Jump to content

General US Politics


Ansem

Recommended Posts

I think it's more telling that I've never seen a legitimate argument against universal healthcare for the US instead of a general disparaging of "socialism" or other buzzwords. Why shouldn't an average Conservative support it unless they are corrupt and taking money from medical corporations? You are paying more for getting less right now.

I don't really care if you don't think more money should be going to welfare, or tuition fees, as much as a progressive might - or any of their other positions. But healthcare should be the first priority in the US, and indisputable.

Edited by Tryhard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 14.4k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

26 minutes ago, Nobody said:

literally the same thing happened two pages ago: trump supporter posted something, everyone else argued in an objective manner, backed up by sources, about why they disagreed, dude replied with something vague and just vanished without adressing what we posted.

Here's the issue.  It is VERY hard to argue as a conservative.  You have to understand how frustrating it is to have 6 people throw crappy sources at you and be expected to go find crappy sources saying the opposite information.

For example, someone was posting sources from Harvard University.  I understand the logic, they're a very reputable college and very high ranking in terms of research.  However, if you don't think colleges, and Harvard more than most, are not bias you are totally ignorant.  As someone who just graduated from college, I can tell you the people studying political science, leadership, (other liberal arts) are complete nutjobs.  I had to take some humanity classes to graduate (engineering) and the teachers and all the other students in my class were ALL liberal. 

You've all done research at some point, right?  You have some school project and you have the task of finding a bunch of sources for your political argument.  A couple google searches away you find a bunch of articles posted by god-knows-who and turn it in.  Your teacher gives you an A.  In fact, I've heard time and time again from teachers that other teachers should be more strict on where students get their sources from.  I still get an A despite me not knowing who my source is or why he's credible.

Research is a joke.  Don't believe me?  Remember how Clinton won the election?  Oh wait...

 

What I'm saying is, conservatives have a tough time arguing not because they don't have sources, but because half of conservatives believe journalism and research is a joke.  And when they want to have a logical discussion, they get bombarded with a bunch of throwing articles  at them with google. 

To prove this, I'd like to show you a couple sources saying sources are BS -

http://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bias-killing-social-science
http://nypost.com/2014/10/12/liberal-bias-in-academia-is-destroying-the-integrity-of-research/
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009365099026002003

What?  My sources aren't legitimate....ok I guess I'll only believe things colleges known to be very liberal say.

Edited by Lushen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about mainstream economists, are they also nutjobs? All the sources i've posted these past two pages were direct reports from the american government. Were they reported wrongly? Did the government lie?

What about the costs of health care systems? Were the european countries that reported on the cost of their health care systems lying? 

Those things have nothing to do with the 'liberal bias' of universities or reseachs. They are literal budgets coming from governments. I'm also an engineer (well, two weeks away from becoming one...) and i know that numbers don't lie. There's a reason mainstream economists (NOT political scientists, NOT social scientists, economists) from pretty much all school of economics were agains Trump.

Edited by Nobody
Link to comment
Share on other sites

- One person posted one link to an article on Harvard's site. His other links (and most of the rest of ours) were coming from sources like Reuters, MSNBC, The Atlantic; sources that are generally considered to be pretty centrist/right-centrist (The Guardian is one exception). How does your argument against liberal bias in college relate to those?

- You haven't addressed any of the actual arguments, only stated that we can't be argued with - what? Okay, forget the sources. Use logic. Where's the numbers to prove a universal health system would be more expensive in the U.S., when sheer mathematical figures state it's cheaper in every other country? Where's the bias in the graph Tryhard provided? What's the moral argument against universal healthcare?

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Here's the issue.  It is VERY hard to argue as a conservative.  You have to understand how frustrating it is to have 6 people throw crappy sources at you and be expected to go find crappy sources saying the opposite information.

For example, someone was posting sources from Harvard University.  I understand the logic, they're a very reputable college and very high ranking in terms of research.  However, if you don't think colleges, and Harvard more than most, are not bias you are totally ignorant.  As someone who just graduated from college, I can tell you the people studying political science, leadership, (other liberal arts) are complete nutjobs.  I had to take some humanity classes to graduate (engineering) and the teachers and all the other students in my class were ALL liberal. 

You've all done research at some point, right?  You have some school project and you have the task of finding a bunch of sources for your political argument.  A couple google searches away you find a bunch of articles posted by god-knows-who and turn it in.  Your teacher gives you an A.  In fact, I've heard time and time again from teachers that other teachers should be more strict on where students get their sources from.  I still get an A despite me not knowing who my source is or why he's credible.

Research is a joke.  Don't believe me?  Remember how Clinton won the election?  Oh wait...

 

What I'm saying is, conservatives have a tough time arguing not because they don't have sources, but because half of conservatives believe journalism and research is a joke.  And when they want to have a logical discussion, they get bombarded with a bunch of throwing articles  at them with google. 

To prove this, I'd like to show you a couple sources saying sources are BS -

http://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bias-killing-social-science
http://nypost.com/2014/10/12/liberal-bias-in-academia-is-destroying-the-integrity-of-research/
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009365099026002003

What?  My sources aren't legitimate....ok I guess I'll only believe things colleges known to be very liberal say.

Facts don't have a liberal bias. If you know the issue and know your argument and still find the argument exceptionally difficult to source and present; that's a sign that the argument to be presented isn't a very good one. And you're crafting reasons to match up with your stance on an issue, rather than crafting your stance on issues to match up with good reason. Defending sincerely held belief when belief and good reason align, irrespective of ideology or how many people disagree with you, is a simple, natural thing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am a PhD candidate at my university. I think you can trust very well that I won't throw bullshit at you, and if the sources are flawed in their methodology it's surely not hard to point out why exactly it's garbage?

We've been over this in great detail on this thread before. Saying that all sourced and media are biased and therefore garbage is unproductive. Arguments are founded upon facts (statistics and data analysis being among them) and then logical conclusions from said facts. You haven't stated many at all, and when nudged for a source you went on a tirade about how hard it is to argue as a conservative on a young, left-leaning forum. FYI, and I can find sources to back me up (or tell me if it's bullshit), but political viewpoints are a product of generation and not youth. Millennials have always trended left and generation Z is looking to be far more conservative.

I don't think you understand the idea of using fact and analyzing the fact to make a logical conclusion. The 98% chance to win bullshit? That means those media outlets had really flawed methodology to draw conclusions, whereas someone like Nate Silver said it was 70-30 because of his methodology, and his was far more accurate.

