Market politics

[Dan Detweiler]

Term limits have been tried. In practice the elected officials become completely under the control of lobbyists who offer them jobs after they leave office, and rotate a new stooge in each time.

Term limits don't work. At all.

We should try something with a chance of working.

Respectfully disagree. To my knowledge they have not been tried with respect to Congressional seats, and as a result have lead to career politicians making decisions based on what will keep them in power, not what can be done with the time they have.

Dan

 

[Dan Detweiler]

2nd amendment is another interesting case of crazy reactions. I do not own a gun...never felt the need to. However I think the right to own one is fine. Many people feel the need for either hunting or self protection. I agree with that right. However do we think every one has the right to a bazooka...or a nuke? Of course not. So why can't we come to grips with common sense gun control? I mean banning Armour piercing ammo seems like a good idea. So does knowing who has a gun. We all know who has drivers license or if one has insurance.

But the hyperbole gets in the way of discussion. Here is one random NRA ad

That kind of scare tactic stops rational discussion.

I have no problem with requiring registration. I also have no problem with requiring training. But, when you start taking away specific types of firearms you start down a slippery slope that frankly I don't trust our politicians to handle without influence of outside entities and back door deals designed to gain influence and sustain power. I think it all boils down to whether you want the government making those decisions for you or not. It is a position that frankly scares me.

Dan

 

[lolachampcar]

I was having a conversation with someone I trust implicitly shortly after one of the mass shootings. We started by talking about background checks (which I fully support in absolutely every situation including my giving one of my guns to a child), types of weapons and the like. One of her points was that there really is no need for semi-auto "assault" weapons in the general public. I tried to explain that I could do more damage with a few large capacity medium caliber handguns and a sawed off large capacity autoloading shotgun if I wanted to mow down a lot of kids in a school and that a long gun is actually unwieldy in such an environment. An MP5 would be even better but that was off topic. Anyway, we have obviously changed as a nation and I can not argue with the logic that, if you do not sell "assault" weapons, people can not buy them and kill a bunch of people and thus I was open to the idea of banning them. The conversation continued and we migrated towards all those weapons that are already out there and the natural solution was to undo that situation.

I paused the conversation at that point and explained that we were moving towards solutions I kinda thought did not address the root problem but also felt it unreasonable not to show some flexibility on the issue. The conversation naturally migrated to the confiscation of firearms from legal law abiding owners. A few years ago, a buddy wanted one of these 223s and I ended up buying one and leaving it in his gun safe as they were only $500 and I figured one day it would be worth something. I've never shot it nor will I ever as I personally feel the guns are POS'. That said, I would likely not take well to someone knocking on my door and wanting it back.

I write the above to point out a few things.
First, we gun owners have hearts, do not want to shoot up the world and are reasonable.
Second, you have a national gun registry so you know who has guns so you can go collect them later. Examining the buyer at time of buying helps keep guns out of the hands of someone that should not have one. Keeping a record of law abiding gun ownership is ONLY used to collect the guns later.
One exception to the above point would be a registry used by mental professionals to remove guns when necessary. This would require a registry protected by the same medical privacy policies that protect other personal medical data and trusting the government not to misuse or access this information at some point in the future. That trust does not currently exist.
Lastly, any reasonable conversation about guns almost always leads to the party not appreciating them wanting to remove them. It is THE logical solution and we may well end up there. The problem for me is it is simpleton logic. The idea that we can continue to remove sharp objects from our citizen's hands at the expense of freedom and personal responsibility is nothing short of a path to Idiocracy. We should head towards responsible citizenship where we can trust people with the responsibility that is gun ownership.

Yea, the US is different. We can change that. I would prefer not to. I would prefer we put some time, energy and effort to going back to a nation that has tremendous freedoms with a population that is trustworthy with those freedoms. The two go hand in hand.

 

[lolachampcar]

Removing money from politics removes the revolving door, K street and the like. Term limits become much less important if you can not enrich yourself during your service or after your service as a result of your service.

As for the power mongers, that is why we vote. Politics should be driven by Power and Public Service. The later should be a good motivation and the form is what we put people into when we elect them so it can not go away. It is the thoughtful and engaged voter that rejects the power monger. You can not write a law that does that for you.

 

[lolachampcar]

The NRA represents the Russians, not responsible gun ownership.

 

[lolachampcar]

So all the news outlets and talking heads on anything by FAUX are all spooled up over the Buzzfeed piece on Trump directing Cohen to lie.

Absolutely amazing.

A few days earlier, the Republican Senate allowed Trump to REMOVE sanctions on a Russian at the center of the Russian attack on our democracy.

We really need to re-examine our priorities.

Trump Obstructs Justice..... Stop the press. Super big deal.

Trump pays back Russia for putting him in office with the help of the US Senate. Yawn.

 

[Vitold]

Making people work for free is so unamerican- we’ll at least I though it was.

 

[lolachampcar]

that only lasts so long.......
There is a reason Congress' approval rating was sub 10% (IIRC) prior to Trump coming along. There is more than enough blame to go around.

