Those Dumb Democrats

[jwocky]

@Lydiot ... and now we try that thing with reading CAREFULLY again ... and again if necessary. Maybe you ge the point somewhere in the future. Really? You pick single lines out to twist the content? Well, see, as profiler, one reacts to recurring patterns, not only in single persons, but as well in population groups. The recurring pattern of hit and run can be observed pretty strictly in "board and forum liberals". Most of them, for example on Yahoo are typically low information voters just following their leader. Some are a little bit brighter and copy endless statistics ... unfortunately without understanding them and when you ask them about these inconsistencies, they never respond. And then, we have the top dog section in this group who also copies endless statistics including inconsistencies or off topic and garnish them with all too often made up "facts" like for example "Germany never paid reparations". This comes often in combination with wonderful rhetorical exercises in manipulation. Like the poster doesn't write "I don'r believe x", he writes "if we believe x" and thus, he thinks, he can't be pinned, but sows still the same impression.

See, if you want to see a conservative pattern on the low end, you can look out for endless Bible quotes, suggestion to declare open season on Muslims and similiar nonsense. You find always the pattern of "follow the guy with the biggest balls" and you find always again on that level the idea to let rather a Democrat win an election than supporting a candidate who hasn't catered enough to religion.
The problem with conservatives is, they are hardly to unite, at least in the US. Because what we understand here is a spectrum and every little slice has own ideas and often even an own perception how the world is or should be. Which adds to the conservative behavioural pattern hefty in-fights. Just a little story from my unfortunate past on other boards. I am in many of my views a conservative (though not a member of the Republican party). So, from a conservative view on a Constitution that is based on the idea all American citizens are equal and have to be treated equal by the law and the lawmakers, I supported on one of the well heated public news forums gay marriages. One can have other opinions about that, fine, but then, the religious fringe came out of the bushes and I got once more my share of murder threads (I am not sure why people always think, they can scare me, but that's another story). Long story short, support for gay marriage brought me almost, not entirely, as many murder threads and really bad mooded posts as profiling the Flint-Stabber as Middleeastern psychopaths instead of a white supremacist as anybody wanted to see him. So, if you read till this point CAREFULLY ENOUGH you might be able to recognize another behavioural pattern there.

Bottom line is, the low end of the liberal spectrum and the low end of the conservative spectrum would probably even together and added up able to bring up a decent IQ. But nevertheless, due to different self-understanding and cultural differences, the recurring patterns are different and can be recognized if one is willing to see them and is not in any need to have his eyes closed to support his political affiliation.

[KL-666]

What i see happening a lot is people promoting an opinion to an absolute truth. Resulting in feeling they have the right to take a life over an opinion about gay marriage.

Let me try to explain the difference between an opinion and a truth. Think of someone walking barefoot in the mud. It is a truth that he may catch a cold or an infection at his feet. But it is an opinion that he should or should not do it. The mistake that is made, is thinking that you can make a truth out of an opinion because of underlying truths.

You are also not completely free of such reasoning, Jwocky. I see you arguing in the direction of: There are many bad things happening, which are true (i mean, i am not going to contest that). So it is true that people should fear and lock themselves up with guns at home (or something of the kind). But the latter is not a truth, it is an opinion in which other people may choose different.

Btw. I deduct you promoting the opinion to a truth, from the way you have a slightly denigrating air towards people that choose different.

Kind regards, Vincent

[jwocky]

Okay, Vincent, a lot of truth in what you wrote, alas, also a lot of misunderstandings in it about what I wrote in earlier posts, so lets clear it up, but before I do it, let me ask you a favour: Please, can you describe in rough strokes what you, as a European "liberal" consider "liberal"? It's just for a thought experiment.