I'm actually sick and tired of engaging in this argument every time a Trump supporter decides to post. Can we come up with a sticky that concisely explains how to argue, the purpose of sources and the definition of fake news? Fuck I can draft something within the next week and get it approved by a few mods, since the guidelines aren't enough. It's impossible to have arguments with people who are unable to coherently interpret data and dismiss any and all data or analysis as shitty due to a liberal bias, when we are using it as factual citation and drawing our own interpretations off of that. That's what people have been doing in every discipline for centuries and even lead to shit like the very medium we are using to connect to one another.

EDIT: I don't just mean trump supporter. There have been plenty of left leaning people here who have been unable to justify themselves as well for the exact same reasons.

This thread also is shockingly not as much of a circlejerk as you'd think; just a page back two people (who may generally agree on a bunch of issues) were arguing about the idea of free trade and its merits. Though I guess this is what differentiates UK Politics and US Politics, because in the US we're still arguing over dumb shit like "should everyone have healthcare?" and in the UK/Canada/Western Europe they go over "what's the best way to give everyone healthcare?"

Edited by Lord Raven
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 6/19/2017 at 6:52 AM, Tryhard said:

Theocracy is worrisome because quite a few Republicans seem to want to push adherence to biblical law. I don't want the US to become the equivalent of a Christian Saudi Arabia or Iran. I'd feel far more threatened about the Republican politicians pushing through illiberal laws from a position of power than I would other external third party forces.

For a Trump supporter that is willing to discuss it, I figure the most effective method would be to use a Socratic method of questioning rather than attempting to provide counter-arguments. Merely asking them to clarify their points and what "America being made great again" would look like, what things he has accomplished that might make you think he is doing a great job etc, might lead them to the conclusion that they have no in-depth answer for believing what they do. Don't attempt to argue, but try to lead them to explain their position. It's easy to bash Trump as most people have done in this thread for a long time, but it becomes evident that no amount of counter-points seems to be effective. Of course, if they believe what they do for malevolent purposes or through wilful ignorance then really it doesn't matter either way.

Though, if it actually frustrates you to even go that route then it's probably not worth talking politics.

 

On 6/19/2017 at 7:53 AM, Captain Karnage said:

Have you asked them why?

I think Trump is doing a great job so far.

He's torn apart NAFTA

Increasing the tariff to encourage business to work in the US

Putting in 1 trillion into our infrastructure 

Hell, I supported his 90 day travel ban.

Yes, you two, I tried.  However, this is the same guy that boos the TV whenever Obama is mentioned, and asking "why" just gets a grunt in response.  I think he sees politics more like a sporting event - as long as his team "wins", he doesn't care.

On 6/19/2017 at 8:18 AM, Gustavos said:

American right wingers are afraid of sharia law, but would gladly support a Christian doctrine for how we should live. 

I thought you said you didn't vote in general?

There's a difference between "I think both sides are bad" versus "I refuse to vote".  Just because I don't take a side doesn't mean that I'm going to give up my right to vote!  Since I thought Clinton/Trump were both equally bad, I voted third party.

EDIT:

45 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

I think it's more telling that I've never seen a legitimate argument against universal healthcare for the US instead of a general disparaging of "socialism" or other buzzwords. Why shouldn't an average Conservative support it unless they are corrupt and taking money from medical corporations? You are paying more for getting less right now.

I don't really care if you don't think more money should be going to welfare, or tuition fees, as much as a progressive might - or any of their other positions. But healthcare should be the first priority in the US, and indisputable.

It's one of two things:

1. I had a coherent conversation with someone who was quite conservative.  Her view was that she had to work for everything she had, yet those that took advantage of the government programs (which her tax money went to) were freeloading.  Her logic was that if she had to work for her nice things, then they should, too.

2. The "I got mine so sucks to be you" mentality.  Yes, it's childish, but it exists.

Edited by eclipse
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Facts don't have a liberal bias. If you know the issue and know your argument and still find the argument exceptionally difficult to source and present; that's a sign that the argument to be presented isn't a very good one. And you're crafting reasons to match up with your stance on an issue, rather than crafting your stance on issues to match up with good reason. Defending sincerely held belief when belief and good reason align, irrespective of ideology or how many people disagree with you, is a simple, natural thing.

The issue is which facts are present and how they're skewed can be very bias.  All the republicans I know, including myself, refuse to answer telephone surveys.  All the liberals I know, love being asked their opinion.  Likewise, the internet is dominated by young people, so internet polls are infected with bad demographics as well.  The electoral college polls were known to be extremely credible, and look what happened.  The issue is, there is no perfect study group.  You should also look up conscious bias vs non.  We're both doing it right now.  I'm not ignorant enough to pretend I'm not looking at your arguments thinking of how they could be wrong, not right and don't pretend you're not doing the same.  It's subconscious, we can't help it. And when researchers are dominated by liberal people the research will have liberal bias.  Surveys are NOT facts. 

7 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

I am a PhD candidate at my university. I think you can trust very well that I won't throw bullshit at you, and if the sources are flawed in their methodology it's surely not hard to point out why exactly it's garbage?

I'm sorry I really don't mean to be rude but I am a recent graduate for engineering.  What makes a PHD candidate more qualified than a graduate.  Aren't we the same right now at this moment?  And saying that we need a sticky for the ignorant Trump supports just proves you have some flawed political bias.  I wasn't talking about fake news.  I may have sourced news articles but those are sourcing actual research articles, which was what I was talking about, not news.  News, research, and journalism are all different.

 

@eclipseMay I ask which third party you voted for?  Just out of curiositiy.  I was considering third party because I didn't like either candidate, but I didn't like the third party candidates either.  I miss politics before Obama.  And no, I'm not blaming Obama, I blame the internet coming into fruition right around Obama's election and starting to have a major presence.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, I need to address a few things.

52 minutes ago, Lushen said:

You've all done research at some point, right?  You have some school project and you have the task of finding a bunch of sources for your political argument.  A couple google searches away you find a bunch of articles posted by god-knows-who and turn it in.  Your teacher gives you an A.  In fact, I've heard time and time again from teachers that other teachers should be more strict on where students get their sources from.  I still get an A despite me not knowing who my source is or why he's credible.

Those are shitty research assignments. We can talk about the issues with high schools another time, but in college and beyond if your sources are very poorly fact checked or researched, then you will have a tough time. In fact, I've seen plenty of failed papers during my time in graduate school that were just poorly fact-checked and refuted very easily simply because of bad facts.

