Objectively intelligent.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Are you stupid or both? In a democracy, the majority should prevail. The GOP could change to try to win a majority, but it would rather try to do things like pack the Supreme Court and suppress the vote to keep power. Journalists should recognize this, instead of pretending it's not happening.

In a democracy where people elect representatives, the majority is not always supposed to prevail. They're designed (particularly ours) to avoid having a tyranny of the majority. The electoral college avoids having elections decided by pure majorities.

Suppressing the vote by illegal means is dirty pool. Seeking to exploit rules and structural advantages to avoid having the majority (or minority, if you're of the majority and trying to avoid having minority rule) control is just playing the game.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

Frankly, Republicans in today's America could, if they chose to, win consistently without engaging in voter suppression, court packing, or other marginal gamesmanship. All they'd have to do is drop some of their ideological radicalism. But that won't play in Republican primaries, which is why Romney, who put in place a market based, moderate healthcare system with near-universal coverage in Massachusetts, couldn't run on his record and had to disclaim his greatest accomplishment.

They have consciously chosen to be radical right assholes.

The primaries are a problem, true, but I don't see how the GOP could survive without the religious loons and ideologues. If they abandoned the fringe, they'd just be a smaller version of the blue dog wing of the Democratic Party. What would distinguish them from fiscally conservative/socially liberal Democrats? Not much.

If you looked at Hillary v. Jeb, which was the race we thought we'd get in 2016, other than in regard to health care policy, what was the big difference? What was the difference between Dole and Clinton in 1996? Was there a massive difference between McCain and Obama or Romney and Obama other than McCain's neocon leanings?

The looming battle going forward is going to be between the Biden moderates and Progressives. Most folks aren't voting for Joe for revolution. They're just voting against Trump, and for sanity.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

In a democracy where people elect representatives, the majority is not always supposed to prevail. They're designed (particularly ours) to avoid having a tyranny of the majority. The electoral college avoids having elections decided by pure majorities.

You are confusing different things. We do various things to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. For example, property rights and free-speech rights. So the powers of the government are limited. That is *not* a principled reason that a minority should get to exercise those powers instead of a majority. It used to be that women and blacks and others were disenfranchised, and white men had that minority rule. It is wrong.

And the electoral college is a vestige of a pre-industrial age, something that hangs on because it's hard to change. There are not a lot of people arguing that some principle suggests that voters in California, Texas and New York should underrepresented relative to Hawai'i, North Dakota and Vermont.

Suppressing the vote by illegal means is dirty pool. Seeking to exploit rules and structural advantages to avoid having the majority (or minority, if you're of the majority and trying to avoid having minority rule) control is just playing the game.

It's also dirty pool. But the question was not about how the "game" is "played," but about how journalists cover it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The primaries are a problem, true, but I don't see how the GOP could survive without the religious loons and ideologues. If they abandoned the fringe, they'd just be a smaller version of the blue dog wing of the Democratic Party.

Those who have tried to abandon the fringe are called Never Trumpers. If you run in a GOP primary and try to appeal to the center, you lose.

If you looked at Hillary v. Jeb, which was the race we thought we'd get in 2016, other than in regard to health care policy, what was the big difference?

The Republican Party gave you the invasion of Iraq and the 2007 financial crisis. Granted, it had some help with the latter. But let's pretend the only difference was the invasion of Iraq. Aside from the biggest foreign-policy blunder of the century, one that has costs billions and billions of dollars and many, many lives, what's the difference?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

You are confusing different things. We do various things to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority. For example, property rights and free-speech rights.

Both of which a percentage of this country (perhaps a majority, perhaps not) desires to limit. The extreme expansion of rights sought by the hard left at benefit to some and at cost to others is an infringement on the minority's property rights. The casualness of the left's argument that it should be able to censor or limit speech is frightening. I love Scott Galloway, but even he - a moderate - is suggesting platforms have a duty to police speech. Granted, this is not technically an infringement on free speech, but when a platform becomes the medium in which almost everyone communicates, the effect is squelching free speech. (Though I must note, it might have aided my psyche to preclude me from watching the Hunter Biden sex tape. [On a positive note, he appears well endowed... good for him.]).

