Politics (formerly Election 2012)

[bldavis]

OMG NOT MARSHALL LAW!
is that like Murphy's Law?

(yes i know he meant Martial, just being snarky :twstied: )

edit:


/palm

[Dantriges]

Marshall Law is the cousin of Judge Dredd.

[Klaudandus]

Marshall Law is the cousin of Judge Dredd.

[Fridmarr]

I think you are giving too much credit to there being a conservative "silent majority". Court decisions regarding the Voting Rights Act resulted in a vastly increased (doubled from 27-56) number of majority ethnic-minority congressional districts for the 1994 election. Effectively, this created a systemic pro-republican gerrymander, and was the main reason for the wave election of 1994.

I think you linked the wrong research or misread it, but that research specifically says that the redistricting for MMD's did not have an adverse effect on the 1994 election results, like right in the abstract, a few tidbits:

We demonstrate that there is no significant difference in the level of partisan bias observed under redistricting plans with majority-minority districts and those without majority-minority districts. The claim that majority-minority districting has “perverse-effects” is not supported by the data....In the Senate, the Republicans gained 8 seats, giving them a 53-47 majority. We know that racial redistricting can at best provide only a partial answer to the Republican gains as there is no way redistricting caused the seat swings in the Senate...Not surprisingly, the data indicate that there is a positive increase in descriptive representation of minorities when majority-minority districts are present in
the redistricting plan. This is consistent with the previous research. We show further that there is no evidence to support the “perverse-effects” claim. Redistricting plans with MMDs do not exhibit a pro-Republican bias more than plans without MMDs.

Along with the Senate not being affected by gerrymandering, neither is the popular vote for president. Redistricting could have had some affect, but the sort of historic swings we saw in 1994 scale way beyond that. Not to mention the makeup and campaign tactics of that freshman class on the republican side was heavily fiscal conservative. Granted, that was easier then, there was not a particularly major social issue that broke across that social/fiscal conservative line then, so there was little risk of alienating one side. That's not the case now, and that line is fractured.

I don't think that fiscal conservatives are in the majority on the republican side of the house. When you start including those that are libertarians or independents it's probably pretty close. Either way it's a big group of enough significance that the republican party had rallied around it for some time, and does take up portions of their cause. They can not win without them. Further, I certainly don't think it's reasonable the way that so many folks just categorize all conservatives as the religious right and dismiss them.

I'd argue that could be just an artifact in the data due to psychology. Regardless of someone's actual relative viewpoints, most people tend to think of themselves as either conservative or moderate, in the sense of being "reasonable" and "open-minded"...

Given the cultural position on conservatism, I don't think a desire to feel open-minded would be behind such reporting. That said there are more robust datasets as well. When independents are polled on a series of specific issues, they break down into three active groups. The first two are closet republicans and closet democrats, folks who claim independence but their stance is almost exclusively along party lines, and the last is the independents that aren't as consistent. About 60% of that group falls into the fiscal conservative category.

Here's an example of the kind of self-described "conservatives" I know. This appeared on my news feed today...

I don't even know what to say to that. It's obviously pretty ridiculous at many levels. Suggesting that the president is having members of the military murdered is just off the board, I don't really have words for that. I don't know that I've seen anything like that on the standard news article comments and they are a disgusting cesspool. You don't think that could be a marine thing that causes you to encounter it so much do you?

I'm sorry that you know hundreds of people like that and I'm glad that I know none. I've certainly encountered some staunch socially conservative folks, particularly when I lived in Alabama, but again nothing like that. If people held those sort of beliefs they kept quiet about them.

I know hundreds of people who think like that, and only you who think like you.

I'm starting to wonder where you think I fall on some of these issues. I'm not unusual for a fiscal conservative. I'm sure I don't agree with every position of someone else, but other folks who have posted on this thread as conservatives are pretty close to me. I'm not far off of John Huntsman who you claim would have been your vote for president. That dude's comments you just posted are no where near anyone I know of, even the worst republicans in office don't approach that.

Maybe it's a generational thing.

All right...that one cuts...

There's a study you like to quote (I actually just bought the book of the scientist who conducted it) which showed that self-described Conservatives were able to very accurately predict the way self-described Liberals would answer questions, but Liberals sucked at doing the reverse. I guess that I, myself, have been quite a good example of this failure in this very thread.

Well I don't know much about it, I wasn't the first one to link it here, but anecdotally it seems to fit my experience. However, if what you quoted is any indication of a typical opinion you are getting from conservatives, I think that's where the problem is. If half the country actually thought that way, we'd have massive problems.

Maybe, rather, it's simply the fact that there is a shocking lack of thoughtful, rational Conservatives able to popularly articulate that ideology.
And if that is true, what does that say about that ideology?

Well I don't really buy a sort of guilt by association, I think that's a very very slippery slope.