 

[wdolson]

At this point I would be happy with true representation in pre electoral debates. Alternate parties will never get 5% of the vote if they are not allowed to be heard. Both the Libertarian and Green parties were shut out of all previous debates even though they were on enough State ballots to numerically have a chance to win. That's not right. If the people were able to see and hear ALL of their options on a national stage along side the Republican and Democratic candidates with the opportunity to state their platforms and respond directly to statements by their competitors it would be a much different scenario. Speaking of Presidential campaigns here.
Dan

I do think lowering the bar for entry onto the stage would help get people at least aware what these other parties stand for. If someone is mathematically capable of winning the presidency (they are on the ballot in enough states to get 270 electoral votes) they should be on the stage with the major party candidates.

But people are still going to be reluctant to vote for minor party candidates if they have no realistic shot of winning, so most people will vote for the lesser of two evils, even when they don't like either of them much.

Making people work for free is so unamerican- we’ll at least I though it was.

We did fight a pretty messy war that was, at least in part, about slavery and we changed the constitution afterwards to ban it.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I do think lowering the bar for entry onto the stage would help get people at least aware what these other parties stand for. If someone is mathematically capable of winning the presidency (they are on the ballot in enough states to get 270 electoral votes) they should be on the stage with the major party candidates.

But people are still going to be reluctant to vote for minor party candidates if they have no realistic shot of winning, so most people will vote for the lesser of two evils, even when they don't like either of them much.



We did fight a pretty messy war that was, at least in part, about slavery and we changed the constitution afterwards to ban it.

Well, they'll certainly never have a chance of winning if they aren't allowed the same voice as the other candidates. That's the whole point.

Dan

 

[Unpilot]

But, when you start taking away specific types of firearms you start down a slippery slope that frankly I don't trust our politicians to handle without influence

I agree that is can be problematic to keep "mission creep" in check...or if you prefer bureaucratic creep But this argument morphs into "they are coming to take away your gun's."
There has to be some limit on weaponry. The pace of innovation in that space is not stopping.

To be able to talk about how to have common sense control of weapons of war (that is what an assault rifle is) is important.

 

[Dan Detweiler]

I agree that is can be problematic to keep "mission creep" in check...or if you prefer bureaucratic creep But this argument morphs into "they are coming to take away your gun's."
There has to be some limit on weaponry. The pace of innovation in that space is not stopping.

To be able to talk about how to have common sense control of weapons of war (that is what an assault rifle is) is important.

I would have to agree. There is some point where limitations will need to be defined. Those are going to be difficult decisions to make, especially if they are being made with the influence of lobbies, campaign donors, and other outside influences that encourage decisions for personal gain rather than public good...and I mean this on both sides of the isle. That is why I question out government's ability to regulate this.

Dan

 

[Vitold]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sf...identified-as-shooter-in-slaying-13529125.php

I was having a conversation with someone I trust implicitly shortly after one of the mass shootings. We started by talking about background checks (which I fully support in absolutely every situation including my giving one of my guns to a child), types of weapons and the like. One of her points was that there really is no need for semi-auto "assault" weapons in the general public. I tried to explain that I could do more damage with a few large capacity medium caliber handguns and a sawed off large capacity autoloading shotgun if I wanted to mow down a lot of kids in a school and that a long gun is actually unwieldy in such an environment. An MP5 would be even better but that was off topic. Anyway, we have obviously changed as a nation and I can not argue with the logic that, if you do not sell "assault" weapons, people can not buy them and kill a bunch of people and thus I was open to the idea of banning them. The conversation continued and we migrated towards all those weapons that are already out there and the natural solution was to undo that situation.

I paused the conversation at that point and explained that we were moving towards solutions I kinda thought did not address the root problem but also felt it unreasonable not to show some flexibility on the issue. The conversation naturally migrated to the confiscation of firearms from legal law abiding owners. A few years ago, a buddy wanted one of these 223s and I ended up buying one and leaving it in his gun safe as they were only $500 and I figured one day it would be worth something. I've never shot it nor will I ever as I personally feel the guns are POS'. That said, I would likely not take well to someone knocking on my door and wanting it back.

I write the above to point out a few things.
First, we gun owners have hearts, do not want to shoot up the world and are reasonable.
Second, you have a national gun registry so you know who has guns so you can go collect them later. Examining the buyer at time of buying helps keep guns out of the hands of someone that should not have one. Keeping a record of law abiding gun ownership is ONLY used to collect the guns later.
One exception to the above point would be a registry used by mental professionals to remove guns when necessary. This would require a registry protected by the same medical privacy policies that protect other personal medical data and trusting the government not to misuse or access this information at some point in the future. That trust does not currently exist.
Lastly, any reasonable conversation about guns almost always leads to the party not appreciating them wanting to remove them. It is THE logical solution and we may well end up there. The problem for me is it is simpleton logic. The idea that we can continue to remove sharp objects from our citizen's hands at the expense of freedom and personal responsibility is nothing short of a path to Idiocracy. We should head towards responsible citizenship where we can trust people with the responsibility that is gun ownership.

