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Right, Left and coddling

BobTheCoward said:
You can't really say the economy was good when millions were systemically deprived by the same segregation trying to be ignored.

Segregation is economic sanction.
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Way to miss the actual point. Wrong or not, lots of people think of the 1950's economy as being better. Whether or not it actually was is irrelevant, and in fact the possible disconnect between how things actually were and how people thinks things were just hilights the actual point here, which is this:

When a question asks people if things have gotten better or worse, but doesn't ask them HOW it's gotten better or worse, you can't actually use the results to say anything useful about people's actual preferences. You don't know what the basis of their response is.
 
BobTheCoward said:
Why is that the right relative scale to use? And if we are going back in time, there are a lot of things that put more weight on the right side of the scale.
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If you think it's better to judge by the political scene predating the industrial revolution, have at it.

If you're talking about social issues strictly, you have a very valid point. Even Hillary Clinton opposed gay marriage not that long ago, and now almost the whole country has just stopped caring.
 
kellyb said:
If you think it's better to judge by the political scene predating the industrial revolution, have at it.

If you're talking about social issues strictly, you have a very valid point. Even Hillary Clinton opposed gay marriage not that long ago, and now almost the whole country has just stopped caring.
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I'm not asserting any particular framework. You are presenting one and I would like to actually hear the defense for it's validity.
 
Ziggurat said:
Way to miss the actual point. Wrong or not, lots of people think of the 1950's economy as being better. Whether or not it actually was is irrelevant, and in fact the possible disconnect between how things actually were and how people thinks things were just hilights the actual point here, which is this:

When a question asks people if things have gotten better or worse, but doesn't ask them HOW it's gotten better or worse, you can't actually use the results to say anything useful about people's actual preferences. You don't know what the basis of their response is.
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I have no opinion on their preferences.im only interested in how wrong the position is.
 
kellyb said:
:confused:

How is it not relevant?
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Because there is no absolute scale, and because we're talking about the US, not about other countries.

And on economics, both parties have shifted way to the right.
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Not really. The democrats, for example, are just as much in favor of economic regulation as they've ever been. And Obamacare has put a giant chunk of the US economy under far more government control than than that sector has ever been under before.
 
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Ziggurat said:
kellyb said:
:confused:

How is it not relevant?
Because there is no absolute scale, and because we're talking about the US, not about other countries.



Not really. The democrats, for example, are just as much in favor of economic regulation as they've ever been. And Obamacare has put a giant chunk of the US economy under far more government control than than that sector has ever been under before.
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In all fairness drugs and their prices definitely needs some control (for the US) - I am not as concerned for other areas (i.e. where US produced drugs currently cost less than in the US).
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Brainster said:
I am perpetually amused by this claim. From the standpoint of political science theory, it is transparently false. If both the Democrats and Republicans were both right-wing parties, then the Democrats would almost never lose an election, since even though they are right of center, they are still closer to the center than the Republicans.
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Voter apathy is probably something you're missing. Neoliberals have found it difficult to let go of the center and many take from the same donors as the Republicans, so between Republican and Republican-lite, the people who actually come out and vote will almost always take the real Republican. Obama said himself that he is an 80s Republican.
 
Ziggurat said:
Because there is no absolute scale, and because we're talking about the US, not about other countries.
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Well you can make a scale out of world and historical standards if you stop making excuses to not do that.

I have a scale. Darat has a scale. Lots of people have a scale.

Not really. The democrats, for example, are just as much in favor of economic regulation as they've ever been. And Obamacare has put a giant chunk of the US economy under far more government control than than that sector has ever been under before.
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No, after FDR wall street really was regulated, and post 2008, the reforms were exceedingly weak.

And I'm not sure Obamacare changed much, but I'll concede the point anyway, just noting that Obamacare is Heritage/Romneycare.
 
kellyb said:
Well you can make a scale out of world and historical standards if you stop making excuses to not do that.

I have a scale. Darat has a scale. Lots of people have a scale.
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And none of those scales is relevant here. The relevant scale is relative to the American polity, because we're talking about American politics.

No, after FDR wall street really was regulated, and post 2008, the reforms were exceedingly weak.
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It's interesting that you chose FDR as the example, since there was just a discussion about what preferring the 1950's to the present meant. Lots of liberals like the regulations/tax rates/etc of those bygone eras, even if they don't like the racial segregation and discrimination. Which is more important? Depends on the context, doesn't it?

But that's all kind of tangential. FDR did a lot of stuff (like interning the Japanese) that nobody now would tolerate, and with good reason. And more importantly, what he did isn't really relevant to your claim that the US has shifted to the right since the 1990's, since by 1990 America was a very different place than it was during FDR's presidency.
 
Ziggurat said:
He also said you could keep your doctor.
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Well looking at Obama's straddling the center I'd say he has good self awareness. He essentially refurbished Romney's corporate friendly, individually mandated health care plan, was for a long time "undecided" on gay marriage, and engaged the middle east with the same, weak foreign policy as the admins of the past few decades. Any small fiscal move to the left Obama wanted was seen as a huge leap towards socialism by conservative media, which is laughable.

He really wouldn't be out of place in the 80s or 90s.
 
Brainster said:
Compared to what? Compared to the UK? Compared to France? Compared to what you would like to see?

You seem to feel that there is nothing subjective or relative about this claim, that it's like observing that the sky is blue on a clear, sunny day.
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By the policies they advocate.
 
Darat said:
By the policies they advocate.
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That doesn't answer the question at all. Those policies can still only be judged as left or right relative to something. And the relevant relative metric for that, in a thread about US politics, is US public opinion.
 
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