NeedSomeMCP

The wall or Trump's wall? I didn't claim it did nothing. It does little. Illegal immigration across the Mexican border was already trending downward, and is going to do absolutely nothing to impede the main source of illegal immigration: VISA overstays. Switching to Carbon free or drastically reducing CO2 contributions will have an impact on climate change; it will hurt economically for a bit, but letting climate change continue worsening will likely hurt it much worse. CO2 is the driving factor of global warming. Mankind is the driving factor of CO2 production; Mankind produces many times over what any volcano contributes to greenhouse gases. What third world countries and other countries are doing does not negate our responsibility in the matter, quite frankly, America should be taking the leadership stance on it. Two big contributors to CO2 production are energy production and car engines. By moving over to nuclear power and renewables to cover a greater chunk of the electrical production and switching over to electric cars where possible we would stop a good amount of it. Curbing emissions will slow it down. Curbing emissions past a certain extent will stop it and reverse it. That climate changes is, indeed a fact. However, in this case, it is demonstrably the result of humanity's excess production of CO2 over any other factors. Various alternatives have been tested, but none of them can explain the extent of the climate change as well as CO2, not by a long shot. Even in past climate changes, the biggest control on climate was the CO2 level. Various other theories completely fail, like Solar Cycles, or El Nino/La Nina, or what have you. Given that the main driving factor of current climate change is man made CO2, it is only logical to conclude that altering the contribution of man made CO2 will affect it. Of course, to use the language of conspiracy theorists and pseudoscientists, this wouldn't fit the narrative/agenda of climate change deniers. Edit: And to tie this back to the original discussion: That Trump is a climate change denier is another negative aspect of his presidency and contributes negatively to my view of him.

That's pretty much what Trump's wall is, an appeal to emotion. Same with the trade war. They are absolutely worthless policies that will have little to no positive effect yet can prove to be demonstrably harmful. But, those things do seem to appeal to his voter base. The same goes for climate change denial as well. Of various lunacies, the Republicans are demonstrably more anti-evolution and pro-climate change denial than Democrats. Neither of those positions are fact based. The Democrats tend to be anti-nuclear power more than the Republicans, which is not a science based position either. Anti-vax beliefs tend to be minimal in either party with the statistical difference between the two being negligible, Of course, there are plenty of things I don't have the statistics on, like Flat Earthers, Birthers, 9/11 Truthers, etc., but trying to shame one side without doing a little bit of introspection is basically another form of confirmation bias.

Ninja'd lol. That is a response to the post above yours. See his link. Any comparison between the Trump presidency and a hypothetical Hillary Clinton presidency is just that - hypothetical. People can believeg way they want, there's no way to test it, and too many factors to consider to even come close to a reasoned guess. Might as well be discussing who would win in a fight between two fictional characters.

Given that nothing like that is happening in the US currently, and that it is likely not going to happen in the foreseeable future, it seems like a moot point. The real killer of the idea of "protection from the government" or "revolt against tyranny" mindset is that the anti-government forces would have to be comparably armed to the government forces to have much of a chance, which is not going to happen without a really broad reading of what " arms" constitutes to allow all of the fun military toys,

There is good reason to accept that the language of the 2nd amendment has nothing to do with a personal right to own firearms. http://faculty.las.illinois.edu/debaron/essays/guns.pdf [its a long read if you want to dig through it]

Its called Confirmation Bias. You have a desire to portray something a certian way so you engage in behavior to reinforce that belief. Its a tool of a weak and illogical mind. This is a little bit of a nitpick here, Confirmation bias is more specifically that people gave a tendency to seek information and weigh information more greatly that reinforces already held beliefs. It can even occur for negative beliefs of the person, including things like negative self image, It should also be noted that everyone has it, whether or not they want to believe it, not that that makes it rational or logical. People who understand their own cognitive biases do better at overcoming some of them, but its still going to be present.

I am regretting using the term caricature for it now lol. I don't expect to change anyone's opinions on anything; I quite agree with what you said earlier on voting your conscience when it comes around, and was more trying to tease out a more involved dialogue, because I have enjoyed your dialogue. I hope I have not come across as disrespectful or insulting. kvnchrist, I think that is a very interesting questions. I've heard theories that mostly involve it being part of a basic human tribal nature, along the lines of "my team good, your team bad." Or perhaps its becoming more of a problem from clickbait headlines and the propagation of those headlines on social media and political television. Either way, it seems to be a serious problem and an insult to rationality.

Polls are a statistical measure, so they are, by definition, error prone to an extent. They need to be taken with a grain of salt, granted, but I trust them more than gut feelings and the speculation of most of the pundits.