Now, clearing up: I said bad things happen and indeed, they happen. I don't say, people have to lock in their homes with a lot of weapons. I tried to start a discussion about other measures than just taking the guns from law abiding citizens (a measure proven as ineffective but well, it can be made acceptable if other conditions are met). The problems to discuss are for example police response times (which are longer than in the Netherlands), too many guns in the hands of criminals and all too often those criminals part of organized crime, the terrorist problems (are there ways to find those terrorists before they strike and have already killed so and so many victims?)
So, what life taught me is, the order in which things are done definitively matters. A pilot want to have his engines started before he takes off because if he tries it the other way around, he stands still next week in his parking spot ... something like that, but on a much more complex level since more factors are involved. And, projecting the same kind of thinking back on the whole gun ban or not discussion, if you want to ban guns without committing political suicide, you need first to create the preconditions that people actually feel safe without. Some parts of those related problems also apply to other countries. France doesn't allow assault rifles, the Paris attacks still happened. Bombs are outlawed, still Paris happened, Charlie Hebdo happened, Boston happened. So I would rather discuss the whole question how to detect for example the activity of terrorists before they get to many chances to hurt innocents than just follow a political buzzline which in quit essence has be proven already as ineffective (thanks again to Lydiot, who, against his own intentions, provided the statistics).

And then, there is a thing about truths based on truth. Let me just steal your example:

Let me try to explain the difference between an opinion and a truth. Think of someone walking barefoot in the mud. It is a truth that he may catch a cold or an infection at his feet. But it is an opinion that he should or should not do it. The mistake that is made, is thinking that you can make a truth out of an opinion because of underlying truths.

See, in this example, there is the seed laid out for a very hot discussion about why people shouldn't run around barefoot in the mud. And surely, especially if we get some attorneys into the debate, it can go on forever with a lot of bashing each other. No problem, people can make an elephant out of EVERY mosquito.
Here is the rub: Nobody asked why this hypothetical person was running in the mud without shoes? Stupidity? Or maybe this guy has no shoes? If so, why? Can't he afford shoes? Would he wear shoes while running around in the mud if he would have shoes?
Once you start to ask those questions, you have in this kind of debate pissed of everyone because think become quickly to complex to just dismiss them with mere buzzlines and silver bullets. That's uncomfortable. You find yourself at some point where such an annoying disturbing guy asking those unpredictable questions wants to find a way to get this guy shoes. The whole simplified world view starts to crumble and instead of finding a way to get this guy shoes, the guy who asked about the why to find the root problem is shunned and attacked (not by you, I try to explain how such things work all too often in general). And things get worse, if that guy tries to sketch out an idea how to get him shoes because first of all, people fear he will next continue with socks and second, there is for sure somewhere a group of people who are against shoes in general and will defend this guys right to wear no shoes ... whether he wants or not. Because they know, for reasons that are beyond explanation, that shoes are bad!

So that is the situation in this thread. Alone the attempt to throw in the underlying problems (instead of following the belief in some kind of silver bullet solution was "crime" enough to make me a target. And worse, I have pointed out three times now, what I am aiming at: Ideas, solutions. Every time, all that came back was attack and the desperate attempt to promote the silver bullet and nothing else.
See, if you look at the cases from the Netherlands, I listed earlier, you can also see, the police response times were excellent which, not in all cases, but in many, prevented worse outcomes. The police could respond so fast and aim oriented because they have, at least in most situations, adequate gear and organization. So obviously, there is something, we can learn from. And the cases in which the reaction was not adequate deserve a closer look at what really happened and then we can learn from them too. I think, we should and we need to put a lot more effort in figuring out, what is going on than to just declare simplified solutions as THE one and only truth.

[KL-666]

Hello Jwocky,

Here is a slight ambiguity in the meaning of "liberal". As i said before, the conservative party calls itself that way because they are focused on material freedom. Freedom of speech, etc... and freedom to reap what you work for. There is another party that says: Freedom is broader than that. It is also in things like being free of constantly being monitored, and in allowing people that can not work to have some economic freedom. The broader variant realizes that freedoms can conflict and need to be weighed against each other. Like the working person versus the not able to work person, the freedom to live in protected peace versus being free of being monitored. The conservative party does not have the weighing issue because they only focus on some freedoms and neglect the conflicting ones.

So basically a liberal is someone that wants to protect freedoms. They come in a basic variant focused on some freedoms, and a complex variant focused on all freedoms. Liberal here is a very positive word. The thing that Americans call liberal, i think we would call anarchy or so.

Btw. I thought you are an ex European, so i expected you to know the European meaning of liberal.

