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inthesto
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Re: Politics

Post by inthesto » Fri Aug 31, 2012 4:43 pm

Kionon wrote:Taite, you might look into Gary Johnson, the libertarian candidate. He should be on the ballot in nearly every state. I think he was taken off the ballot in Oklahoma, but he should be on the ballot everywhere else. He's not perfectly in line with Ron Paul, but he's very, very close.
The cool thing about Gary Johnson is that he actually espouses libertarian social issues like marriage equality, states rights in regards to abortion, and civil liberties.

Unlike Ron Paul who supports the Defense of Marriage Act, wants to make abortion illegal at the federal level, and still opposes the Civil Rights Act.
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Re: Politics

Post by Kionon » Fri Aug 31, 2012 5:27 pm

Since Emong brought up Finish politics, I'll bring up my opinions on the other two political systems which directly affect me: Japan and Australia.

In the case of Japan, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Democratic Party of Japan are pretty much indistinguishable. I was here when Taro Aso's government collapsed and the DPJ took over to cries of major reform. That was... uh... four years ago. And the only thing I've seen the DPJ deliver on is a new residency management system which may or may not be good for foreign residents, and the five year visa, which makes longer term residency slightly easier. Economic policy is nearly identical, the LDP is actually better about remix culture and fandom issues (which is why Taro Aso was once claimed as the first Otaku prime minister--he's publicly acknowledged he's a Rozen Maiden fanboy), and Hatoyama failed in his one major promise to the Japanese electorate; move the Marine bases off Okinawa. I've seen five prime ministers in five years, and I can barely keep track of what makes any of them different. The lack of urgency concerning Japanese debt which is 200% GDP, economic growth at -2%, and the fact that projections predict a drop in population from 120 Million now to 48 million by 2050, with much of the population at or past retirement age, combined with nearly no true interest rates in the Japanese banking system, and overburdened (if high quality) medical and pension system gives me pause about staying here long term. And I can never get the vote, anyhow, because Japanese citizenship requires the relinquishing of US citizenship, which I won't do.

For Australia, I've been a big fan of Kevin Rudd. I am not so much a fan of Gillard, but I supported her (in as much as my general good wishes can be considered "support"), but ultimately was displeased when Rudd was unable to retake the premiership from her when he challenged her. I liked him better. However, I would say without going into great detail, unless the Aussies want to chime in, the Australian Labor Party is a democratic socialist party, and I am a democratic socialist, so it's largely unsurprising that in my research during the 2010 election, I found myself agreeing with Labor on the vast majority of issues. I point out that I spent time in Sydney and I visited Canberra, spending all day at Parliament House. I'm only beginning to research state and local politics, especially concerning Sydney's Lord Mayor, Ms. Moore, who is apparently a very polarising figure. I am seriously considering pursuing Australian permanent residency and citizenship in the very near future, and so this isn't just idle research on my part.

Although, apparently, you can reduce Aussie politics to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai4pGsOHKsI
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Re: Politics

Post by Fall_Child42 » Fri Aug 31, 2012 5:33 pm

All I know, is that the rent is too damn high.
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Re: Politics

Post by MycathatesyouAMV » Fri Aug 31, 2012 7:22 pm

Taite wrote: I know passionate debate is quick to come about when the topic is politics,but I think we're all grown up enough here to handle it, or just ignore it. If not, run along little Bambis.
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Re: Politics

Post by Pwolf » Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:46 pm

awww, poor bambi and thumper (Yea i know their names, wanna fight about it?)

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Re: Politics

Post by Otohiko » Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:55 pm

Actually I think this is a really good thread so far, thanks for keeping it civil guys. Especially with politics being so partisan (and that's not only a US trait), I'm really happy to see this thread being pretty darn civil and to the point. I think as much as people disagree and as much as some (including myself) might hold pretty strong social or political ideals, being able to talk about it in a civil manner is crucially important. As much as my views might be seen as radical, I'm not naive enough to think that I'm going to ever get "what I want" out of politics, and to a point where it's ethical, I think compromise is incredibly important.

So I took that ISideWith test and apparently I'm 82% Stein, 79% Johnson, 67% Obama, 52% Romney. In relative terms, that actually makes a fair bit of sense.

Also, http://www.politicalcompass.org/ is pretty handy if you're trying to articulate where the heck you stand. I've done this one a few times now, and over the years I've stuck consistently way the hell on the left, but it seems like as time goes on, I drift more and more towards the bottom (i.e. social libertarian) - though I still think that it's largely the questions and I'm actually more socially moderate than the graph might indicate. Right on economically, though.

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Re: Politics

Post by trythil » Fri Aug 31, 2012 9:58 pm

Taite wrote:
trythil wrote:Why do you agree with his stance? I think his energy policy has some holes in it, especially with regard to his very strong assertions about the failure of wind and solar power generation.
I'm for becoming energy independent. I think this is probably the most crucial thing if we ever wanted to get back up on our feet. My dad can go on forever quite eloquently about the issue, but I tend to stumble over it all because I'm just scatterbrained when I'm trying to explain something verbally that is so complex as energy.
If that's your stance, then you can be in favor of Obama's energy platform, too, as he is also promising that result. No candidate is crazy (or realistic) enough to say "I'm going to gradually increase our reliance on domestic energy generation, but it'll be about a couple decades of hard work before we can totally do that". Both candidates promise regulatory reform: Romney for oil, natural gas, and nuclear power plants; Obama for fast-tracking offshore wind farms. (And probably others). In a sense, they're really pretty similar policies in the sense that they both

1. promise to achieve greater energy independence
2. likely won't do shit

The rest is nerds arguing over semantics.

---

My main problem with Romney's energy policy is that it feels like his plan is written in half-truths.

