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[Rockphed]

you need to incentivize employment, via an effective and rational minimum wage.

By necessity, government assistance needs to be below this amount, or the perverse anti-incentive manifests.

The true minimum wage always has been, and always will be, 0.  In other words, companies can always choose not to hire people who aren't worth paying the minimum wage.  Getting people able to support themselves is a very complicated problem that the right and left have diametrically opposed views on how to fix.

And, at present, government assistance is high enough that marginal "tax" rates are over 100% for above the table work.  And people on government assistance are still, generally, stuck far enough below that poverty line that they are unlikely to ever get out.

Have you been to Detroit recently?  How about Chicago?  How about Flint?  All three, and many more hard-hit inner cities have been safely Democrat for the last 2 - 3 generations.  You could probably point out problems with large cities that have been reliably republican for similar time frames, but I don't think any exist.  No, you do not want a single party to hold the reigns for too long without competent competition.  Competition keeps the people in power sharp.

Flint's water problems arose as a direct result of republican Governor Rick Snyder and other state officials' actions. Citation is wall street journal.

Flint's water problems arose as a result of the city going bankrupt and the state stepping in to take over.  The guy assigned to fix the city's finances just happened to also be, apparently, incompetent when it came to public works (he tried to cut a corner that should not have been cut).  Why Flint and Detroit went bankrupt (and the state of Michigan had to step in to fix their finances), is a much more complicated problem with roots in the race riots of the 60s and factory movement of the NAFTA era.

And I maintain that the nanny-state mentality of many Democrats leads directly to job-movement and lost opportunity.  That, and the reluctance of some Democrats to call a riot a riot.  Consider Baltimore last summer.  There were what, 3 days of rioting?  They stopped the minute the governor sent in the National Guard.

It would probably help to go over what happened in Flint in more detail, just so that everyone's on the same page of the conversation.

For a long time, Flint was getting water from the City of Detroit, which is an unusually expensive water system. After Republicans took power in that state, the state gained the power to place any municipal government under a special governor if that government is in a financial crisis. Flint was placed under such a governor who decided that another water system in the region would be just as good and significantly cheaper, and arranged for a switch. When Detroit turned off the flow, the other system wasn't ready to supply, and it was decided that water would be drawn from the Flint River (which had been an emergency backup for decades) as a temporary solution, and certain chemicals (mainly dissolved road salt) were not properly filtered out. While these chemicals would not normally be a major health hazard at the quantities present, much of Flint still has lead piping. Normally, lead pipes form a scale on the inside relatively quickly that prevents lead from contaminating the water - this is why there hasn't been nearly as great a push to remove them as there has been with lead paint and glazes. Unfortunately, the deposits in the Flint River happen to be very, very good at dissolving this scale, rendering the plumbing highly toxic.

Well, the state had the power to place municipalities under state control even when Granholm was governor.  (Detroit Public Schools has been in and out of emergency managers for the last 10 - 20 years.)  It wasn't the Republicans   And the Detroit Water System isn't super expensive inherently, it is just expensive for Flint, which is some 60 - 90 miles from Detroit.

When the switch happened, they were supposed to add anti-corrosives to the water but failed to do so.  They also made the water more corrosive by adding lots of chemicals to kill off the e-coli that they were having problems with.  And, to top it all off, the people who were supposed to make sure it didn't happen either didn't care to push it up the chain or were ignored by the governor's office.  And then the Republican legislature, not being keen on throwing good money after bad, took forever to put forward the money to fix the problems.

[misko27]

If the people who didn't vote because they didn't like either major party had voted for a third party, then that third party would have won.

And if they had all voted for me then I would have won! Hypotheticals are fun. Can you show me the slightest bit of evidence that all these poor, oppressed voters are going to vote the same way as each other? My point was that the Third Party of wierd and McTraveller ain't winning the votes of, say, my mother. And if they don't command huge support, they are merely, in the immortal words of Monty Python, "splitters". I don't need evidence that the number of people disappointed in the two main parties is very large, I want evidence stating they share common denominators other than distaste for the main parties that elevate them above "irrelevant." The Libertarians and the Greens would do a lot better if they were won party according to your logic, but that's equally silly to say because they also oppose each other just as fervently.

