political odds and ends

[tech58]

"Man-made Global Warming is a faith-based religion." Would attribute that quote if i could just remember where i read it.

BTW any believers of that garbage would go nuts over a book called The Great Warming.
I picked up a copy of that book for 25c at a book sale without looking at it because i really wanted to keep it out of circulation.
Skimming it before trashing it, to see the authors credentials,i was literaly floored.
I thought i knew when i first picked it up what it would contain. Wrong!!
Sure a period of Global waming was described in great detail. But the shocker to me was when it occured.
Not since the Industrial Age and fossil fuel use explosion, in fact not in our era at all!
The period described was almost 1000 years ago!!

Climate Change, from apx. 1050 AD to 1300 AD raised the earth temperature apx. 7-9 degrees. Way too late for dinosaur farts to have caused it. What happened? Way before the industrial Age. What happened?
This Warming lead to a period of great prosperity all over the world. Crops in Europe boomed helping to bring them out of the Dark Ages. Fiefdoms created massive wealth for land barons. The Catholic Church gladly sold passports to heaven to the wealthy and built all those fabulous cathedrals.

What caused this? The same thing that is causing our 1-2 degree warming today.
CLIMATE CHANGE!!!

The earths climate has always been changing! There are fossil records of these changes.
No one is certain if CO2 level fluctuations are a cause of or a result of temperature changes.

This earth will still be here long after Humanoids have become part of the fossil record!

Stand out in the Sun on a hot day and think about all that heat hitting millions of square miles.And that heat is not a constant. The Suns output is a variable!

The audacity of some humans to think their important enough to affect this cycling.

Think for your self! Dont' drink the coolaid of a money making scheme!

[tech58]

BTW. Don't waste your time telling me i am wrong. I don't pay anymore attention to mush- minded coolaid drinking libs than they do to me.

[New2vp]

new2vp, again, well thought out post. ... i am a little disappointed that with all you wrote, you failed to answer a single question.

Thanks for the compliment. I thought I had answered your questions, but perhaps I didn't isolate specifically which words were responses to which question or I didn't sufficiently transform my words into a conclusion. I will try to rectify that below.

do you believe that those party leaders who propose/endorse unlimited legal/illegal immigration are really most concerned about the plight of these illegals or are their motives more sinister, for votes and power?

Neither.

their short-term goal is say things that get voters to "pull the lever" for them. It is helpful if they also believe what they say, but not necessary. It would not surprise me if many of those party leaders actually were sympathetic to the plight of immigrants, past or future, legal or illegal, but it would not surprise me if some were less so.

I would think that most or at least of some of any politician's views at least correlate positively to some degree with what they say, but I doubt if it is possible to be in lockstep 100% with everything that you say and still get elected.

... or are their motives more sinister, for votes and power? (emphasis added)

This is where I think your specific wording might be a bit less than objective. I understand that you vigorously disagree with people that hold or express these particular views; but, in general, I don't think it is necessarily "sinister" to try and get elected. I doubt if you would assign a motive of villainy to a candidate of your choosing simply for trying to get elected and enact laws that you agree with. Perhaps I am more cynical than you though. Most would want enough votes in Congress to get laws that they favored enacted. Or, sometimes, more importantly, to prevent laws that are not favored from getting enacted.

I am guessing that, more than likely, a candidate that is 100% idealistic and truthful and 0% pragmatic and noncommittal will generally be ineffective PRIMARILY because that candidate will generally not win elections. I say "generally" because there are some districts that are very safe for one political party or the other. Even there, candidates will face primary challenges from time to time in their own party. With that said, I do think their are some politicians that come off as very sincere while others come off as obviously phony. I may be correct in that assessment or my opinion may be due to my own biases or lapses of judgment.

and, are they considering the costs, which will be borne by the 50% of legal tax filers, who actually pay federal tax?

Not too many accountants and actuaries are members of Congress. Costs are often on the back burner in these decision-making processes. I would revert back to my answer to the previous question.

their goal is say things that get voters to "pull the lever" for them. Details on the costs of proposals sometimes matter to the voters, but it is voters' beliefs that are king rather than the actual costs that will generally prevail.

As I said earlier, costs and benefits are rarely evaluated together and if they are, there are wide gaps in the estimates depending upon which issues you favor.

[New2vp]

"Man-made Global Warming is a faith-based religion." Would attribute that quote if i could just remember where i read it.

https://www.americanthinker.com/article ... rming.html

Here is a quotation from the early part of the article:

"Man-made global warming is an earth-worshiping religion. The essential feature of any religion is that its pronouncements are to be accepted on faith, as opposed to hard evidence. And as with most religions, it is susceptible to the earthly temptations of money, power, politics, arrogance, and deceit."

