yeah, but what do you Really want?

The Great Zaganza

Maledictorian
The Great Zaganza
Joined
Aug 14, 2016
Messages
29,915
I think the way to counter the kind of rhetoric that got Trump elected, on migrants, the trans community, gas and egg prices etc. is to lean in and say:

but what do you really want?

Do you really want people to die at the border, at tremendous cost to the taxpayer? How much are you, personally, willing to pay to see a child die from a razor wire on a buoy in the Rio Grande? Will that make you happy, or is this just something you say you want, because you don't think you can possibly get what you REALLY want?

Maybe you just want a better, quicker, fairer immigration policy that brings in the kind of labor the US economy needs to prosper and doesn't force immigrants into a life of crime? A migration policy that focuses on revitalizing parts of the US that suffer from lack of population and labor? Somewhere where you don't worry about them competing for your job? Maybe you want the rules enforced that prevent companies from hiring undocumented migrants?

If you want to pay less for filling up your car at the pump, wouldn't a car with half the fuel consumption save you more than cutting the price of gas a bit?
Do you really want to pay less for an egg, because eggs is basically all you eat, or do you just want to have more disposable income? Wouldn't Universal healthcare saved you tons of money and provide a lot of peace of mind?
Do you really want lower taxes, or do you want your taxes to go more towards things that are important to you?
Is it really "the economy", or is it your personal situation? Do you care about the NASDAQ or your wallet?

Just asking a plain; "yeah, but why ?" is something I have seen maybe people struggle with when they are trying to justify their candidates' policies.
 
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For many people the answer to the question "What do you want ?" is very much like asking a toddler.

I want my money to go further without having to compromise on lifestyle at all. I don't want to get a more fuel efficient car or make my house more energy efficient or turn the thermostat up in summer or down in winter - I just want the price of everything to be lower and the availability to be infinite.

As far as immigration goes, I don't want to be bothered with the sorts of difficult questions you pose, I simply want the immigrants not to be there, to have never left their home town in their native country and if they're already here they should simply leave without fuss. If that means they're returning to grave danger and/or crippling poverty then that's on them, they should have chosen to have been born in the US. I'll make an exception for [insert name here] because I know them and their family and they're nice, but the rest should just go home.

Same with employment. I shouldn't have to move and/or get new skills (as my forbears did), I should be able to earn a good living doing exactly what I've already done.
 
sure, that's what I would say to a pollster.
But in a quiet moment in conversation with friends, I might think differently.

At the core, the nostalgia for the post-war industrial boom America is the same as for the 15 minute City, with all the shops easily accessible and people living close enough in smaller communities to be aware of each other as persons.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
I think the way to counter the kind of rhetoric that got Trump elected, on migrants, the trans community, gas and egg prices etc. is to lean in and say:

but what do you really want?

Do you really want people to die at the border, at tremendous cost to the taxpayer? How much are you, personally, willing to pay to see a child die from a razor wire on a buoy in the Rio Grande? Will that make you happy, or is this just something you say you want, because you don't think you can possibly get what you REALLY want?

Maybe you just want a better, quicker, fairer immigration policy that brings in the kind of labor the US economy needs to prosper and doesn't force immigrants into a life of crime? A migration policy that focuses on revitalizing parts of the US that suffer from lack of population and labor? Somewhere where you don't worry about them competing for your job? Maybe you want the rules enforced that prevent companies from hiring undocumented migrants?

If you want to pay less for filling up your car at the pump, wouldn't a car with half the fuel consumption save you more than cutting the price of gas a bit?
Do you really want to pay less for an egg, because eggs is basically all you eat, or do you just want to have more disposable income? Wouldn't Universal healthcare saved you tons of money and provide a lot of peace of mind?
Do you really want lower taxes, or do you want your taxes to go more towards things that are important to you?
Is it really "the economy", or is it your personal situation? Do you care about the NASDAQ or your wallet?

Just asking a plain; "yeah, but why ?" is something I have seen maybe people struggle with when they are trying to justify their candidates' policies.
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I think they want a country where it is very difficult to enter the USA illegally and renters, employers, local governments who cater to illegal migrants are punished.
 
I think they want a country where the line between men and women is not blurred. Where masculinity is not attacked as "toxic". Where violent crime and rioting is not excused and justified.
 
They also want a country where all of the great manufacturing jobs that were lost in the 80s and 90s are magically brought back. And they all want a 60% raise.

:)
 
And they want all of the inflation to be magically reversed. Cuz yeah, Trump can do magic.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
sure, that's what I would say to a pollster.
But in a quiet moment in conversation with friends, I might think differently.

At the core, the nostalgia for the post-war industrial boom America is the same as for the 15 minute City, with all the shops easily accessible and people living close enough in smaller communities to be aware of each other as persons.
Click to expand...
Over here the 15 minute city is the draconian state imposing Stalinist rule on us. Funny how the compass twitches.
 
As The Don mentioned, I think Americans are too convenience-pilled. People don't see the connection with COVID-19, they expect some radical change but they put no effort into following developments during a new term.

What do you mean you can't pay your bills or feed your kids after Biden got elected? It's often not worth pursuing such questions very far in a casual interpersonal setting. I've talked to fellow graduates who wanted loan forgiveness but sound completely clueless when I asked about specific moves the Biden admin and the courts did the past two years. I think it's easier to talk to educated people like this. Even so, few people are following every little executive/Congressional/court action even on a single subject.
 
