Politics Discussion Thread January 2013

OrphanWilde

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

As Multiheaded added, "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also may belong here.

Top-level comments should introduce arguments; responses should be responses to those arguments.
Upvote and downvote based on whether or not you find an argument convincing in the context in which it was raised. This means if it's a good argument against the argument it is responding to, not whether or not there's a good/obvious counterargument to it; if you have a good counterargument, raise it. If it's a convincing argument, and the counterargument is also convincing, upvote both. If both arguments are unconvincing, downvote both.
A single argument per comment would be ideal; as MixedNuts points out here, it's otherwise hard to distinguish between one good and one bad argument, which makes the upvoting/downvoting difficult to evaluate.
In general try to avoid color politics; try to discuss political issues, rather than political parties, wherever possible.

As Multiheaded added, "Personal is Political" stuff like gender relations, etc also may belong here.

This question strikes me as both too mindkill-y, and as unimportant in light of the fact that you don't get to vote for political parties, only for individual candidates in individual races. What do you think would be the important change in your behavior if you were convinced, in general, that Republicans were "better" than Democrats or vice versa, and how do you think that would impact the political process?

What do you think would be the important change in your behavior if you were convinced, in general, that Republicans were "better" than Democrats or vice versa, and how do you think that would impact the political process?

The political discussion moves the parties around. Economics discussion resulted in significant deregulation which has since been pretty broadly adopted by both parties. A discussion of what features make one party better than the other will, if it bears up, tend to contribute to making both parties more like the better pos... (read more)

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Politics Discussion Thread January 2013

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Politics Discussion Thread January 2013

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