WHAT'S NEXT FOR LIBERALISM?

[Jhhnn]

California is successful, yet cant balance their budget.

Not true. California balanced their budget once they got low tax Repubs out of their blocking position. When Repubs cut federal taxes they'll accordingly be in a better position to raise state taxes to use as they see fit & to have the benefit of every dollar rather than just some. Other Donor states are in a similar position. States accustomed to getting more than they put in will take the high hard one in a boomerang fashion. They seem to think that the pain will land on their blue state cousins rather than them when that's far from true.

 

[mikeymikec]

Feel free to go through this list and pick out the white folks, Christians, and Americans.

The 289 People, Places and Things Donald Trump Has Insulted on Twitter: A Complete List

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/28/upshot/donald-trump-twitter-insults.html

I repeat my previous question. For example, calling Hillary "crooked" is not in the same ballpark as disparaging Mexicans or more than a billion Muslims in one go, nor is he disparaging her because she's white, Christian or American. I suspect you aren't as obtuse as you're making yourself out to be.

 

[Muse]

"Liberalism" isn't next, it's now. The values of the progressive left have not changed.

 

[Muse]

So in California, gay marriage and marijuana are both legal. Bathrooms are open to either gender. Open borders is being rejected in Europe and is as good as rejected in the United States. Continuing to push for open borders will obviously happen but what comes next in the name of progress for progress' sake?

Legal heroine? Sex change operations for minors? It's not like they can just stop.

You really do have bunched up underwear for the Democrats, eh?

 

[Zaap]

A Telsa or Prius owner might deal with range anxiety and long charging times to feel better about themselves, but your average soccer mom isn't putting up with the inconvenience electric cars bring when gas cars are cheaper and lack those problems.

I agree with your point, about pure electrics, but your examples aren't good. The Prius isn't pure electric (not most anyway) so there's no range anxiety- it uses gas like other cars, just it extends the range with electric. While not for everyone of course, there are plenty of soccer moms who would be well served by a Prius, as well as the range afforded by gas-electric hybrids if it were more common in other vehicles. (No real reason what-so-ever even a mini van can't get up to 80, 90 MPG with the addition of onboard electric. My Volt gets me an effective 250+ MPG- when I run out of charge, the gas engine kicks in.)

Tesla owners also don't suffer from range anxiety either- it's an 80k+ car. Virtually everyone who owns one is well off and has several cars parked out front or in the garage of their very nice home.

Electric cars right now are for the well off mostly, but it's clearly the future. When this country (and the world) gets over its irrational fear of nuclear energy, and the best minds get on that and produce tons of clean and very cheap energy via modern and future-gen nuke plants, electric cars will make way more sense than they do now for the masses. (To get rid of charge times on the go, power-stations, as opposed to gas stations- could simply swap a spent battery for a fresh one for a reasonable cost.)

The tech exists today, it'll only get better. I don't even see it just as an environmental issue (though there's certainly that) but the move to nuclear/electric over fossil fuels is obvious even from an economic standpoint. If fusion ever becomes a reality... using anything else for energy would be insane. IMO, it already is with the latest of nuke technology, just people have been sold a bill of goods about nuclear energy.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I agree with your point, about pure electrics, but your examples aren't good. The Prius isn't pure electric (not most anyway) so there's no range anxiety- it uses gas like other cars, just it extends the range with electric. While not for everyone of course, there are plenty of soccer moms who would be well served by a Prius, as well as the range afforded by gas-electric hybrids if it were more common in other vehicles. (No real reason what-so-ever even a mini van can't get up to 80, 90 MPG with the addition of onboard electric. My Volt gets me an effective 250+ MPG- when I run out of charge, the gas engine kicks in.)

Tesla owners also don't suffer from range anxiety either- it's an 80k+ car. Virtually everyone who owns one is well off and has several cars parked out front or in the garage of their very nice home.

To be clear, I am not saying Prius owners suffer from range anxiety or that Telsa owners don't have options (though I know one guy that is all Telsa). I am more saying someone willing to buy a Telsa or Prius is willing to spend more than what is economically feasible to have a car that is better for the planet.

Most people aren't that way, we will only adopt electric cars when that option is cheaper and easier than a gas option. I just don't see that point coming during the era of car ownership. Maybe in the post-ownership era, when most transportation is handled by self-driving Ubers you summon as needed, electric will dominate because Uber can beat range problems with smart management and absorb the fuel savings are pure profits. But gas will be too easy and cheap to dump it the next 20 years.

