Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Reds and Blues Sit Down

So my concern or morbid curiosity had me googling Jerry's name again...


Whenever a consistent commenter stops commenting, I have a to wonder if they just lost interest or if they just dropped dead.  It is kind of like when I kept getting a LinkedIn "Congratulate Dale on his Work Anniversary" 5 years after I attended his funeral...


That said, here is one the articles that comes up when I do so...
Star Tribune 'Reds' and 'blues' sit down together to try to heal the political divide A group called Better Angels is organizing the gatherings of Republicans and Democrats to talk, listen and find what they have in common.


And maybe if he is still upright...  It will convince him to chime in...
And if he isn't God Rest his Soul, He will be missed. :-)

32 comments:

Anonymous said...

What I find is that there is broad agreement on many matters between Democrats and Republicans. The problem is more in the area of priorities. Both Republicans and Democrats favor universal, and affordable health care, for example. The problem is that Republicans place a higher priority on tax cuts, where Democrats place a higher priority on increasing taxes. What then happens is the result of a political asymmetry. In this case the asymmetry is that it is much easier to cut taxes than raise them, and in politics easy things are much more likely to happen than hard things. So the way it has historically played out, while both Republicans and Democrats favor increased health care, it doesn't happen because there is no way to pay for it.

That is the frustrating thing about these we all agree so can't we get along groups. They love to focus on the stuff that is widely popular and easy to agree on, but they do not address the issues which require making the tough choices that make agreement possible.

==Hiram

Sean said...

It's kind of funny to see Minnesota Republicans going around today crowing about insurance premiums on the exchange falling. Well, of course, they did! They threw $500M in taxpayer money to insurance companies so they could lower premiums, exactly the sort of solution they would hate if Democrats proposed it.

John said...

I liked this best.

"Doherty separated the two groups and asked them to come up with a list of stereotypes they believe the other group holds about them. Ideas poured out: The blues said red voters think they are unpatriotic, fiscally irresponsible and soft on crime. The red group was even more blunt, writing that blues think they are racist, uneducated and preoccupied with corporate profits.

Both sides talked about the origins of political stereotypes, and what they actually believe to be true about themselves and the politically like-minded. Then they presented findings to the full group. While a few people appeared unmoved — one woman shrugged and said she remained convinced that her ideas about the other side were correct — some opinions seemed to shift.

During a break, Pagey, wearing a blue name tag, chatted with James Kiner, a Burnsville man with a red name tag. They agreed that sweeping political stereotypes so dominant on social media quickly break down in actual face-to-face conversation. “Questions of what’s best for people shouldn’t come down to deciding that some of us are bad people,” Kiner said."

John said...

And yet when Tribe Liberal and Tribe Conservative are in action... The whole other tribe is labeled as bad people...

Laurie said...

I don't think republican voters are bad people, mostly I see them as badly underinformed or misinformed. I do think many GOP politicians are bad people and McConnel comes to mind as one of the worst.

John said...

Kind of like how Tribe Conservative really disliked Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, and label(led) them Devils...

The reality is that they are just doing the job that their constituents elected them to do.

Remember this fact check

"That effort — and a companion effort in the House — allowed for the broad outline of the Democratic plan to be apparent to the American public.

But here is where it gets complicated — and more opaque. Working secretly in his office, much like Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) merged the two committee bills and unveiled his own version of a health-care bill on Nov. 18 that was scored by the Congressional Budget Office.

In a bit of legislative maneuvering, Reid offered his text as an amendment to a completely different House bill — the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009. That’s because this bill had been sitting on the Senate Calendar of Business, avoiding the need for Reid to obtain unanimous consent to bring it up. This bill was also already obsolete — the issue had been taken care of in another bill — and so it was an ideal vehicle to start debate on the Senate floor. Reid inserted the text into the shell of the old bill."

John said...

What about the concept that they are equally informed and have different perspectives. Here are some examples:

Liberal sees woman terminating a pregnancy as her having "freedom". Conservative sees a human life be terminated, no different than smothering a preemie as soon as it clears the womb.

Liberal sees letting undocumented people live in the USA as being caring and charitable. Conservative sees letting undocumented people live in the USA as ignoring our laws, encouraging more illegal border crossings and taking jobs / diminishing wages for American citizens.

Liberals see taking money from the successful and giving it to the unsuccessful without expectations as being caring and charitable. Conservatives see taking money from the successful and giving it to the unsuccessful without expectations as encouraging dependency, poor choices and weakening the USA ability to compete in a highly competitive global economy.

I can go on and on... Two people can be equally informed and have different beliefs.

John said...

Laurie,
I am guessing the Reds nailed your perception pretty closely. :-)

red group was even more blunt, writing that blues think they are racist, uneducated and preoccupied with corporate profits.

With those 2 extra concepts in mind...

