|
Post by gobolts25 on Oct 29, 2014 19:55:30 GMT -5
Trickle-down economics has one important advantage: contributions from the wealthy to the candidate espousing it.
|
|
|
Post by cantonhall34 on Oct 29, 2014 23:53:53 GMT -5
But my questions to conservatives (or anyone else really) out there are: 1) Before this real life example was tested, did you believe trickle-down economics works? 2) After seeing how massively this test failed, what are your thoughts on trickle-down economics? 3) Would you vote for Sam Brownback (R) or Paul Davis (D) in the upcoming elections, if you lived in Kansas? Why? 4) Is the smear campaign on Davis working on you? Does it make you not want to vote for him? 5) Do you vote based on party or individual? If you vote based on party, how far would things have to go before you voted for the opposing party? Let me throw my hat in the political ring here - Yeah, it's risky and I know it, but what the hell... First, to answer the questions you posed: 1) Before this real life example was tested, did you believe trickle-down economics works? Absolutely not. The problem is just as you explained in another post. MOST of the people that are being trusted to make it work as it's designed to work, WILL NOT hold up their end. MOST of the people that are supposed to be the beneficiaries of such a philosophy (everyone not in the 1%) won't. 2) After seeing how massively this test failed, what are your thoughts on trickle-down economics? Like Communism, a failed idea that has been tested and proven that human nature is the root of WHY it won't/can't/never will work as advertised. 3) Would you vote for Sam Brownback (R) or Paul Davis (D) in the upcoming elections, if you lived in Kansas? Why? I don't know enough about either candidate to make any kind of intelligent judgement, but going off of what you've listed, I'd NEVER vote for someone like Brownback, who had their shot and blew it so badly. I'd have to investigate all the potential candidates in order to decide who else to vote for. 4) Is the smear campaign on Davis working on you? Does it make you not want to vote for him? If that's all there is, then no. I find most smear campaigns/attack ads very off-putting. Tell me what you're gonna do instead of telling me negatives. 5) Do you vote based on party or individual? If you vote based on party, how far would things have to go before you voted for the opposing party? This is a big one for me. NEVER, EVER vote based on party affiliation for ANY reason. ANY time I hear someone saying that's how they "vote" it basically tells me all I need to know, and also says they don't actually "vote". Rather, they just support whatever their party is telling them to do. Regardless of what party someone belongs to, a citizen has the duty to vote for THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB. If that person is the same party that you support, fine, but that also means at times people would have to vote against whatever party they side with, because let's be honest - the "perfect" candidate (which doesn't exist, btw) never belongs to the same party every single time. Believe it or not, there are good people and bad people in every party. It's not confined to just one side.
The biggest problems I've seen are a couple things: there aren't enough qualified, good, solid candidates to choose from and of course the BS partisan nonsense that has only gotten worse. Nobody is blameless in this. Not that there is such a thing as a perfect candidate (as I said above), but wouldn't it be great to have someone that actually IS someone to that you could believe in to do what they said they'd do? Wouldn't it be refreshing to see people that SAY they're going to work together to make things better actually do that? Of course, that would require people to behave as ONE unit, a team if you will, instead of individualistic a-holes out for their own best interests. The job is to serve the people that put you in office - the PEOPLE - not the fat cats that paid your way. As for voting in a "two party system" (which I don't buy) it's kinda like I said - don't vote by which party you belong to. Don't vote for "the lesser of two evils", as I hear people say all the time. To me that's a BS way of looking at things. Vote for whoever is the best person for the JOB. Vote FOR someone, not AGAINST the other person. If neither of the big two parties has a person you can really support, then look into candidates from other parties. I've always voted but I haven't always voted Rep. or Dem. in the elections. I actually DO look into all the candidates if I feel there isn't a viable candidate to support and then make my decision. I will say that in my history of voting, I've been told I've "wasted my vote" before, because although I voted, I didn't vote for either the Republican or Democratic candidates. To me that's about as insulting as someone can be, and as a veteran it's absolutely absurd, because I've EARNED the right to vote however I choose. The only wasted vote is the one not cast.
