politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
The two-state solution is a boondoggle.
There can only be a one state solution.
So make a choice: Israel or Palestine.
You say that like the choice hasn't already been made without the input of the voters.
What should happen to Palestinians if Israel is chosen? What should happen to Israelis if Palestine is chosen?
I'm not who you replied to but I like the idea of a single new country for both Palestinians and Israelis. I think this would avoid the ethnostate issue.
Ultimately I think the only way forward is to aim for peaceful coexistence between the two groups.
Great idea! Maybe we could look to history to find the last time that Jews and Muslims lived peacefully together in a single state, and name the new country whatever that is.
Hmmm... Looks like in the 1900s there was a country called Palestine where Muslims and Jews live equally. Let's get rid of Israel and Palestine, and replace them both with Palestine.
I think another main component of it would be religion being taken less seriously across the board.
It should be allowed to exist but it should be thought of more as superstition. Sort of like horoscopes or tarot cards.
Then it becomes pretty absurd to commit violence over it. I'm not really sure how to get to this point but there is technically room for both cultures.
This is the larger problem, in a nutshell. The fact that we have nations being led by people who believe in their own fairy tales, so much that they believe everybody else is inferior. This isn't just a problem in Israel/Palestine, obviously, but having two of these groups so close to each other really puts a magnifying glass on the danger of non-secular governments. Israel literally believes it has the support of God itself, and its a powerful fuel to their genocide.
I think if we are to survive as a species, one of the humps we need to get over is the existence of all these fairy tales, and the division they create. The fairy tales may have been useful at one point in history, but they have long overstayed their welcome.
Judaism used to be a polytheistic religion, and Islam used to be Judaism. There is no law against polytheism in the Torah. The first commandment, "You shall have no other gods before Me", allows for other gods who are revered less than Elohim. Judaism and Islam do not need to be violent religions. Putting violence in them was a choice that humans made.
The Nakba is not the result of Judaism. It is the result of men like Winston Churchill, who was an agnostic raised Christian. Generations of Jewish Israelis since then have allowed an outsider to define their religion, and tell them to be violent. This is not an issue of religion, it's an issue of human politics.
I do agree however a country that is based on religious participation is fundamentally flawed. I dont think it holds up in that regard. But yes it does have a place in smaller community and in personal life, although I'd argue far less than is shown now.
There has never been a country called Palestine. What are you talking about?
There are more Arabs living in Israel than there are jews living in all the current Arab nations combined.
In other words : it's not so simple to solve
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Palestine
Your comment was about 1900. Did we already move away from that? Specifics matter in the context of history and geopolitics. Or do we just not care about specifics?
Also, why don’t you address the full comment instead of snipping parts?
Isn't the issue of a single country that the Palestinian population is much higher than the Israeli population, so if there were a single democracy, it would mean that Palestinians would basically be fully in charge?
I think this is why a federated or two state solution is often suggested. Both parties need at least some level of autonomy.
The idea is ultimately that the people mix and there is no real barrier between the two groups anyways. There should still be places to worship for everyone although I think religion needs to be taken less seriously all around as part of that. Religion creates division just like race does.
I think the state I'm envisioning is after the part you are talking about though. Its likely there will be a period of imbalance but that does not mean that the bigger group cannot be fair to the smaller one.
Should we segregate America just because some minorities are outnumbered?
No, Gaza+ west bank are a little smaller than Israel in terms of population
Israel has made it clear that it wants to exterminate Palestinians, and is literally in the process of doing so right now.
Palestinians are not genocidal. They don't want to exterminate Israelis. They just want to be able to go home and stop being killed and starved and tortured.
Israelis can assimilate into Palestine and stop trying to make a Jewish ethnostate. Palestine can be one multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-religious democracy.
Even if some or most do wish to exterminate, this is arguably understandable. How many bombs would have to fall on you and your family before you were extremely angry? Maybe even, we could say, rationally angry?
Palestinians have entire documents and conferences on what to do with non-useful Jews. As for the useful ones, they will not be allowed to flee Palestine. Doctors and such will be prevented from emigrating.
There are no angels in this conflict. Both sides have desires for a genocide.
Certainly there are factions within Palestine that are genocidal. They're not in charge of anything, though, and don't represent the mainstream.
Meanwhile, the Israeli genicidiers control the government and are a mainstream cultural force.
They are not the same.
The conference was hosted by Hamas.
Hamas isn't lead by the people it was lead by even a decade ago. Their more recent 2017 charter is pretty explicitly not genocidal, they are anti-Israeli and explicitly not anti-Jewish.
Said conference was held in 2021. But I guess maybe a couple of years is enough time to reform a genocidal group.
Maybe Hamas leadership changed their tune towards murdering regular Jewish people sometime after that?
Certainly an analysis of their actions since that time will show their more peaceable trajectory…
That only the Israeli govt is capable of carrying out their genocide tendencies doesn’t mean Hamas doesn’t have genocidal tendencies.