 

[Zaap]

To be clear, I am not saying Prius owners suffer from range anxiety or that Telsa owners don't have options (though I know one guy that is all Telsa). I am more saying someone willing to buy a Telsa or Prius is willing to spend more than what is economically feasible to have a car that is better for the planet.

Most people aren't that way, we will only adopt electric cars when that option is cheaper and easier than a gas option. I just don't see that point coming during the era of car ownership. Maybe in the post-ownership era, when most transportation is handled by self-driving Ubers you summon as needed, electric will dominate because Uber can beat range problems with smart management and absorb the fuel savings are pure profits. But gas will be too easy and cheap to dump it the next 20 years.

True we're not getting rid of gas anytime soon, but my point with the Prius is simply I see no real reason in the interim not to move toward making Prius-like cars the norm. That is- gas backed up with electric. Other than the plug in model Prius, a driver doesn't have to adapt or do anything to get the benefit of electric, the car generates it from the gas motor, forward momentum and braking.

My Volt is a plug in, but just looking at it stats- in a year it's generated over 1,500 miles of free travel for me just from my foot in the brake. It's insane to me more vehicles don't have at least that level of hybrid tech built in. It would go a long way toward burning less fossil fuels.

Of course there are more and more vehicles that are hybrids- the Toyota Highlander and Nissan Rouge for example, but the tech needs to become more affordable. Eventually I can see burning fossil fuels at all as a thing of the past, but yeah ofcourse it'll take a while.

 

[Puffnstuff]

I love how the right and organized religion have snuggled up together over the same issues. You know, things like the ability to keep guns without trigger locks in homes so small children can kill each other because the 2nd amendment is uber important but free speech only applies if they like what you are saying. Give me a break already.

I'm labelled as liberal because I promote personal freedoms over state imposed regulatory impositions. We each are responsible for our own actions so give women the right to choose just like you want the right to buy 100 round drums for your gas piston at-15's. Which one of those is capable of causing more harm? I don't have the right to tell you to stop overeating just like you don't have the right to tell me what music to listen to. This right wing idea of imposing their own personal views on other people in the name of God is just too much. The hypocrisy is just too much y'all.

 

[zinfamous]

Disagree. Democrats have lost 1000 seats since Obama was in office. Successful presidents leave behind legislative majorities...Obama completely failed there.

The Democrats were not a stale directionless party in those days...they were brimming with energy having won seats due to anti-war sentiment. Their problem was that they have since mistook that anti-war energy as giving them a mandate on social issues like transgender bathrooms or gay marriage.

It seems to me that Obama lacked good advice or experience with dealing with a legislature...because he had never been governor.

You are saying his majorities--the people that voted for him--were a fluke.

I'm not talking about seats and influence within the party. You are trying to compare individuals within their own constituencies--well, you were, until you moved your goal posts with this post.

The people that voted for Obama, voted for Obama. If the same people voted for a non-dem in some other seat, they voted for that person. Not because of Obama.

Ask former governor shitstain McCrory in NC what it's like for the people to vote in your republican colleagues but vote you out--because, well, they hate you.

Your argument suggests that people don't vote for individuals, they vote for parties or only against individuals because of the way their parties act?

This makes no sense. Just ask NC.

Also, you suggest that Obama's support was a fluke, twice in a row, because Trump won a handful of his supporters in one election? But Trump's support from those voters is suddenly 100% legit?

Weed is legal where I live, but clearly isn't as good as whatever you guys are getting.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Of course there are more and more vehicles that are hybrids- the Toyota Highlander and Nissan Rouge for example, but the tech needs to become more affordable.

That is the real problem. Hybrids are more economical than electric cars, but you are still paying more for a hybrid than a conventional vehicle. Most people need at least break even costs in order to "do the right thing."

When I bought my last car the model I was considering had a hybrid version. I calculated it out and the cost of the hybrid upgrade would take 11 years to pay for itself via fuel savings, and that was when gas was over $4 a gallon. So I didn't get the hybrid model, as the only way I could see to justify it was if it made me feel better about myself if I had a hybrid (and it didn't). I don't plan to keep any car that long, especially one with a huge and expensive to replace battery pack in it.

I think that is the case with a lot of renewable options at this point. A friend with solar panels on his roof admitted to me that he will never make his money back on it, as the original payoff calculations (which was like 15 years) went out the window when 6 years in he had to replace the roof and pay a lot extra for them to disconnect and reconnect the panels. He justifies the decision as doing his part, but to me he is an example of why such a plan won't work for most people unless some really large tax incentives come into play.

The good news for all these technologies is that they are people willing to pay extra just to help the environment, and if Tesla is any indication those people probably are a big enough market to fund the R&D needed to eventually bring the costs down to the point where everyone can see the obvious benefit.