Yea, the US is different. We can change that. I would prefer not to. I would prefer we put some time, energy and effort to going back to a nation that has tremendous freedoms with a population that is trustworthy with those freedoms. The two go hand in hand.

I would agree with you if we had a universal healthcare, mental health issues were not stigmatized and psychiatric treatment was mandatory plus we were not afraid to take away sharp object from irresponsible people.

 

[Curt Renz]

HuffPost - 48 minutes ago: Pentagon Confirms Climate Change Is A National Security Threat, Contradicting Trump | HuffPost

 

[neroden]

The federal employees union has filed a lawsuit about the shutdown claiming that it is illegal to make government workers work without pay and without knowing when they will get paid. These workers are also facing real financial damages that can follow them for years and even if they get their back pay, it won't cover their interest charges on their credit cards, or get their car back if it got repoed. Nor will it repair their credit rating.

In any case my SO and I were talking about this lawsuit yesterday and what if the court says the government is violating the 13th amendment making people work without knowing when they will get paid and if the bill pending to pay them doesn't get passed and signed, they may never get paid.

I'm realizing that the courts only have two possible rulings:
(1) It is involuntary servitude and is unconstitutional
(2) It isn't involuntary servitude because the employees can quit without penalty, get other jobs, claim unemployment benefits, collect their pensions, etc. (Essentially, the employees have been let out of their contracts because the government broke its side of the contract first.)

Note that the government is currently claiming that the employees can't look for other jobs or claim unemployment benefits *and* that they can't quit without being punished. That's unsustainable; no court will maintain that position.

If the courts pick (2), you know what will happen... everyone will quit and get jobs which actually pay money. And if they reopen the government, *nobody will take the jobs* because nobody wants to take a job with zero job security where your paycheck might stop at any time. It'll cause even *more* long-term damage.

There are basically two people in the entire government holding everything up: Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump. It's estimated there are at least 70 votes in the Senate for all the bills Pelosi has passed out of the House. That would be enough to override a Trump veto, though there may not be enough Republican votes in the House yet to override a veto.

Nobody really knows why Republicans in the Senate haven't thrown McConnell out as leader yet. Maybe because they're really stupid.

A lot of Republican insiders who thought they knew how McConnell worked are baffled at his actions on this. He's a political player to the nth degree and will do whatever he can to advance his side and himself and all he's doing here is making it worse for the rest of his senators who have to run in 2020, including himself.

 

[neroden]

At this point I would be happy with true representation in pre electoral debates.

Doesn't help. Look up Andrew Cuomo's first election as Governor of NY. Great debate with all the third party candidates, including the "Rent is 2 Damn High" candidate and the brothel madam. Every third party candidate did better in the debate than the R and D candidates -- including the two I just mentioned -- and the *media said so* -- but Duverger's Law applied.

 

[neroden]

Respectfully disagree. To my knowledge they have not been tried with respect to Congressional seats, and as a result have lead to career politicians making decisions based on what will keep them in power, not what can be done with the time they have.

Congressional seats aren't any different from state legislature seats. We know the effect of term limits in state legislatures (what I described, it's bad). Why would you believe Congress would be any different?

 

[neroden]

I was having a conversation with someone I trust implicitly shortly after one of the mass shootings. We started by talking about background checks (which I fully support in absolutely every situation including my giving one of my guns to a child), types of weapons and the like. One of her points was that there really is no need for semi-auto "assault" weapons in the general public.

This is true. Semiautomatics are junk.

I learned enough about the technology of guns to conclude that no rational person would want a semi-automatic unless they were planning to convert it to an automatic. Revolvers are simply better for any legitimate purpose. Semi-automatics pour gunk into the innards when fired and are supposed to be *disassembled totally* every time you fire them, for cleaning. Revolvers... don't. They're simply more reliable -- less likely to blow up in your face due to poor cleaning.

If I wanted to go hunting, or shoot in self-defense, or *anything*, I might want a shotgun, a I might want a rifle, I might want a revolver. Or if I was planning a military assault, I might want a full machine gun... but I would never want a semiautomatic.

Semiautomatics are inherently defective products and should just be taken off the market. I'm actually more sympathetic to the idea that there should be licenses for civilian ownership of actual machine guns, since there are more legitimate arguments for them!

(This is one example of a situation where I think the existing political discussion is off the rails disconnected from reailty. Probably because the NRA is funded by gun manufacturers, whose sole goal is to make as much money selling guns as they can)

 

[Curt Renz]

...(1) It is involuntary servitude and is unconstitutional...

That's what I tried to tell my draft board before they forced me into the army and Vietnam.

 

[lolachampcar]

Neroden,

Please let me suggest, with true respect, that you not type of the subject of weapons. Semis are not junk, do not require cleaning on every use to function nor are they without purpose apart from conversion to fully auto. These statements are simply not true The mini 14 has been around since I was a kid and its cycle rate is comparable with any of the current AR15 copy cats.

I'm perfectly happy removing all money from any ability to influence policy including the NRA.

Oh, and I own several semi, have never converted one to Class III and do consider myself rational. My Class III weapons all have proper tax stamps.