So the powers of the government are limited. That is *not* a principled reason that a minority should get to exercise those powers instead of a majority. It used to be that women and blacks and others were disenfranchised, and white men had that minority rule. It is wrong.

A majority often, if not always, includes the people with the lowest capacity for critical thinking. They vote for odd things and bad policies, when they know why they're voting at all. A good example of this was Trump's wall. Majorities have to be massaged to vote for good things and not bad things, and this is tricky because majorities aren't terribly bright. Typically, one acquires a majority in politics by bullshitting a large crowd of credulous people. Pick any huge majority voting for a candidate and you'll find a load of people who don't even understand why they cast their ballot as they did. They'll have been promised a bunch of things, often things that are short term gratuitous fixes (Health care as a right, a wall, 'yer jobs comin' back from foreigners!, etc.).

Majorities are dangerous and need to be kept in check.

And the electoral college is a vestige of a pre-industrial age, something that hangs on because it's hard to change. There are not a lot of people arguing that some principle suggests that voters in California, Texas and New York should underrepresented relative to Hawai'i, North Dakota and Vermont.

There are not a lot of people arguing that Texas ought to be compelled to follow the sorts of rules that loons in CA seek to apply. That's why CA is relocating to TX.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Those who have tried to abandon the fringe are called Never Trumpers. If you run in a GOP primary and try to appeal to the center, you lose.

You'll hear no dispute on this from me. The party is hijacked by a pack of lunatics at the primary level. But it also cannot jettison them because it needs numbers they provide. No good option.

The Republican Party gave you the invasion of Iraq and the 2007 financial crisis. Granted, it had some help with the latter. But let's pretend the only difference was the invasion of Iraq. Aside from the biggest foreign-policy blunder of the century, one that has costs billions and billions of dollars and many, many lives, what's the difference?

There was a difference between Gore and Bush II. I didn't omit that comparison by happenstance. But my point was that in most races since Reagan, after which the Democratic Party adopted the same neoliberal stance as the GOP, the differences were minimal.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Both of which a percentage of this country (perhaps a majority, perhaps not) desires to limit. The extreme expansion of rights sought by the hard left at benefit to some and at cost to others is an infringement on the minority's property rights. The casualness of the left's argument that it should be able to censor or limit speech is frightening. I love Scott Galloway, but even he - a moderate - is suggesting platforms have a duty to police speech. Granted, this is not technically an infringement on free speech, but when a platform becomes the medium in which almost everyone communicates, the effect is squelching free speech. (Though I must note, it might have aided my psyche to preclude me from watching the Hunter Biden sex tape. [On a positive note, he appears well endowed... good for him.]).

Glad to hear that you disagree with the hard left, but so what.

A majority often, if not always, includes the people with the lowest capacity for critical thinking. They vote for odd things and bad policies, when they know why they're voting at all. A good example of this was Trump's wall. Majorities have to be massaged to vote for good things and not bad things, and this is tricky because majorities aren't terribly bright. Typically, one acquires a majority in politics by bullshitting a large crowd of credulous people. Pick any huge majority voting for a candidate and you'll find a load of people who don't even understand why they cast their ballot as they did. They'll have been promised a bunch of things, often things that are short term gratuitous fixes (Health care as a right, a wall, 'yer jobs comin' back from foreigners!, etc.).

Majorities are dangerous and need to be kept in check.

Minorities are similar, but smaller, and lacking the democratic legitimacy that a majority has.

There are not a lot of people arguing that Texas ought to be compelled to follow the sorts of rules that loons in CA seek to apply. That's why CA is relocating to TX.

Again, so what. My point was that both California and Texas, as different as they are, are underrepresented in the Electoral College, just as North Dakota and Vermont are overrepresented. Try to imagine talking about a more fundamental principle.