The other thing is that, as it stands, a lot of high school arguments tend to rely on citations for facts, and the arguments presented by students tend to be very shallow based on some very basic facts that are easy to look up. However, what you're talking about is a valid overhaul we need in our education, but it's also incongruent with your complaints towards us since many people in this thread have been careful fact-checkers.

52 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Research is a joke.  Don't believe me?  Remember how Clinton won the election?  Oh wait...

What I'm saying is, conservatives have a tough time arguing not because they don't have sources, but because half of conservatives believe journalism and research is a joke.  And when they want to have a logical discussion, they get bombarded with a bunch of throwing articles  at them with google. 

I actually addressed the Clinton part in a previous joke, but the media doesn't have the scrutiny that proper scientific research (like the kind someone from Harvard would publish) tends to have. A lot of websites hold themselves to higher standards than the media tends to, so it was the flawed methodology in their data analysis that led to a faulty conclusion -- the data itself was 100% accurate, the facts were accurate, the interpretation was poor.

Half of conservatives believe journalism and research is a joke? What the fuck? Do you have numbers on this? Or are you saying half of conservatives are narrow-minded and gloat over their ignorance? I don't really understand what point you're making here.

When they want to have a logical discussion, they get bombarded with articles as well as analysis on top of that; at least, in this thread we are seeing that. You being unable to respond is a symptom of your faults, not a symptom of us being liberal or some shit. And a lot of facts are easily verifiable, conclusions are stuff we draw on our own or double check the articles for, and the conclusions have to be logical. You have to source facts, you don't have to source your conclusions.

Oh yeah, and research is not a joke. Unless you think all technology is a joke, or shit or stupid. In fact, what do you mean by a joke? Because good jokes are very carefully constructed and clever.

4 minutes ago, Lushen said:

The issue is which facts are present and how they're skewed can be very bias.  All the republicans I know, including myself, refuse to answer telephone surveys.  All the liberals I know, love being asked their opinion.  Likewise, the internet is dominated by young people, so internet polls are infected with bad demographics as well.  The electoral college polls were known to be extremely credible, and look what happened.  The issue is, there is no perfect study group.  You should also look up conscious bias vs non.  We're both doing it right now.  I'm not ignorant enough to pretend I'm not looking at your arguments thinking of how they could be wrong, not right and don't pretend you're not doing the same.  It's subconscious, we can't help it. And when researchers are dominated by liberal people the research will have liberal bias.  Surveys are NOT facts. 

Okay, but you're just going off on a fucking tangent about how conservatives find it so hard to argue without arguing anything yourself. Knock that off and debate us in good faith, instead of debating about debating or this bullshit. You've hardly done any of that, you're just whining.

Quote

I'm sorry I really don't mean to be rude but I am a recent graduate for engineering.  What makes a PHD candidate more qualified than a graduate.  Aren't we the same right now at this moment?  And saying that we need a sticky for the ignorant Trump supports just proves you have some flawed political bias.  I wasn't talking about fake news.  I may have sourced news articles but those are sourcing actual research articles, which was what I was talking about, not news.  News, research, and journalism are all different.

I'm in my fourth year of graduate school, so I'm heavy into my research.

The standards aren't hard to apply, at any rate. You're doing a shit job following them, you just went off on a tangent about how everything we say and argue is so biased, implying it's wrong or flawed. If it's wrong, it's easy to argue. If it's flawed, then point out the flaws of the argument, not its bias; it being biased in and of itself is not a flaw.

Edited by Lord Raven
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Lushen said:

 

@eclipseMay I ask which third party you voted for?  Just out of curiositiy.  I was considering third party because I didn't like either candidate, but I didn't like the third party candidates either.  I miss politics before Obama.  And no, I'm not blaming Obama, I blame the internet coming into fruition right around Obama's election and starting to have a major presence.  

Libertarian.  I didn't agree with their economic policies, but I'd rather have that over Stein's anti-vaccination pandering.  I'm a lot more likely to die because some idiot didn't vaccinate themselves/their kid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My Harvard link was from 2009 and was mostly citing a study from the  American Journal of Public Health. It's important to note that scientific studies such as medical ones are far less likely to be lied about or fabricated for the purposes of a political affiliation, or at least without being obvious, and I haven't really seen any debunking of this particular study. Regardless, I even said this number in this study could be disputed as other medical studies have ranged from significant amounts generally over 20,000.

The Guardian is no doubt a left-leaning publication, but it wasn't carefully selected, moreso the first one I came across and was more important for the content cited than their actual political leanings - either being about the proposed large amount of uninsured people cited by the CBO (22 million as estimations go) that would lead to not a small number of deaths because of lack of basic health insurance, or the effectiveness of the universal healthcare in my own country, citing the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, in which you can find many other sources showing how European healthcare systems are far more cost effective and more effective in general compared to the US.

Everything else I posted I believe has no or minimal political bias. It's also worth noting that the US is far more skewed to the right compared to most developed countries.

25 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Yes, you two, I tried.  However, this is the same guy that boos the TV whenever Obama is mentioned, and asking "why" just gets a grunt in response.  I think he sees politics more like a sporting event - as long as his team "wins", he doesn't care.

EDIT:

It's one of two things:

1. I had a coherent conversation with someone who was quite conservative.  Her view was that she had to work for everything she had, yet those that took advantage of the government programs (which her tax money went to) were freeloading.  Her logic was that if she had to work for her nice things, then they should, too.

2. The "I got mine so sucks to be you" mentality.  Yes, it's childish, but it exists.

It's a shame to hear that. Politics as a sport has unfortunately been what it has been becoming more and more in recent years.

As for the person you were talking with, I have seen that thrown around, and I can't really help but think it's the classic "scrounger" demonisation. Sometimes, people should be given the bare necessity to live because it is humane, not because we are rewarding freeloading.

36 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

EDIT: I don't just mean trump supporter. There have been plenty of left leaning people here who have been unable to justify themselves as well for the exact same reasons.

This thread also is shockingly not as much of a circlejerk as you'd think; just a page back two people (who may generally agree on a bunch of issues) were arguing about the idea of free trade and its merits. Though I guess this is what differentiates UK Politics and US Politics, because in the US we're still arguing over dumb shit like "should everyone have healthcare?" and in the UK/Canada/Western Europe they go over "what's the best way to give everyone healthcare?"

