Moving this video to Morganth's personal queue. It failed to receive enough votes to get sifted up to the front page within 2 days.

*promote

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 10:40pm PDT - promote requested by Crosswords.

*80s

Adding video to channels (80s) - requested by ant.

Saint Ronnie seems like a pretty liberal kinda guy.

*politics

Adding video to channels (Politics) - requested by NetRunner.

George W must have been a constant and unfailing dissapointment to his dad.

>> ^NetRunner:

"Saint Ronnie"
politics


lol

>> ^NetRunner:

Saint Ronnie seems like a pretty liberal kinda guy.
politics


I still don't know why conservatives today want a wall. I don't think there is any sense to most of the party politic nowadays, neither sides seems really consistent with an overarching ideology, more like specific stances on specific issues without any general reason to connect them. I am an idea man at heart, so my ideas have to connect. Most people don't care about ideas as much as results, taking on a particular set of ideas only comes after matching it up with results they desire, and in spite it contradicting other sets of ideas that get things they want. I would suspect, we all have a few irrational points of politics.

But to the video, anyone see the debate here as a REAL debate and not talking points. Have things changed that much in 20 years? the entire tone of this seems completely foreign to me, and welcome.

@GeeSussFreeK following an ideology consistently is a lot harder than consistently supporting a particular policy position.

And consistently following ideology doesn't always mean you end up with consistent policy positions. A lot of ideologies that seem consistent in the abstract start getting real blurry once they come into contact with real-world problems.

But I'm with you on the right's position on immigration going against their stated ideology. The small-government position should be that government shouldn't be allowed to constrain people's movements, not that they should build a wall and give the police the power to arbitrarily demand proof of citizenship from people.

@NetRunner Ya, because the real objective of the wall isn't about government size, to them, but about some other, for whatever reason, elevated core ideal. It is odd, and inconsistent, and pretty much impossible to nail down. The basket of ideas people draw from to make decisions is pretty troublesome when trying to make a system that both works and is consistent. This problem of idea interchange is at the heart of the thought experiment I am devising for my new middle out approach to a government. I am starting around the idea of what a human needs to be a human, and working out from there. Already, I note that families and friends are a more powerful, and legitimate force in life than a government of distant strangers. How to leverage that force? How to make it not utter chaos? How to avoid powerplay and gaming, I'll get back to you in 2 years on that

@GeeSussFreeK only 2 years? Sounds like a short time to fix a problem that old.

To me the anti-immigrant fervor on the right seems animated essentially by class resentment -- they're stealing jobs from us Real Americans, making it harder for us to find work, and otherwise depressing wages. On top of that, they're not paying taxes, but using our roads, our schools, and sometimes even collecting food stamps or welfare.

And horror of horrors, now Democrats want to give them free healthcare too! Teh bastards!

I also think a lot of Republicans are big into cultural backlash. They don't like how the society and culture of America has changed and been transformed in their lifetime, and they (rightly) see a mass influx of non-anglophone, non-white immigrants as only leading to even more transformation and change.

As fashionable as it is for us liberals to accuse the right of racism, I actually don't think there's much bigotry involved. It's mostly economic and cultural concerns driving it, as near as I can tell.

It also has nothing to do with that "small government" ideology we hear so much about. But very little about what the Republican base wants is actually about small-government ideology, IMO

@NetRunner

Immigration reduction is pro small government because immigration causes big government.


1. The immigrants' 20th century job skills contribute less to the economy but require many government services (21st century education, 21st century healthcare, 21st century infrastructure, etc.), so greater income redistribution becomes required.

2. The immigrants-turned-citizens will vote for big government.

3. Low-skill immigrants reduce the value of our already too many barely employable low-skill workers, and this means the welfare state needs to be expanded.

4. The collapse of economies like California's due to population replacement with less skilled (i.e. untaxable) populations necessitates big government interventions both in California and around the world.

@chilaxe are you opposed to all population growth, then?

Young people have no job skills, and will require many government services (21st century education, 21st century healthcare, 21st century infrastructure, etc.), so greater income redistribution becomes required (nice of you to concede that it's required, BTW).

Young people-turned-voters will vote for big government the continuation and expansion of the programs that helped turn them into productive members of society.

And if you're concerned about an overabundance of low-skilled people entering the workplace, then you should be advocating that we make quality education available at no cost to anyone who wants it, whether they're an immigrant or just a kid.

>> ^NetRunner:

@chilaxe are you opposed to all population growth, then?
Young people have no job skills, and will require many government services (21st century education, 21st century healthcare, 21st century infrastructure, etc.), so greater income redistribution becomes required (nice of you to concede that it's required, BTW).
Young people-turned-voters will vote for big government the continuation and expansion of the programs that helped turn them into productive members of society.
And if you're concerned about an overabundance of low-skilled people entering the workplace, then you should be advocating that we make quality education available at no cost to anyone who wants it, whether they're an immigrant or just a kid.


NetRunner said: "Young people-turned-voters will vote for big government the continuation and expansion of the programs that helped turn them into productive members of society."

Except that they never turn into productive members. For families from Latin America, the first generation born here shows a significant improvement over Latin American levels, then the 2nd generation shows a slight imnprovement, and then for the 3rd, 4th, and 5th generations, there's no improvement on average. You can't tax people doing Latin-American-level labor.


NetRunner said: "You should be advocating that we make quality education available at no cost to anyone who wants it."

Education is irrelevant. Private schools show no advantage when confounding factors are controlled: http://www.parapundit.com/archives/003580.html#reply20111007045639

You can't make someone who doesn't like to read like to read, no matter how many billions you spend trying.