[US Election 2016] Republican Primary Megathread

[Patridam]

Yeah, he'll keep everything at 9%, 9%, 9% for awhile; then when the budget gets rough its up to 11% - just enough to make good money, just to little to arouse complaints. And all the while, Hi Tech Industry is taxed at 0%.

Hey, you do what you must to grow your city - as long as it doesn't involve Dr. Vu.

And you get a nuclear dump site, and you get a missile testing pad, and you get a casino, and....

[Greater Istanistan]

Not put missiles in Turkey.

[Skappola]

Hey, you do what you must to grow your city - as long as it doesn't involve Dr. Vu.

And you get a nuclear dump site, and you get a missile testing pad, and you get a casino, and....

Hey, those nuclear dump sites and missile testing pads have to go somewhere, why not put it somewhere that makes you money? Just keep it away from your totally not segregated and favored rich neighborhood.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

If you can't discern the difference in policies, you don't follow politics enough.

By that logic, why do we even have a spectrum? Sure, it makes it easier to discern differences in policies, but you should know that already.

Thing is, when we're judging political theory by all major political theories, there's a large variety. Every major American politician is a right-winger, when you recognize that Communism, socialism, etc, exist. If you're talking about American politics, don't call Obama a fucking socialist, talk about his damn policies. Call him a Democrat.

[Patridam]

This is an American patriotic myth especially popular among liberals.

No...?

First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." There's your separation of church and state.

Now. Founding Fathers weren't devout Christians. Source. I've written papers on this.

That's a premium (i.e. EB-member only) source, probably not the best idea.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

No...?

First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." There's your separation of church and state.

Now. Founding Fathers weren't devout Christians. Source. I've written papers on this.

That's a premium (i.e. EB-member only) source, probably not the best idea.

It is? I'm not a member though...

[Patridam]

By that logic, why do we even have a spectrum? Sure, it makes it easier to discern differences in policies, but you should know that already.

Thing is, when we're judging political theory by all major political theories, there's a large variety. Every major American politician is a right-winger, when you recognize that Communism, socialism, etc, exist. If you're talking about American politics, don't call Obama a fucking socialist, talk about his damn policies. Call him a Democrat.

Not really. When you recognize that fascist autocracies and Islamic republics exist in the world, American politics become center-left vs. center-right.

[LoveIra]

No...?

First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." There's your separation of church and state.

Now. Founding Fathers weren't devout Christians. Source. I've written papers on this.

Use the context of their time, by religion it was primaly meant different factions of Christianity and Judaism. If Islam was present there the Founding fathers would make a Constitution that will fit that hypotethical situation. Also being religious was a common standard back then and Christians reference were made even the Declaration of independence ("God made us equall"), also Deism does not opposes religiou christianity. Also, secularism back then was not the same as anti-religiosity as it is understood today.

(btw. I cannot open your source, something says it must be paid)

[Patridam]

That's a premium (i.e. EB-member only) source, probably not the best idea.

It is? I'm not a member though...

This is all I'm getting:

The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Christianity
For some time the question of the religious faith of the Founding Fathers has generated a culture war in the United States. Scholars trained in research universities have generally argued that the majority of the Founders were religious rationalists or Unitarians. Pastors and other writers who identify themselves as Evangelicals have claimed not only that most of the Founders held orthodox beliefs but also that some were born-again Christians.

Whatever their beliefs, the Founders came from similar religious backgrounds. Most were Protestants. The largest number were raised in the three largest Christian traditions of colonial America—Anglicanism (as in the cases ... (100 of 1,183 words)

When I click 'continue reading', it asks for credit card information and the like.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

No...?

First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." There's your separation of church and state.

Now. Founding Fathers weren't devout Christians. Source. I've written papers on this.

Use the context of their time, by religion it was primaly meant different factions of Christianity and Judaism. If Islam was present there the Founding fathers would make a Constitution that will fit that hypotethical situation. Also being religious was a common standard back then and Christians reference were made even the Declaration of independence ("God made us equall"), also Deism does not opposes religiou christianity.

