Posted by dahsdebater on 6/16/2020 12:09:00 PM (view original):
I'm not convinced that wide open immigration policies are particularly beneficial economically. I think given the current economic state of the nation it's basically an economic net neutral. I understand why many smaller countries feel the need to restrict immigration to highly educated/skilled persons, but I think the arguments for such policies don't currently apply here. I just don't see a strong argument that adding a large number of low-education immigrants is going to improve economic status for the current population. That said, I'm generally in favor of making immigration much easier, and part of that includes finding a way of doing a better job of informing potential immigrants of how the new system works. I've also said in the past that I'm not into a policy of pure forgiveness for undocumented entries, but I also don't think deportation of people with no other criminal background is a humanitarian win or particularly effective. I've suggested in the past that undocumented families be subject to either a purpose-built family incarceration center with educational options for children, or a single adult be subject to minimum-security incarceration, for a term of ~6 months during which they would be helped with filling out and processing paperwork for resident alien status. That way there's still a meaningful disincentive to avoid proper documentation, but without generating a humanitarian crisis. I also think resident alien status needs to be less closely linked to work. It's really scary living in a reality where losing your job could basically make your family "illegal" overnight. Nobody whose done everything the right way should need to live with that kind of insecurity and fear.

For myself, my #1 issue by far remains balanced economic growth. If any party would draw up a realistic plan (IE, not what the Libertarians are advancing) to balance the Federal budget in 10-20 years, which feels like the shortest even quasi-reasonable horizon, I would back that party in an instant. It seems plausible - phased reduction in military spending, cap entitlements, raise taxes on the top 15-20% (and yes, that does include me). I just don't see that happening in the next few election cycles, so I'm focused more on economic policy than fiscal policy.

Under a capitalist system, you want to constantly expand resources. People are resources. On a practical level, high-skill immigrants contribute economically immediately. Low-skilled ones like refugees are generally neutral to start, but in the second and third generations they contribute more as some become higher-skilled, or start jobs, etc. I absolutely agree that immigration should be made far easier. I used to be for a general policy of deporting undocumented immigrants, but the more I think about it, the less I can justify such a policy. It makes far more sense to give them a process by which they can become citizens, get them into the tax base, and be a productive member of society. Illegal immigration is bad, but instead of saying "no immigration", the solution is probably to incentivise those who would otherwise immigrate illegally to instead come through legal means. This all working within an economic framework; thinking of immigration from a human rights framework is even more of an easy win.

I'm not for complete open borders because you probably still need a system to get immigrants cleanly in, and vet some of them. You also probably don't want large, sudden influxes from certain countries (you probably don't want 100,000 from northern Africa or Thailand or something entering the country at once).

Balancing the budget is probably good, but not if it comes at the expense of human welfare. I.E. I wouldn't support it if it comes at the expense of fighting climate change or saving human lives. I'm glad you at least recognize that part of the solution will HAVE to be to raise taxes and cut the military budget.

Posted by tangplay on 6/15/2020 11:29:00 PM (view original):
I'm curious to hear what others on these forums view as the issues they care most about/are most likely to vote on.

Here's mine:

1. Climate Change - It's the largest existential threat of our time, and any candidate that denies the reality of climate change or refuses to make bold promises in an attempt to fight it is denying science and truth.
2. Immigration - We need less restrictive immigration policy. This is such a clear an obvious answer that anyone denying it loses credibility in my mind. Every single anti-immigration argument is extremely easily debunked.
3. Criminal Justice - Another extremely obvious one with a wide array of solutions. It's not the most pressing issue we face, but there are some elements of the criminal justice system that are so overwhelmingly, obviously broken that one would have to be a partisan fool to be comfortable with the status quo.
4. Middle East/Pacifism/Foreign Affairs - This is a tricky one. The neocons will never get my support, and anyone who is pro war or not uncomfortable with war is someone who I probably won't vote for. Generally, both parties suck on this one. In 2016, I would have said "preserving the Iran deal," but Trump ****** us on that one. I'm not an isolationist, but I'm also very uncomfortable with intervention into another nation's politics.
5. Healthcare - I'm probably going to support the candidate that brings us closer to a single payer system. Make of that what you wish. Right now, the Republican party doesn't really have a healthcare plan or any real strategy besides "Not Obamacare", so the decision is obvious.

Actually, not bad for #2-5... although our policies and solutions are likely totally different.

Using "Criminal Justice" is an interesting way to phrase it. I'd tilt towards "Crime Prevention" since "Justice" is an abstract term with substantial room for interpretation. Prevention is pretty objective. Maybe make it a Public Security/Safety issue.

I'd put Education ahead of many of these... I'd be putting more money into educational programs that improve the lives of Americans (whether academic or vocational) rather than climate change. (And if we educate our people more, healthcare becomes a non-issue since people will have jobs)

Education narrowly missed my list. I ultimately left it out because candidates don't really differ in their plans on how to invest in it anymore. Other than free college, most will say "education is important," and move on.

Also, nothing matters if we don't fight climate change.

