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But if MAGA candidates strongarmed the government there, Cali would suddenly transform into paradise, right?
Can't argue this, but it's foolish to ignore that unregulated capitalism also raped many natural resources, led to bigotry and oppression -- even slavery -- of racial, ethnic, and religious groups, and triggered such maladies as child labor, the Great Depression, urban sprawl, terrible smog and pollution, and the Military-Industrial Complex, among other things by which we're still bedeviled. While I absolutely believe that Communism sucks, it's foolish not to acknowledge the downside, even evil, effects of capitalism, too.
... yeah, to you guys, any talk of fairness, equal justice and leveling the playing field for all, including the poor, is wokeism... Whatever.
Right, and groups like the Proud Boys, QAnon, Oath Keepers, and the Jan. 6 insurrectionists are 'Patriots' and really good people...
It's really unfortunate how much of a cult some of these people are in. And they seem to get more unhinged and more extreme almost by the day. We're heading into some very dark times in America now that millions are embracing literal violent fascism over democracy, and it's being pushed by people who have no grasp on reality or facts, but are otherwise seemingly extraordinarily angry at perceived victimhood. The level of projection is often off the charts.
Thanks for admitting they have no plans for any of those things.
They do; you just don't care to look them up.
Also, since I am here just to check in occasionally on the temperature of the Senate race, rather than play games with the likes of you, you are going on ignore. Peace.
Last edited by tribecavsbrowns; 11-01-2022 at 12:18 PM..
Also, since I am here just to check in occasionally on the temperature of the Senate race, rather than play games with the likes of you, you are going on ignore. Peace.
So I ask pretty straightforward questions about GOP plans to address domestic issues, and you all freak out and pretend like I'm being incredibly unreasonable. Insane.
To be honest, I have looked for some kind of GOP platform, and this is most of what I could find:
1. Complete the border wall. They don't specify how they would do this, where they would get the funding, or in what form the wall would take. This is the same promise they made in 2015-2016 with Trump, and it didn't happen even with full control of all 3 branches of government. It's also guaranteed to fail, just as all the others have. It's not the wall that's the issue, it's the policy.
2. Make all people regardless of income pay an income tax. Again no details, but knowing GOP history, this will simply hurt the middle and lower income groups in the name of "fairness", and would essentially equate to a tax increase for most people who can least afford it.
3. Ban federal debt ceiling increases. This one would be disastrous, and would almost guarantee that the US defaults on its debt obligations globally. It would almost certainly also guarantee extended government shutdowns which would affect millions of direct and indirect jobs and stymie just about all federal programs and departments. This would mean that everything from ODOT to the VA would stop getting money from the fed. There really wouldn't be anyone who wouldn't eventually see negative effects.
4. Install a sunset clause where all federal legislation would automatically end after 5 years. This would be horrendous in actual practice, as not only would national programs have no consistency, popular and vital legislation like Medicare and Social Security would end. Seniors, especially, would be absolutely screwed, and that would only be the beginning.
5. Defund the IRS. Not sure who this is supposed to help except rich tax cheats. This would absolutely harm the average American's ability to get their tax returns and skyrocket the deficit.
6. Ignore climate change. So no change from their current policy.
7. Reduce inflation and energy prices. There is no platform or any plans for actually addressing these anywhere that I could find.
8. Reduce crime. They have no plan to accomplish this whatsoever. Not to say that crime is actually "out of control" in the first place. This has been one of those fearmongering issues the GOP has latched onto this year despite most places seeing crime drops from last year and the current era being on the low end already of a 40-year drop.
9. Provide better health care. Again, absolutely no details and no actual plan on what that means. Past performance suggests the GOP will defund it in some way.
10. Provide better education. No details and no plan for this, either. But I suspect what this means is the following: Ban "CRT", ban trans and gay people, force teachers to carry guns and allow religion (Christianity only) in all public schools. That's about it. Nothing about actual education will take place.
11. Ensure safe and fair elections. No details yet again! Shocker. But again, based on recent action, we can probably guess this means the exact opposite. They will do what they can to disenfranchise certain demographics, fill election boards with cronies and generally undermine democracy at every conceivable turn for their own political advantage. They will get a huge boost when SCOTUS rules in Moore vs. Harper, which would essentially end representative democracy in the United States.