Undoubtedly (for better or worse), the left squabbles far more among themselves then the right does. I've made it clear that I'm not a fan of neoliberalism, but as we've seen during this political cycle the right have been willing to throw themselves behind Donald Trump even if they don't agree with what he's saying.

Edited by Tryhard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Those are shitty research assignments. We can talk about the issues with high schools another time, but in college and beyond if your sources are very poorly fact checked or researched, then you will have a tough time. In fact, I've seen plenty of failed papers during my time in graduate school that were just poorly fact-checked and refuted very easily simply because of bad facts.

Half of conservatives believe journalism and research is a joke? What the fuck? Do you have numbers on this?

I said I just graduated from college.  And while engineers don't do a ton of political research, we do have to take a certain number of humanities (I could rant all day about how stupid that is, but maybe that's a discussion for another time).  I saw very little improvement compared to High School and half the people in the class were majoring in political science.

When people say 'half' they're not quoting a source.  It's logical vs research discussion.  Either way, it's not important what other conservatives believe, because it's what I believe which is why I wrote it.  I know many others with the same views, but no - I'm not going to waste anymore time looking up articles

9 minutes ago, eclipse said:

Libertarian.  I didn't agree with their economic policies, but I'd rather have that over Stein's anti-vaccination pandering.  I'm a lot more likely to die because some idiot didn't vaccinate themselves/their kid.

Ah, I'm always interested in third party candidate voters.  One of our founding fathers (can't remember who) warned us against political parties.  I think the lack of acceptance in this thread shows that.  And hey, I'm not counting myself out.  I can be a pretty hardcore Republican, sometimes I wish I was more third party.  Under Obama I swung both ways on a lot of issues but people have become so black and white I feel like it's a 'either with us or against us' situation now.

 

edit: Is there like an invisible post limit?  Everytime I click on this thread it throws me to page 265 whether its a "someone has replied", "someone has quoted you", or after I make a post.

Edited by Lushen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, eclipse said:

1. I had a coherent conversation with someone who was quite conservative.  Her view was that she had to work for everything she had, yet those that took advantage of the government programs (which her tax money went to) were freeloading.  Her logic was that if she had to work for her nice things, then they should, too.

(I realize that this isn't your argument, and no one has yet argued this point in this thread, but to address it in case anyone feels this way):

I really dislike this argument, because the chronically sick/elderly/young who require the most medical attention are often literally incapable of work. The U.S. also has appalling labor laws that allow employers to pay disabled workers below minimum wage, sometimes lower than a dollar an hour. 

There's also the issue that, prior to the AHA, lifetime limits affected people who did work. My friend, who hit his lifetime limit, was/is employed as an engineer, so he's earning far above minimum wage, but his salary still couldn't compensate for his out of pocket medical costs. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Lushen said:

I said I just graduated from college.  And while engineers don't do a ton of political research, we do have to take a certain number of humanities (I could rant all day about how stupid that is, but maybe that's a discussion for another time).  I saw very little improvement compared to High School and half the people in the class were majoring in political science.

I'm about to enter my fourth year of a PhD program lol, we can swing each other's dicks in each others faces all we want but I've definitely spent a lot of time being chewed out for having shit research or shit conclusions, and I've definitely taken humanities classes beyond basic humanities that were punishing for using bad sources. In introductory classes and high school classes the standards have a tendency to be low because they're meant to be basic. The political science majors will get chewed out later in their college career, and they will get chewed out if their skills in research are completely lacking. Introductory classes have a far different standards than college classes.

When people say 'half' they're not quoting a source.  It's logical vs research discussion.  Either way, it's not important what other conservatives believe, because it's what I believe which is why I wrote it.  I know many others with the same views, but no - I'm not going to waste anymore time looking up articles.

Then why make the point and drag all others with you? Are you intentionally, now, saying that you're proud to be willfully ignorant and you're proud to ignore basic research? Research is what led to your discipline being so highly regarded and relatively efficient in the first place - if not for scientific research there would be no place for engineers.

I've asked you to cite your sources based on fact, because I found your facts questionable. Instead of doing so, you've started to bitch about research and the liberal agenda and liberal bias. Is it because you lack sources that agree with you? Why aren't you going to link any sources or stats? Is it because you're here to try and win an argument and then somehow claim a moral high ground (which you're failing at) or because you just can't find any? I'm willing to learn and learn more, because as a 24-year-old my political views are still not fully formed and they may never be fully formed as I keep researching and viewing arguments. But you're making the process very difficult by dragging out a discussion about how to debate, when you clearly don't even realize the finer points of debate, and you're instead conflating this to an introductory humanities class which is why you think it's futile.

Basically, do better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Ah, I'm always interested in third party candidate voters.  One of our founding fathers (can't remember who) warned us against political parties.  I think the lack of acceptance in this thread shows that.  And hey, I'm not counting myself out.  I can be a pretty hardcore Republican, sometimes I wish I was more third party.  Under Obama I swung both ways on a lot of issues but people have become so black and white I feel like it's a 'either with us or against us' situation now.

 

edit: Is there like an invisible post limit?  Everytime I click on this thread it throws me to page 265 whether its a "someone has replied", "someone has quoted you", or after I make a post.

I'm not sure if there's any one political party out there that would well and truly represent everything I stand for.  Thus, I vote for whoever I think would have a half-decent shot at not screwing the country up. . .or in the case of this past election, which candidate would do the least amount of damage.

2 minutes ago, Res said:

(I realize that this isn't your argument, and no one has yet argued this point in this thread, but to address it in case anyone feels this way):

I really dislike this argument, because the chronically sick/elderly/young who require the most medical attention are often literally incapable of work. The U.S. also has appalling labor laws that allow employers to pay disabled workers below minimum wage, sometimes lower than a dollar an hour. 

There's also the issue that, prior to the AHA, lifetime limits affected people who did work. My friend, who hit his lifetime limit, was/is employed as an engineer, so he's earning far above minimum wage, but his salary still couldn't compensate for his out of pocket medical costs. 

I think a lot of the problem is that the "leechers" tend to be some sort of faceless other.  I'm sure there's people out there who have the gall to tell someone else that they are worthless and deserve to die, to their face.  However, I think the majority of those that hold this attitude wouldn't be able to do so - once that "other" is embodied in a human form, it's a lot harder to tell that person to drop dead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

21 hours ago, Tryhard said:

 

Edit: by the way, that video was in regards to Medicaid that Republicans want to cut, which has been around far longer than Obamacare and is hugely popular.

