General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 152

does anyone subscribe to any political magazines? i'm thinking of subscribing to The Economist but didn't know if there were any other mags i should check out.

 

Figures.

 

I do Time, some pretty interesting reads usually.

I would lovvvvvvve to do The Economist but way too expensive.

Also do NatGeo, not political but a lot of good stuff if you're into that type of info (science, nature, history, etc)

 

thanks for the answers. will check out Time.

yeah, it will be hard to convince myself of a 150 bucks a year for a magazine. yeah, it's 51 issues, but that's a lot for a magazine. maybe i'll search for something (much) cheaper.

and NatGeo is already been in the mix for years! love that stuff.

 

It's extremely unreasonable considering congress approval rating is hovering around 12%, the fact they have to maintain two homes and have to travel doesn't garner any sympathy from me. Their jobs are demanding and there are tons of things they need to accomplish behind the scenes, but it's not exactly what I would call an earned wage considering their overall body of work recently.

 

Fucking politics in 2016 is a strange, terrifying time.

 

Twitter, baby

 

To be fair, the left was split on this as well, which rendered them mere spectators, whilst the right was more or less united.

 

That's fine? I don't think anyone was asking for your sympathy. There are real expenses being a member of Congress; to ignore them as part of the compensation is unreasonable. Further, if you were to make the pay next to nothing, the only type of people who'd be able to afford to take on that job would be the ultra rich.

When you have a shitty employee, you fire them. Same principle applies here.

 

The exact opposite. The vast majority of the left supported the remain campaign. There were a few "Lexit" campaigners, but the vast, vast majority of the left wing of this country wanted to remain.

By contrast, the right was split, the Conservative party essentially bisected with this. The debate was had primarily within the Conservative party, as shown by the fact that Cameron has resigned, and his successor will be a Leave voter. Labour, Lib Dem, Plaid and the SNP (if you can call them left) were in favour of remain.

Any division in the left wing outside of that was minimal. The Leave arguments proposed were all right-wing arguments.

 

Fair enough. I'm basing my assessment on what I've been reading about the situation. But, that consisted of the activist left, which, even among people that I know personally, was split; there were those making the argument that a strike against the EU is a strike against their neoliberal project and so forth. The left never really had cogent arguments either way. The right-wing, on the other hand, had a coherent, unifying message that was "common sense" to a public battered by austerity. This isn't to say that there weren't right-wing folks who wanted to remain, but that, on the whole, this is a victory for racists and chauvinists who were active in shaping the aforementioned message in a way the left wasn't capable of or able to.

 

Isn't the median net worth of congress people at a million dollars right now? Anyway, I think the underlying point is that these folks are more well off than the general population to whom they owe their careers, but very rarely extend similar benefits to said population; personally, I think they should have their pay cut. Let them make forty thousand dollars a year, have to buy their own private insurance and figure out how to maintain two households, and so forth.

 

I agree with the exam suggestion. But you can be clinically depressed or suicidal and still be considered healthy and cognitively sufficient.

When people say we should prevent people with mental illnesses from buying guns I always wonder what exactly they mean by "mental illness".

 

US election: Sanders says he will vote for Clinton

 

Also, and this is going to be a remarkably unpopular opinion but, $174k a year really isn't a lot of money

 

Now, I'm a very pessimistic, but I don't think I'm overstating to say that not enough Americans understand how bad Brexit passing is for everything

 

From just the conversations I've been having this morning, people seem to have a "well, I can't see it from my front porch" sort of attitude.

 

hmm. literally just heard the opposite in his interview right now on CNN. or at least extreme, extreme hesitancy.

 

Can someone give me a summed up explanation of what's going on with UK? Pros and cons of leaving EU?

 

"that's all the way across the ocean! that doesn't apply to me!"

 

I'm sure it will be fine.

 

How many Americans you wanna guess don't even know what the EU is, let alone appreciates its importance?

I'm American so any European is welcome to step in and correct me, but pros of leaving are supposed economic growth, political independence, and a fight to retain British "culture" against immigrants (which is a hell of a dogwhistle). Cons are severely decreased diplomatic power, fracturing of the UK and individual parties, rising xenophobia, and probably financial crisis crisis due to lack of trade power. Suffice it to say Boris Johnson, England's Donald Trump, is a vocal supporter and now effectively slated to be PM since Cameron resigned immediately following the vote passing.

Can't tell if you're serious or not

 

@Spencer Control thanks. Sounds like the cons absolutely outweigh the pros.

 

Completely serious. There will be a period of uncertainty and chaos but everyone will ultimately work out.

 

Most people think it is basically an economic partnership, comparable to our relationship with Canada. I don't think many understand the degree of integration and interpenetration of various forms of capital that make it capable of having a single market, as well as an economic force.