In the media, there is a shocking lack of thoughtful, rational, conservatives and liberals. Neither side is very rational and they each seem to think the other is evil, which is very unfortunate. For every liberal starve the beast conspiracy theorist there's a conservative welfare state conspiracy theorist to match them. Far too many people on both sides seem to believe that the other is legitimately trying to harm everyone, instead of just having a different solution to the problems or viewing the problems differently.

[Skye1013]

Little late, but...
Economic Left/Right: -3.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.69

[bldavis]

Economic -3.62
Social -2.51

[Torquemada]

@Torquemada I think the "quiz" you took was The Political Compass.
(I would be interested in seeing where everyone falls on it in here, I know I've moved left over the years)

Actually, that's not the one I was thinking of. The one I'm remembering was a diamond with Libertarian at the top. But it's probably been 10 years since the first time I saw it. This isn't it either, but it looked somewhat like this:


I also took the MT quiz:
Economic Left/Right: 0.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.62

I took the liberty of updating the graph as well.

[Torquemada]

As far as the most recent Brekkie back and forth, I know several people like the ones Brekkie has mentioned, both on the right-wing wacko loon side of the discussion, and on the liberal hippie tard side. I manage through gritted teeth to stay associated with them on things like Facebook because I'm genuinely interested (And concerned) with the utter lunacy that is spewing from their mouths (Or in this case, fingertips).

The sheer fact that both side has crazies doesn't make either side crazy, or wrong. Additionally, what has rather irked me over the last several years is the need by many to build consensus. Having a consensus doesn't make you right. It just mean a larger group of people is possibly wrong. And the bigger the circus tent, the larger the space for the freak show.

[Passionario]

Economic: -3.8
Social: -7.5

[Amirya]

Economic Left/Right: -5.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.33

[Torquemada]

So, apparently by the standards of this group, I'm the resident arch-conservative. Got it. =)

[Brekkie]

In the most recent election, I was talking to my Gunnery Sergeant about the local-level ballot initiatives for our respective states. He asked which ones I had voted for, and I said I voted No on requests to open more state-run gambling sites, but Yes on a request to issue state bonds to pay for the cleaning up of a major pollution problem affecting the bay.

To my surprise, my Gunny snorted in derision.
"Ha! You consider THAT to be worth spending money on?"

"Err... yes. The bay is the lifeblood of the local economy of my home, and as an environmental resource, it is commons that no one would take care of otherwise. I think cleaning up pollution is good and is an appropriate function for government."

We proceeded to get into a long argument where his point of view basically boiled down to "Debt is bad, anything that requires going into debt to do is by definition not worth doing. Additonally, the private sector will clean up the environment."
Obviously, I felt quite differently, about both points.



That attitude is basically what I associate with fiscal conservatism. And I quite frankly do not understand it. It does not make sense to me. It does not seem internally consistent, or coherently rational. It feels to me more like naive, folksy oversimplifications and wishful thinking than a serious political stance.

At the end of the day, things cost money. Additionally, there is nothing inherently bad about managed debt. That is the disconnect I have with fiscal conservatism. Progressives don't want to be profligate purely for its own sake, we want minimal taxes just as much as the next person. But ultimately at some point you have to pay the bills and acknowledge reality.

We can quibble over implementation and details, and disagree over precisely what functions of government are worthwhile, but the striking thing about American politics is that there honestly is not a whole lot of disagreement in that regard. Even among so-called small-government fiscal conservatives, the social safety net and benefits such as social security and medicaid are extremely popular. Defense, similarly, is untouchably sacrosanct to conservatives. And then there is the discretionary spending which covers the STEM investments, roads, infrastructure, and basic functions of government that everyone claims to support.

So what is left? Not a whole lot.
This is the ugly truth about fiscal conservative ranting about our "big government" and profiligate ways. The vast majority of the budget is made up of things the overwhelming majority of Americans support and do not want cut. If you ask Americans whether we should cut spending they answer yes, but if you name programs to reduce or eliminate they say no to every single one. The fact is that welfare queens, Big Bird, and Planned Parenthood are simply such miniscule amounts of money as to be not even worth discussing in any serious debate over spending. Yet conservative politicians have been forced to pretend that major cuts can be accomplished on the back of this smokescreen, knowing that even their own constituents would not support the dismantlement of the New Deal.

America is a country with a big government that taxes like it has a small government.

Fiscal conservativism sounds really great, but under scrutiny holds nothing original not already encompassed by progressive ideas, while at the same time laboring under a false view of reality that we can somehow have our cake and eat it too through generous social programs, pensions, and a big military, while simultaneously paying low taxes.

[Nooska]

New chart with everyon up to this post in it (old link updated for the last time):
Maintankadin Crowd Chart

Edit; and no suprise that I'm still the leftist - I do self-describe myself as a socialist (specifically "peoples socialism, though that translates to sound like chinese brand of socialism, its a danish coined term "folkesocialist" from the tradition of "folkepartier" - peoples parties, I guess the closest would be a "movement")

Edit: Updated for lythac.

[lythac]

Economic Left/Right: -1.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.23

[KysenMurrin]

Economic Left/Right: -4.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.38

So far, almost everyone's a socialist.