I am buying Tesla stock like crazy when I can for this reason. I don't want an electric car, but every person in my life who was nutty about Apple ten years ago is crazy about Telsa today. That tells me there is gold in them there hills once the cost of entry comes down with the model 3. If nothing else just if every hipster in America buys one (ala the Prius ten years ago) it will be a huge success. I just hope Elon doesn't get too distracted with shingles and space and batteries between now and then.

 

[agent00f]

I seriously doubt that the pie can keep growing and growing. That assumes infinite resources, which if you believe in climate change is the EXACT sort of thinking that will ruin this planet.

But even if you are right and the pie can grow forever, we have to admit eventually that not everyone in America CAN compete internationally. Quite frankly a huge chunk of the American public is incapable of providing a good or service the rest of the world wants to buy, which then invalidates your theory. Free market assumptions assume winners and losers, so by definition America is going to have some economic losers and their numbers grow by the day.

Promising them retraining so they can trade in a (now gone) factory job with benefits and a pension for temporary office work that comes with neither is why Trump is president. And that is just the start, just a little minor political revolution. If that uncompetitive part of the country continues to lose buying power (and therefore loses what standard of living they currently have) then eventually the "protests" could get more violent (and I would argue we are already seeing that some with BLM). Enough domestic violence and the stock markets tank and everyone loses (see 9/11), even the 1%.

The way I see it we have three options:

1. Ignore the people who can't compete internationally, go full steam ahead with globalism and free trade, have America become unstable politically and socially as the elite all move to Caribbean Islands or New Zealand to escape the fallout.

2. Create jobs for the uncompetitive where their lack of competition is subsidized by the American taxpayer (and mostly the rich ones who have the most to lose with instability), slow down the forces of globalization and the raising of boats in poorer countries who have people who can't compete with an American subsidized worker, give the uncompetitive a reason to wake up in the morning and a feeling that they have something to lose in societal instability even if that isn't reality.

3. Legalize drugs across the country, cut the uncompetitive welfare checks that are the bare minimum they will accept without getting violent, hope the legal dope and Xbox games placate them enough to not demand more.

I don't think "raise every boat and make every American globally competitive" is even close to being a realistic option, and because those people have a vote (and their violence will be in our borders) we have to do more to placate them above and beyond free market platitudes.

The social democracy approach to the problem is basically 2 & 3, robin hood & circuses; it mostly works well.

The current issue isn't so much that as an EC which allows a fairly small portion of the population to decide ethofacism is better (for them).

 

[agent00f]

You are saying his majorities--the people that voted for him--were a fluke.

I'm not talking about seats and influence within the party. You are trying to compare individuals within their own constituencies--well, you were, until you moved your goal posts with this post.

The people that voted for Obama, voted for Obama. If the same people voted for a non-dem in some other seat, they voted for that person. Not because of Obama.

Ask former governor shitstain McCrory in NC what it's like for the people to vote in your republican colleagues but vote you out--because, well, they hate you.

Your argument suggests that people don't vote for individuals, they vote for parties or only against individuals because of the way their parties act?

This makes no sense. Just ask NC.

Also, you suggest that Obama's support was a fluke, twice in a row, because Trump won a handful of his supporters in one election? But Trump's support from those voters is suddenly 100% legit?

Weed is legal where I live, but clearly isn't as good as whatever you guys are getting.

Obama is a once in a lifetime politician, and it's not necessarily clear that he would've beat Trump's uneducated white people strategy anyway.

 

[Jhhnn]

Obama is a once in a lifetime politician, and it's not necessarily clear that he would've beat Trump's uneducated white people strategy anyway.

Please. Either Clinton or Obama would likely have beaten any Repub at the time. Fer crissake, Repubs were in disgrace over the economy & Iraq. Bush & Cheney didn't even attend the convention. I doubt that such a thing has ever occurred before in our history.

 

[nickqt]

I think that is a healthy point of view that many would agree with. The real debate is the flip side of that- when advantage turns into expectation. For example, I know I am lucky simply because I was born in America, but should I push for policies that insure that my children keep that same advantage to the detriment of someone else in the world who doesn't get a fair shake based on their merits because my children get an artificial boost? I think modern liberalism would say no to the validity of given an advantage to Americans based on imaginary map lines on paper, while many Trump voters translated "Great Again" in his slogan to mean that exact rejection of globalist thinking.



I think one problem the modern Democratic Party has is that they can't claim the high ground on income inequality. I mean this gap you are talking about hit new highs unseen since the 1930s under Obama:

And a big optics problem with the Clinton Campaign was how close she seemed to Wall Street.