God =/= Christian God. And Deism is totally opposed to organized religion and evangelist Christianity. Hell, Jefferson cut up the damn Bible and made his own that he liked. He had illegitimate children with his slaves. Washington reportedly never said grace or ever went to church. Everyone knows Franklin was an enlightened little horndog. Fact is, the founding fathers were nothing close to Michelle Bachmann.

[Yumyumsuppertime]

>Obama
>imperialist

Top kek

Coup in Ukraine

Didn't cause it.,

the Islamistic Arab Spring,

Voiced support, provided no funding or military intervention.

killing of civilians in Libya etc.

European members of NATO provided the bulk of material support, though the administration did offer significant financial backing to the effort. Still doesn't count as imperialism.

[Patridam]

Well, if we could make life for every American as good as it was for white Christian, cishet men in the 50s, we'd probably all be better off.

Quite.

It wouldn't be unfair to include Jewish white men in there too.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

(btw. I cannot open your source, something says it must be paid)

This is strange. I am not a member and am not on a free trial, and can see the entire thing. Huh. I'm not sure if it's legal to copy and paste it though.

[Dyakovo]

He didn't find a relatively peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis. He stumbled into one despite pushing us on a course to war with the Soviet Union.

What would you have done differently, then?

Well, not prepared for invasion, for one.
Not had the blockade ships crowd the Soviet fleet. Not had US Navy aircraft do overflights of the Soviet fleet...
Basically, not engaged in all the dick-waving.

[Skappola]

By that logic, why do we even have a spectrum? Sure, it makes it easier to discern differences in policies, but you should know that already.

Thing is, when we're judging political theory by all major political theories, there's a large variety. Every major American politician is a right-winger, when you recognize that Communism, socialism, etc, exist. If you're talking about American politics, don't call Obama a fucking socialist, talk about his damn policies. Call him a Democrat.

What does this have to do with my argument? In the US, Communism and Socialism are nearly nonexistent in national politics. We have two major political parties - one which represents the American left and the other which represents the American right. In this context, it makes no sense to call everyone right wing. America, as with any other country, has its own political spectrum. When talking entirely about domestic politics and not about global politics, it makes sense to use the domestic spectrum rather than the global spectrum. In the American spectrum, Obama is solid left-wing. He's right-wing in the global spectrum, but that is inconsequential in our current discussion. To throw out the domestic spectrum as irrational and refuse to use it makes no sense. You are purposefully throwing out something which can help deepen your understanding of domestic politics in favor of using a single global standard, regardless of how ineffective and confusing it is on a domestic level.

[Patridam]

(btw. I cannot open your source, something says it must be paid)

This is strange. I am not a member and am not on a free trial, and can see the entire thing. Huh. I'm not sure if it's legal to copy and paste it though.

Are you in the US? Maybe it's location-based or something.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

This is strange. I am not a member and am not on a free trial, and can see the entire thing. Huh. I'm not sure if it's legal to copy and paste it though.

Are you in the US? Maybe it's location-based or something.

Yeah. That might be it.

[Patridam]

He didn't find a relatively peaceful resolution to the Cuban Missile Crisis. He stumbled into one despite pushing us on a course to war with the Soviet Union.

What would you have done differently, then?

You do realize the Cuban missile crisis was literally ONE submarine key turn away from becoming nuclear war?

[LoveIra]

1. God =/= Christian God. 2. And Deism is totally opposed to organized religion and evangelist Christianity. Hell, Jefferson cut up the damn Bible and made his own that he liked. 3 .He had illegitimate children with his slaves. Washington reportedly never said grace or ever went to church. Everyone knows Franklin was an enlightened little horndog.4. Fact is, the founding fathers were nothing close to Michelle Bachmann.