The idea that third parties is irrelevant is a very carefully constructed propaganda campaign created specifically to keep people from voting for them.

That fact does not, in and of itself, mean that third parties aren't irrelevant, because they are. It merely means that hypothetically that need not be the case, but hypotheticals are just hypotheticals. You could hypothetically become President of the United States, but I'm not going to sit here and discuss the implications of a PTTG?? presidency because I don't see it happening anytime soon (well at least not until I'm more bored and have fewer projects to complete; we'll see then).

My point is third parties in the US are screwed fundamentally because they are all loaded with fringe-groups, unrespectable, poorly-funded, and derive most of their electoral support not on the basis of their platform but on the basest form of "we aren't those guys," and you can argue about cause and effect (propaganda doesn't work if there ain't a seed of truth) here all day but the fact is that that is how they are now and that is where inertia keeps them. They are like moons: they don't have any light of their own, they merely reflect the light of the main parties. And the most damning thing about them is that anyone who sees the state of third parties does not think "let's take an existing third party and do the hard and unforgiving work of making it more legitimate", but "I'm going to make my own party, with blackjack, and hookers!" It's self-limiting. This election cycle was the best opportunity in a long time for a third party to challenge the dynamic and how did they do? Better than before, but "better" != "good enough", and "good enough" is the only thing that matters.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

The idea that third parties is irrelevant is a very carefully constructed propaganda campaign created specifically to keep people from voting for them.

My point is third parties in the US are screwed fundamentally because they are all loaded with fringe-groups, unrespectable, poorly-funded, and derive most of their electoral support not on the basis of their platform but on the basest form of "we aren't those guys," and you can argue about cause and effect (propaganda doesn't work if there ain't a seed of truth) here all day but the fact is that that is how they are now and that is where inertia keeps them. They are like moons: they don't have any light of their own, they merely reflect the light of the main parties. And the most damning thing about them is that anyone who sees the state of third parties does not think "let's take an existing third party and do the hard and unforgiving work of making it more legitimate", but "I'm going to make my own party, with blackjack, and hookers!" It's self-limiting. This election cycle was the best opportunity in a long time for a third party to challenge the dynamic and how did they do? Better than before, but "better" != "good enough", and "good enough" is the only thing that matters.

How is this different from the main parties?

[Rockphed]

The idea that third parties is irrelevant is a very carefully constructed propaganda campaign created specifically to keep people from voting for them.

My point is third parties in the US are screwed fundamentally because they are all loaded with fringe-groups, unrespectable, poorly-funded, and derive most of their electoral support not on the basis of their platform but on the basest form of "we aren't those guys," and you can argue about cause and effect (propaganda doesn't work if there ain't a seed of truth) here all day but the fact is that that is how they are now and that is where inertia keeps them. They are like moons: they don't have any light of their own, they merely reflect the light of the main parties. And the most damning thing about them is that anyone who sees the state of third parties does not think "let's take an existing third party and do the hard and unforgiving work of making it more legitimate", but "I'm going to make my own party, with blackjack, and hookers!" It's self-limiting. This election cycle was the best opportunity in a long time for a third party to challenge the dynamic and how did they do? Better than before, but "better" != "good enough", and "good enough" is the only thing that matters.

How is this different from the main parties?

This was the perfect year for third parties!  Both major parties nominated someone who approached the presidency as if it were their right.  The best performing third party was Evan Mcmullin, and he didn't even come in second in Utah.  Every other third party peaked between 1 and 2 percent of the vote.  Johnson failed because he engages in the fallacy of the middle and was somewhat unserious about global issues.  Stein failed because she was just too far left for the average American.

[PTTG??]

Honestly you'd do fantastic if you called yourself "Reganpublicans" and were exactly the same as Democrats, but you were openly pro-gun.

[McTraveller]

Honestly you'd do fantastic if you called yourself "Reganpublicans" and were exactly the same as Democrats, but you were openly pro-gun.

If you could somehow work anti-abortion in there (but maybe include free birth control?) you'd be unstoppable.

[PTTG??]

Honestly you'd do fantastic if you called yourself "Reganpublicans" and were exactly the same as Democrats, but you were openly pro-gun.

If you could somehow work anti-abortion in there (but maybe include free birth control?) you'd be unstoppable.

