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.

To clarify, I was referring to the use of drone warfare to target a nation's own citizens without judicial review.

I imagine there are fewer good reasons to support that policy that drone war in general (though we lack the details). I have a hard time seeing why people would support it but I don't see why people who support universal healthcare would have a harder time supporting it than anyone else. I mean, I would be a little surprised to meet someone with that view-- just because one is something more likely to be found in the conservative cluster of ideas and the other in the progressive cluster of ideas. But I don't see any deep tension between the views.

One represents a belief in an inviolable positive right to life and health, the other represents a belief that life exists solely at the discretion of society/authority.

Note that I distinguish between single-provider/government-provided healthcare and universal healthcare. Somebody who wants government in charge of healthcare isn't necessarily someone who believes in universal access to it.