2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part III

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Belz... said:
Well, you're wrong. For instance, someone could be strongly opposed to lying as a matter of principle, but could be drive to lie in order to, for instance, avoid causing serious harm or death to someone. That's not abandoning their actual principles; it's recognising that they're on a scale, and no principle can be seen as absolute all the time. Otherwise one would be Bobbing.
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When has declaring "you're wrong" ever convinced anyone of anything, or been considered a good argument in support of a point?

And I disagree. Some people do hold some principles as absolutes.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Here's a crazy idea. The candidate most able to draw lots of support during the primary is probably one that can draw a lot of support during the general.
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That is a crazy idea. Primary support skews towards the extreme of the party, not towards the center. To win in the general, the candidate needs to draw support from the center. Drawing support from the party extreme in the primary is not a good predictor of this.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I'd certainly think about it long and hard. It seems highly unlikely to occur. I wouldn't vote for Sanders in that scenario because I'd guess his chances were better, but I might vote for Sanders in that scenario because by acting in that fashion Warren would demonstrate a lack of judgment.

Which would please the unprincipled pragmatists amongst us as they don't care why someone votes the way they want, just so long as they do.
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Well, at least you concede to giving some consideration to the "ends".

It seems we differ only in the degree to which we think that important.
 
Segnosaur said:
But that's the question I was asking... what other policies?

A law that sets a hard cap on total compensation? Some sort of percentage deal? And how does he plan to handle foreign-owned companies with subsidiaries in the U.S.?

Maybe Sanders does have a more comprehensive plan. It would have been great to see that in his tweet. "Executives are overpaid... see how I'd handle it by going to my website at 'sandersisgod.com/eat_the_rich'." Without that, it just seems like empty rhetoric.
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As I've been thinking about the bully pulpit recently, and about the roles of the Executive and Legislative branches, it occurs to me that the president doesn't necessarily need a detailed, comprehensive plan. These are policies that come from Congress. All the president needs to do is give the public the idea. Let the voters pressure their legislators. Let the legislators come up with the details they think will appease their constituents.

As long as the president starts the public conversation, and gets people debating the pros and cons of different approaches, his work is done. After that it's up to the legislature.
 
Distracted1 said:
Why would consideration of what "A" could achieve in office be relevant in a scenario wherein "A" cannot get into office?
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Because for the next election people might realize A got a lot of votes in the primary, what was it about A that attracted those votes, it was A's policy on widgets, perhaps our candidate C for this election ought to take the same position on widgets?
 
theprestige said:
As I've been thinking about the bully pulpit recently, and about the roles of the Executive and Legislative branches, it occurs to me that the president doesn't necessarily need a detailed, comprehensive plan. These are policies that come from Congress. All the president needs to do is give the public the idea. Let the voters pressure their legislators. Let the legislators come up with the details they think will appease their constituents.

As long as the president starts the public conversation, and gets people debating the pros and cons of different approaches, his work is done. After that it's up to the legislature.
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Sort of like Greta Thunberg. :)
 
Segnosaur said:
The question is... what do you DO about it. All fine for Sanders to rant about these big paydays but how do you step in to provide limits to just how much a person can get paid, without government overreach.
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How about a federal maximum wage law? No one at company X gets more than 100x the pay of the lowest paid employee of company X.

(No loophole for subcontractors, natch.)

:boxedin:
 
Belz... said:
No one's suggesting voting for Charles Manson to defeat Trump. None of the Democratic candidates seem particularily bad.
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Bad compared to what? If compared to Trump they are all certainly better. Compared to other democratic candidates? Compared to the evidence based policies or ones successfully applied in other countries? Compared to what the American people want according to polling?

If Trump has successfully lowered expectations that we'll take anything as long as it's not as bad as him then we're already screwed.
 
d4m10n said:
How about a federal maximum wage law? No one at company X gets more than 100x the pay of the lowest paid employee of company X.

(No loophole for subcontractors, natch.)

:boxedin:
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I've been an advocate of something like this for a long time. I'd prefer something in the range of 30x to 50x but even 100x would be a good start.
 
No maximum wage. Instead, bring back the Reagan tax levels - you want ask for a raise if 90% of that raise will go to the state.
 
theprestige said:
That is a crazy idea. Primary support skews towards the extreme of the party, not towards the center. To win in the general, the candidate needs to draw support from the center. Drawing support from the party extreme in the primary is not a good predictor of this.
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*Cough* Trump * cough*
 
Belz... said:
I didn't say no one did. I said that not holding principles as absolutes is not abandoning them.
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I see. You don't abandon principles, you just set them aside when they're inconvenient. You can always take them up again later. That's not abandonment because there's always the possibility that at some future date you might revert to doing the right thing. Flexibility is what makes a principle a principle.
 
Distracted1 said:
Nonsense.
I prefer Warren for POTUS, yet, when the primaries come to Philadelphia, I will cast a vote for whomever seems to be most likely to be able to unseat Trump (and that is not currently Warren, so if it were tomorrow I would likely be voting Biden)

Edit to clarify. Should multiple options have the same (or very similar) chances of winning, I would vote Warren. Even if she were a point or three behind in a 10 point race.
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How will you assess who has the best chances of victory over Trump? What's the metric?
 
TragicMonkey said:
I see. You don't abandon principles, you just set them aside when they're inconvenient. You can always take them up again later. That's not abandonment because there's always the possibility that at some future date you might revert to doing the right thing. Flexibility is what makes a principle a principle.
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Well, yes. Anyone who's lived in the real world knows this.

But let's test this: would you break a principle if you knew that not doing so in this instance would cause someone you know to die? And, if so, does that mean you have abandoned your principle, or simply that there was another, more important principle?

The only way that a principle is absolute is when you only have one principle, or when all of them are equivalent. Again, in the real world, it doesn't work that way, no matter what internet warriors pretend.
 
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