Board 8 > Chris' political topic 2: Huh, didn't expect to be making another casual topic.

(+) Yeah! (+)

So for those who missed the memo this topic is about being a little less HARSH AND BRUTAL about disagreements. I don't care about your opinions, I am pretty on the left and think Trump is a madman and it isn't his political beliefs alone that make me think that, but we are all Board 8ers so be nice and casual and let's discuss stuff.

I saw a post today about Bernie having trouble being elected. How about we just find out if the life long civil servant with popular views can beat 'hey guys SOCIALISM' rhetoric because I want the American people to decide, not pundits who think they have the answers.

If we can elect Trump, we sure as hell can elect Sanders.
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We already did find out.

He pretty handily lost the primary election.

I dont know why no one but fucking Bernie Sanders gets a pass on this

No one is saying "oh if only John Kasich got another shot he would surely have beaten not just Trump buy Hillary too".

Kasich plans to run in 2020 and he doesnt even register on most Vegas odds as a long shot!
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Another successful topic to spread the globalist agenda in
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Eddv posted...

He pretty handily lost the primary election.

I dont know why no one but fucking Bernie Sanders gets a pass on this

I mean, John McCain lost to Bush in the 2000 primary, and came back in the 2008 primary.

Hillary Clinton lost to Obama in the 2008 primary and came back in the 2016 primary.

Joe Biden got absolutely crushed by Obama in the 2008 primary, and he's thinking about coming back in the 2020 primary.

Mitt Romney lost to McCain in the 2008 primary, and came back in the 2012 primary.

Donald Trump lost in the 2000 election when he ran as an independent, and came back in 2016.

Why the fuck would "lost a primary once" disqualify someone exactly?
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To be fair, he lost a primary to someone who lost a Presidential election to DONALD TRUMP
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1) 3 of those people lost, one of them didnt even really run for president and one of those people isnt actually expected to win the presidency

2) Because we just keep on fucking relitigating it.

Its not "he lost but we are regrouping and plan to try again after refining our message". That is basically just politics 101.

Its this "he didn't really lose because we, the obviously correct and more popular socialists, were robbed" narrative that I find disgusting.

Its the exact same line of shit being peddled by the alt right, its just different to you because you agree with socialism.
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I mean I guess all of those polls with him being the most popular politician in America are lies.

Or how Hillary had a lot of advantages over him that no one does now (name recognition)

I mean he lost, fair, but he has only gained popularity since then.
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They aren't lies theyre just hypothetical.

Like sure, run again.

I just expect him to lose again too.
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Ok!
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Jakyl25 posted...

To be fair, he lost a primary to someone who lost a Presidential election to DONALD TRUMP

Pretty sure when you have the propaganda machine that was smearing Clinton and propping up Donny anybody could lose

Cause they were appealing to ignorant people and it worked

https://twitter.com/tpm/status/1017064407791267841?s=21

This is funny enough to share with both topics
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Why are we advocating for the popular candidate when what the american people want is distinctly biased against sound economic policy at a time when population adjusted gdp growth has stalled out in the midst of a huge push for automation?

Advocating for democracy is kinda like advocating for education or a comrade's praise for Stalin: it's impossible to prove that there's ever too much education (or amount of Stalin)

I took it again and I'm barely in the top left quarter now. The test is generally useless. So many questions are stupidly phrased, so many double negatives.
https://politicalcompass.org/analysis2?ec=-4.5&soc=0.82

Thanks to @Vlado for doing this!

I think this pretty definitively proves my point that it is poorly constructed. Vlado is far and away the most right wing, nationalistic person here. He should not be left of Obama and Clinton, and close to Sanders. This has to have some sort of ulterior motive. Either "you're too left and out of touch" if it is put together by people on the right or "look how right all politicians are and how left you are - we need a new more liberal party!" if it is put together by people on the left.

Either way, not a good measure. The values test seems to be putting together much more accurate results.
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I really like the 8values one, it asks essential questions, and the most essential one is question 53: We must think long-term, beyond our lifespan.

Whoever answers "No" to that should not have any say in politics, ever.

This is really interesting to me, because I am not positive Vlado and I agree on any other question on that 8values site. But I completely agree this is one of the most essential questions, and I answered the same way he did.

Although, honestly, I am not entirely sure who would answer that differently now that I think about it.
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Every Single Republican who voted for the Tax Bill for one.
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Suprak the Stud posted...

I took it again and I'm barely in the top left quarter now. The test is generally useless. So many questions are stupidly phrased, so many double negatives.
https://politicalcompass.org/analysis2?ec=-4.5&soc=0.82

Thanks to @Vlado for doing this!

