Let's be 100% serious here for a moment:

[Simfan34]

You all agree with him because he's touting the Democratic Party line!

[Simfan34]

You all agree with him because he's touting the Democratic Party line!

Investing in infrastructure used to be a common-sense bipartisan thing. This is not some kooky left-wing scheme; it's one of the fundamental purposes of government! It's not our fault the GOP has gone crazy in the past ten or twenty years.

I'm all for investing in infrastructure. Everyone knows this. Even Adam Smith agreed with you. But this anti-war posturing is just out of the 2008 Obama playbook. Regardless of whether or not it's right, it's just not a Republican position. If Donald Trump is going to ignore more or less every agreed-upon party principle, what point is there for him to run as a Republican?

[Simfan34]

Not when the premise is that "facts have a liberal bias", no.

[Simfan34]

Simfan,
Your line of thinking, is exactly why Washington politics does not work, and why the politicians are hated by the super-vast majority of all Americans.
If a plan or idea is "good" for our nation, who cares if it's "touting the Democratic Party line."

Listen to yourself. You said : "Regardless of whether or not it's right, it's just not a Republican position."
Really ?!?!?  This sounds just like what the wacky hard-right tea-bagging Republicans would say. And they are exactly why government is so hated by us. Nothing can or will get done in Washington with this type of attitude.

I'm convinced that if Obama said that "taking a sh*t is good policy," that wacky Pubs (like you) would try to convince Americans that we should not use the bathroom, simply because Obama said it, and it is a "Democratic position."
This is the extreme view of who the Tea-Baggers have become, and their extreme position to take and stand for .... "regardless of whether or not it's right," but because "it's just not a Republican position."

I'm hardly one of the "wackos", but if you think that the logical position on nearly every issue happens to be that of the Democratic Party... you might just do better in the Democratic Party. If you were to ask me, I'd say Obama's doing a fair job, I like him as a person, and, to a degree, I'm glad we've elected a black President. I'm not someone goes around accusing people of being insufficiently conservative. I'm am one of those detestable moderate Republicans, if only in terms of policy positions rather than philosophy (which is decidedly un-moderate). But I think I have the right to question someone who regularly expresses views inconsistent with what would have been considered "mainstream conservatism" in 2005, 1995, even 1985-- to say nothing of the brainless "oppositionism" of 2015.

To think that none of this matters because Trump hates Mexicans, Muslims, foreigners, and thinks Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim, is only a viable position if one takes the most myopic view of the Republican Party possible-- that the GOP's only real defining characteristic is general bigotry. This is what many liberals believe, it seems to be Trump's belief, and his campaign shows that.

If I sound somewhat confused, it is because I am. I essentially despise what the modern Republican Party has become, but I am, on a fundamental level, nothing other than a conservative, and quite frankly, I've been a (black) Republican for so long that it is essentially a personality trait. I'm forced to sit around waiting that my party will one day come to its senses. But this makes even less sense than usual! Trump's flip-flopping on the issues (usually half-arsed, on top of that!) make Kerry, Romney, and Hillary look stoically consistent by comparison. This is literally someone who was saying that he loved Muslims, that they were the best three months ago. I mean, I can understand not caring, but this much?!

Sure, this may be consistent with what I think of the electorate at large. But this goes even beyond that. Trump says that he'll beat ISIS, that he'll get along well with Putin, etc, gives no evidence whatsoever as to how he'll do any of this, and yet they cheer and applaud all the same! Not even a dictator of a third-world backwater would be likely to pull this off. Even Kim Jong-un only gets away with it thanks to seven decades of brainwashing and repression. Bernie Sanders may promise the impossible, but Trump... ugh!

[Simfan34]

I mean, how can any of you look at Trump--mouth agape as always, repeating the same lines again and again like a child, almost never really saying anything, and if does, it is something repugnant in the extreme-- and still think that "I'm proud that I live in a democracy, where everyone can vote!"

[Simfan34]

Simfan, just vote for Clinton you goof-ball. 