|
|
|
Post by saskabronco on Oct 30, 2014 1:20:35 GMT -5
Like Communism, a failed idea that has been tested and proven that human nature is the root of WHY it won't/can't/never will work as advertised. You said a whole lot in your post and I think I agree with pretty much everything you said. Rather than quote the entire thing and make this post take up a full screen, I figured I would just quote the part I want to comment on. I couldn't agree with this quote more. I personally believe that Communism, in theory, is a wonderful system. The idea that everyone is treated equally, there are no classes, there is no wealth or anything like that... That sounds perfect to me. In practice, it is far from perfect because in order to make everything equal, the government needs to take everything and divide it up amongst the people, and that would mean you would have to have a government capable of dividing things up perfectly fairly. We all know that it never ends up happening that way because the government has so much power over everyone else, considering everything has to go through them, and the governing class just becomes the wealthy class thanks to greed, while the rest of the population gets an equal share of whatever is left over. Both Communism, on one end, and trickle down economics, on the other, represent ideas that, in theory, should be very positive, but both require putting trust in the ability of the leaders or the wealthy class to follow the plan and not act on greed. Both policies will always fail because I don't think anyone is capable of running either system perfectly. That is why there needs to be middle ground. Government should control some things, like education, transportation, health care, welfare... If you put those industries in the hands of private companies they won't act in the interest of the people... they will always act in the interest of making a profit. But not everything should be government run. Some people might claim that government shouldn't be trusted, but that is on us. We vote these people into power and the fact that the political system in the states is a mess right now is a result of not enough people voting, or not enough people thinking/caring about their vote. If people really understood their votes and the people they were voting for, the majority of people in power today would not have their jobs in office. I am a little bit torn on the issue of voting for a specific guy that you want or voting to get someone out. I love the sentiment that you should always vote for the best guy, but I don't think that is always realistic. If one guy wants to criminalize homosexuality (let's say he's a Republican) and the Democrat fights for gay rights, but is less appealing than the independent candidate, who also fights for gay rights. I know there are always more than just one issue to consider, but say most other things are fairly equal and this one issue is the make or break one. The independent candidate represents my beliefs more closely, but he/she has no realistic chance of winning. The polls show that the Republican and Democrat are very close coming up to voting day. Do you vote for your independent candidate (which is not a waste of a vote in my eyes) who has no shot of winning and risk having the Republican winning and you becoming a criminal, or do you vote Democrat to ensure that the issue most important to you is handled by someone on your side?
|
|
|
Post by cantonhall34 on Oct 30, 2014 1:47:57 GMT -5
Like Communism, a failed idea that has been tested and proven that human nature is the root of WHY it won't/can't/never will work as advertised. You said a whole lot in your post and I think I agree with pretty much everything you said. Rather than quote the entire thing and make this post take up a full screen, I figured I would just quote the part I want to comment on. I couldn't agree with this quote more. I personally believe that Communism, in theory, is a wonderful system. The idea that everyone is treated equally, there are no classes, there is no wealth or anything like that... That sounds perfect to me. In practice, it is far from perfect because in order to make everything equal, the government needs to take everything and divide it up amongst the people, and that would mean you would have to have a government capable of dividing things up perfectly fairly. We all know that it never ends up happening that way because the government has so much power over everyone else, considering everything has to go through them, and the governing class just becomes the wealthy class thanks to greed, while the rest of the population gets an equal share of whatever is left over. Both Communism, on one end, and trickle down economics, on the other, represent ideas that, in theory, should be very positive, but both require putting trust in the ability of the leaders or the wealthy class to follow the plan and not act on greed. Both policies will always fail because I don't think anyone is capable of running either system perfectly. That is why there needs to be middle ground. Government should control some things, like education, transportation, health care, welfare... If you put those industries in the hands of private companies they won't act in the interest of the people... they will always act in the interest of making a profit. But not everything should be government run. Some people might claim that government shouldn't be trusted, but that is on us. We vote these people into power and the fact that the political system in the states is a mess right now is a result of not enough people voting, or not enough people thinking/caring about their vote. If people really understood their votes and the people they were voting for, the majority of people in power today would not have their jobs in office. I am a little bit torn on the issue of voting for a specific guy that you want or voting to get someone out. I love the sentiment that you should always vote for the best guy, but I don't think that is always realistic. If one guy wants to criminalize homosexuality (let's say he's a Republican) and the Democrat fights for gay rights, but is less appealing than the independent candidate, who also fights for gay rights. I know there are always more than just one issue to consider, but say most other things are fairly equal and this one issue is the make or break one. The independent candidate represents my beliefs more closely, but he/she has no realistic chance of winning. The polls show that the Republican and Democrat are very close coming up to voting day. Do you vote for your independent candidate (which is not a waste of a vote in my eyes) who has no shot of winning and risk having the Republican winning and you becoming a criminal, or do you vote Democrat to ensure that the issue most important to you is handled by someone on your side?In regard to this last part... I think if you vote for someone that ISN'T the person you'd want to win - from whichever party they happen to belong to - and you vote against a person, to me that's not really exercising the freedom of voting. Sure it's your choice to vote for that person, but are you really voting for what YOU believe? To me, if I vote for someone it means I am voting for a person I am willing to support. I can still look myself in the mirror and say I voted my conscience, not just voted for who I thought would have the best chance to win. I can fully understand voting for a person if that person has the ONE thing in common that's most important to you, however, to ensure whatever cause is important to you gets the attention you'd like to see. I'm using the "you" here as the "royal you". Not anyone in particular. I think the idea that a person would win an election and make homosexuality illegal in THIS country is unrealistic, because I don't believe that would ever become a law. In other countries...eh... not so sure...but most of those wouldn't be "voting" for leaders anyway.