[notes1]

'their goal is is to say things to get voters to pull the lever for them'. your quote. a rather pragmatic viewpoint, without regard for the consequences.

i wonder if you feel the same, in a different situation. let's say a group of drug companies produced a product and was very effective at marketing that same drug. in their communications with the public and physicians, they left out some serious potential side effects. oxycontin fits the bill.

the goal of the drug company was to get the public to 'pull the lever', or buy their product. using your reasoning, the fact that millions got addicted and thousands have died is not really important.

'it is helpful if they believe what they say, but not necessary'. your quote.

remember, your statement about a candidate being ineffective if they were 100% truthful. couldn't the same be said about a CEO or any of us.

i am neither naive or idealistic. i am not here to shoot the messenger, but rather the message. what bothers me the most, is that your post is mostly true.

if all that matters to everyone is to get elected, sell the product, or whatever end goal is desirable for that single person, without respect to the overall consequences, we are doomed.

[New2vp]

if all that matters to everyone is to get elected, sell the product, or whatever end goal is desirable for that single person, without respect to the overall consequences, we are doomed.

Please don't despair.

You asked me what I thought was the main force driving a group that you disagree with, not whether I believed it was a right or moral thing to do. I actually suggested that a tactic of saying things to get elected whether or not you were 100% sincere may not necessarily be out of evil, but out of a need to get elected. If unelected, they would have no power to effect change. It is important to understand that this is a model and is not perfectly predictive of reality.

Does using this tactic necessarily lead to bad outcomes? No, especially when both sides use it. Ok, you may believe that the other side uses it more than your side. I'm guessing that someone from the other side believes the same thing in reverse.

Even if this troubles you, I'm certain this tactic is not a useful explanation in every instance. You undoubtedly can find examples of individuals who say what they mean, steadfastly believe it, and wouldn't compromise their principles and still get elected. Is this necessarily good? No. I'm guessing you can think of a current example or two of politicians you vehemently disagree with, who appear to be totally unhinged while totally believing their own rhetoric. And this would be true whether you were left, right, or in the middle of any political spectrum.

i wonder if you feel the same, in a different situation. let's say a group of drug companies produced a product and was very effective at marketing that same drug. in their communications with the public and physicians, they left out some serious potential side effects. oxycontin fits the bill.

the goal of the drug company was to get the public to 'pull the lever', or buy their product. using your reasoning, the fact that millions got addicted and thousands have died is not really important.

'it is helpful if they believe what they say, but not necessary'. your quote.

remember, your statement about a candidate being ineffective if they were 100% truthful. couldn't the same be said about a CEO or any of us.

You wonder if I "feel" the same? There is nothing that I said that would be consistent with my wanting thousands to needlessly die. Your question was what did I think the party leaders were most concerned with. I was explaining my guess as to what I thought they were most concerned with (while suggesting that some could have multiple concerns), not endorsing either their words, thoughts or deeds.

remember, your statement about a candidate being ineffective if they were 100% truthful. couldn't the same be said about a CEO or any of us.

Here you are making a jump from what are theories of Public Choice, specifically a segment modeling how politicians behave, to how businesses behave. That is not a valid leap of logic. There are different economic models that are better at explaining the behavior of businesses, particularly for-profit entities.

Nevertheless, your conclusion is too pessimistic. Acting in self-interest, somewhat different than acting out of total selfishness without regard to others, which is involved in these theories, does not portend certain doom.

If people act in their own interest in voluntary transactions with businesses or other people, it is because each expects to get more benefit from what they receive than they would have received from what they give up. Thus after an exchange, both parties would theoretically be better off than prior to the exchange. Again this is a model, and there is no guarantee that an expectation of being better off is 100% predictable in determining whether both parties will in fact be better off. So, no guarantee, even when you have an edge. Sound familiar? But there still is a likely net benefit over costs.

Businesses profit if they can use resources efficiently enough to produce a product or service that others want and sell at a price that allows them to make a profit. Of course, that means that someone must want the benefits from acquiring that product or using that service and be willing to pay the price.

The famous quote from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations:

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

The well-known publishing date of this work, 1776, is sort of important for another reason. There is something about that date that is optimistic, especially when following those tenets has at least partially helped keep us from being doomed for more than a couple centuries.

Hey notes, I may not be able to respond to any more posts for a while due to a busy schedule, but it is not because I don't care. It's been fun. Have a good week!

[Carcounter]

I typically vote Republican because they do less damage in my opinion, than Democrats. Looking at the current crop of Dem candidates for President, how can any rational person come to any other conclusion?

[advantage playe]

10 4 /TRUMP2020

[billryan]

I typically vote Republican because they do less damage in my opinion, than Democrats. Looking at the current crop of Dem candidates for President, how can any rational person come to any other conclusion?

Watching trumps press conference yesterday, I'd like to know what rational person thinks he is qualified to lead the free world.

[billryan]

Democrats evidently play the long game. Pretty clever of them to file a bed bug suit against trumps golf club four years before they knew he would be President. I guess when competing against such a stable genius, one must go outside the box.