I think this pretty definitively proves my point that it is poorly constructed. Vlado is far and away the most right wing, nationalistic person here. He should not be left of Obama and Clinton, and close to Sanders. This has to have some sort of ulterior motive. Either "you're too left and out of touch" if it is put together by people on the right or "look how right all politicians are and how left you are - we need a new more liberal party!" if it is put together by people on the left.

Either way, not a good measure. The values test seems to be putting together much more accurate results.

Weird how you say this when every single person clustered in the bottom left was social liberalism on 8 values. The ones slightly higher were liberalism. And etc.
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They don't organize things right, at all.

If you think Vlado belongs closer to Bernie Sanders than Trump, I don't know what to tell you. Like he's almost on top of Sanders, and no where near any of the republicans. He's more liberal than Obama. You are intentionally ignoring pieces of information. You aren't to the right of Vlado, for one. You should know this if you've read his topics over the year.
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Suprak the Stud posted...

They don't organize things right, at all.

If you think Vlado belongs closer to Bernie Sanders than Trump, I don't know what to tell you. Like he's almost on top of Sanders, and no where near any of the republicans. He's more liberal than Obama. You are intentionally ignoring pieces of information. You aren't to the right of Vlado, for one. You should know this if you've read his topics over the year.

OR Vlado is just full of shit and says/does things in his topics deliberately to troll, and the results of the questionnaire are accurate.
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You can easily shift the average to the left on one of these through question selection. Like I mentioned before, having a bunch of questions like do you consider your race to be superior to others is designed to do this. You could also do the reverse and push people to the right by including stuff like people should not be allowed to own property.
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Well his 8values results are what I'd expect, and do not match what you'd expect if he was being truthful in both the 8values and the political compass. Like those two give different results.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

You can easily shift the average to the left on one of these through question selection. Like I mentioned before, having a bunch of questions like do you consider your race to be superior to others is designed to do this. You could also do the reverse and push people to the right by including stuff like people should not be allowed to own property.

Mm. That's a good point.

My main issue is where they are placing the actual candidates, because they don't match up at all. Their questions aren't always great like you point out, and seem to be forcing people to the left with a series of layup questions.
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Political compass simply doesn't ask enough questions. But you have a good barometer of where they land on some questions. Though some are worded weirdly with things like always added in there which leads to agrees instead of strongly agrees. That is if people even used the stronglys (which if not pushes you towards the middle).
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Suprak the Stud posted...

LordoftheMorons posted...

You can easily shift the average to the left on one of these through question selection. Like I mentioned before, having a bunch of questions like do you consider your race to be superior to others is designed to do this. You could also do the reverse and push people to the right by including stuff like people should not be allowed to own property.

Mm. That's a good point.

My main issue is where they are placing the actual candidates, because they don't match up at all. Their questions aren't always great like you point out, and seem to be forcing people to the left with a series of layup questions.

This isn't a layup left question. Some people do believe this.

There are questions EDDV referenced earlier as layups to the left as had to be answered in disagreement that I agreed or strongly agreed on for instance.
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The 8values just looks much more accurate, particularly with its placement of Vlado relative to the rest of us.

There is something fundamentally wrong with a test that has Vlado as a liberal, further to the left of Obama on every metric. It simply isn't asking the right questions or tabulating them in a way that makes sense if it is coming up with results like that.

It's like a bear detector that picks up every animal. Sure, it scans polar bears, black bears, sloth bears as bears, but then it also scans dogs, cats, fish, and a pair of shoelaces as bears. And you're going "I don't know what you're complaining about - it scanned all the bears as bears!"
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The candidate placements are straight up made up. Read the essay below it if you havent already; it makes it extremely clear that the writer has an agenda.
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Yeah, I read that before you posted it, actually. It's what lead me to start questioning the results in the first place.

It reads as far-right or far-left propaganda. I just can't tell which, honestly.
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LordoftheMorons posted...

The candidate placements are straight up made up. Read the essay below it if you havent already; it makes it extremely clear that the writer has an agenda.

I still have zero idea where the agenda is in the quoted post. It is basically what every single political pundit said during the time.
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I think far left given that the test seems to be designed to be centered in the lower left.
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That's what I was leaning towards too. All of the write ups seemed to have the message of "THE DEMOCRATS ARE REPUBLICANS WE NEED A REVOLUTION BERNIE HAS SOLD OUT HIS MESSAGE" kind of feel to them.

And then it asks questions to push you to the left, so at the end you can go "oh jeez look I really was liberal this whole time!"
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It is UK based. It is not based around american politics.

The group that likely runs it was supported by a member of the labour party of UK.
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https://8values.github.io/results.html?e=83.5&d=80.3&g=78.1&s=89.4
https://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2?ec=-7.63&soc=-8.77
https://www.isidewith.com/profile/3499825522/parties

check out my leftist garbage

down with capitalism

Not a Revolutionary progressive like me!
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I'm not sure why isidewith thinks I'm only moderately secular when I am like, hardcore anti-theocratic

Corrik posted...