|
|
|
Post by saskabronco on Oct 30, 2014 2:03:44 GMT -5
You said a whole lot in your post and I think I agree with pretty much everything you said. Rather than quote the entire thing and make this post take up a full screen, I figured I would just quote the part I want to comment on. I couldn't agree with this quote more. I personally believe that Communism, in theory, is a wonderful system. The idea that everyone is treated equally, there are no classes, there is no wealth or anything like that... That sounds perfect to me. In practice, it is far from perfect because in order to make everything equal, the government needs to take everything and divide it up amongst the people, and that would mean you would have to have a government capable of dividing things up perfectly fairly. We all know that it never ends up happening that way because the government has so much power over everyone else, considering everything has to go through them, and the governing class just becomes the wealthy class thanks to greed, while the rest of the population gets an equal share of whatever is left over. Both Communism, on one end, and trickle down economics, on the other, represent ideas that, in theory, should be very positive, but both require putting trust in the ability of the leaders or the wealthy class to follow the plan and not act on greed. Both policies will always fail because I don't think anyone is capable of running either system perfectly. That is why there needs to be middle ground. Government should control some things, like education, transportation, health care, welfare... If you put those industries in the hands of private companies they won't act in the interest of the people... they will always act in the interest of making a profit. But not everything should be government run. Some people might claim that government shouldn't be trusted, but that is on us. We vote these people into power and the fact that the political system in the states is a mess right now is a result of not enough people voting, or not enough people thinking/caring about their vote. If people really understood their votes and the people they were voting for, the majority of people in power today would not have their jobs in office. I am a little bit torn on the issue of voting for a specific guy that you want or voting to get someone out. I love the sentiment that you should always vote for the best guy, but I don't think that is always realistic. If one guy wants to criminalize homosexuality (let's say he's a Republican) and the Democrat fights for gay rights, but is less appealing than the independent candidate, who also fights for gay rights. I know there are always more than just one issue to consider, but say most other things are fairly equal and this one issue is the make or break one. The independent candidate represents my beliefs more closely, but he/she has no realistic chance of winning. The polls show that the Republican and Democrat are very close coming up to voting day. Do you vote for your independent candidate (which is not a waste of a vote in my eyes) who has no shot of winning and risk having the Republican winning and you becoming a criminal, or do you vote Democrat to ensure that the issue most important to you is handled by someone on your side?In regard to this last part... I think if you vote for someone that ISN'T the person you'd want to win - from whichever party they happen to belong to - and you vote against a person, to me that's not really exercising the freedom of voting. Sure it's your choice to vote for that person, but are you really voting for what YOU believe? To me, if I vote for someone it means I am voting for a person I am willing to support. I can still look myself in the mirror and say I voted my conscience, not just voted for who I thought would have the best chance to win. I can fully understand voting for a person if that person has the ONE thing in common that's most important to you, however, to ensure whatever cause is important to you gets the attention you'd like to see. I'm using the "you" here as the "royal you". Not anyone in particular. I think the idea that a person would win an election and make homosexuality illegal in THIS country is unrealistic, because I don't believe that would ever become a law. In other countries...eh... not so sure...but most of those wouldn't be "voting" for leaders anyway. The example of homosexuality being made illegal was definitely an extreme example, at least by USA standards. The point was more meant to just take the focus off the issue at hand and onto the decision of who to vote for. I understand, and am quite glad, that in America there is no real push to criminalize homosexuality, and also that the push to legalize gay marriage is also winning. Many other countries are not so far along with that movement.. Places like Russia, Uganda, and many middle eastern countries, to name a few, have criminalizes homosexuality to varying degrees though.
|
|
xdeadlyxmirage
NFL Starter
This Guy
Disrespecting narrative film since the 15th century.
Posts: 1,557
|
Post by xdeadlyxmirage on Oct 30, 2014 22:48:34 GMT -5
Speaking on declaring this (trickle down economics) and communism as disproven theories...