Posted by tangplay on 6/16/2020 1:28:00 PM (view original):
Education narrowly missed my list. I ultimately left it out because candidates don't really differ in their plans on how to invest in it anymore. Other than free college, most will say "education is important," and move on.

Also, nothing matters if we don't fight climate change.

Oh, please. The planet has survived BILLIONS of years. Even for the few centuries that we've had reliable thermometers, the planetary temperature hasn't move more than a few degrees one way or the other... If you're old enough, you remember "Global Warming" which was replaced by "2nd Ice Age" after which both were subsumed under "Climate Change" as a way to ensure job security for climatologists worldwide.

Yes, the climate is changing. OF COURSE IT IS. We're hurtling through space 93 million miles away from our sole source of heat. It isn't a global death knell. Worry more about nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists... that will kill the planet faster than anything you or I could possibly do with our cars, fireplaces, or aerosol cans.

I think the idea that climate change is an "existential threat" to humanity is probably technically correct, but the generally assumed time horizon for that is much longer than people assume. It's not an urgent threat to many densely populated areas, particularly in an increasingly globalized economy. The problem is that the left-wing media is reporting on the climate modeling research just as irresponsibly as the right-wing media is reporting on it. Somebody will come out with a new model, and then looking at the same research paper right-leaning reporters will report the 2nd percentile forward projections and say "scientists now believe world may cool over the next few decades" and the left-leaning reporters will report the 98th percentile projections and say "major cities including New York and Boston may be underwater by the year 2150." To understand just how irresponsible this is, you have to know that the convention in this field is to assume minimal cancellation of errors and report very wide tails on projections. Typically models are based on a set of known variables that account for 40-50% of climate variability over the historical data set (sometimes they're better, sometimes even worse; it largely depends on the granularity of the time gradations sampled). Anyway, the rest of the unknown factors have clearly cancelled out over longer times through the historical record, but the convention is to report tails out to the point where you assume little or no massive cancellation of errors. Thus, the 98th and 2nd percentiles shouldn't really be taken to be 2% outcomes, but realistically fairly negligible probability events.

Basically, it's pretty clear that anthropogenic climate change is a real thing, but serious negative impacts on high-population density areas are probably still fairly far away. Of course, that means that small changes still have the chance to have significant impacts. While I think that both sides of the media are equally irresponsible, the Republican position politically - still largely centered on climate change denial - is far more problematic because it prevents real political discourse that might result in compromise. What should ideally be happening is a debate over how to balance the need for short-term economic stability with the long-term need to preserve our planet, with presumably Democrats leaning toward more environmental regulation. Nobody's really even having that conversation in important settings.

Personally, I would prefer more of the Federal response to climate change to focus on research than regulation. Decreasing the proportion of the Federal budget dedicated to scientific research is a bilateral initiative at this point - every president since Bush 1 has further cut research funding as a share of spending. Basically, since the Cold War ended we don't prioritize science. Which makes sense politically - most of the general public does not have a particularly favorable view of science, and particularly basic research - but the reality is that our economic and military power was historically built on global scientific and technical leadership. We could be doing much more to publicly fund green research.

Also, I would prefer to approach environmental regulation in a fairly traditional Keynesian way. The reality is that at our current level of Federal bureaucracy, trying to stabilize economic growth in any meaningful way can't be done by modulating the Federal deficit; there just isn't enough wiggle room. But we could use alternative switches. While the economy was booming I would have liked to see gradual tightening of environmental regulations. Right now I think it would be a very bad idea. If anything, deregulation would be a useful part of a functional stimulus package (although we're probably as deregulated as we should ever be already atm).

tldr: I wouldn't support increasing environmental regulations right now at all. Once the economy rebounds then go for it. Some economic incentive for corporations to develop their own green initiatives in more than name only is certainly not a bad thing when we can afford it. At this moment I don't think we can afford it.

Posted by tangplay on 6/16/2020 12:23:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cccp1014 on 6/16/2020 9:04:00 AM (view original):
For America to unite and for fellow Americans to stop fighting one another.

You reiterated multiple times that you are voting for Trump. Soooooo nope on that one.

Thank you for reminding me not to waste my time in this sewer.

I appreciate that.

I find it amusing that the country has taken an angry and sometimes violent turn to initiate change and now it’s the cons who sound like 70’s peaceniks all over again. I believe Rodney King said “Can’t we all just get along?” nearly 30 years ago. I think the commie here is doing some seriously late bandwagon jumping on the “peace” train now that it’s all up in his grill.

None of us are climate scientists. I mainly just take what they say at face value and follow their recommendations. Right now, it seems to be that we need to fight climate change now. Unless you believe in some sort of conspiracy around the research, there would be no reason to do otherwise. From what I understand, the issue with "research now, act later" is twofold. First, I don't think there's much more to uncover. Climate change is happening, we largely know why, and we have some ideas about what to do about it. Secondly, from what I can understand, we are going to reach enough CO2 that we are just ****** unless we magically are able to pull it out of the atmosphere using technology that doesn't exist yet. This is an issue that requires urgent action. We can't wait until cities are underwater to address it.