Suprak the Stud posted...

LordoftheMorons posted...

You can easily shift the average to the left on one of these through question selection. Like I mentioned before, having a bunch of questions like do you consider your race to be superior to others is designed to do this. You could also do the reverse and push people to the right by including stuff like people should not be allowed to own property.

Mm. That's a good point.

My main issue is where they are placing the actual candidates, because they don't match up at all. Their questions aren't always great like you point out, and seem to be forcing people to the left with a series of layup questions.

This isn't a layup left question. Some people do believe this.

There are questions EDDV referenced earlier as layups to the left as had to be answered in disagreement that I agreed or strongly agreed on for instance.

You Agreed or Strongly Agreed that Private Charity should provide what the government currentlt provides as social safety net?

Either you don't fully appreciate everything that entails or you just like really think the beginning of every dickens novel sounds like heavenm
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Yes I strongly agreed with single payer and charity before government safety nets.
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I don't post here often but if anyone's curious where I supposedly fall.

https://8values.github.io/results.html?e=59.8&d=68.1&g=63.5&s=70.0
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pyresword posted...

I don't post here often but if anyone's curious where I supposedly fall.

https://8values.github.io/results.html?e=59.8&d=68.1&g=63.5&s=70.0

GOOBLE GOBBLE GOOBLE GOBBLE

ONE OF US

ONE OF US
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Corrik posted...

Yes I strongly agreed with single payer and charity before government safety nets.

Oh no I ultimately said I disagreed with single payer because I do.

SephG is actually right about that - profit drives innovation.

But there are real human costs to that that we need to defray so what we need is an actually functional version of well....Obama/Romneycare
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political compass:

econ +7.78
social +2.31

in addition to all the other criticisms of this test i'd note that it suffers from being designed in the bush era, and the hot topics now are different from back then. you can get decent 'left' cred just by being okay with porn and not being a religious zealot. more questions on stuff like immigration and identities would separate people here more.

8 values:

markets 90.2%, nation 70.2% (nation and world both suck as values imo i don't actually consider myself nationalist at all), authority 63.1%, progress 52.1%
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Most likely any political survey question that uses the phrase "at all costs" is a poorly written question tbh.

Edit: Unless the entire point of it is just to isolate out the most extreme cases, but it really does seem weird for polls like this where there are more answers than just yes/no.
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Eddv posted...

He pretty handily lost the primary election.

...which the e-mails in WikiLeaks revealed was rigged against him. And there's an ongoing lawsuit about this, in which DNC are using utterly ridiculous arguments like rigging being "protected under the First Amendment."

The DNC defense lawyers then argued that: There is no legitimate basis for this litigation, which is, at its most basic, an improper attempt to forge the federal courts into a political weapon to be used by individuals who are unhappy with how a political party selected its candidate in a presidential campaign.

The brief continued: To recognize any of the causes of action that Plaintiffs allege based on their animating theory would run directly contrary to long-standing Supreme Court precedent recognizing the central and critical First Amendment rights enjoyed by political parties, especially when it comes to selecting the partys nominee for public office.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-02-25/lawyers-dnc-argue-primary-rigging-protected-first-amendment

Suprak the Stud posted...

I took it again and I'm barely in the top left quarter now. The test is generally useless. So many questions are stupidly phrased, so many double negatives.
https://politicalcompass.org/analysis2?ec=-4.5&soc=0.82

Thanks to @Vlado for doing this!

I think this pretty definitively proves my point that it is poorly constructed. Vlado is far and away the most right wing, nationalistic person here. He should not be left of Obama and Clinton, and close to Sanders. This has to have some sort of ulterior motive. Either "you're too left and out of touch" if it is put together by people on the right or "look how right all politicians are and how left you are - we need a new more liberal party!" if it is put together by people on the left.

Either way, not a good measure. The values test seems to be putting together much more accurate results.

As I said, I think it's mostly that it doesn't really measure nationalism vs. globalism. Questions like "national government vs. international corporation" got me left points, when it should get me nationalist points, and only then, as a secondary, left ones.

Suprak the Stud posted...

They don't organize things right, at all.

If you think Vlado belongs closer to Bernie Sanders than Trump, I don't know what to tell you. Like he's almost on top of Sanders, and no where near any of the republicans. He's more liberal than Obama. You are intentionally ignoring pieces of information. You aren't to the right of Vlado, for one. You should know this if you've read his topics over the year.