Liberals see race as primary factor in why minorities are less educated and financially successful in the USA. Conservatives acknowledge that bad things happened in the past, however they see current behaviors as the primary factors why minorities are less educated and financially successful in the USA. (ie broken families, high gang membership, etc)

Liberals see American businesses as entities that should pay big taxes since they are able to operate and make profits in America. Conservatives see that American businesses provide jobs for American citizens, so the goal is to keep their costs low so they will expand in the USA and hire more US citizens.

Anonymous said...

Conservatives don't see race as a factor in why minority groups are less educated and less financially successful? Were they just unlucky?

--Hiram

John said...

That is a very good question. We know that poverty, the education gap and single parent households are closely correlated. So what causes Asian Americans to raise the majority of their children in fully functional families where as other minorities do not?

Racial or ethnic group / Percent of births considered "non-marital"
Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders 17 percent

Non-Hispanic whites 29 percent
Hispanics 53 percent
American Indian and Native Alaskans 66 percent
Non-Hispanic blacks 73 percent


John said...

This is a little dated, but it has a great chart.

Anonymous said...

Maybe more patronizing lectures would help. Meanwhile, we hire a tax cheat president.

--Hiram

Sean said...

"So what causes Asian Americans to raise the majority of their children in fully functional families where as other minorities do not?"

We've already discussed this. The biggest difference is the fact that Asian-American immigrants tend to come to the U.S. more highly educated and wealthier than those from other regions. This is particularly true of immigrants from China, Japan, India, Taiwan, and South Korea. Among Asian populations that have tended to come in more via the refugee route, you see the same struggles with poverty and other social issues that you see among other groups.

John said...

No lectures required. Just facts and data.

1. Children from two parent families who emphasize the importance of academic success and hard work do pretty well in the USA.

2. Children from single parent families who do not emphasize the importance of academic success and hard work do pretty terrible in the USA.

How this came to be is somewhat immaterial, the question is how to ensure more kids are raised in the #1 type of household?

John said...

Sean,
Maybe or maybe not... However you can not deny that the Asian culture is very focused on family, academics, business ownership, etc. All things that are rewarded in our country.

I think of my local family owned Chinese Restaurant. Whenever I eat there or pick up, Mom and Dad are working the kids are in a booth doing homework.

Ooh... And now I can order online

Sean said...

Again, trying to suggest that Asians have had a similar experience in American culture compared to African-Americans or Latino communities and it's merely a matter of behavior is misleading and disingenuous.

John said...

Their road was pretty bumpy also.

John said...

An interesting counter point

I think this is worth pondering.

"And let’s remember that stereotypes cast Asians as smart and workaholics, while Blacks are portrayed as lazy, dangerous, and dumb. These stereotypes can cost jobs, opportunities, and even lives."

Were these stereotypes earned or were they incorrect?

Sean said...

Sure, but the numbers today are much larger than they were back then. We're admitting almost as many Chinese per year now than lived here in total in 1900. In 1910, there were 2,500 Indians (or "Hindus") counted nationwide. Today, about 60,000 immigrate from India every year.

John said...

Yes we have a wide mix of people entering the USA from all over the world.

Asia is significant, but so are the other regions.

John said...

More Immigrant Info

Sean said...

Well, sure. My point was about the rise in Asian immigration compared to earlier in U.S. history. Yes, Asians also have faced significant discrimination, but the number of people impacted (and the length of time for which they were impacted) is dramatically different than the African-American experience in this country.

John said...

And yet we know the other minority family structures did not implode until the war on poverty began.

And things to flatten out when welfare reform was passed in 1996.

John said...

And it apparently did not impact the Asian households in the same way.

Sean said...

Again, most Asian immigrants arrived later (there were less than 500,000 Asians in the U.S. in 1960) and they tend to arrive in much better shape than other immigrants (about half of Asian immigrants arrive on our shores with a college degree).

John said...

So people with college degrees get married before having kids.

And people without college degrees just make babies willy nilly without thought to how they will pay for and care for them?

Is that your argument for the large difference in family structures?

Sean said...

Haven't we already discussed this a bazillion times?

John said...

It seems we have... And yet you seem to keep insisting the broken families, single parent households and unlucky kids is not a personal choice... :-)

Sean said...

And you insist that the only policy choices that impacted such things are the things that happened from LBJ forward...

John said...

Well it is very interesting that the single parent birth rate started climbing when welfare was made more generous. And leveled off when welfare was tied to more work requirements.

I mean it makes perfect sense to me, however Liberals seem to deny the simple concept that one gets what they pay for. :-)

How again do you see slavery, the Jim Crow laws, redlining, Limiting GI bills, etc accounting for the Black families huge demise starting in ~1965? I mean that curve went nuts...

Sean said...

Again, we've already discussed this. I don't need to rehash it.

John said...

Sounds good. Especially since this post is about how Reds / Blues can be civil while not agreeing on everything.