I wouldn't say that Medicaid is popular, from either a patient or provider standpoint.  Many doctors refuse to even see patients with Medicaid.  I've had several patients drive over an hour to see me, because they could not get in to see any closer doctors that would take Medicaid.  Many doctors won't take Medicaid, both because the reimbursement is terrible and it takes forever to get reimbursed.  In Illinios, there is literally an 18 month waiting period before you get paid for Medicaid.

28 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Ah, I'm always interested in third party candidate voters.  One of our founding fathers (can't remember who) warned us against political parties. 

That was George Washington.

 

Sorry to everyone in SD for my more or less absence, or you're welcome maybe.  I had gotten severe politics fatigue.  Life in general has been good, otherwise.

I read that Rep Brad Wenstrup of Ohio who helped treat Rep Steve Scalise was a doctor before becoming a Congressman.  It's nice to see that he was able to step up there.  I know what it feels like to go into doctor-mode on the field.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mostly just a lurker here but I want to point out that while it has its problems and critics, Medicaid remains a VERY popular program. There is actually a NYT article from a few years ago describing the phenomenon.

On that note, I find that this is a huge fundamental problem with current Republican attempts to pass a new healthcare bill. Past the political advantage of not being named Obamacare, it is a thinly veiled gutting to the Medicaid system and likewise has a public approval rating almost as low as Congress itself. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Rezzy said:

I wouldn't say that Medicaid is popular, from either a patient or provider standpoint.  Many doctors refuse to even see patients with Medicaid.  I've had several patients drive over an hour to see me, because they could not get in to see any closer doctors that would take Medicaid.  Many doctors won't take Medicaid, both because the reimbursement is terrible and it takes forever to get reimbursed.  In Illinios, there is literally an 18 month waiting period before you get paid for Medicaid.

Then why do 84% of Americans support Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid?

There's a certain irony of Conservatives holding up "keep your government hands off my Medicaid/Medicare" signs, who vote Republican, the ones wanting to cut Medicaid. 15% of Republicans are the ones that say they would decrease federal spending of Medicare. (as well as some other interesting takeaways from Pew Research, there.) Most republicans either want to keep federal spending of Medicaid the same, or even increase it.

Edited by Tryhard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

apologies for the length of this post

On 6/21/2017 at 2:27 PM, Nobody said:

I'm a big fan of free trade. I live in a very protectionist country, and it's outrageous how much more expensive some goods are here, specially imported ones, and the lack of competition due to a barrier to foreign products means that a lot of what we have is of lower quality as well. It's easy to be against free trade when you live in a country that has a fairly free market, since the consequences don't seem as obvious and you get to 'keep yer jerbs', but lack of free trade makes the price of goods go up for everyone (which mainly affects people of low income) and also lower their quality.

The job loss is sort of bullshit as well. There is no known association between openess of a country's economy and its uneployment rate. Just as globalization makes some jobs 'go' elsewhere, it also creates others that wouldn't exist otherwise. The concern about free trade ending jobs in the United States as a whole is honestly quite baffling, America has a quite low uneployment rate as of now (source: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate), not much different from the lowest it has ever been. 

People who are against free trade because it ends jobs in certain areas are not much different from ones who want to keep using coal as an energy source to keep jobs. 

@Phoenix Wright

as sad as this is (and it really is), people on those countries would be working on bad conditions regardless of free trade, and in some cases free trade itself makes the conditions they work on less horrible (like in china, where the average rural worker has it much worse than people who work on industries, even if they also have it really bad). The issue here is not free trade, but the living conditions and underdevelopment of that country as a whole, and one can argue that trading with those countries improves their incomes (which it absolutely does), which slowly improves living conditions on them (again, China is a big exemple of this). Free trade brings advantages for both sides, and the losers are very few and localized in few areas and industries (e.g industry workers in the rusty belt), which can be fixed by the government improving wellfare and trying to renovate the job market in those areas through public (and private as well) investments, which would cost less than the country would get from the trades (through cheaper goods, higher gdp growth and the like). The problem with America is not the freetrade, but rather the lack of wellfare and investiments. Like, just so you know, the Scandinavian countries are very pro free trade (WAY more than America).

i'm not saying free trade is wholly bad--admittedly i don't know enough about it to conjure up an opinion more nuanced than, "we should be judging our agreements on a case-by-case basis." it might be true that nations whose workforce is treated poorly is better than no workforce at all. but that very exploitation should be seen as inexcusable. i mean, these are human lives we're talking about here, right? we can't control how china treats their factory workers, but we can surely influence it through trade practices and agreements, no? it's not only about the economic principles--getting stuff cheaper and divvying up work amongst nations, or political principles--becoming dependent on one another increases the likelihood of lasting peace, it should also include a social aspect of making sure workers are respected and safe. but it isn't. i personally don't really care if my goods are made in america or made in china--but at least a made in america tag includes (some) confidence that the people who made it didn't have to suffer.

i don't wanna sound social justice-y so i wanna emphasize that i think free trade done right is very good.

3 hours ago, Lushen said:

I choose not to vote in this election, actually.  I still wanted Trump to win over Hillary - but neither was my top pick.  I don't believe in the whole 'everyone should vote' philosophy, I think that's just propaganda campaigners say to get their supporters to vote for them.

 

I'm choosing to refrain from further discussion in this thread.  I knew when I posted I was going to be an outlier, I don't know why I didn't listen to my instincts.  The fact is a forum dedicated to an anime series with lots of young people is going to have a VERY large democrat and liberal fanbase.  That's just demographics.

excuse my confusion then. you went into little detail of the threats you received as a result of voting for trump, when in actuality you meant supporting trump. 

your views on voting are dangerous, though, and also seemingly very conflicting. you place trust in these "talented" lawmakers to draft laws that the people support, but believe their campaigns to be merely vote-grabs?

let me be blunt: the american system is not as corrupt as people might think it is. so much shit is actually legal that it doesn't need to be! but there's good that comes from this, including the fact that votes matter. political involvement matters in this country, and that is a beautiful thing. so much so that it's taken completely for granted. to say that your vote doesn't matter is to throw away the very power granted to you by your own government.

2 hours ago, Lushen said:

Here's the issue.  It is VERY hard to argue as a conservative.  You have to understand how frustrating it is to have 6 people throw crappy sources at you and be expected to go find crappy sources saying the opposite information.