I never claimed they're peaceful. They want to kill settlers and IDF goons and they want to destroy the Israeli occupation. Hardly peaceful.
But that's not genocide. That's just people's war.
I say we find land for each of them someplace in the US, build infrastructure and housing, evacuate Jerusalem and bulldoze it.
Better tell that to China, or do you know better than an AES state?
What do you think "critical support" means?
I think it's one of those weasel words some leftists use so they can ignore their own hypocrisy while they moralize like the evangelical Christians they were raised as.
So you don't know what it means.
Critical support means supporting AES countries against the capitalist hegemon despite still having criticisms of some of their decisions. I don't have to think every single decision they make is perfect because I don't moralize about my politics.
What you're talking about is dogmatism, i.e. taking uncritical moral positions and then denouncing any deviation. Mao harshly criticized this in On Contradiction and On Practice.
No decision can ever be perfect, is my point.
Lol I've been to Hexbear and old chapo chat, I have no idea how you can say this with a straight face.
Cool, was that before or after struggle sessions were implemented in China?
Okay, that's about following the Party line and the strategy of democratic centralism. What the Party decides is what the membership must respect and uphold.
I am not a member of the Communist Party of China. They wouldn't want me anyway lol
Hmmm
It's strategic, not moral. The Communist Party of China has 99 million members. Without democratic centralism it would just be a big club of communism fans, not a Party.
Once there's an agreed upon decision, every Party member must uphold it for the strategic advancement of the Party agenda.
You honestly think citizens should be publicly punished and shamed for purely strategic reasons? I somehow don't believe that.
Sounds like a moral imperative to me tbh
But honestly this is just more examples of trying to weasel out of hypocritical positions like evangelical Christians do. Change some words around and act like it's a different thing even though the real world effect is the same, which is funny for a group that claims to deal in material conditions.
"I don't HATE you, I just think you deserve to go to Hell."
"We don't denounce deviation because deviating is immoral, we denounce it because it would be bad game theory not to."
I think Party members should be disciplined and forced to follow the Party line. Regular citizens who aren't involved with politics shouldn't be held to the same standards. If you want to be member of the Communist Party then you must subject yourself to the democratic center.
They don't really hold every single Chinese citizen to the same standards as Party members these days. It's unnecessary.
It's strategic because the goal is to advance the Party agenda. A moral imperative is just saying it's the right thing to do, but that's not what democratic centralism is about. It's a strategy to hold Party members to a Party line and advance the Party's agenda.
You're trying to frame this as moralism but it has nothing to do with right or wrong. It's about what works.
Lol exact same outcome but since I ~~accepted Jesus into my heart~~ wanted to advance the party agenda it's okay
Except if you look at China today it clearly worked. It's an evidence based scientific approach to politics. No faith necessary.
Meanwhile, religious people can't prove anything and have no evidence for anything and have to take everything on faith.
It's not, because no approach to politics is. It's not reproducible, and there's no control. You can argue it's logical, but that's different.
Also, this means that literally any functioning state "clearly works" as well, many of which have been around longer than modern China. Any place that isn't pure chaos is a valid approach to politics with this argument, and if you (correctly) change what you mean by "works" to be some other criteria, then it's not a pure evidence based approach anymore since we've brought value judgements into it.
Politics can never be purely scientific because we have to make value judgements. Being purely "scientific" is what most communists criticize pure utilitarianism for.
China isn't merely a functioning country, it's the fastest growing economy on Earth despite being backwards and feudal and colonized only a little over half a century ago. It's an incredible and unprecedented achievement. You can't ignore this.
And sure, politics can't be purely scientific, because nothing human is ever pure science, but it is possible to use a scientific approach to figure out what works and what doesn't. This is why socialists call their politics a science.
Liberals refuse to even attempt to make their politics scientific. They believe politics is just about doing what you think is right based on faith i.e. moralism.
You ignored nearly all of my comment and just repeated your logical fallacies.
Refer back to how this is meaningless. Every country in existence "works" and changing what you mean by "works" means it's not scientific (which it shouldn't be).
I haven't even brought up the low hanging fruit of how since the USSR failed and the USA still exists, then "scientifically" socialism doesn't work if you use that logic.
And something working doesn't mean it is scientifically correct or true, because that's conflating poor philosophy with poor moralizing. It also doesn't "prove" that it is the only thing that works, or that it's the best thing we could have, or that anything couldn't be better, or another way wouldn't be just as good, or...
Which is why enforcing conformity and punishing deviation because socialism is "scientific" is fucking stupid, because you can't prove or even know any of the above.
It's a soft science, like psychology. You can take a scientific approach even if empiricism is more difficult.
The USSRs failure proves that their own approach was wrong. We can learn from it, because socialists learn from the material results of policy. That's scientific.