Politics Discussion Thread February 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.

I reject the idea that it is my duty to have political opinions. Conscription into the de-facto government is barbaric. Further, I don't have the power to tell them what to do anyways, so the question is low-value. Therefor I have no official opinion on what the GoC ought to be doing.

I like this a lot. As a personal example, I was recently reading about the debate over allowing women to be in combat jobs in the US military, and trying to decide where I stood. Egalitarianism is good, definitely, and they've proved themselves capable as de facto combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. But can they meet the physical standards? What about unit cohesion? Ahhh!

And then I shook myself, and realized that I am hugely unqualified to make that decision, not being in the military or a position of power in the government, or an expert in this field or any related field at all. And luckily, no one is seeking out my opinion! I do not have to know the answer or even care. It's okay. This will not be on the test. It was tremendously liberating.

I like this a lot. As a personal example, I was recently reading about the debate over allowing women to be in combat jobs in the US military, and trying to decide where I stood. Egalitarianism is good, definitely, and they've proved themselves capable as de facto combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. But can they meet the physical standards? What about unit cohesion? Ahhh!

Think about it this way: Why are sports segregated by gender once one gets to a high enough level that people care who wins? What would happen if both genders competed in the same c... (read more)