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> More accurately: there's more consensus around national security spending than social spending. Is there? Or is there just more consensus among the elite and

> More accurately: there's more consensus around national security spending than social spending. Is there? Or is there just more consensus among the elite and Ivy League educated who dominate security discussion and policy?

BobbyJo 4y ago
I mean, these people are voted in.
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  True, the natsec Republican your polity elected did have to overcome a natsec Democrat or visa-versa. I encourage you to attend some meetings of your local party Republican or Democrat (whichever is dominant) and see how the people you get to elect are chosen. What you'll find is the folks controlling that process are deeply under the influence of a status quo and that most unorthodoxy there is very quickly marginalized.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    People with power wanting to retain that power is not as insightful or surprising as you think it is.
    - DubiousPusher 4y ago
      Judging by this threqd, it appears to be to some.
  - koheripbal 4y ago
    Right, but that's a feature not bug. People who have been involved in politics and have experience with budgets and governing SHOULD be the ones making decisions. Next time you get heart surgery, ask for the fringe thinking fresh college grad and see how that goes.
    - DubiousPusher 4y ago
      I'm not talking about crackpots. I'm talking often qualified people who don't match the entrepreneur, small business owner, veteran, firefighter, nurse template that local bourgeoisie party leaders tend to endorse and find funding for. IMO, this preference has lead to a clear preference for statism and state violence amongst our elected officials as the people who rise through the rabks tend toward an implicit trust in the institutions of the martial state from the criminal justice sysyem to a standing military.
      - koheripbal 4y ago
        So you're an anarchist?
        DubiousPusher 4y ago
        Maybe. I haven't really read enough about anarchism as a political philosophy to say. But I do see that politicians have in common a basic fundamental belief in the institutions of the state. The Democrats give more credence to the civil bureaucracy and the Republicans give more credence to the martial bureaucracy but they overlap a lot. And in my experience this has a lot to do the low level party operatives whose hands are on the scale at the primary level. How many marginalized people actually ever make it into office? Virtually none and so that is a perspective that is completely unrepresented. It's stalwart statists all the way down, they mostly just disagree on what the state violence should be used to enforce.
- dubcee349 4y ago
  Sadly many people that vote only care about a small number of issues and just choose a candidate based off those. Gun control and abortion are high on those lists for both sides.
notyourwork 4y ago
What answer do you expect to get to your argumentative question?
- sebzim4500 4y ago
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  I'm open to debate. But I think the OP is erroneous in presuming popular will is expressed in American National Security and Foreign policy and therefore using that to lend credence to this turn of events.
  - remarkEon 4y ago
    I don’t think that’s what was implied. In the abstract it seems much easier to get alignment on a national security question (especially one as cut and dry as this one, which is don’t let your nation’s semiconductor supply fall under the control of a hostile foreign country), than it is to get alignment on a much more ideological and philosophical question about how to solve poverty.
    - DubiousPusher 4y ago
      > In the abstract There is nothing abstract in politics and that's just plain old "begging the question". > especially one as cut and dry as this one, which is don’t let your nation’s semiconductor supply fall under the control of a hostile foreign country Cut and dry to whom? And were it so cut and dry why is a subsidy the solution rather than any number of other legislative actions? > than it is to get alignment on a much more ideological and philosophical question about how to solve poverty Free lunch for students is hardly an attempt to "solve poverty". On one subject you are asking to do politics in a vacuum because it is the status quo and on the other imply a heavy ideological weight. In reality both things are equally ideological, the only difference you're asserting is that a nationalistic defense ideology should be taken for granted and perhaps that it is popular.
goatlover 4y ago
And what do the voters think?
- DubiousPusher 4y ago
  That's a good question. Seems like a good place to start though.
dubcee349 4y ago
Nancy Pelosi's 2022 record breaking stock returns depend on this passing.

BobbyJo 4y ago

I mean, these people are voted in.

DubiousPusher 4y ago
True, the natsec Republican your polity elected did have to overcome a natsec Democrat or visa-versa. I encourage you to attend some meetings of your local party Republican or Democrat (whichever is dominant) and see how the people you get to elect are chosen. What you'll find is the folks controlling that process are deeply under the influence of a status quo and that most unorthodoxy there is very quickly marginalized.
- brewdad 4y ago
  People with power wanting to retain that power is not as insightful or surprising as you think it is.
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    Judging by this threqd, it appears to be to some.
- koheripbal 4y ago
  Right, but that's a feature not bug. People who have been involved in politics and have experience with budgets and governing SHOULD be the ones making decisions. Next time you get heart surgery, ask for the fringe thinking fresh college grad and see how that goes.
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    I'm not talking about crackpots. I'm talking often qualified people who don't match the entrepreneur, small business owner, veteran, firefighter, nurse template that local bourgeoisie party leaders tend to endorse and find funding for. IMO, this preference has lead to a clear preference for statism and state violence amongst our elected officials as the people who rise through the rabks tend toward an implicit trust in the institutions of the martial state from the criminal justice sysyem to a standing military.
    - koheripbal 4y ago
      So you're an anarchist?
      - DubiousPusher 4y ago
        Maybe. I haven't really read enough about anarchism as a political philosophy to say. But I do see that politicians have in common a basic fundamental belief in the institutions of the state. The Democrats give more credence to the civil bureaucracy and the Republicans give more credence to the martial bureaucracy but they overlap a lot. And in my experience this has a lot to do the low level party operatives whose hands are on the scale at the primary level. How many marginalized people actually ever make it into office? Virtually none and so that is a perspective that is completely unrepresented. It's stalwart statists all the way down, they mostly just disagree on what the state violence should be used to enforce.
dubcee349 4y ago
Sadly many people that vote only care about a small number of issues and just choose a candidate based off those. Gun control and abortion are high on those lists for both sides.

notyourwork 4y ago

What answer do you expect to get to your argumentative question?

sebzim4500 4y ago
DubiousPusher 4y ago
I'm open to debate. But I think the OP is erroneous in presuming popular will is expressed in American National Security and Foreign policy and therefore using that to lend credence to this turn of events.
- remarkEon 4y ago
  I don’t think that’s what was implied. In the abstract it seems much easier to get alignment on a national security question (especially one as cut and dry as this one, which is don’t let your nation’s semiconductor supply fall under the control of a hostile foreign country), than it is to get alignment on a much more ideological and philosophical question about how to solve poverty.
  - DubiousPusher 4y ago
    > In the abstract There is nothing abstract in politics and that's just plain old "begging the question". > especially one as cut and dry as this one, which is don’t let your nation’s semiconductor supply fall under the control of a hostile foreign country Cut and dry to whom? And were it so cut and dry why is a subsidy the solution rather than any number of other legislative actions? > than it is to get alignment on a much more ideological and philosophical question about how to solve poverty Free lunch for students is hardly an attempt to "solve poverty". On one subject you are asking to do politics in a vacuum because it is the status quo and on the other imply a heavy ideological weight. In reality both things are equally ideological, the only difference you're asserting is that a nationalistic defense ideology should be taken for granted and perhaps that it is popular.

goatlover 4y ago

And what do the voters think?

DubiousPusher 4y ago
That's a good question. Seems like a good place to start though.

dubcee349 4y ago

Nancy Pelosi's 2022 record breaking stock returns depend on this passing.