I agree that "guns for the public" is too big an issue in itself, and should never have entered the discussion about "protecting security". The subjects may have some relationship, but not very much. Also i agree that protecting security should be done on a wide front. To be effective in prevention, one cannot arbitrarily neglect some security aspects. Yet people may have different opinions on the balance of how much "state control" they accept versus the level of protection they get.

Kind regards, Vincent

[LesterBoffo]

Here's another example, when Gabriel Giffords was shot in the mass shooting in Tuscon, there was a CCW carrier in the immediate vicinity who pulled out his weapon and started running towards the gunfire.

His problem, that another person had managed to grab Jared Lee Loughner, and subdued him, just as this gun owner got closer with his gun ready. He said that if he had tried to just shoot Loughner he might have ended up wounding or killing the only person who had subdued Loughner.

And just how do we know if yet another gun-carrying person would mistake this good samaritan as the bad guy and shot him instead? If I were him I would think twice about drawing a gun out in such scenario.....

Little late responding to this..

Well think about how you would be in this situation, depending on your level of preparedness, the big load of adrenaline that just flooded your senses from responding, would make or break any clarity you could bring to this situation.

JWocky is right, it's not the gun but the problem of the one wielding it.

How cool can one keep themself's in a potential situation where one might also end up being shot, or shooting the wrong person. A lot of internet forums have people who go on and on about what they would do in these situations, but who probably don't really have the required training to actually handle themselves well when push and shove come together. It's a bad situation to have self trained or poorly trained CCW's in a public shooting, especially if they're not really in control of their rational selves because of stress or emotions.

[IAHM-COL]

Progress Report:
I talked already to Skyboat privately.

I have an scheduled appointment to talk to JWocky, privately as well.

IH-COL

[jwocky]

Hi Vincent,

So basically a liberal is someone that wants to protect freedoms. They come in a basic variant focused on some freedoms, and a complex variant focused on all freedoms. Liberal here is a very positive word. The thing that Americans call liberal, i think we would call anarchy or so.

from your post

The key term seems to be "protect freedoms" and if I would have written it, I may would have worded it "freedoms of the individual".
Liberals here believe in redistribution of money, high spending and high taxing and obviously, as the results of the current administration show, in high debt. They believe in big government and regulation of basically everything. For those who haven't read the law yet, Obamacare defines even what kinds of contraceptives married couples can use with government support and which ones not and I have to look up at what age you have to have the mandatory consulting about dignified and cost effective dying. I know SkyBoat is nearer to that age than I am so maybe he knows.
So, on a mere tehcnical level, many "liberals" (not all) here aren't even liberal because what thery stand for has nothing to do with liberalism. That is why I wanted you to write down what a liberal is in Europe because if I would havwe done it, I would have to deal with "the conservative got it all wrong" again. Thanks.

[jwocky]

Hi Lester,

you pointed out exactly the reasons why I try since years to convince people we would need instead of ineffective gun bans a mandatory training course for legal gun owners. And this course should, in my opinion, include aside of some crisis training also subjects like maintenance, safe storing of weapons, and some technical things you do and you don't with guns. I guess, if I see the next wannabe cowboy exercising Wild West quick draw with an unlocked Glock and a round in the chamber from a hip holster that sits five inches too low and three inches too far forward, I have to decide ... shall I cry or should I puke?

See, the problem is not the gun but the person wielding it. In a way, it's like driving a car. We demand from guys we give a license to drive that they can actually drive a car ... oh wait ... when I got my license here for the first time with theory test and had this little "test drive" with the state trooper, I couldn't believe how easy going it all was and well, not that I want to complain, but it makes me realize why it is possible that so many Americans are bad parkers and never use the blinker before they turn ... so maybe, under American conditions, the comparison to a necessary mandatory gun certification test limps a little?

[SkyBoat]

Hi Vincent,

Your sense that American liberals perhaps are anarchic is not really accurate at all. Part of that misunderstanding is the very different ways Europeans and Americans define the term “liberal” in the political context. Of course, the word itself has many different meanings depending on how it is being used. If one refers to the Liberal Arts as a collegiate course of study, that includes the classics in literature, language, the arts, and philosophy. In general use, liberal means to be generous.