12. Oversight. That's it. What this means is difficult to guess because there are no specifics. However, based on what many in the GOP have said, this will almost certainly involve revenge investigations into their political foes and opponents because they feel like Trump et. al. have been treated unfairly. So they don't really mean oversight, they just mean petty BS based on fabrications. So expect a dozen or so more Benghazi "investigations" and something about Hunter Biden's laptop.
That's about it. I haven't been able to find anything else beyond the titles. None of this helps the average American, and if anything, most of these will have long-lasting, very negative consequences for the economy, constitutional rights and quality of life across the board. If this is the GOP platform, Americans have a lot to worry about.
So I ask pretty straightforward questions about GOP plans to address domestic issues, and you all freak out and pretend like I'm being incredibly unreasonable. Insane.
To be honest, I have looked for some kind of GOP platform, and this is most of what I could find:
1. Complete the border wall. They don't specify how they would do this, where they would get the funding, or in what form the wall would take. This is the same promise they made in 2015-2016 with Trump, and it didn't happen even with full control of all 3 branches of government. It's also guaranteed to fail, just as all the others have. It's not the wall that's the issue, it's the policy.
2. Make all people regardless of income pay an income tax. Again no details, but knowing GOP history, this will simply hurt the middle and lower income groups in the name of "fairness", and would essentially equate to a tax increase for most people who can least afford it.
3. Ban federal debt ceiling increases. This one would be disastrous, and would almost guarantee that the US defaults on its debt obligations globally. It would almost certainly also guarantee extended government shutdowns which would affect millions of direct and indirect jobs and stymie just about all federal programs and departments. This would mean that everything from ODOT to the VA would stop getting money from the fed. There really wouldn't be anyone who wouldn't eventually see negative effects.
4. Install a sunset clause where all federal legislation would automatically end after 5 years. This would be horrendous in actual practice, as not only would national programs have no consistency, popular and vital legislation like Medicare and Social Security would end. Seniors, especially, would be absolutely screwed, and that would only be the beginning.
5. Defund the IRS. Not sure who this is supposed to help except rich tax cheats. This would absolutely harm the average American's ability to get their tax returns and skyrocket the deficit.
6. Ignore climate change. So no change from their current policy.
7. Reduce inflation and energy prices. There is no platform or any plans for actually addressing these anywhere that I could find.
8. Reduce crime. They have no plan to accomplish this whatsoever. Not to say that crime is actually "out of control" in the first place. This has been one of those fearmongering issues the GOP has latched onto this year despite most places seeing crime drops from last year and the current era being on the low end already of a 40-year drop.
9. Provide better health care. Again, absolutely no details and no actual plan on what that means. Past performance suggests the GOP will defund it in some way.
10. Provide better education. No details and no plan for this, either. But I suspect what this means is the following: Ban "CRT", ban trans and gay people, force teachers to carry guns and allow religion (Christianity only) in all public schools. That's about it. Nothing about actual education will take place.
11. Ensure safe and fair elections. No details yet again! Shocker. But again, based on recent action, we can probably guess this means the exact opposite. They will do what they can to disenfranchise certain demographics, fill election boards with cronies and generally undermine democracy at every conceivable turn for their own political advantage. They will get a huge boost when SCOTUS rules in Moore vs. Harper, which would essentially end representative democracy in the United States.
12. Oversight. That's it. What this means is difficult to guess because there are no specifics. However, based on what many in the GOP have said, this will almost certainly involve revenge investigations into their political foes and opponents because they feel like Trump et. al. have been treated unfairly. So they don't really mean oversight, they just mean petty BS based on fabrications. So expect a dozen or so more Benghazi "investigations" and something about Hunter Biden's laptop.
That's about it. I haven't been able to find anything else beyond the titles. None of this helps the average American, and if anything, most of these will have long-lasting, very negative consequences for the economy, constitutional rights and quality of life across the board. If this is the GOP platform, Americans have a lot to worry about.
I think you're right, these seem to be the issues most talked about in the P&OC forum, here. But, if you got them from a single source, can you link it, in case they want to defend it, or deny it?