I dunno, there are actual liberals who want abortion. I've yet to meet someone who feels as strongly about gun control. At most, some of my friends want gun restrictions, but acknowledge that existing laws are byzantine and sufficient laws to be effective are politically impossible.

[Tawa]

Honestly you'd do fantastic if you called yourself "Reganpublicans" and were exactly the same as Democrats, but you were openly pro-gun.

I'm not quite sure what King Lear's daughter has to do with gun rights...

[PTTG??]

You'd also need to change your advertising focus. You'd have to first clarify who benefits from your policies; remember, Americans are always temporarily deprived millionaires. "We want good public education so that your kids can be prepared for private school in five years, when you can afford it." "The small businessmen and women of America don't have the time to devote to finding health insurance, so we're simplifying everything." "We're getting the big corporations out of regulation so that small businesses can compete." "Only a few companies in the USA mine and use coal. We're going to democratize the energy business with solar."

[Egan_BW]

Spoiler: And now for something completely different (click to show/hide)

[McTraveller]

I dunno, there are actual liberals who want abortion. I've yet to meet someone who feels as strongly about gun control. At most, some of my friends want gun restrictions, but acknowledge that existing laws are byzantine and sufficient laws to be effective are politically impossible.

So, donning my flame-suit here:

I don't know that liberals want the specific implementation of abortion - I see it more as they want a) the responsibility and cost of bearing and raising a child to not be unconditionally tied to the act of carrying and birthing a child and b) to avoid the physical and mental hardship of carrying and birthing a child.  Right now the only ways to accomplish that are effective birth control or abortion. I could potentially be in favor of policies that would reduce costs of adoption or whatever to address reason "a". But I can never get behind the practice of abortion to satisfy either of them.

I'm extremely non-liberal in my view that because the typical result of pregnancy without intervention* is a human being, abortion is sacrificing a human life (I've heard arguments about when the result of pregnancy is a "person" but never any debate that it's alive or human from the moment of conception - abortion is killing something) for personal comfort**.  I don't take the view that birth control is equivalent to abortion (because preventive methods do not alter the physical progression of gametes, and gametes are not humans).  And I can't think of any other "progressive" view that says it acceptable to sacrifice another person (maybe another person's profits, sure, but not their person) for your own comfort (there are views that say it's laudable to sacrifice yourself for the comfort of others).

It is indeed a quirk of the universe that males don't have any equivalent kind of physical condition like pregnancy, so there is an inherent inequality there, and I don't have a good answer for that.  I don't think physical inequality is sufficient reason to sacrifice people for personal comfort though.

*I'm fully aware that not all pregnancies result in a live birth.

**Sometimes this isn't even the comfort of the woman; sometimes it's family culture crap like "you'll bring shame to our family" or whatever.

[Neonivek]

One huge aspect of the Pro-Choice movement that I do not like is this idea that pregnancy just arrests your life.

That once your pregnant your basically put in pregnancy jail for 9 months... Don't get me wrong Pregnancy is not easy and it definitely takes a lot of work and you definitely can't do everything you did previously. Yet there is a difference between being pregnant and needing to adjust and "putting your life on hold".

For Teens mind you... That... pregnancy jail might be a bit more accurate due to the social stigma. Yet then again I am not well versed in teen pregnancies and girls who decide to still have a social life.

But then again I don't exactly like the strong focus of victimization on the Pro-choice side anyhow. Presenting exceptions as the rule.

I'd probably have a lot more disagreements about the Pro-Life movement... if I actually listened to them. So take this as more "I know more about Pro-Choice then Pro-Life"... Though between Choice and Life... There are certainly a LOT more jerks on the Life side ... But that isn't a measure of accuracy. Though I guess I'd be bugged about them using "Partial Birth abortions" as the "future of abortions" if I didn't have some inkling that it would be done.

[Shadowlord]

I knew a couple girls in high school who got pregnant, and that was the last I knew of them, I.e. I never saw them again.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

I knew a couple girls in high school who got pregnant, and that was the last I knew of them, I.e. I never saw them again.

Were they put away?

[Neonivek]

I knew a couple girls in high school who got pregnant, and that was the last I knew of them, I.e. I never saw them again.

Were they put away?

Typically, I believe, girls who become pregnant are taken out of school and are homeschooled.