I caricatured a Republican like that with no intent of portraying the whole base like that, but rather to highlight the ridiculousness of caricatures themselves. Sometimes a fallacy can't be observed properly without seeing how it denigrates one's own viewpoints; For example, your second point there about racist Democrats. Sure there are racist Democrats, but because you've met a few (assuming that you are being truthful and know that), does not mean the Democratic platform is racist. That is exactly a caricature and the type of behavior I was highlighting. Democrats are destined to lose? Currently, general election polls show quite favorably for the Democrats: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/general_election/ Its going to change between now and general election, but declaring a loser is quite premature at this point. Sure some Democratic candidates alienate certain segments of the electorate, but that is a small part of the overall picture. Republicans alienate their base as well. Democrats win some Republicans and moderates over from time to time, and some Republicans win Democrats and moderates over to their side. That's a lot going on. Using current polls as a proxy, it looks like the sum total of all those effects is that the Democratic candidates hold favor over Trump, particularly Joe Biden. But, its still a long way to go before the general election and even the primaries. It is way to early to attempt to forecast with any confidence. Many things could happen. Hell, maybe Trump will suddenly become a president that I like [doubtful, but not impossible], but I can't predict the future and can only go off of what I know now. HeyYou, I agree that I hear plenty of things from many candidates that I blatantly disagree with, like Mr. Sanders describing nuclear power as dirty and toxic, just as an example. If I were to characterize the Democratic platform, I don't think I could break it down into specific policies but rather general goals of gun safety/gun control [not abolition], environmentalism, and health care, with each candidate varying on how they would intend to carry those goals and the extent that they will go to carry out their goals. Another way to look at it would be to characterize Mr. Biden's positions as the Democratic platform since he is currently and has been in the lead of the Democratic primaries so far, and seems most likely at this point to make it to the general election, which would yield this: https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/joe-biden/ I don't agree with everything on his issue stances, but I don't hold any expectation of perfection in candidates (no such thing as a perfect candidate).

To explain what I mean by caricature, let me take a hypothetical view of a Republican: -Against Homosexuals -Supports white nationalism -Believes a border wall will stop immigration -Endorses Nuclear power Now, I could find Republicans that match some of these beliefs, and some that match all of them, but it would not be accurate to represent the Republican electorate or platform with these things. This would be a caricatured version of a Republican, or in the lexicon of logic, a strawman. There is some truth (from very little to moderate) to each of those statements, but that image as a whole or as a socially accurate representation of a typical member of the Republican politicians or the typical Republican voter is clearly wrong. For instance, the Universal Basic Income idea. I have only found evidence that 2 of the Democratic candidates support the idea as policy, and their combined poll total is less than 5%, so far [it merits further That would be an example of how your view is caricatured. That's not to say everything you posted is inaccurate or misleading, or that it is deliberately so. I am a wannabe stats nerd and the idea of looking at these points objectively intrigues me/ Last polls I have read demonstrate that most Democrats and Democratic officials strongly believe in anthropogenic climate change and that something needs to be done, thereby it would be accurate to claim that is representative of the Democratic platform. On the mandatory gun buyback proposal, it does not seem to be supported, While it is true that it is proposed by 5 democratic potentials (2 of which have since dropped out), their % of poll share is roughly around 5%. https://www.politico.com/2020-election/candidates-views-on-the-issues/gun-control/assault-weapons/ https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html The column that supports voluntary gun buyback represents about 55% of the polling share currently. Granted, poll numbers are subject to change as time goes on. I have not examined too much further into your claims at this point, I try to be diligent and open minded about pursuing truth.

In general, I think you have posted more of a caricature of a Democrat rather than a reflection of the party as a whole. I could be wrong. I was going to post a fairly long tirade, but I want to see if I can dig up some numbers to support or refute my hypothesis, should be interesting. I agree that politics have grown more divisive and that denigrating attacks have become more common in general. My personal beliefs are that whichever policies can be empirically determined to be objectively better should be the ones that we pursue as a nation. edit: Thinking about partisan divides, I remember arguing with someone on Facebook because I had posted a politifact article about one of Trump's state of the union addresses where he got the number of people on welfare wrong. I don't remember the number, but for sake of argument, like 4,000,000 when it was 5,000,000. Now, I get it, people gaff and numbers are hard to remember, but this person wanted to argue that there was some measure of deceit to the politifact post because they are close. However, those numbers are off by a good amount. Next, he tried to argue that the number could be 4,000,000 now and attempting to prove it by drawing a line on some data and calling it statistics; his model was fundamentally flawed. The best possible point he could have made would to have been "Yeah, Trump got the number wrong. Probably a gaff, no biggie" and there would have been no reasonable counter point. However, the hyper partisanship kept fueling him into digging deeper and deeper into odd arguments and crap reasoning,, and, frankly, it was insulting on an intellectual level. The lesson I took out of all of that was that I do not want to see myself become subjected to partisanship to the extent that my reasoning as a whole suffers.