For example, someone was posting sources from Harvard University.  I understand the logic, they're a very reputable college and very high ranking in terms of research.  However, if you don't think colleges, and Harvard more than most, are not bias you are totally ignorant.  As someone who just graduated from college, I can tell you the people studying political science, leadership, (other liberal arts) are complete nutjobs.  I had to take some humanity classes to graduate (engineering) and the teachers and all the other students in my class were ALL liberal. 

You've all done research at some point, right?  You have some school project and you have the task of finding a bunch of sources for your political argument.  A couple google searches away you find a bunch of articles posted by god-knows-who and turn it in.  Your teacher gives you an A.  In fact, I've heard time and time again from teachers that other teachers should be more strict on where students get their sources from.  I still get an A despite me not knowing who my source is or why he's credible.

Research is a joke.  Don't believe me?  Remember how Clinton won the election?  Oh wait...

 

What I'm saying is, conservatives have a tough time arguing not because they don't have sources, but because half of conservatives believe journalism and research is a joke.  And when they want to have a logical discussion, they get bombarded with a bunch of throwing articles  at them with google. 

To prove this, I'd like to show you a couple sources saying sources are BS -

http://theweek.com/articles/441474/how-academias-liberal-bias-killing-social-science
http://nypost.com/2014/10/12/liberal-bias-in-academia-is-destroying-the-integrity-of-research/
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009365099026002003

What?  My sources aren't legitimate....ok I guess I'll only believe things colleges known to be very liberal say.

you are not a victim. it is not hard to argue as a conservative or a liberal. all most people do is fling shit at each other.

you're comparing undergraduate "research" assignments to actual funded science? any stance you take on the validity of research whilst comparing these two together is absolutely doomed to make no sense. real research is invaluable so long as the experiments are reproducible. 

1 hour ago, Lushen said:

The issue is which facts are present and how they're skewed can be very bias.  All the republicans I know, including myself, refuse to answer telephone surveys.  All the liberals I know, love being asked their opinion.  Likewise, the internet is dominated by young people, so internet polls are infected with bad demographics as well.  The electoral college polls were known to be extremely credible, and look what happened.  The issue is, there is no perfect study group.  You should also look up conscious bias vs non.  We're both doing it right now.  I'm not ignorant enough to pretend I'm not looking at your arguments thinking of how they could be wrong, not right and don't pretend you're not doing the same.  It's subconscious, we can't help it. And when researchers are dominated by liberal people the research will have liberal bias.  Surveys are NOT facts. 

I'm sorry I really don't mean to be rude but I am a recent graduate for engineering.  What makes a PHD candidate more qualified than a graduate.  Aren't we the same right now at this moment?  And saying that we need a sticky for the ignorant Trump supports just proves you have some flawed political bias.  I wasn't talking about fake news.  I may have sourced news articles but those are sourcing actual research articles, which was what I was talking about, not news.  News, research, and journalism are all different.

 

@eclipseMay I ask which third party you voted for?  Just out of curiositiy.  I was considering third party because I didn't like either candidate, but I didn't like the third party candidates either.  I miss politics before Obama.  And no, I'm not blaming Obama, I blame the internet coming into fruition right around Obama's election and starting to have a major presence.  

funny that you think research is a joke but cite a phenomenon that could only be known to (possibly) exist through experiment. the cognitive dissonance that you exhibit is alarming. you are cherrypicking when something is valid or invalid based off of how you feel about it going in. this is very frustrating because your arguments fall apart from the foundation. it's impossible to talk to someone who feels they are right and are unwilling to consider alternatives.

56 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I'm not sure if there's any one political party out there that would well and truly represent everything I stand for.  Thus, I vote for whoever I think would have a half-decent shot at not screwing the country up. . .or in the case of this past election, which candidate would do the least amount of damage.

I think a lot of the problem is that the "leechers" tend to be some sort of faceless other.  I'm sure there's people out there who have the gall to tell someone else that they are worthless and deserve to die, to their face.  However, I think the majority of those that hold this attitude wouldn't be able to do so - once that "other" is embodied in a human form, it's a lot harder to tell that person to drop dead.

well, the biggest issue with the conservative parties of the world is that they lack basic human decency when generalized to more than the people they know personally. they are unable to see the forest for the trees.

pulling oneself up by the bootstraps is a nice sentiment, but in reality is hogwash. conservatives aren't unwilling to help people, they're unwilling to help people they don't know. doesn't really matter if they have a face or not. one of my good friends, who at this point is annoyingly conservative, has paid for vacations, meals, alcohol, you name it, for me without expecting a dime because he knows i'm broke. he doesn't complain because he knows i'm broke. he's a great friend. the issue that he and many other conservatives fail to see is that there are millions and millions of people just like me. people who need help to get to a comfortable spot in life.

Edited by Phoenix Wright
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

Then why do 84% of Americans support Obamacare's expansion of Medicaid?

There's a certain irony of Conservatives holding up "keep your government hands off my Medicaid/Medicare" signs, who vote Republican, the ones wanting to cut Medicaid. 15% of Republicans are the ones that say they would decrease federal spending of Medicare. (as well as some other interesting takeaways from Pew Research, there.) Most republicans either want to keep federal spending of Medicaid the same, or even increase it.

It's the devil you know vs the devil you don't.  Many people on it are glad they have at least something, but generally get lower access to care than pretty much anything else.  The work that would go into overhauling the system would put people's care at risk, which many aren't willing to consider.

There were similar studies a decade ago, where a vast majority of people were satisfied with their current healthcare, but it got overhauled regardless. 2010 Health Insurance Satisfaction Numbers

What I say is as an insider with experience treating Medicaid patients, who often express quite a bit of gratitude that I'm able to see them so quickly and express frustration in getting in to see a doctor in a timely manner.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Phoenix Wright said:

<snip>

Apologies for the confusion.  Perhaps my short-handed writing was a little confusing.  I have never actually owned a facebook.  The 'threats' were directed at two of my close friends and all of my family members who are Republican.  The result was my family members withdrawing from Facebook and my two friends ranting to me about it.  This is why I choose to not have a facebook (in addition to the fact that if I get drunk at a bar I don't want pictures of me all over facebook, but that's another topic).  A couple examples were: "Everyone who voted for Trump, defriend me right now" and "If you voted for Trump, you're no better than the man who murdered x" (related to a shooting of an muslim citizen). There were 'kill yourself' posts, but they've since been removed.