1. Not true because back than there was no other God than the christian god.
2. How? Do you know what Deism actually teachs?
3. This does not have to do with anything?
4. Actually they would be more close to Bachmann since they would oppose gays and support slavery.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

1. God =/= Christian God. 2. And Deism is totally opposed to organized religion and evangelist Christianity. Hell, Jefferson cut up the damn Bible and made his own that he liked. 3 .He had illegitimate children with his slaves. Washington reportedly never said grace or ever went to church. Everyone knows Franklin was an enlightened little horndog.4. Fact is, the founding fathers were nothing close to Michelle Bachmann.

1. Not true because back than there was no other God than the christian god.
2. How? Do you know what Deism actually teachs?
3. This does not have to do with anything?
4. Actually they would be more close to Bachmann since they would oppose gays and support slavery.

1. You simply can not believe that. You can't. That is so blatantly false I can't accept that you think that. No modern Westerner is that uneducated about religious history.
2. Yes, I used to be a Deist and have extensively studied the religious views of the Founders.
3. It's an indication they were nothing close to devout Christians. Washington also refused communion his entire life, by the way. On the extremely rare occasions he attended church.
4. We have no evidence on their opinions toward homosexuals and crazy as she is, I don't think Bachmann supports that, except for wage slavery.

[LoveIra]

Didn't cause it., .

Nulanda admitted to "funded the opposition", so yes he caused it (or at least people close to him)

Voiced support, provided no funding or military intervention.

Really? And NATO intervention in Libya was not without reason? Obama started it to help the Islamists overthrown Gadaffi. There was funding of the Islamist and opposition even today in Syria in form of giving aid to al-Nusra.

European members of NATO provided the bulk of material support, though the administration did offer significant financial backing to the effort. Still doesn't count as imperialism.

It is imperialism because a legitimate ruler was overthrown in favour of puppets and "democrats".

[Dyakovo]

1. God =/= Christian God. 2. And Deism is totally opposed to organized religion and evangelist Christianity. Hell, Jefferson cut up the damn Bible and made his own that he liked. 3 .He had illegitimate children with his slaves. Washington reportedly never said grace or ever went to church. Everyone knows Franklin was an enlightened little horndog.4. Fact is, the founding fathers were nothing close to Michelle Bachmann.

1. Not true because back than there was no other God than the christian god.
2. How? Do you know what Deism actually teachs?
3. This does not have to do with anything?
4. Actually they would be more close to Bachmann since they would oppose gays and support slavery.

1: Islam has been around since the 7th century.
2: Yes.
3: The never saying grace or going to church is a pretty good indicator that Washington was not a devout christian.

[Jamzmania]

1. Not true because back than there was no other God than the christian god.
2. How? Do you know what Deism actually teachs?
3. This does not have to do with anything?
4. Actually they would be more close to Bachmann since they would oppose gays and support slavery.

1: Islam has been around since the 7th century.
2: Yes.
3: The never saying grace or going to church is a pretty good indicator that Washington was not a devout christian.

I almost never say grace or go to church, yet I am a very devout Christian. Those are not mandatory for being a devout Christian.

[Prussia-Steinbach]

1: Islam has been around since the 7th century.
2: Yes.
3: The never saying grace or going to church is a pretty good indicator that Washington was not a devout christian.

I almost never say grace or go to church, yet I am a very devout Christian. Those are not mandatory for being a devout Christian.

If you were a devout Christian you'd participate in Christianity. Perhaps today there is an argument for not going to an established church. But in Washington's time, if you did not bless your food, almost never went to church, and refused Communion, you were pretty damn obviously not quite sure of that whole Christianity thing.

[Grenartia]

Hence why a simple raising of the minimum wage is inadequate. A requirement to it being tied to cost of living ¹ incentivizes [sic] corporations to cut costs on products (while maintaining and improving regulations keeps them from skimping on quality²), and requiring they cut upper management pay before mass numbers of job cutting ensures that jobs don't get lost to pay for the increased costs. ³

1.) I fail to see how tying it cost of living changes the other economic impacts; it merely avoids people migrating massively to Texas or something because wages are higher but the cost of living is cheaper.