Liberal can also have a different meaning if used in relation to philosophical, economic or religious perspectives. Here it generally means a person who is committed to social justice issues regarding the poor, economic opportunity, or ecological issues, just to name a few.

The word liberal in American politics has a much wider range of meaning than you may have assumed. It is not a black or white kind of label, but rather a continuum. For instance, referring to our two major political parties one can say someone is a liberal Democrat or a liberal Republican and in context we understand what that means. The reverse can also be true, and an individual called a conservative Democrat or a conservative Republican. Since we understand what these “codewords” mean, when those labels are applied to a person or politician, we get a sense of where he or she lies along the political spectrum.

Democrats, however, are moving away from calling themselves "liberals." It is a term that has become so generalized that by itself it is very hard to know what it means. Instead, more and more, Democrats are referring to themselves (myself included) as Progressives. This word has a meaning of intentionality, of being politically aligned toward advancing to the future. It also, then, creates a more meaningful juxtaposition in contrast to the term Conservative, which, from our perspective, we interpret as being more focused on preserving that which was.

Progressives have the political and social philosophy that we are in community and that we have a moral responsibility to care for each other. That includes the person from the humblest beginnings to the person born into the riches family in the nation. We are all in this together. It is not that we don’t value individualism or individual effort. Nothing could be further from the truth; but we see that effort always in the context of not just enriching ourselves for our own sake and our sake alone, but for participating in a better society for all. It's nothing close to anarchy, as you can see. But it is where we have a huge difference with Conservatives over the role of government.

Progressives see government as a vital and positive agency of our national strength, that has the capacity, because of its vast capabilities, to serve the people, in concert with the private sector—that is a vibrant free-enterprise capitalism—so that all Americans have the equal opportunities guaranteed to them in the Constitution of the United States. These opportunities are phrased in the Preamble to our Constitution, quaintly to our modern ears, but nevertheless still powerfully, as “the Blessings of Liberty.” This phrase itself, was distilled out of the document known as our Declaration of Independence, from which these words inspired a scattered group of thirteen English colonies to fight their way to independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Progressives believe that ensuring right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” is the proper role of government working hand in hand with the people.

That means that in some cases the government can, in fact, provide services better than the private sector. Many Conservatives strongly disagree with this. It is, of course, a spectrum of disagreement, but generally, most conservatives want far less government social programs (though some want all social programs abolished as a matter of principle), instead those activities being done by private companies, far fewer regulations to their business functions, and as absolutely as low as taxes as can be had.

Progressives look around the world and see what other highly developed nations are doing, who appear to cherish the concept of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” even though they do not have that written anywhere in their Constitutions. They have established services for their people which support those ideals, and naturally seem to accept the ideal that government is a vital and positive agency in concert with the private sector.

The most obvious and contentious example here in the United States is health care. You may have never heard it called by its proper name, The Patient Portability and Affordable Care Act, since its detractors immediately named it Obamacare. As you may be aware, until the ACA was passed the United States was the only major developed country in the world without a government supported or socialized medicine program.
Let me be honest, the ACA was a series of compromises because there was not the political support to essentially revamp and expand the U.S. Medicare program to the entire populace. I was well aware of the issues in the ACA because, unlike (I hope they were just blustering) a majority of the Republicans in Congress claimed at the time, I read all 1100+ pages of the thing.

And you probably vaguely remember hearing on your news about the disastrous roll-out of the website when the ACA went live a couple of years ago.

Well, here, we still hear from conservative pundits on TV and Radio and online and from outer-space (Okay, just a little levity), that every glitch that the ACA experienced since the bill was signed into law in 2010 is a reason so scrap the whole program. And even now, the Republican leadership and Congressional Caucus (that is the group of GOP in Congress) are vowing to repeal the ACA, as our new Speaker of the House of Representatives (and constitutionally 3rd in line for the Presidency should the President and the Vice President both die or be removed) said, he would repeal every word. So there you have it.