Addressing climate change sucks because in the short term, it's going to **** everyone over. It's going to require our economy to take a hit. But the longer we wait, the more drastic the solution will need to be. If we had taken action against this problem 30 years ago, we would probably be fine today. In terms of the economy, it's going to be better in the long run to take the hit now. Plus, America seems to be pretty good at developing tech. If we act now, and become more environmentally friendly, we will be way ahead of the curve. Everyone is going to have to adapt eventually, so we might as well do it now and help ourselves down the line.

Posted by cccp1014 on 6/16/2020 3:05:00 PM (view original):

Posted by tangplay on 6/16/2020 12:23:00 PM (view original):

Posted by cccp1014 on 6/16/2020 9:04:00 AM (view original):
For America to unite and for fellow Americans to stop fighting one another.

You reiterated multiple times that you are voting for Trump. Soooooo nope on that one.

Thank you for reminding me not to waste my time in this sewer.

I appreciate that.

Dude, you don't have to hide what you are doing. It's the Shapiro approach. You say a bunch of incendiary ****, and when someone calls you out on it, you take the high road and hide behind "why can't we all get along?"

If you want to apologize for your takes in the past and then make a passionate plea for unity, that's fine. But as of right now, you're still the guy who called people "fake Jews" for being Democrats, and said that you like Trump because he ****** off the left. You don't get to have it both ways.

If you want to play this game, you can. Just know that no one is buying it. I don't think you are a bad person, or a bad faith actor like some people (all3) are. I just wish you would pick a lane.

Pick a lane? I pick a lane of a taxpayer with free speech. My point is I would ease into some of my POVs for unity. IDGAF what you think. This place is a sewer.

By the way, i want to congratulate both sides (or all 20 sides, depending on your nuanced political stances) on being a MORE RATIONAL source of discussion, debate, and even arguing than pretty much any other place on the internet.

I didn't realize how thoughtful even the most argumentative liberal/conservative/left-wing-loony/right-wing-fascist is on WIS, until my wife started reading me some of the stupidest **** from Facebook and Twitter from our own neighbors in our hometown, who are either uneducated whack-jobs or violent sociopaths.

This group has SOME humor, and a lot of disagreement, but it rarely gets completely, indefensibly batshit crazy.

Nobody has the economy on their lists?! Shows what a pack of total BSers post here.

How can you possibly call for unity while simultaneously denying people's heritage because they disagree with you and voting for a politician because he ****** others off?

You added another to the list by saying "IDGAF what you think". Doesn't sound very unifying to me. You can say whatever you want, but don't expect others to buy it.

If you want unity, live it. Here's something along the lines of what I would expect you to say if you actually believed in unifying the country:

"After distancing myself from these forums, I have come to realize that American politics and society is completely broken. Americans are so divided upon party lines that we would rather adopt the exact opposite position of those we disagree with than find common ground. I am guilty of this as well. In the past, I have expressed positions that I now realize have hurt political discourse in the country. In the future I am making an effort to agree with others more than I disagree, and to respect their positions as I expect them to respect mine. I would wish that others here would adopt this perspective as well."

Posted by tangplay on 6/16/2020 4:09:00 PM (view original):
None of us are climate scientists. I mainly just take what they say at face value and follow their recommendations. Right now, it seems to be that we need to fight climate change now. Unless you believe in some sort of conspiracy around the research, there would be no reason to do otherwise. From what I understand, the issue with "research now, act later" is twofold. First, I don't think there's much more to uncover. Climate change is happening, we largely know why, and we have some ideas about what to do about it. Secondly, from what I can understand, we are going to reach enough CO2 that we are just ****** unless we magically are able to pull it out of the atmosphere using technology that doesn't exist yet. This is an issue that requires urgent action. We can't wait until cities are underwater to address it.

Addressing climate change sucks because in the short term, it's going to **** everyone over. It's going to require our economy to take a hit. But the longer we wait, the more drastic the solution will need to be. If we had taken action against this problem 30 years ago, we would probably be fine today. In terms of the economy, it's going to be better in the long run to take the hit now. Plus, America seems to be pretty good at developing tech. If we act now, and become more environmentally friendly, we will be way ahead of the curve. Everyone is going to have to adapt eventually, so we might as well do it now and help ourselves down the line.

I tend to NOT believe the scientists who are dependent on funding. They'll tell you (and the general public) almost anything to keep the gravy train going. That's why the narrative shifted from Global Warming to the more general, less committed "Climate Change". That way, any change in the temperature contributes to the narrative, despite the lack of statistical significance over, say, 4.5 billion years.

Humans will tough it out, evolving whatever characteristics are necessary to tolerate warmer/colder temps, higher/lower CO2, and Rob Manfred. Worry more about global extinction events like large asteroid chunks smashing into Mexico or large nuclear bombs being dropped on population centers. Those have really happened.

Deaths directly attributable to man-made climate change haven't.

Posted by all3 on 6/16/2020 4:23:00 PM (view original):
Nobody has the economy on their lists?! Shows what a pack of total BSers post here.

"Economy" is extremely vague. You would have to specify exactly what you mean. No politician is going to say "I don't want a good economy."

For instance, Dahs stated that balancing the budget is extremely important to him.