2.) So regulations are going to stop any sort of cost cutting measures, and decreases of quality, in industry? You're going to use the government to, what, A. keep car companies from using plastic where there was metal? B. Stop movie studios from making cash-in action movies? C. I can sort of understand the belief behind legislation for safety or environmental reasons, but ensuring products never undergo cost-cutting through government intervention is a major step towards command economics.

3.) In no way does that ensure no loss of jobs. If the company manages to cut all of the costs in the area of executive pay, then it will lose its skilled and competent executives (who will go to other companies or 4. foreign companies where their skills are greater reciprocated), having them replaced by less in-demand, junior executives, willing to work for less; 5. those new executives will wrought further failure on the profitability of the company, decreasing the ability of the company to pay its workers, which will either result in fired workers anyway, or even worse paid executives who will follow the cycle until the company is run into the ground. 6. That is if cutting pay of a few executives is enough to cover the difference of massively changed employee wages.

7. It probably won't be, so the few companies that remain here will be forced to further outsource workers since what the number of workers company can afford to pay here at the new wage will be insufficient to meet production demands, whereas thrice as many Chinese laborers at one fourth the price could easily handle it.

8.) Even if the government manages to control companies such that it sets worker pay, executive pay, product cost, the amount of employees, and employee retention, that is honestly much closer to a command economy than a capitalist one. All of the advantages stemming from the adaptability of the free market would be lost, replaced by miles of government bureaucracy.

So those steps you propose will not only cause heavy inflation from the raise in wages, but will result in a command economization and all the deleterious effects of inadaptability and lack of incentives for innovation that occur from such a step.

Look how well that worked out in the late 30s.

And look at how well proactive foreign policy worked for us in the 1960s. There's horror stories of isolationism and globalism, neither are infallible.

1. The entire argument behind the "raising minimum wage increases inflation" is that raising it requires companies to pay more money to workers. They have more money, demand for goods rises, prices rise, and the wage raise basically becomes meaningless in terms of actual purchasing power. What I outlined is intended to solve that problem.

2. A. In components that are intended to keep the occupants safe during a crash, yes, and only if said replacement causes a reduction in performance in that metric.
B. I've no clue where the fuck you're getting that from, but no. I'm talking about shit like Taco Bell using filler (sand, in that case) in their meat, to make it 'go farther'. Or not making sure to remove any mercury from fish before selling. Basically, preventing things that obviously negatively impact the public, but would save the company in question money.
C. No, a command economy is simply one where competition is not allowed. I am a market socialist. I do believe in competition.

3. Nearly every other company would be affected in the same way.

4. Good. Make room for more jobs in this country for people who are capable. If they can't take not being able to fuck people over, they shouldn't enjoy the privilege of working here.

5. You'd be surprised. I suspect that if the "old executive flight" you predict takes place, not only would the younger execs do just fine in their places, they'd actually do better than their predecessors, due to corporate culture literally going away. There'd be less pressure for them to adopt anti-worker and anti-consumer attitudes, due to the 'old guard' ceasing to be a factor in corporate America.

6. Given that, per hour, an average top level executive makes several THOUSAND times more than a minimum wage worker (a statistic that has literally ballooned since Reagan's 'trickledown' bullshit), I doubt they'd have much of a problem finding enough money.

7. Avoid that by offering more tax breaks to companies that hire American instead of foreign. You could also institute said tax breaks to incentivize them to cut executive pay to better afford worker pay.

8. Again, command economy is one with no competition. Companies are still free to compete within reasonable boundaries. Different product composition, different approaches to problems, different advertising, etc. In fact, I'll argue the competition becomes more meaningful, because workers will have more to spend, and therefore, more discretion in what they want to buy. Suck it, supply-side econ.