I don't like his obsession with job count. Romney writes
Spain’s experience, for example, reveals that each new “green” job created destroyed 2.2 others. The price tag in subsidies was
exorbitant, rising to nearly $1.5 million per job in the wind industry. Even steeper job loss ratios can be found in the United Kingdom, where 3.7 jobs were lost for every new “green” job created. Here in the United States, despite the Obama administration’s wishes, the marketplace is simply not absorbing green-collar workers. Of 3,586 recent graduates of a Department of Labor-sponsored “green” jobs training program, only 466 were able to find jobs. Taxpayer money spent on “green” training, it seems, was wasted.
My first objection: Let's assume that's all true and that it actually applies to the United States of America. (That's a big logical leap that I'll address in a bit.) So what? Those lost jobs could be lost for good reasons: lower maintenance implying less need for people to work on those systems, for example.

The data point he inserts in that paragraph is also suspect. To me, it sounds like the Department of Labor-sponsored program produced graduates that sucked so hard that no company would want to take them on. Given the ineptitude of federal government in any sort of job preparation scheme, I find this to be the more probable cause.

But let's say that the Department of Labor did their job well and they produced 3,586 graduates that were all stellar job candidates. Well, okay. One thing we have to consider about this program is that the failure report was released in 2011; what sort of job-hiring environment existed then? How bad is the placement rate compared to, say, placement rate as a result of private-sector training? Is it a waste if it's achieving similar results? (The report doesn't answer those questions.)

===

Secondly, I find his assertions of wind and solar being a failure to be suspect. On wind and solar, Romney writes
To begin with, wind and solar power, two of the most ballyhooed forms of alternative fuel, remain sharply uncompetitive on their own with conventional resources such as oil and natural gas in most applications. Indeed, at current prices, these technologies make little sense for the consuming public but great sense only for the companies reaping profits from taxpayer subsidies.
I don't understand where he's getting that from. It's true that current usage of wind and solar power make for poor base load power generation systems: first off, you can't get power from those systems all the time; secondly, production solar cells are currently only about 10-15% efficient, so they require much more space to generate the same amount of energy as, say, a steam turbine driven by burning coal. It's therefore harder, at present, to use them to power a large number of clients. At present it does make sense to back up a wind and solar system with more stable systems, like hydro and nuclear. (Oil, natural gas, and coal can also be used, but I think of them as interim steps if you're really going for renewable energy.) That way, you can use wind and solar to initially handle peak loads and gradually transition more burden to them as they improve.

But I don't understand the "make little sense for the consuming public but great sense only for the companies reaping profits from taxpayer subsidies" bit. There's at least one supplier, SolarCity, which supplies solar power and battery storage systems to homeowners and companies. They're based in California; Wikipedia says they employ around 1,600 people. Sundog Solar is another such company. And they're both making money from both companies and individuals.

Solar may or may not make sense for an individual based on a lot of factors: exposure to sunlight, residential codes, individual energy consumption, and budget, to name a few. But the "taxpayer subsidies" bit, to me, seems like a bogeyman.

For wind power, I don't have much there, but I do know that Indiana seems to be doing pretty well with it. The Hoosier Wind Farm opened up in 2009 and has been doing well since, or at least I see it in operation every time I drive to Indianapolis. There's four other wind farms in Indiana, too.

Now all these cases may be exceptions, but I want to know what's going on with them that make them special. Can we replicate their success elsewhere? If not, are there other systems that aren't fossil-fuel based that could also work?

Romney answers none of these questions.

I would like to know if he sees any merit in providing federal funds and regulatory assistance to solar and wind installers with a proven track record of success. Such a loan system could work like the ATVM loan program, in which applicants had to demonstrate financial viability without the loan.

Maybe some more on his energy policy later.

Now, I do have to congratulate Romney for actually writing something and treating American voters like they can read. The oversized charts and bite-sized paragrams on Obama's website is patronizingly sickening.

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Re: Politics

Post by Emong » Sat Sep 01, 2012 5:31 am

My political compass:

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Although there is a problem with this test, namely that the questions are formulated already in a way that dictates the answers. Besides, I tend to agree with the statement that there's no single difference between left and right; every definition of the difference between right and left is already itself "leftist" or "rightist". In the case of the left the difference is more often based on class struggle (or 99% vs. 1% in more popular terms) while in the case of the right the difference is more that of a harmonious social body vs. freeloaders, immigrants, jews, criminals etc.

Also, now that we're talking about energy and the environment: http://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue56/Smith56.pdf

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Re: Politics

Post by EvaFan » Sat Sep 01, 2012 7:57 am

I think green energy has alot of possibilities but its way too early to do anything other than fund research for it right now IMO.

Research is where the magic happens currently:
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/1166 ... -clippings

Can you imagine one day painting your house and that paint provides you with a bit of your overall electricity via sunlight?
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Re: Politics

Post by inthesto » Sat Sep 01, 2012 10:50 am

Political Compass is an easy introduction to the political spectrum, especially since it does a decent job at illustrating the fact that "conservative" and "liberal" are not very well represented on a single axis. Beyond that, I do share the negative sentiment that the questions are too transparent, i.e. that it's really easy to game your responses and predict which quadrant you'll fall into.

That said, it's really depressing that nearly every politician from the big two parties who has run for US president recently falls into the first quadrant (the exception was Kucinich falling in the third quadrant, and I'm willing to bet Santorum belongs in the fourth). It really speaks volumes as to where the political center is compared to the rest of the first world. Looking at the 2012 presidential election chart, it's pretty cool of them to include Alexander, Anderson, and Stein. It's also really horrifying how close Obama and Romney are. In fact, if you look at their chart for 2008, just look at how deeply Obama's moved into the first quadrant.

God, I hate this country.
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