I strongly dislike it when people say things like this. Even though I do not believe that trickle down economics works in theory, and I have yet to read up on my political science/philosophy enough to make a determination on communism, neither assertion is truly a testable one. It is all relative to the situation surrounding it. Thinking scientifically, there is no control, perfect (or precisely known) conditions, or single variable.
Anymore, I am fairly outside of promoting any single cohesive political ideology, but I strongly believe that if there was a strong education system that cared about more than "practical" use for education, there would be a substantially different citizen-government relationship. It would allow for government to do be able to do things that it simply could not now.
|
|
|
Post by cantonhall34 on Nov 4, 2014 3:46:19 GMT -5
Speaking on declaring this (trickle down economics) and communism as disproven theories... I strongly dislike it when people say things like this. Even though I do not believe that trickle down economics works in theory, and I have yet to read up on my political science/philosophy enough to make a determination on communism, neither assertion is truly a testable one. It is all relative to the situation surrounding it. Thinking scientifically, there is no control, perfect (or precisely known) conditions, or single variable. Anymore, I am fairly outside of promoting any single cohesive political ideology, but I strongly believe that if there was a strong education system that cared about more than "practical" use for education, there would be a substantially different citizen-government relationship. It would allow for government to do be able to do things that it simply could not now. History has shown that the practice of communism doesn't work, based on what people are motivated to actually do. It's supposed to make things "better" by ensuring everyone has the same basic stuff (in a nutshell) and it's easy to say, but when the people in charge have different agendas, well... Trickle-down economics is similar in that fashion. The people that were NEEDED to make it work for everyone didn't hold up their end, causing it to fail. Lots of things can have good intentions, but when the people in charge don't follow through on them, whatever those intentions were don't matter. THAT has been proven. You have to have people running the show to be committed to making things good for everyone, not just themselves.
|
|
xdeadlyxmirage
NFL Starter
This Guy
Disrespecting narrative film since the 15th century.
Posts: 1,557
|
Post by xdeadlyxmirage on Nov 4, 2014 11:56:56 GMT -5
Speaking on declaring this (trickle down economics) and communism as disproven theories... I strongly dislike it when people say things like this. Even though I do not believe that trickle down economics works in theory, and I have yet to read up on my political science/philosophy enough to make a determination on communism, neither assertion is truly a testable one. It is all relative to the situation surrounding it. Thinking scientifically, there is no control, perfect (or precisely known) conditions, or single variable. Anymore, I am fairly outside of promoting any single cohesive political ideology, but I strongly believe that if there was a strong education system that cared about more than "practical" use for education, there would be a substantially different citizen-government relationship. It would allow for government to do be able to do things that it simply could not now. History has shown that the practice of communism doesn't work, based on what people are motivated to actually do. It's supposed to make things "better" by ensuring everyone has the same basic stuff (in a nutshell) and it's easy to say, but when the people in charge have different agendas, well... Trickle-down economics is similar in that fashion. The people that were NEEDED to make it work for everyone didn't hold up their end, causing it to fail. Lots of things can have good intentions, but when the people in charge don't follow through on them, whatever those intentions were don't matter. THAT has been proven. You have to have people running the show to be committed to making things good for everyone, not just themselves. If you are going to say that communism or trickle down economics are proven to have failed, you have to show that the single variable is communism or not communism (trickle down economics or not trickle down economics). If there is a single uncontrolled variable let alone many than it really is not proving anything at all. Even if you did prove historically, that one was at fault for a for the collapse of an economy or what have you, for the idea to be disproven one would have to show that in any possible situation (even if any variable or any amount of variables could be changed) it would not work. Providing examples of certain people acting a certain way in a single culture with a certain implementation strategy, does not prove for a completely different society the idea could not be implemented and work. It simply means that if one were to argue for it, one would have to demonstrate how conditions (variables) are meaningfully different. To say that the idea is disproven is to entirely discount the idea, but what instead these historical examples show is a certain conditions in which they do not work. For both it appears one of the main mechanisms making the historical examples fail, is simply human greed. If you wanted to prove that greed is inevitable, you have to exit the historical examples and theorize on human nature as well as show that in no way could a different implementation strategy or something similar allow for a way to check the greed. The historical examples do not imply that.
|
|
|
Post by 101mitch on Nov 4, 2014 17:13:41 GMT -5
I switched to neither.. Keen Umbehr has no chance, but after a little research I personally believe he Is the best choice.
|
|
|
Post by 101mitch on Nov 4, 2014 21:05:45 GMT -5
Close polls.. Of course only like 2% votes are in.
But there are waaaay too many republicans in this state for Brownback or Roberts to lose.
|
|