I feel like the Democrats are going to have to reject cozying up to big business (even the Silicon Valley ones) and start focusing on more aggressive income distribution ala Bernie to get back an enthusiasm for the platform. People don't like be told that they can retrain into a new working wage job, or that they can (barely) afford an exchange healthcare plan thanks to a subsidy. The Democratic Party will win again when it offers free college meaning bachelor degrees and not associate ones, and when it offers free healthcare and not "less expensive healthcare if your state approves it."

That map starts going up as a long-term trend as neoliberal Reaganomics of the past 35+ years began.

What screwed people over were Reagan Democrats not standing up to Republicans.

Look at when income inequality was the highest before now. The "roaring" 1920s of deregulation and tax cuts. Go fucking figure cutting taxes on the richest people in the solar system results in capital creating bubbles and the richest getting richer, to the detriment of the economy as a whole. Economies only work when money is fluid and everyone gets a taste.

Look at when income inequality fell and stabilized - when the New Deal Democratic party owned and operated the gub'mint for the benefit of the newly created middle class.

 

[agent00f]

Please. Either Clinton or Obama would likely have beaten any Repub at the time. Fer crissake, Repubs were in disgrace over the economy & Iraq. Bush & Cheney didn't even attend the convention. I doubt that such a thing has ever occurred before in our history.

Worth noting times of crisis are the best opportunities for fascist strongmen.

 

[compuwiz1]

Obama is a once in a lifetime politician, and it's not necessarily clear that he would've beat Trump's uneducated white people strategy anyway.

Obama was a community organizer, in one of the most corrupt cities in the nation, then a jr. Senator. He was a great salesman, nothing more..than a shit salesman with a mouthful of samples. The guy is as full of shit as a Goose. And about Trump's white ass? You're a racist fuck head. Keep pounding that race card like the typical liberal ass hat you are.

 

[agent00f]

Obama was a community organizer, in one of the most corrupt cities in the nation, then a jr. Senator. He was a great salesman, nothing more..than a shit salesman with a mouthful of samples. The guy is as full of shit as a Goose. And about Trump's white ass? You're a racist fuck head. Keep pounding that race card like the typical liberal ass hat you are.

When the ethnofascists start doing what ethnofascists do, there's not much debate side trump loyalists going to be on. What about you? Surely your allegiance to them surpass any to jesus or whatever moral ethics?

 

[compuwiz1]

When the ethnofascists start doing what ethnofascists do, there's not much debate side trump loyalists going to be on. What about you? Surely your allegiance to them surpass any to jesus or whatever moral ethics?

Keep beating your pud to that losing tune. Fail.

 

[agent00f]

Keep beating your pud to that losing tune. Fail.

Makes your answer rather clear.

 

[desura]

Hybrids bring a host of other benefits. They are generally quieter than normal cars, they theoretically require less engine maintenance due to fewer moving parts, regenerative braking results in less brake wear and replacement.

 

[soulcougher73]

I really think its time to allow people to marry their toasters.

 

[mikeymikec]

I really think its time to allow people to marry their toasters.

As long as the toaster doesn't apply for appliance reassignment or attempt to get repairs in anything other than a toaster repair shop. Won't somebody please think of the kettles?

 

[zinfamous]

Worth noting times of crisis are the best opportunities for fascist strongmen.

Yes, and in this case, one has to create the crisis first.

The US has been in rather phenomenal shape for the last several years, considering the disaster we were facing. That was what was concerning about this Trump campaign--creating the vision in the minds of the little people that the US is, in no vague terms, analogous to Weimar Germany or Italy prior to Mussolini. The messaging, especially at the Pub convention, was nothing short of painting this country as an impoverished dystopian hellhole, and the only way out of it is to "elect me! the big man! the only man that can save you! i will do bigly great things and make you great again!"

none of that made any goddamn sense, but it worked.

Now, we jsut need to wait while Trump "Drains that swamp" and lets it leak out all over the entire country. Then, I guess we will be the real shithole he promised we were....and then he can fix it! typical republican strategy: "Government doesn't work! elect me, I won't do a fucking thing, and then prove that it doesn't work!"

 

[zinfamous]

As long as the toaster doesn't apply for appliance reassignment or attempt to get repairs in anything other than a toaster repair shop. Won't somebody please think of the kettles?

I only consort with cis-gendered toasters.

 

[raildogg]

The Culture War might have been won, but the War of Languages (ie PCism) and the March of Globalism both took big hits in the last year.

Seems like the obvious new focus.

Culture may have been won? What culture are you talking about?

The culture of lies, degeneration, hypocrisy and corruption?