Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[entropy]

Is trump further right than Bush?


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[entropy]

http://www.breitbart.com/video/2016/05/04/moore-obama-is-not-actually-doing-anything-to-help-flint/

Moore wants BO to do more in flint.


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[hack]

The country sure is moving left, but pretty insane to argue it already has. All those Regan youtube clips make that very clear.

Which I think underscores the futility of focusing on left and right. Democracy is a process to ensure outcomes aligned to the collective voice and to ensure that nobody is overly harmed by them. If you want clean outcomes you have to have a clean process. Cart before horse.

[Hannibal]

The country sure is moving left, but pretty insane to argue it already has.

Which is why I said that we are one round of illegal immigrant amnesty away.

Add 10-20 million new voters to the population that will go 75/25 Democrat and the Supreme Court, Presidency, and House of Representatives will be permanently Democrat. The Presidential election will be the Democrat primary.

If today's demographic trends continue, we are one generation away from a Bernie Sanders style candidate from getting elected and America becoming a banana Republic.

[hack]

I think we are within 15 years. Goldwater>Reagan was 16 years. Financial crisis>Sanders agenda in the white house? 12 years, I would guess. Hillary won't be pushed all the way and will cool the fever by incorporating some of it, and there won't be primary challenge to her reelection. Hard to see a D in the White House for five consecutive terms though, so, 12 years for that movement to really break through.

[THE_WIZARD_]

The country is lurching...

[entropy]

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[Coop]

We've already been through 8 years of billary and clintonian continued scandals. Her eyes maintain a lovely shade of bullshit brown and we want MORE of that bcuz?????


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[Dr. Strangelove]

That's a fair point. IMO, the country has moved more left, but that's just my opinion.

It's quite possible the country keeps lurching libertarian...siding with Ds on social issues over the long haul and more or less siding with Rs on economic issues over the long haul.

There's no doubt about the former, and I would have been tempted to agree with the latter in 2006, but I think there's been a progressive move on economic issues.

Anyway, that's where I'm coming from.

The country has gone left on social issues. Except for maybe trade, it has gone right on economics/role of government since the Reagan Revolution. The entire trend over the past 35 years has been to

1) Scale back government regulation
2) Weaken government regulatory bodies
3) Deregulate every industry from airlines to banking to media
4) Pass any free trade bill that crosses the President's desk (I'll acknowledge there's increasing blowback on this one)
5) Pass new labor laws that weaken or cripple labor unions

I think we've also moved away from libertarianism on civil rights since 9/11. Though that's possibly changing?

As for Hillary, Neocons largely support HER over Trump. Which tells you where she stands on most foreign policy issues

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433405/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-equally-terrible-conservatives

[Hannibal]

Some industries have been deregulated but workplace behavior/safety regulations and environmental regulations are much, much more invasive than they were 20 years ago. And the agencies that enforce them have become bloated and powerful. Especially the EPA under the Obama administration, which is imposing massive rule changes, at will, without legislation.

[hack]

I don't see how bloated/powerful is a left/right issue. Many people would say that about the DOD, but none would suggest any sort of left-wing desire to make it so. I think that's just what happens to agencies that go unchecked. It's in their DNA to grow and expand their turf by the nature of their strucutre. I also don't see executive action without legislation moves based on that. I thin in reality that presidents don't give back the powers they've taken. Cheney argued for more executive power, so successors are going to take that and do what they will with it, and that doesn't suggest that the politics of the country as a whole are moving in either direction.

[Hannibal]

[youtube]hOjJUgADNaI[/youtube]

[hack]

LOL @ the Lewinskys circling Hillary's head, but was that supposed to be Bob Knight? Sharkfin Hillary was great too.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I don't see how bloated/powerful is a left/right issue..... .

I do.

That these agencies exist at the hand of legislative action is reflective of Congressional efforts to increase the role and regulatory authority of the Feds. That is economic and social liberalism defined.

I'm not here to declare whether or not the Republic has become more socially or economically liberal, in the center or right center or left center - hair splitting IMO - but I think a strong case can be made that on the whole the Federal Government has expanded it's role in the life of the citizens they govern WAY beyond what the founder's envisioned the role of a federal government to be.

My view is that is the central issue - what should the role and functions of Federal Government be - and it is clearly defined in the US Constitution. Roles and functions are few, and are limited by the Constitution. That the Congress over the years has fashioned an intrusive federal establishment that tinkers with the environment, corporations, schools, health care, transportation, information distribution and much more is a serious problem.

Beyond Ronald Regan, I've not seen a single Presidential candidate articulate a platform that would tend to reduce the role of the Fed and/or restore it to that which James Madison, a strict Constitutionalist, would have had it.

Ronald Reagan said during his first Inaugural Address: “We are a nation that has a government, not the other way around. Our government has no power except that granted by the people, and this makes us special among the nations of the Earth.”

[iam416]

1) Scale back government regulation
2) Weaken government regulatory bodies
3) Deregulate every industry from airlines to banking to media
4) Pass any free trade bill that crosses the President's desk (I'll acknowledge there's increasing blowback on this one)
5) Pass new labor laws that weaken or cripple labor unions

I'm with Hannibal on (1) thru (3). I see nothing but an increase in administrative law and the regulatory state. From a legal perspective, I think the deference given agency statutory interpretation and agency power to enact congressional "will" is hugely important. I don't think the executive branch has ever had more power.

I agree with you that (4) is certainly a shift toward the right - in the sense free trade is a conservative issue.

Finally, unions are a complex issue because their usefulness is waning -- or at least there's an argument to be made. I'd agree that unions are viewed less favorably today than, say, in the 1960s. They're probably more favorably viewed than, say, in the 1890s. Heh.

So, I think you're right on (4) and (5). I respectfully disagree about regulatory power. And thanks for making the argument.