Jeeper79 said:

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Ragoo said:

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Jeeper79 said:

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Deputy Travis Junior said:

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The "voting patterns is all that matters" view has gained a lot of steam the past few decades, but character is vitally important for long term sustainability. Say we elect politicians who give handouts to friends and supporters, or look the other way when a party priority is implemented poorly, or whatever. After a few decades, we've built up an unauditable mess that funnels our tax dollars to special interests, NGOs, fake autism clinics, or Minneapolis learing centers. USAID's budget was $50B/year and we didn't know where huge chunks of that money were even going. That was by design and it's the result of sending awful people to DC.

Put another way, our congress typically passes bills that are thousands of pages long. If we put corrupt, venal politicians in office, what are the odds that they'll bury riders in The Brother Karamazov that enrich themselves at our expense? What are the odds that they fund an agency that hires a consultant that vastly overpays a subcontractor owned by the politician's cousin/wife/neighbor?

Demand more. If he's ****ed 15 women while married and then lied about it, he'll be happy to **** us and lie about it too.

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Well said. And also why I'll never vote for Paxton.

I've also noticed a major uptick in ****ty people getting voted in since trump was elected. People like MTG, George Santos, etc. And people will actually run cover for them just because they're R.

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eh. Jimmy Carter was a good person. Had strong morals. Terrible terrible president. Like all time worst. Bad decisions spineless terrible. But he was a good person. It ain't always about being a good person.

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That doesn't negate anything I said. Competency should absolutely be a minimum requirement. But so should be a decent human.

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You're looking for a unicorn, then.

oh no said:

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iceman08 said:

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oh no said:

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I don't understand how one can consciously intentionally vote for democrats but say they are against communism or keep voting for democrats if they don't think we need wide open borders with unfettered and unvetted mass migration to the tune of +20 million in 4 years. Why do you want these things, and if you don't but vote for them anyway, how is voting R for smaller government and lower taxes worse than communism and open borders in your view?

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Because in my opinion, the current Rs don't want small government. Frankly I feel like they want to control more and have developed a more "big brother" view recently. I think the Rs of even 15 years ago are completely different than what we have today. And they have blown up the deficit just like the Ds.

I don't have a lot of faith either side is going to really tackle our spending (and interest problem) until it's so dire that everything has fall apart. But that's also unfortunately most human nature to ignore a problem until it is quite literally on your doorstep and not just your neighbors problem.

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I don't like W's patriot act fallout. I don't like Trump 45's covid spending. But comparing the D's who are openly socialist, want nationalized federalized healthcare, call for disinformation censorship czars, and only want to raise taxes and add regulations and create industry via regulation that also grows government- like the green revolution, green new deals, green industry- to Rs and saying they're same at growing the size of government doesn't seem genuine. R's being ineffective at shrinking government is not the same as socialists intentionally growing it.

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The current administration has requested a $1.5 trillion dollar budget for DoW. The CARES Act under Trump's first term cost $2.2 trillion. Now to be fair, Biden looked at Trump's COVID spending and said hold my beer. The R's love to spend money on defense and the military industrial complex as previously stated and the D's love to spend on social programs and blow up the national debt with "entitlements". We could almost look at COVID spending as a competition between the parties of who could spend more. Neither party wants to pay for their projects though. It's human nature. People love to get things and not pay for them. Now, the D's certainly have a track record of spending more than the R's, so I'm not saying it's a wash.

As for nationalized healthcare, Newt Gingrich argued back in the 90's for individuals being "required to have health insurance" as a matter of social responsibility. I'm not looking to derail the thread on healthcare, but only reference this as a data point of shifting party positions. The Conversation - Conservatives Previously Backed Obamacare Principles, What Changed?

You can point to similar policy changes overtime going back decades for either party. This board likes to occasionally point out the Dems previously supported slavery, Jim Crow laws, and segregation. I think it's safe to say neither party supports those today. Separately, I wonder what the R's from 30 years ago would think of the R's of today supporting tariffs?

I liked iceman's point about nothing being static. That includes the parties and it also includes individual people/voters. I know my views have changed overtime as I've lived my life, gained experience, and met other people. And the world has certainly changed and grown more complex than even 10 years ago when Trump was elected to his first term (let alone compared to 20, 30, 40 years ago).

Jeeper79 said:

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Deputy Travis Junior said:

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The "voting patterns is all that matters" view has gained a lot of steam the past few decades, but character is vitally important for long term sustainability. Say we elect politicians who give handouts to friends and supporters, or look the other way when a party priority is implemented poorly, or whatever. After a few decades, we've built up an unauditable mess that funnels our tax dollars to special interests, NGOs, fake autism clinics, or Minneapolis learing centers. USAID's budget was $50B/year and we didn't know where huge chunks of that money were even going. That was by design and it's the result of sending awful people to DC.

Put another way, our congress typically passes bills that are thousands of pages long. If we put corrupt, venal politicians in office, what are the odds that they'll bury riders in The Brother Karamazov that enrich themselves at our expense? What are the odds that they fund an agency that hires a consultant that vastly overpays a subcontractor owned by the politician's cousin/wife/neighbor?

Demand more. If he's ****ed 15 women while married and then lied about it, he'll be happy to **** us and lie about it too.

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Well said. And also why I'll never vote for Paxton.

I've also noticed a major uptick in ****ty people getting voted in since trump was elected. People like MTG, George Santos, etc. And people will actually run cover for them just because they're R.

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What do you think about Talarico?