I wasn't comparing undergrad research to funded research directly.  However, a bunch of funded research comes from graduate programs from different colleges.  The students responsible for this research are 1-2 years into their graduate programs.  In other words, they have 1-2 years more experience and are regarded significantly higher than they should be in my personal opinion.

My view against research is not a view against fact.  I just don't have enough faith in research to call their facts facts.  For example, NASA (like harvard) keeps posting propaganda related to climate change.  Coal mining corporations keep posting propaganda related to climate change.  Each of these only post content in agreement with their views.  In both cases, they site surveys. 

Just to be clear, surveys are NOT fact.  If you say something with the phrase "x% of people" your fact is no longer a fact.  This goes back to the "Clinton winning the election" thing we were talking about earlier.  If this survey were fact, it would be impossible for her to lose the election.  You said that was the media, not researchers - but the media was conducting paid, professional surveys.  The issue is, it seems Republicans are less likely to answer telephone surveys than democrats.  That's the only logical explanation why they were so wrong (by a longshot).  Thus, telephone surveys are bogus.  In addition, you can throw out internet surveys because the internet is dominated by young people who tend to be liberal/democrats.  So what's left? Where are these people getting their surveys study groups from?   The grocery store?  An example would be the "97% consensus" for climate change among climate scientists.  This 'fact' has been referenced by multiple politicians including Barack Obama.  There is a multitude of articles showing that the study group responsible for this statistic was extremely bias and the statistic is absolute garbage.  Despite this, it's STILL being posted all over the place. 

If you truly think Trump's approval rating is below 40%...you're just silly.  There's no way someone who won the election with a SLIGHTLY lower pop vote percentage somehow lost 10-15% in his first few days of office.  Thing is, trump supporters are giving the big "F U" to telephone surveys. 

And 80% consensus against the health care bill?  Well, for starters it seems like it was close to 50/50 in congress.  And in my daily life, it seems to be 50/50.  Should I really believe some research saying my daily life is so misguided?  Maybe they need to figure out why their research keeps failing to represent reality. 

Anyways, that's just surveys.  I know there are other kinds of statistics, but with political science those are usually the most relevant. 

Edited by Lushen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

33 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I wasn't comparing undergrad research to funded research directly.  However, a bunch of funded research comes from graduate programs from different colleges.  The students responsible for this research are 1-2 years into their graduate programs.  In other words, they have 1-2 years more experience and are regarded significantly higher than they should be in my personal opinion.

The students are overseen by a trained professional, often times other students, a bunch of people on a counsel, and in order to be published outside of arxiv they are often overseen by a committee of other professionals. The students are directed by an adviser that knows what they are doing, which is shown by the publications and the publication quality as well as citations. This has been the case for a long time. You are simplifying a concept based on your lack of knowledge of this.

The students doing the research tend to not publish until they're into their 3rd-4th year of school, by the way.

33 minutes ago, Lushen said:

My view against research is not a view against fact.  I just don't have enough faith in research to call their facts facts.  For example, NASA (like harvard) keeps posting propaganda related to climate change.  Coal mining corporations keep posting propaganda related to climate change.  Each of these only post content in agreement with their views.  In both cases, they site surveys. 

When has coal put out something saying climate change is bullshit? Is it propaganda or is it actually peer reviewed research? Because peer reviewed research often takes the side of climate change actually existing, and many of our state departments actually believe in such things (for instance, the Pentagon and our own General Mattise are emphasizing the importance of climate change). There's a reason these things are peer reviewed and published, and many times replicated and published. If the methodology is consistent and the experiments and studies can be replicated and the processes are well-defined, then it goes beyond propaganda and into actual fact. There is a good amount of quality assurance that allows very little to slip through the cracks, and even then a lot of scientists (especially in that field) can see bullshit a mile away.

Furthermore, the EPA and organizations like the EPA focus on getting the message out to the public, which cannot be done in scientific literature as easily because scientific literature is more for others to base branching research off of and to give a basis for the research; it doesn't really exist to be consumed by the mainstream audience. In other words, the research itself is not propaganda, so much as the interpretation caused by the media can be construed as propaganda. Again, a fundamental misunderstanding of how scientific research works, and as a result trying to trivialize any and every source by saying "I simply don't trust the process" despite your lack of understanding of the actual process.

33 minutes ago, Lushen said:

Just to be clear, surveys are NOT fact.  If you say something with the phrase "x% of people" your fact is no longer a fact.  This goes back to the "Clinton winning the election" thing we were talking about earlier.  If this survey were fact, it would be impossible for her to lose the election.  You said that was the media, not researchers - but the media was conducting paid, professional surveys. 

No, polling has significantly greater methodology than you give it credit, and I advise you to read up on Gallup polling. Again, using the same set of data as other places, and taking a lot of factors into account, the professionals in the media got it wholly wrong whereas Nate Silver provided a much more realistic scenario. Also, they didn't say Clinton was definitively winning, so much as they said 98%, which is not "definitively winning" so much as "the outcome was very unlikely." And as it stands, the polling that was quoted was within error except for, I believe, Michigan, which was probably the biggest issue. Otherwise, the polling actually got the popular vote around 99% correctly, actually underestimating Clinton's popular vote numbers in comparison to Donald Trump's by a little bit!

33 minutes ago, Lushen said:

The issue is, it seems Republicans are less likely to answer telephone surveys than democrats.  That's the only logical explanation why they were so wrong (by a longshot).  Thus, telephone surveys are bogus.

Source?

33 minutes ago, Lushen said:

In addition, you can throw out internet surveys because the internet is dominated by young people who tend to be liberal/democrats.  So what's left? Where are these people getting their surveys study groups from?   The grocery store?

No, and internet surveys are disregarded by just about everyone and everything. The GOP survey that was posted a few months ago, for instance, heavily went right because of requiring a donation to the GOP and badly worded questions. Otherwise, internet polls have generally had the disclaimer about it showing the presence of the rabid online fanbase rather than actual polling. The flaws in the methodology are significantly more than what you have listed, but they are disregarded by people who actually aggregate the polls.

33 minutes ago, Lushen said:

An example would be the "98% consensus" for climate change among climate scientists.  This 'fact' has been referenced by multiple politicians including Barack Obama.  There is a multitude of articles showing that the study group responsible for this statistic was extremely bias and the statistic is absolute garbage.  Despite this, it's STILL being posted all over the place. 