8. Reduce crime. They have no plan to accomplish this whatsoever. Not to say that crime is actually "out of control" in the first place. This has been one of those fearmongering issues the GOP has latched onto this year despite most places seeing crime drops from last year and the current era being on the low end already of a 40-year drop.
Uhh I am a democrat but this point is ridiculous. It's not fearmongering to acknowledge that violent crime has been trending upward since 2019 at an alarming rate. The general perception of public safety is much less than it was pre-pandemic.
I think you're right, these seem to be the issues most talked about in the P&OC forum, here. But, if you got them from a single source, can you link it, in case they want to defend it, or deny it?
That's the thing, there is no single source AFAIK. The GOP website has virtually nothing. This was taken from multiple different articles talking about specific issues that seem to be mentioned the most by GOP candidates and leadership.
Uhh I am a democrat but this point is ridiculous. It's not fearmongering to acknowledge that violent crime has been trending upward since 2019 at an alarming rate. The general perception of public safety is much less than it was pre-pandemic.
No, it's not ridiculous at all. Crime did seem to go up most places in both 2020 and 2021 (there is some evidence crime actually began rising prior to the pandemic in 2019), but both parties were in control at different times of that trend, so logic dictates it wasn't a party issue, but more about everything else going on the time, especially economic issues. Crime this year is indeed on the decline from last year, however, so the media and public hyperventilating about crime skyrocketing seems somewhat strange given the opposite is now occurring. Recently, there was a report about how crime in New York was being reported. Shootings in the city were essentially flat the last few years, but since the beginning of this year, the media reporting about shootings has gone up 8-fold. People are being manipulated into believing the problem is far worse than it is.
And the recent rises have to be put into greater context, as well. The fact of the matter is that crime rates nationally have been on a multi-decade decline, so even with the recent spike, crime rates are *significantly* below where they were historically. https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/home This is a good page to see crime rates both nationally, per state and by city and police jurisdiction since 1985. The trends are crystal clear and virtually universal.
Here is the Columbus violent crime rate since 1985, just for an example. The data is from the above website. https://imgur.com/8nJhUiL A person was about 2x more likely to be a victim of violent crime during the Reagan Administration than Biden's in Columbus.
All that said, even if crime was way up- and again, it's not- Republicans still have zero plans to do anything about it. In fact, there's a reason why Red states have higher average crime rates than Blue. Their policies, when they even bother to have any, don't work.
No, it's not ridiculous at all. Crime did seem to go up most places in both 2020 and 2021, but both parties were in control at different times of that trend, so logic dictates it wasn't a party issue, but more about everything else going on the time, especially economic issues. Crime this year is indeed on the decline from last year, however, so the media and public hyperventilating about crime skyrocketing seems somewhat strange given the opposite is now occurring.
And the recent rises have to be put into greater context, as well. The fact of the matter is that crime rates nationally have been on a multi-decade decline, so even with the recent spike, crime rates are *significantly* below where they were historically. https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/home This is a good page to see crime rates both nationally, per state and by city and police jurisdiction since 1985. The trends are crystal clear and virtually universal.
Here is the Columbus violent crime rate since 1985, just for an example. The data is from the above website. https://imgur.com/8nJhUiL
Recently, there was a report about how crime in New York was being reported. Shootings in the city were essentially flat the last few years, but since the beginning of this year, the media reporting about shootings has gone up 8-fold. People are being manipulated into believing the problem is far worse than it is.
All that said, even if crime was way up- and again, it's not- Republicans still have zero plans to do anything about it. In fact, there's a reason why Red states have higher average crime rates than Blue. Their policies, when they even bother to have any, don't work.
I only look at homicide rates because that is the only reliable crime stat. According to your link, US homicide rates are the highest they have been since 1997. Ohio's homicide rate is at the highest it has been since 1991. That's notable.
If homicides only spiked in 2020 and went back down after the vaccine, that's one thing. The fact that they are remaining high in so many places almost into 2023 is what makes people concerned.
Republicans don't need to have a plan. The Democrats are under a microscope this election cycle because they control Congress and the White House so any issues in the last few years will be seen as their responsibility. All a Republican candidate has to do is not be a Democrat in order to pick up votes. I'm not saying this is right or how it should be, but this is the reality of the two party system.
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