Also, the piece of land I own in California is far more valuable than any comparable piece of land in Texas. Try marking your views to that market.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The Republican Party gave you ..... the 2007 financial crisis. Granted, it had some help with the latter.

Bullshit. Didn't that start in Europe? And fueled here with the structure of mortgages from your pussy grabber's time?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Minorities are similar, but smaller, and lacking the democratic legitimacy that a majority has.

A majority of Alabama voters in 1960 thought black people should ride in the back of buses and give up their seats if someone who looks like you needed it. You don't think we need to have checks on the majority?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

A majority of Alabama voters in 1960 thought black people should ride in the back of buses and give up their seats if someone who looks like you needed it. You don't think we need to have checks on the majority?

I miss the days when we had majority rule and the Constitution was a check on its abuses, rather than minority rule with the Constitution as a protection for its abuses.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I miss the days when we had majority rule and the Constitution was a check on its abuses, rather than minority rule with the Constitution as a protection for its abuses.

according to Ty we've never had majority rule.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

Bullshit. Didn't that start in Europe? And fueled here with the structure of mortgages from your pussy grabber's time?

I don't have a dog in this fight, so if I've missed something let me know, but I thought the biggest trigger in the 2007 debt crisis occurred when US housing prices fell and the equity value of heavily leveraged securitized mortgage pools basic evaporated overnight, drying up the secondary mortgage as a source of funds.

And that the real acceleration of the crisis occurred with the collapse of first Bear Stearns and then Lehman Bros.

I don't think Republicans get all the credit for the collapse of the US housing market and the investment banks that bet on them. I mean, the Rs certainly did their part, but there were some Democratic policies that had a role, too, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley, often blamed as one major component, may have been written by a bunch of Republicans, but Democrats cut a deal to let it get through and it got signed by Clinton.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I don't have a dog in this fight, so if I've missed something let me know, but I thought the biggest trigger in the 2007 debt crisis occurred when US housing prices fell and the equity value of heavily leveraged securitized mortgage pools basic evaporated overnight, drying up the secondary mortgage as a source of funds.

And that the real acceleration of the crisis occurred with the collapse of first Bear Stearns and then Lehman Bros.

I don't know fuck all about markets and banks- I'm an IP punctuation specialist- but Ty says W's at fault.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Minorities are similar, but smaller, and lacking the democratic legitimacy that a majority has.



Again, so what. My point was that both California and Texas, as different as they are, are underrepresented in the Electoral College, just as North Dakota and Vermont are overrepresented. Try to imagine talking about a more fundamental principle.

Also, the piece of land I own in California is far more valuable than any comparable piece of land in Texas. Try marking your views to that market.

“Democratic legitimacy” = Numbers. Watch Idiocracy. The dumb fail at most things. Fucking isn’t one of them.

I’ll adjust my TX answer. I should not have to live under the edicts of a CA majority. And you shouldn’t have to live under those my state. Two different worlds. My only point on TX is, your state, which is a basket case that’s hemorrhaging bodies in all directions, shouldn’t tell anyone what to do, regarding anything.

On your last point, so what? If one lives in TX, he has way more land than you do at a lower price. And he’s acquiring fun neighbors fleeing CA. Your point?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

I don't have a dog in this fight, so if I've missed something let me know, but I thought the biggest trigger in the 2007 debt crisis occurred when US housing prices fell and the equity value of heavily leveraged securitized mortgage pools basic evaporated overnight, drying up the secondary mortgage as a source of funds.

And that the real acceleration of the crisis occurred with the collapse of first Bear Stearns and then Lehman Bros.

I don't think Republicans get all the credit for the collapse of the US housing market and the investment banks that bet on them. I mean, the Rs certainly did their part, but there were some Democratic policies that had a role, too, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley, often blamed as one major component, may have been written by a bunch of Republicans, but Democrats cut a deal to let it get through and it got signed by Clinton.

This right here. Agree 100%. There are several other factors, but this is more than adequate for a quick answer.

(Ratings agencies perhaps deserve to be in this exec summary.)