I apologize. I did not mean to claim that you in particular demonized Hillary, I meant that statement as a reflection of GOP and partisan group strategy, not you. Unfortunately, I used ambiguous grammar and see how it could be read that way. I don't know what platform objections you had against Hillary, nor your opinions on issues in general, or what objections you have against the current Democratic candidates that elicits a stomach turning reaction, other than that you have them.

However you want to rationalize it, casting a ballot for Trump is still voting for Trump. The "lesser of two evils" rhetoric you are employing is not unexpected either; there was little hope of being able to portray Trump as someone who could be competent as a president, so the best strategy would be to demonize Hillary. I am not too aquainted with many of the presidential contenders. Out of the three contenders on the Republican side I have heard of, I have experienced Trump and read about Bill Weld. I view Trump very unfavorably for the reasons listed above and then some. Bill Weld looks like a strong candidate with a history of competent leadership. On the Democratic side, I have some familiarity with Sanders, Beto O'Rourke, Biden, and Yang. I view Sanders unfavorably for a number of reasons, such as pseudoscientific views about nuclear energy. I view Yang as mixed because he wants to experiment with a universal basic income for the US [i view this unfavorably], but has expressed a desire to lead and alter his administrations policies based on expert opinion [something that is sorely lacking in the current administration]. I don't really known any of O'Rourke's policy desires. And Biden I view favorably due to political experience, and suspect his policy views are close to Obama's [which is favorable]. My line of thinking is to vote for the most favorable candidate, and given the antics displayed by Trump, I would risk voting for a candidate I knew nothing about on the assumption that it would be statistically difficult for someone worse to make it through the primaries. Unfortunately, I doubt that Bill Weld has much more than a snowball's chance in hell at beating an incumbent in the primary. If you don't care that much for Trump, you might want to look into Bill Weld. Worst case scenario is you like him, vote for him in the primary, and Trump still wins the primary. Fortunately, I doubt that Sanders is going to win the Democratic primary due to consistently polling lower than Biden. Also fortunately, I doubt that if Yang got elected, a universal basic income would be able to pass into law. But. Democratic primaries aren't until March and a lot could change by then. edit: altered spacing for readability

I keep hearing people say "better than Hillary," but its nothing more than a buzz phrase, as if it somehow justifies Trumps presidential antics. There is no way to determine how she would have responded to the events taking place in America and abroad, and how the world have responded to Hillary. At best, it would be a guess. She is not president and I don't have a time machine. The "what ifs" are irrelevant, and, even if it were provable and true, should not excuse Trump. Like you, I am skeptical of the diplomatic efforts with North Korea, which is why I do not consider it a strong "pro" for this administration.

Trump has done very little positive to this economy. He is just fortunate to be president during a time when the economy is doing generally well. His most prominent effect on the economy is the trade wars he is instigating, which most economists view quite negatively. The tax cuts passed by congress and signed into law by Trump have increased the U.S. deficit, and are projected to continue doing so. While a deficit by itself is not a bad thing, there is a such thing as too much, and this amount could be too much based off of its percentage of GDP; heaadlines claiming $1 trillion are guilty of hyping it as a big number, but that is not the scary point. At some point inflation will cause the deficit to regularly surpass $1 trillion and not be a big deal, but at that point $1 trillion will be a lower percentage of the GDP. We are pursuing recession level policies while we are not in a recession, and that could hurt us in the long run. No, Trump did not cause this economy to be good, but he is more than happy to take credit for it. Of course, we are looking at another recession within the next couple years (could be tomorrow, could be 2021) based on current indicators. When I consider Trump, I also think about other factors, like his poor leadership style (constant administration changes; refusal to listen to experts, nepotism), his personal character (running a sham college, his sham charity organization, using the military for personal aggrandizement),specific policies (2 for 1 regulations, flirting with government intervention in social media, putting someone against Net Neutrality in charge of the FCC), and his adoption of nutty pseudoscientific and conspiratorial beliefs, including Birtherism, Climate Change Denial, pushing that Epstein was murdered by the Clintons, etc. And things Trump has done that I could consider good aren't even really that good. He killed the TPP, but it was basically dead at that point anyways with both presidential candidates vowing to kill it if elected. He has opened talks with North Korea, which is good, but it will take time to see anything meaningful come out of diplomacy, especially considering how nutty the North Korean government is.