's good to understand that most of politics is appealing to the voter base as opposed to proposing meaningful solutions. But don't pretend there is an equivalency here, that both sides are the same. Both sides are not the same. Characterizing the Republicans as obstructionary and callous is much better, and more accurate than the dog whistle racism, idle fear mongering and flat out lies constantly invented by the right wing. Give me a mainstream Left example of birthers, or benghazi, or death camps, or ACORN, or voter fraud and maybe then we can talk.

Also, from this article on that site, apparently it's more of a philosophical site than anything else, they sort of reject empirical evidence and do everything through theorizing and inference. I have no opposition to fundamentally philisophical texts being in here though, just figured I should point it out. edit: I would never cite Wikipedia, but it's generally a totally fine starting point.

http://imgur.com/qJpdZrp

But free market health care solutions, or at least the ones that we have seen so far don't work. Free market education systems have the same issue. I am not arguing that nothing should ever be done via the free market, I am arguing that some things definitely should not. As I pointed out, Canada has a working health system, and a working public education system (I'd like to see them slightly expanded, but honestly I can't complain). They are good, solid solutions for our social problems. This is my argument. You are making a lot of claims about free market solutions to these problems, but those free market solutions are not visible. On the other hand, state controlled options exist and function better than the alternatives. You talked about my "monopoly on virtue", but I also seem to have a monopoly on real world success.

I want to live in a country where people aren't afraid to go to the hospital when they really should because they can't afford it. Luckily I do. I don't believe giving the government a bit of power is an inherently bad thing, and more importantly, actual facts about actual countries suggest that it isn't. Welfare states of a degree further than you suggest both exist and function. Take health care as an example. It is incredibly difficult to agree on what is or isn't good, and I don't want to devolve into semantics, so I'll define what I'm talking about first. To me, a good healthcare system is one that guarantees quality care at an affordable rate to everybody in a society. If you accept that definition (maybe you don't), then the most "left wing", "welfare state" style healthcare systems are among the best in the world. Certainly, the general left side is much better than the general right side. You can argue that all of the real world right wing examples aren't truely free market solutions and that a real free market solution would work out fine, and I would disagree, but that barely even matters. As it stands we have no example of it, but we know the left wing system exists and works. Canada's health care system isn't perfect, but literally nothing is, and you appear to be arguing that providing everybody in a country with health care they need and are guaranteed to be able to afford is an actively bad thing. Why?

You're right that I was mocking you, but not about wasting time!

whatthechrist I don't remember saying any of those words.