Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Well, I asked Sebby because I think he's more focused on the problem than anyone here, but tends to assume that any kind of political action is pointless.
If you want to talk about whether Dems are honest, fine. The person I hear pretending to bring back manufacturing jobs more than anyone else is Donald Trump. If Dems have a pathology here, it's the idea that retraining programs (and going to college, per that article) are going to solve the problem.
On the healthcare issue, attacking Dems as dishonest is totally weird to me. If you have been paying any attention over the last decade, which is sometimes unclear, you know that the Democratic Party is committed to using the government to extend healthcare coverage to pretty much everyone, and the Republican Party is opposed to that, as much for political reasons than out of some conviction that the free market does it better, and has opposed and sabotaged the ACA and lately has taken to lying about it quite a bit, although to be fair Trump lies about everything so maybe this isn't anything unusual. IIRC, you were bent out of shape because you thought the Democrats were being insufficiently candid about how far they would go to implement HCR, so it's a little odd to hear you complain that they were lying when they said they wanted to get it done.
In point of fact, improving the ACA is one of the things that the government can do to really help people who don't have a college degree, and if I were redesigning the party's priorities per that Geoghehan article, I would put HCR and the provision of social insurance at the center. Strengthen Social Security. Stop pretending that the government can bring good jobs to parts of the country that are losing them right now, and create a real safety and benefits to make sure that people don't fall so hard.
|
You’re still focusing on buying off the angry faction of the Trump Nation. These are all fine ideas for avoiding widespread homelessness and more opioid deaths. But opioid deaths aren’t really the problem. Our decreasing life expectancy among hopeless males isn’t the problem. Those are actually examples of a “social market economy” winnowing out the losers.
That’s harsh, but factual.
The real problem is the unemployable who aren’t dying any time soon. What do we do with them? I like UBI. But in that regard, I’m also buying them off.
The problem is they want meaning and dignity and many of them are not the brightest bulbs. I suggest trades, but I’m being unfair to tradespeople. A lot of these people can’t and won’t learn trades.
We’re being asked to find a way to give dignity and respect to a lot of people who haven’t seriously earned it. It strikes me a tad indulgent to narcissists. That’s why I think offering them their own little communities, detached from the rest, might work.
It’s a bizarre solution, but it’s a bizarre situation.