The 98% has always been misleading. I believe the methodology was more "of all the climate papers related to climate change, 98% have affirmed the existence of climate change."

There's more detail here.

33 minutes ago, Lushen said:

If you truly think Trump's approval rating is below 40%...you're just silly.  There's no way someone who won the election with a SLIGHTLY lower pop vote percentage somehow lost 10-15% in his first few days of office.  Thing is, trump supporters are giving the big "F U" to telephone surveys. 

Less than 25% of those who were registered to vote actually voted for him. It's not silly at all. Why would they give an F U to telephone surveys when it helps their case anyway? Furthermore, the point continues to not make sense, because 85% of people who identify as Republicans say that Trump is doing a great job, which means that something like 45-47% of the country identifies as Republican if we assume that the entire 40% are Republicans (which they are not).

33 minutes ago, Lushen said:

And 80% consensus against the health care bill?  Well, for starters it seems like it was close to 50/50 in congress.  And in my daily life, it seems to be 50/50.  Should I really believe some research saying my daily life is so misguided?  Maybe they need to figure out why their research keeps failing to represent reality. 

How many people in your daily life identify as liberal? Democrat? Conservative? Republican? My daily life is littered with people who dread the ACA repeal, and I have interacted with thousands of people in my lifetime and around 30 different people every day, with a significant amount more on facebook.

50/50 in Congress is meaningless, because 60% of the states are red and they have more Senate approval. Also, more people voted in favor of Democrats by a fair margin for the House of Representatives, yet we have a Republican majority due to simple political gerrymandering. The House of Representatives, surprisingly, doesn't represent the United States as much as people would like to think! Your anecdotes don't contradict well-defined polling aggregates at all; you may just live in a more conservative area, just as I tend to live in a pretty heavily left-leaning area (the majority of my campus votes Democrat, and more people in my parents' home county voted Hillary Clinton than the entire state of Wyoming voted in the presidential election). This is why our anecdotes are meaningless and biased, and aggregate polling is necessary, especially when their methodology is so well defined. It's far more than a simple survey or a dude stopping you on the street.

 

Edited by Lord Raven
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Lord Raven said:

Source?

My source was the fact that Clinton lost the election.  It wasn't just Michigan, Trump won the election about as much as he possibly could.  He had nearly every single swing state and in many cases blew Clinton out of the water in them.  The surveys had the exact opposite scenario being hypothesized.  How can you tell me that this was just bad luck while also telling me that my view that research may not be very credible is completely irrational.  If we're going to make major policy changes based on these surveys, we should trust them to at least be in the ballpark for perhaps the most frequently conducted survey in the last couple years. 

And FYI, a couple weeks before the election I told everyone I thought Trump was going to win.  I thought this because I suspected liberal/democrats end up showing a lot more representation on surveys than is accurate and the surveys didn't have Clinton ahead enough to make up for that.  I assumed this because I personally have never answered a political survey and neither has my friends and family who were republican.  My two democrat roommates would always fill out surveys sent to our apt and I would just shake my head.  I was right then, so how can you tell me logical derivations mean nothing and surveys are more accurate?  Logic has always won for me.

edit:  Oh, and to be clear, I'm not saying I was smarter than everyone else.  I'm saying while everyone was accepting what surveys were saying I was actually thinking about it.

Edited by Lushen
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your claim was "Republicans don't answer the phone as much."

Your source should be a study that proves that. You did not post a source, you just said "Clinton lost, lol!" Otherwise, you're making shit up.

Also Trump did not blow Clinton out of the water in swing states.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016#Results_by_state

Again, they were within the error published by 538. Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania were not considered swing states either, so Trump overperformed (but within error except I believe in Michigan). Arizona was nearly won by Clinton.

But again, around 50% of the population voted. It's quite possible that the polls weren't wrong, the voter turnout was bad! It's also possible that a 2% chance of winning is not a 0% chance of winning! They didn't crown Clinton the presidency, they said that there is a real chance that Clinton could lose, with 538 being generally the best polls aggregate saying that her chance to win was at most 70%! And it was dwindling during election day before many of these states were even called, which shows that the models were consistent and could be replicated.

You haven't posted a source that contradicts my claim that certain states were within error. Many states also had things like restricted access to polling booths, voter registration laws that had a tendency to single out democrats, and generally lower voter turnout. Trump won some states that Romney lost with less votes than Romney (for instance, Wisconsin) and won some other states with marginally more votes than Romney whereas Clinton had a good chunk fewer votes than Obama (Michigan, Pennsylvania). These are symptomatic of poor voter turnout, at any rate, which often does lead to a margin of error - one that happened to allow Trump to pull ahead. Would it not surprise you that more people did not like Trump or Clinton, and still disapprove of Trump, and just didn't vote for either candidate because they hated both and continued to hate him after?

His approval rating at the start was around 45% and it dwindled down to around 35-37% after around a month or two of him farting around and not doing anything worthwhile or good.

Do not blame the polling for your crappy understanding of statistics or numbers.

13 minutes ago, Lushen said:

And FYI, a couple weeks before the election I told everyone I thought Trump was going to win.  I thought this because I suspected liberal/democrats end up showing a lot more representation on surveys than is accurate and the surveys didn't have Clinton ahead enough to make up for that.  I was right then, so how can you tell me logical derivations mean nothing and surveys are more accurate?  Logic has always won for me.

What is your source on this claim?

Edited by Lord Raven
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Tryhard said:

Undoubtedly (for better or worse), the left squabbles far more among themselves then the right does. I've made it clear that I'm not a fan of neoliberalism, but as we've seen during this political cycle the right have been willing to throw themselves behind Donald Trump even if they don't agree with what he's saying.

Agreed, I detest neoliberalism and I disagree over many (minor) issues with many fellow left-leaning friends, but we definitely need to learn to unite and find a common goal if we're to advance at all.

11 minutes ago, Lushen said:

I assumed this because I personally have never answered a political survey and neither has my friends and family who were republican.

I don't know anyone who has answered a political survey, if anecdotes are now counting. 

I live in California, so if I'd based my assumptions on the people I'm surrounded by, I would have been totally wrong. Lord Raven is right - we shouldn't jump from 'Trump won so the media is all lies!' but from 'Trump won - so this is a reminder that all polls have a margin of error, that it's important to get people to vote, and that gerrymandering should be examined.' 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...