If we took political party politics out of it, I bet you and I would agree on most "political" issues.  We would both vote for Bloomberg over De Blasio, so to speak.  You, like me, are socially conservative in some way, but in favor of secular government and legal equality for women, gays, blacks, Muslims, etc.  You, like me, are cosmopolitan and educated, so you don't like buffoons like Trump or rubes like Huckabee.  If you could convince yourself to vote for Rubio for example, it would be by convincing yourself he just buys into that Christian right buffoonery for votes, he doesn't actually believe it. 

On economics, we probably are both somewhat libertarian, in that we want economic freedom and free markets over socialism.  We see the regulatory state and redistribution as a gloss on capitalism that makes it work, rather than an end goal in themselves.  If we were talking on a local level, with these politics of Republican fundamentalism gone, we would agree on things like ending rent regulation, NIMBYism and the overabundance of bureaucracy in city government.  But, on the national, I could never vote Republican because I believe in infrastructure, environmental regulation, medical care for the poor and progressive taxation, and I don't want things like Medicare Part D and using the government as an organ of a few powerful industries.

I think so much of our own political philosophy is whether we hate the straw-man of the left or the straw-man of the right more.  No?  Like, conservatives tend to despise these radical feminists who barely exist in reality, and liberals tend to hate these warmongering neocons who barely exist.  But, I think the facts tell us that if you're a moderate, Clinton will result in more of you want.  She's not a radical feminist, or a socialist, or a 1970s New Leftist.  Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are waaaay closer to being legit radicals.

I don't think you're particularly wrong. But I am probably more socially conservative than I usually let on, even if it's less about demonizing certain groups (except for--ah!-- that particular one, and I don't "hate" or even "dislike" them as such), but view of society is decidedly traditionalist; not to mention that I fail the abortion litmus test pretty badly. However, I think that, a few exceptions, we should just ban guns altogether. Although, (largely thanks to TNF and his ilk) those exceptions are for the most part, uh, pretty classist-- e.g., in order to have a hunting rifle, you must keep it in your second home, or that you can only buy a handgun if you pay above a certain (read: large) amount of taxes. (The Dark Knight Rises may have informed that second one; people on Park Avenue need to be able to protect themselves ).

On the local level, we agree on pretty much everything, yes. On the national level I'd say the distance is considerably wider, but not vast. But I do not think you are the average liberal Democrat. The average liberal (read: educated) Democrat is likely to be far more concerned about social issues, in particular, being on the leading edge of those issues. The right has its language for those it wishes to chastise for ideological impurity-- RINO, fake conservative, liberal, and a host of more deranged epithets-- but so does the left; theirs is merely more sophisticated.

The insufficiently progressive are accused of doing bad things, or, more often, enabling bad things to happen. Whereas the right-wing claim makes only one assertion, the left-wing one actually makes two, very nebulous ones: a) that the accused's actions enabled a bad thing, and b) that the thing in question is, in fact, bad and/or is inclusive of what the accused did. For instance, the accusation that telling women not to get drunk perpetuates "rape culture," because it places responsibility on women to not get raped, which is rape apolgism makes two claims-- that preventive advice "assigns responsbility to victims", and that "assigning victims responsibility" contributes to "rape culture". (Even after this time, I cannot tell you what "rape culture" actually entails-- aside from this. That is definitely part of rape culture, whatever it is) To a degree, the strawman leftist is an actual character. And this is without throwing in sex-positivity!

You can say that this kind of leftist is simply reflective of living in a "liberal college bubble", but let's be honest, as far as my generation is concerned, this is what left-wing or progressive politics entails. Sure, not everyone is some kind of activist, but ask the average person here what they think and they probably won't disagree with the radicals in any fundamental way. Throw in intersectionality, and everything is now about oppression, and no one wants to support oppression. Corporations are, of course, still evil, but now they're agents of white male cisgender oppression, too. You'd be surprised how many people, who aren't particularly activist or radical, will talk in these terms. I've talked to friends who've graduated and, I can tell you, their hasn't been any kind of political transformation. Again, you hold a much more sensible view on these sorts of issues, but, from what I've seen, it's not typical of my "progressive" peers. I may have pooh-poohed Bacon King when he said that "we're living in the tumblr generation" but I've realized that he's essentially right. This, in my context, is the mainstream.

