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.

You have to have beliefs about the world and how it works before you can have intentions to change it. I'm sure just about everyone would rather live in a place where no one was killed and everyone has their health cared for. People who oppose "universal healthcare" don't usually want poor people to suffer: they just expect a whole host of problems to come with treating healthcare as a right and not a good. People who want extra-judicial drone assassinations of citizens aren't particularly concerned with the State being empowered who can live or die. They just want to prevent terrorist attacks.

To extend your analogy: before deciding to navigate anywhere you still have to have beliefs about what the sea is, where the coastline is, how deep the water is, what the weather is like, how to manage the crew, what to do with the anchor, the rudder and the sails, general beliefs about the accuracy of your maps and navigational equipment, beliefs about what life is like at your new destination and whether it is worth the risks you'll encounter a long the way and even whether or not it is a place you will want to live or do business in, beliefs about the possibility of it changing once you get there. Not to mention all sorts of possibilities you probably haven't even thought of yet because your scientists haven't developed the germ theory of disease and you're about bring Small Pox and centuries of genocide and colonialism to a continent you didn't even know existed because the world is twice as large as you thought it was! But hey, at least you intended to reach the Indies and make Spain wealthy.

Intentions are worthless if you don't know what you're talking about and they change radically when you do. It sounds like you're trying to comprehend other people's political views through the framework of your own political philosophy. But there is nothing inherent or necessary about that framework.

As far as I can tell, you're arguing that I should undertake to understand somebody's beliefs about the positioning of all 214,000 miles of coastline in the world before I try to understand their intentions about where they're navigating to.

So, to sum up my response: It doesn't matter. I don't need to know where they think the coastlines are; all I need to know is that they want to go to Jamaica because the weather is nice. And then the information that a hurricane is coming through becomes relevant. If they're going to Jamaica to deliver medical suppli... (read more)