The Trump vs. Sanders thing is not as clear as you think. Sure, I prefer Trump, especially now that he's actually doing things and not just talking, but I did support them both, as both stood - or at least claimed to during the campaign - against the establishment, i.e. globalism. It's not so important to me whether globalism is undone by a left- or right-winger. But it seems it's the right that is actually doing it.

HeroicGammaRay posted...

8 values:

markets 90.2%, nation 70.2% (nation and world both suck as values imo i don't actually consider myself nationalist at all), authority 63.1%, progress 52.1%

also some silly questions here. i'm for progress i guess? but i didn't disagree that progress at ALL COSTS was dangerous because yeah, sure, all costs can include some pretty big costs!

Very nice! Nationalism is great, don't discard it by default, especially when your values approach ours. :)
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The Trump vs. Sanders thing is not as clear as you think. Sure, I prefer Trump, especially now that he's actually doing things and not just talking, but I did support them both, as both stood - or at least claimed to during the campaign - against the establishment, i.e. globalism. It's not so important to me whether globalism is undone by a left- or right-winger. But it seems it's the right that is actually doing it.

They're both against free trade, sure, but that doesn't mean he's against globalism.

For example, he is for NATO, for accepting refugees from the Syrian crisis, and for DACA and much more pro immigration in general just as a few examples I remember from the campaign.

I could be wrong as I do not read your topics all that frequently, but these sorts of things are antithetical to your way of thinking (if I had to guess). He's also socially progressive in about every way and I don't think I've seen you ever support a single one of those positions.

You can say "it doesn't matter if done by a left or right winger" but you agree with a right winger on just about everything and a left winger on a single issue.
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As long as the main problem is sorted, the rest will fall in place. But yes, I obviously do not agree with Sanders on immigration.

Suprak the Stud posted...

refugees from the Syrian crisis

This is bullshit, btw. Most of the migrants are not from Syria, and by now the vast majority who WERE Syrians fleeing from the war have returned.
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Im not conceding the first point, but yes by now the crisis is nearing being over. But I was referring to his position during the campaign when Aleppo was very much in the forefront of the public mind.

Unless youre Gary Johnson.
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We fucking set up NATO! It's deliberately designed to advance US security interests in Europe.
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Just in case it isn't clear, Trump and his supporters are conflating two separate issues here. Direct and indirect funding of NATO.

The direct funding of NATO can be found here:
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm?selectedLocale=en

No member of this pact is deficient in this funding. This funding goes towards shared interests of the alliance. The US pays 22% of this, per an agreement, and it is based on the countries total GDP. You will notice Germany pays 14% and France 10.5% even though our GDP is much better than theirs. This works in our advantage. We pay more but we can afford to pay even more than we do.

Any one who is beyond high school should understand why this alliance is beneficial to US interests.

Then there is indirect funding. This is funding a country pays towards its OWN defense. The benchmark is 2% and yes, many countries don't reach this amount. BUT this isn't really for NATO funding. It is just money spent on your own defense in case of a conflict breaking out. The reason the US is much much higher than everyone else (3.6% of GDP) has nothing to do with a failure of these other countries, but just because we spend so much of our own budget on defense. We could absolutely cut this if we wanted to without permission from any of the other countries.

People telling you otherwise are misleading you, either through ignorance or malice.

Some reading if you're interested:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/11/world/europe/trump-germany-russia-gas.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/09/us/politics/fact-check-donald-trump-nato-spending.html
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm?selectedLocale=en
https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/07/10/defense-expenditure-of-nato-members-visualized-infographic/#7235b77114cf
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Any just to further demonstrate how asinine this all is, here is the US budget in 2014:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_United_States_federal_budget

Here is foreign aid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid

For those that are too lazy to click the link:
Budget was 3.02 trillion
Total foreign aid (all together) was 43.1 billion
Total military aid (all together for all countries) was 10.57 billion

Now lets look at how much foreign aid just Germany receives in a year. If you follow this link you can actually search by country:
https://explorer.usaid.gov/cd

If you click this you'll find Germany receives $5.5 million in TOTAL foreign aid. A country like Israel, meanwhile, receives over $3 billion. Almost all of our foreign aid goes to places like Israel and Egypt. Cut all foreign aid to Germany entirely, not just military, and you have enough for Trump to buy himself a couple of planes.

And, again, this ignores how important foreign aid is in shoring up US alliances and positioning ourself as a leader on global issues.
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I'd add a couple things

a) 2% was a pledge for countries to reach within 10 years, which would be 2024-2025. As such, literally nobody has failed this pledge and they won't for another 6-7 years. We aren't even at the half-way point of this "pledge"

b) It honestly doesn't make any sense for certain countries to even hit 2%, and putting up that kind of defense spending would directly harm they citizen's well-being due to necessary cuts it would take
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