So why the antipathy toward having people have socialized health care in the United States? That’s a really interesting question with an even more interesting answer:

And it happens to be directly tied to a secret memo just recently acquired by Politico and The Daily Kos from one of the Conservative’s top masterminds, William Kristol, written way back on December 2, 1993. It was titled: “Defeating President Clinton’s Health Care Proposal.” William Kristol, earlier, had been Vice President Dan Quayle’s Chief of Staff. He is still active in the GOP today. Here is the link to the full memo:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/12926608/William-Kristol-s-1993-Memo-Defeating-President-Clinton-s-Health-Care-Proposal

Kristol wrote:

Passage of the Clinton health care plan in any form, would guarantee and likely make permanent an unprecedented federal intrusion into and disruption of the American economy—and the establishment of the largest federal entitlement program since Social Security. Its success would signal a rebirth of centralized welfare state policy at the very time we have begun rolling back the idea in other areas. And, not least, it would destroy the present breadth and quality of the American health care system, still the world’s finest.

As a point of reference, I began my tenure in the American health care system three years later in 1996. I would take issue with Kristol’s glowing accolade that at that time ours was still the world’s finest, and I worked at a very fine Level II Trauma Center.

But here is the key point to what I call the Kristol Doctrine that is still being followed lock-step by the Republicans today, putting their political ambitions far, far, above the health needs of the American people:

But the long-term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will even be worse—much worse. It will relegitimize the middle-class dependence for “security” on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government.

It is my personal opinion that this doctrine is beyond cynical; it is immoral in the strongest sense of the word.

Kristol’s plan worked, at least in part. President Clinton’s health care plan was trounced. Clinton was reelected in 1996. In a desperate political move the GOP tried to get rid of him through impeachment. Despite being impeached by the House of Representatives, the final vote failed in the Senate. And then there was the election of 2000 between George Bush and Al Gore. But I’ll never go into that one.

So, there you have it. An explanation of what a Liberal/Progressive is from one in the flesh, and a bit of background on why the war over the liberal/conservative, ACA/Obamacare is so politically fierce, vitriolic and polarizing from my perspective.

Just one more thing. I’m currently on Obamacare. I’m not old enough yet for Medicare. Got just over two more years to go for that. My wife and I just finished our application on the website with our insurance agent last week. Not a glitch. We were able to pick a plan that met my health needs even better than the plan we currently have, by changing to a different insurance company. We had a choice of several in our state. Our monthly premium virtually stayed the same and is very affordable for our budget. And we were able to add vision care for both of us in that amount, something we didn’t have last year. Finally, the Obamacare subsidy we qualified for per person for this “Gold” (3rd out 4 tier coverage) plan was nearly US$1000. Per month.

This is what Progressives think all Americans have a right to. Health care they can afford, and we will fight tooth and toenail, to use an old phrase, first, to improve it, and second, to ensure nobody, not even Mr Speaker and his GOP henchmen/women or their counterparts in the Senate take that away from us.

It’s our goal to make Mr. Kristol’s worst nightmare about national health care comes true!

[KL-666]

Hello Skyboat,

Because the word liberal could be used so negatively, i thought it must be quite extreme, like anarchy. But now i understand it is merely what we would call a socialist. Every country here has a (quite large) social-democratic party as they call themselves nowadays. We use the word progressive in the sense you do. It applies to the left and center of the political spectrum. But it is more like a secondary term, like a subtitle.

Amazing that after the guns, there is also a deep division about healthcare in America (i had heard a bit about it in the news). Here the opinions are rather close together. The socialists have nothing to complain, because every social scheme one can think of is in place. And no conservative even contemplates to take one of them out. The debate here is about: Should we put 1 million more or less in such-and-such social scheme next year. In fact we have a coalition government at the moment made of conservatives and social-democrats.

A big government is something nobody has as a goal here. Everyone agrees it is a necessary evil one has to accept to get our social schemes organized. We try to keep it as small as possible, but not smaller than necessary.

No one here can imagine a society without healthcare insurance for all (mandatory). Going to hospital can be very expensive and can put a normal income person in deep debt that he can not pay back in a lifetime. Even the extremest conservative understands that having too many people without a horizon to get out of debt has a negative effect on society as a whole (including the conservatives).

Personally i really wonder what is on the mind of a normal income American that votes against health insurance for all.

Kind regards, Vincent