Ultimately, though, I can't accept the fundamental principles of modern liberalism: that anything is "moral" (if that word is ever used) as long as people consent to it, and no one, therefore, can object to it; that if people believe in something, we must accept their belief without judgement (unless it's right-wing); that agency, and thus real responsibility, ultimately lies with those with "privilege"; that this extends to the realm of foreign policy; and we all have a basic, inherent, right to live meaningful, emotionally fulfilling lives, which society has an obligation to guarantee. I agree with none of this. My views are predicated on the centrality of authority, morality, and tradition, and a society that respects all three. They're not really consistent with the principles of either party-- I may not support "big government" but I certainly believe in a strong state-- but they are fundamentally conservative. The funny thing is that the second fundamental belief is pretty much this--

They're not "paleoconservatives" or "populists": they're know-nothings and low-info voters.

And yet here you all are, liberal Democrats, while I'm the Republican.

Goodness, this post was way too long. I have a paper to write!

[Simfan34]

You're pro-gay marriage and pro-choice though?  Right?

If you were to ask me if I support gay marriage, I would say yes. I'll leave it at that.

But no, I am not "pro-choice". I am very much anti-abortion. Very much so. While I've never been sufficiently bothered to go to the March for Life, I'm very firm on this-- and my opinion has little to do with religion. The only exception I can confidently say I recognize is for the life of the mother. I probably could stomach incest, but the case of rape is very hard for me to rationalize, coming from a position of there being a life involved. Rape is terrible, yes... but does that mean the child has to die? What did the child do to deserve death? Of course I never talk about abortion in real life-- I've literally only ever talked about it with two, maybe three people outside certain political circles, and one of them was my father-- but I genuinely despise the way pro-choice people frame it about "women's bodies" and "women's rights", which completely ignores why actual people oppose abortion-- the woman is not the only one involved!

I'll stop here, but I am certainly not "pro-choice". I definitely fail that litmus test, as I said before, in that wall of text. However, I (usually) don't vote for candidates based on their position on abortion; if there was no Roe v. Wade and there could be real change, that might be different, since there's relatively little that can be done it usually takes a backseat, despite how strongly I feel.

Simfan is a "High Tory", he has no place in the Democratic Party.

That said, he's mistaken to believe that bedstuy is "on the right" of the Democratic Party; he really isn't. His positions are reflective of The New Republic or Center For American Progress or any "mainstream" liberal think-tank or publication.

I've read a lot of what he says about crime, policing, cultural issues with black people, gentrification, "urban" issues and such; I usually agree with him on these, and I don't really feel like my positions mirror those of the Center for American Progress as much as they do the Manhattan Institute.

Also you're probably spot on about me, though I'm probably less skeptical of the market economy than the term suggests, even if I'm big on communitarianism.

[Simfan34]

afleitch, I'm pretty sure President Trump will nuke Scotland for the SNP's disrespect though.

Hopefully hits he the Trident submarine base for the sweet, sweet irony. Again, while Trump is awful, the referendum and the whole SNP thing have been so off-putting that I kind of resent the place now, and sort of wish something bad would happen to them.

Exactly. Ugh. I hated [the Scottish Referendum] the first time around, and I hate it now. I can hardly bear to hear such outlandish fairy tales and populist "progressive" claptrap a second time. The referendum filled me with such bile and rancor that I now have a strong distaste for anything to do with Scotland. (Indeed, I just chucked a fawning book about William Wallace into the trash today.)

The again, I am someone who thinks American independence was illegal, wrong, and a Bad Idea in general, and has thought so since kindergarten (although it may have been second grade) so feel free to disregard my comments as the ramblings of a reactionary mildly detached from rational thought.

[Simfan34]

US GDP is about 17 trillion. 4 trillion over 15 years comes out to something like 1.5% of GDP. Yeah, that would totally have dramatically changed the US economy.

I'm genuinely surprised that I haven't seen any attempted fact-checking of this figure from the usual fact-checking outlets. Odd.