Ill tell you what I want, what I really, really want.

I want to Zigga zig ah!
 
Re: OP: many of the solutions you pose to problems amount to "just be richer and it'll all be fine". That's not tremendously helpful.

Yes, buying a new freaking car that gets better gas milage will lower your gasoline costs. If you have the luxury of buying a new $50k car to spend $20 per week less at the pump. Many don't have said luxury.

I personally don't want the border turned into a concertina wired no mans land. Just deal with the problem with the wallet, like we do in most situations. If an employer hires "illegals", he withholds their taxes. If the undocumented worker has no ss#, he cant file and the witholdings go to the treasury and we're all good. The illegal will find it hard to get credit and buy a home if refusing to get papered up. No welfare for undocumented people; this place ain't a free cash grab for anyone strolling by. If you duck the doc procedures, you should be stonewalled in getting comfy here. Minor changes would be needed to make the States a difficult place to succeed in without going through the established residency/citizenship route.

But big picture: what do we really want? A free country where we can live our lives and government largely stays out of our hair. Don't tell me who I can marry. It's not yo business. Universal health care should definitely be on the menu for citizens. Emergency care for visitors would be largely direct billed, with exceptions of course.

There are a variety of ways to make a common ground workable. But #1 should be to break the corporate headlock on our government. That's the one thing that widely hurts everyone, from campaign financing paying for representatives to IRS overhauling and beyond.
 
Darat said:
Over here the 15 minute city is the draconian state imposing Stalinist rule on us. Funny how the compass twitches.
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I usually point out to those people that what we call '15 minute cities' today really just means 'the way cities have been built for as long as there have been freaking cities'. Usually they don't have an answer to that.
 
Marty McFly could travel through all of Hill Valley, California, in 1955 on a skateboard, easily.
And that is supposedly the kind of city the 15minute city haters take as their ideal.
 
Thermal said:
Re: OP: many of the solutions you pose to problems amount to "just be richer and it'll all be fine". That's not tremendously helpful.

Yes, buying a new freaking car that gets better gas milage will lower your gasoline costs. If you have the luxury of buying a new $50k car to spend $20 per week less at the pump. Many don't have said luxury.

I personally don't want the border turned into a concertina wired no mans land. Just deal with the problem with the wallet, like we do in most situations. If an employer hires "illegals", he withholds their taxes. If the undocumented worker has no ss#, he cant file and the witholdings go to the treasury and we're all good. The illegal will find it hard to get credit and buy a home if refusing to get papered up. No welfare for undocumented people; this place ain't a free cash grab for anyone strolling by. If you duck the doc procedures, you should be stonewalled in getting comfy here. Minor changes would be needed to make the States a difficult place to succeed in without going through the established residency/citizenship route.

But big picture: what do we really want? A free country where we can live our lives and government largely stays out of our hair. Don't tell me who I can marry. It's not yo business. Universal health care should definitely be on the menu for citizens. Emergency care for visitors would be largely direct billed, with exceptions of course.

There are a variety of ways to make a common ground workable. But #1 should be to break the corporate headlock on our government. That's the one thing that widely hurts everyone, from campaign financing paying for representatives to IRS overhauling and beyond.
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You don't have to spend $50k to get a vehicle with better gas mileage, just don't buy an SUV or truck next time and/or but a regular car.

Yes I know a lot of people claim to need an SUV or truck but in truth most are luxury purchases and don't need to be the absurd size the are.
 
I
The Don said:
You don't have to spend $50k to get a vehicle with better gas mileage, just don't buy an SUV or truck next time and/or but a regular car.

Yes I know a lot of people claim to need an SUV or truck but in truth most are luxury purchases and don't need to be the absurd size the are.
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I'm a building contractor, as are virtually all my buds. : )

Point taken that most people don't "need" an Escalade or Hummer, but they are not usually really effected by gas prices except as something to bitch about. For suburban Joe, an SUV or pickup ain't exactly an irresponsible choice as an all-purpose ride.
 
Safe-Keeper said:
I usually point out to those people that what we call '15 minute cities' today really just means 'the way cities have been built for as long as there have been freaking cities'. Usually they don't have an answer to that.
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Cities haven't been built that way in the U.S. for about the last century, though. Sprawl is baked into processes and building codes for new neighborhoods (e.g. height limitations, parking requirements for businesses, and difficulty getting approval for high-density housing); meanwhile many existing high-density neighborhoods have either become unaffordable due to gentrification, or have become food deserts due to crime and/or unavailability of large enough car-accessible enough lots to support the dominant retail big-box business models.

I lived car-free in a fifteen-minute city through the 1980s and 1990s. The fifteen-minute range wasn't the entire city, let alone the entire larger metropolitan area it was adjacent to. Fifteen minutes (each way) was to the nearest "square" where there were concentrations of stores and restaurants. And because of this, apartment rents were expensive there, even then. Many things like tools or appliances or tools or medical care or employment were more likely a one to two hour (each way) public transit ride away. Not having a car was very economical and also saved huge parking hassles, but in other ways it was no fun. It rains. Groceries are heavy. Trains and buses sometimes uncontrollably make you late for work.

Of course, back then I couldn't have as many things delivered nearly as easily. Online services should help.

But I'm convinced that any practical design for a from-scratch "fifteen minute city" is over-promising. Show me one that's not a cruise ship, theme park, or retirement home. That is to say, affordable.
 
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