Compromise is good to a point. But when you begin to compromise values, things get dicey. "Not murdering people in other countries" is pretty high up there for me, and it seems unlikely Clinton will stop the U.S.'s long history of doing just that. If there's such a thing as evil in this world, that fits the bill.
Huge changes aren't going to happen quickly, especially not to things that America has a long history of doing. I mean you guys legalized gay marriage across your country very recently. If you look back in history pretty much every champion of social progress was also a total dickweed in some way, Martin Luther King was sexist ffs. So she probably won't make huge strides but she'll work with the system to make the changes she can. She knows how to get at least something within a shit system even if it isn't ideal. Throwing somebody else in there with big ideas who couldn't work the system would be useless. The political system in American is reflective of the society it governs, if people want it to change then they actually have to take opportunities to change society. You don't change the politics before society, not in a democracy at least.
I'm not suggesting that Trump would be better by any means, but my original suggestion holds true, that "less bad" does not mean "good."
I think our point is that, with the current way America is, Hillary is good. Martin Luther King was good despite not believing in equality for women. Ghandi was good despite being racist. The list goes on, the point is that your idea of "good" cannot exist within the current system. I get that it's cynical, but you're expectations for what qualifies as "good" is just out of reach. So many people wanted Bernie since they thought he was actually good but he wouldn't have accomplished anything. That might make him a good person but it makes him a bad politician.
But that's basically my point. Cynicism is a cop-out, and the belief that things will never get better is a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Change is too hard" is not a compelling argument.
My argument isn't that change is to hard, it's that society is the thing that needs changing not politics. The changes in politics come after. Right now, Hillary is good because she represents the society that she would govern pretty well considering how diverse it is. Bernie represents a very different society that just isn't currently America.
I agree with that, but again, it becomes self-reinforcing. It also doesn't change the fact that many of Clinton's policies are actively bad. It's strange to me that I have to explain to people why this is so.
Why is it self-reinforcing ? The government reflects society. Everybody wants to call this election a dumpster fire as if it's somehow separate but in reality it represents a dumpster fire which is harsh I know. Fixing that dumpster fire has nothing to do with changing who's in charge. The only way it becomes self reinforcing is if people get cozy in said dumpster fire. Hillary is good with how America and the political system are so what's bad is the country and political system. I wouldn't say Hillary is less bad, I would say she's good and that really sucks. A lot of people through out history were good even though they wouldn't be by today's standards. I don't think of them as bad, I think they were good and I'm happy I didn't live then.
I get what you're saying, but how do we change the culture of politics without changing the politics?
I think part of the problem with politics is just how different the two main parties are becoming. Having to get two sides to agree isn't always a bad thing but the two sides to American politics are getting more different as time goes on. Nobody ends up happy with that arrangement. I mean I would really like if governments around the world cared about climate change a long time ago, but not enough people cared. Now it's going to be expensive to fix and society still pushes against that even though they have nobody to blame but themselves. I think politics just reflects all the problems with society, so I don't think politics is what needs fixing. I think politics being fixed is a happy by-product of society sucking less.
Just once I'd like to see someone who has the courage of their convictions (Bernie Sanders was the closest I've ever seen). But these people would rather get re-elected then lose for an idea, which means they have no principles. A principle isn't a principle if you're not willing to lose anything to support it. Just once I'd like to see a leader actually lead, rather than trying to find out where the country is so they can go with the crowd and then act like it was their plan all along.
Well, that's a bit of a problem then, isn't it? Part of the job of our elected officials is to carry out the wills and desires of the people that they represent. If the people call for better roads, they're gonna try and get better roads. If people call to protect the environment, they're gonna try and protect the environment. I think what you're really trying to say is sometimes we need our elected officials to say "Okay people, shut up for a minute about that idea, cause it's stupid." The problem is, they often don't cause they wanna get reelected.Just once I'd like to see a leader actually lead, rather than trying to find out where the country is so they can go with the crowd and then act like it was their plan all along.
I don't believe this to be true, and is a reason we don't generally have direct democracy on most issues. The idea is that we choose the people who will then use their own judgment and knowledge to make decisions on our behalf. This is the crux of it, yes. But I don't have any obligation to reward cowardice just because it's widespread.Part of the job of our elected officials is to carry out the wills and desires of the people that they represent.
I think what you're really trying to say is sometimes we need our elected officials to say "Okay people, shut up for a minute about that idea, cause it's stupid." The problem is, they often don't cause they wanna get reelected.
But if that person doesn't get re-elected is that a problem with politics or society ? That means that although they may stand for things you and I like they don't represent the majority. The government should represent society. It's not very democratic to lead a country by disregarding what the majority of people want.
She voted in favor of the PATRIOT Act, not once, but twice. She voted in favor of the invasion of Iraq. She had the opportunity to oppose the extrajudicial killings of civilians abroad (i.e. the drone program), but did so only rarely, and even then it wasn't to the program as a whole. She continues to oppose the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. She supported legislation to make the sale of "violent" video games to minors a crime, saying that "if you put it just really simply, these violent video games are stealing the innocence of our children." (A similar California law was ruled unconstitutional in 2011). She was against same-sex marriage until it became politically expedient to favor it. She wants a "Manhattan-like project" to allow the government to break any and all encryption In a (secret) speech to Goldman Sachs that was released by WikiLeaks: "There was also a need to do something because for political reasons, if you were an elected member of Congress and people in your constituency were losing jobs and shutting businesses and everybody in the press is saying it's all the fault of Wall Street, you can't sit idly by and do nothing," Clinton said. But no, she's totally going to do things Wall Street doesn't like after taking millions of dollars in speaking fees from them and refusing to release the transcripts. That's why she voted in favor of an anti-consumer bankruptcy law as a senator that she had opposed as First Lady a year or two before. She has avoided addressing the death penalty recently, but seems to support it. She supported expansion of off-shore drilling while in the Senate, and refused to answer questions about the Keystone XL pipeline.In an October 2013 speech to the financial firm, Clinton implied that action was necessary to curb Wall Street street abuses "for political reasons."
Thank you. That's all I wanted. Now. Since we got her past out of the way and why she's untrustworthy for that, what about her current campaign proposals are a problem? Keep in mind, I'm still upset with Obama for not going after banks and not curtailing government surveillance like he promised. I don't trust Clinton 100%, but I'm tired of old talking points. If people are going to criticize her, I want to see criticism with substance.
I mean, she hasn't changed any of these positions, or in the case of specific choices, she generally hasn't acknowledged that she was wrong (except for Iraq, which is the political thing to do). I have no reason to think she won't continue extralegal murder of civilians, or that she'll pursue any meaningful economic reform. She's not a leader, she finds what's popular and then adopts that. I want a president who is smarter and more thoughtful than I am, and I don't believe that she fits that.