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u/CarrieJohansen · 2 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

The Constitution: An Introduction is a great book. One of my law professors wrote it with his son (started while the son was in high school, finished when the son was in college). It's relatively short and intended to be, basically, a primer on the why, how, and what of the constitution. It's written for the intelligent but the non-legal person, and Prof. Paulsen is a wonderfully engaging speaker (which comes across in his witty writing). I seriously loved this book. I cannot oversell it for non-nerdy people, but I'm a nerd like that who gets really excited about accessible and exceptional information.

That being said, if you're trying to get informed politically, you'll need to understand economics. Every law affects economics in some way (modification of behavior is an economic issue). People elsewhere have provided some good sources for binary partisan (i.e., bi-partisan) perspectives, but I'm also going to suggest some non-binary thinkers and economists.

The following are relatively short and more entertaining while still exceptional introductions to economic issues (and therefore political issues):
The Law by Frédéric Bastiat; Eat the Rich: A Treatise on Economics by P. J. O’Rourke This one is hilarious and informative; and Free to Choose, the book or the 10-part video series. Also, check out Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. I don't have specific books for them.

Good luck, and happy reading! I've learned that so much of getting informed is talking (actually talking, not just texting or typing in online forums) to process issues. Welcome to the journey.


EDIT: formatting, because I've never posted with hyperlinked sources before. :-)

u/alwaysearly37 · 197 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

Again, my background includes a graduate degree on a Russia-related topic, but not military history, so take what I have with a grain of salt.

In the late-1980s, Glasnost and Perestroika were formidable political movements, but largely window dressing. Chernobyl is a great example of the Soviet's attempt to control the narrative and willingness to lie to not only its citizenry but allies about the full effect of the radiation. At the time, the USSR was "reducing" its military expenditures (they just went off book) while trying to appear more open, which was a way to get the West's eyes off the USSR's business. It was signed at the twilight of the USSR - by the end of 1989 there were revolts in East Germany and many of the satellite Soviet states. The Soviet economy had tanked, they were running low on everything and were getting wheat from the West. The wheels were coming off the tractor, as it were, so the Russians were signing agreements with the West to appear more inclusive and open as a way to secure food, currency and political support. The Soviet Navy and the US Navy conducted joint exercises, and warships from the USSR docked in San Diego while US Navy vessels docked in Vladivostok. It was all a show. Included in that show was Open Skies.

Was it important? As a sign of peace and reconciliation? Sure. But, did it have military value? No. US spy satellites routinely take very clear and accurate photographs, it's how the US knew what was going on in Ukraine and could orient sea-to-land missiles from ships. So, does Open Skies provide valuable intel? Not really. Open Skies requires specific equipment flying along specific routes, so obviously countries prepare for those missions. With the advent of spy satellites and better human intelligence, the US doesn't need Open Skies to provide intel.

I posit that countries see the agreement as being from an era where reconciliation was possible and Russia may join the Western fold - there had been talk of them joining NATO. With Open Skies gone, it doesn't change anything. It just removes the veneer of peace that we constructed for 20 years and pretended wasn't there.

From the moment Russia emerged from the Soviet rubble, they had called for an elimination of Jackson-Vanik and the establishment of permanent normal trade relations. The US wasn't keen to do that as Russia had long evaded international law and never fully embraced democracy. The Chechen Wars saw gross human rights violations, including a very powerful rape campaign (read Andrew Meier's book on that), installed strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and then started numerous conflicts, including Georgia in 2008. Russia has never followed the rule of law, they have no real free press and much of the country is run by a cadre of politically-connected quasi-political leaders empowered by Putin. But, so long as agreements like Open Skies are in place, and Jackson-Vanik is gone, it gives the appearance of some semblance of Russia's willingness to engage in dialogue with the West. While I don't agree with Trump on much, calling BS to the Russian agreement (whether that's his intention or not) is actually a good move.

Russia has never been an honest broker or a fair dealer, and as long as we use cognitive dissonance to present that it isn't the case, the more we'll have to contend with in the next couple of decades.

u/rynebrandon · 61 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

> As someone who is economically illiterate, I'd like to know if there is any value whatsoever to what I typically hear for the conservative talking points for helping the economy (aka de-regulation, lower barriers to entry, cut taxes, etc)

Yes. Absolutely, there are. Markets are widely agreed upon to be the most efficient way to allocate most products in a world of unlimited desires and very limited resources. The first chapter of any economics textbook will outline these benefits excellently.

But there are limits to what you can do with these tools since, despite what many people would tell you, it's actually quite difficult to lay the groundwork for a properly functioning market. Listen to the differences in the rhetoric used by mainstream Republicans like Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney and more libertarian-oriented politicians like Rand Paul and Gary Johnson. The former often talks about how praiseworthy American business is and the latter often talks about markets, that might seem like a fine distinction but it matters a lot.

Let me use an extended example to illustrate.

There are certain assumptions that economics relies upon: rational buyers and sellers looking to maximize their utility, with ordered preferences and an understanding of their limitations and needs, both sides have access to the information necessary to make an informed decision, the goods being sold must be rival and excludable.

Most importantly for this example, there must be competing buyers and competing sellers using price to signal their desire for a good or service.

Now, let's take a public utility like electricity. Where I live I only have one option for electricity, a company called AEP. I only have three market option I can exercise: to buy electricity from them, move at tremendous cost to myself or choose to go without electricity, also at tremendous cost to myself. Moving or not getting electricity hurts me a lot more than my lost revenue hurts AEP so they have way more market power than I do in the transaction and since they are my only option, they can set the price at whatever they want.

Now, the only way for me to have true options would be multiple companies building multiple electrical grids and my choosing which one I want to run to my house. Then there would be competition and by and by the competitors would drive the price down on each other. However, while that might be great for me, building an electric grid is very, very expensive. Electric companies build these grids initially at an enormous loss and they wouldn't take that risk if they don't have a reasonable expectation of recouping their investment.

So, let's say company A decides to build an electric grid in my city but any other company could use the grid once it was built and compete for my business. Well, that's no good because company A would be at a huge disadvantage since company B and C aren't in the hole for having built the infrastructure in the first place. Companies B and C could charge way less than company A. So, no company has any incentive to be the first mover - everyone waits for everyone else to build the grid first and, thus, no grid ever gets built.

Thus, you need the government to step in and say, "company A, if you build the electrical grid, you will have a monopoly on this area for X period of time, to guarantee you make your initial investment back." But, since company A is now a monopoly and can charge whatever they want, the government also steps in and regulates the amount charged.

The most efficient outcome is achieved only with government intervention in this case, and cases like this are not at all uncommon.

Now, since there's no real "market" for providing me electricity, I think most economists would agree it's a suitable place for government intervention. However, pro-business politicians will often push to have previously public enterprises (like my electricity) privatized in order to increase "efficiency." However, what they're really doing is providing a monopoly to a company who doesn't even need to make the initial infrastructure investment (since it's already built) and get huge profits simply for lying in the cut and providing no real value-added to their customers. A private company needs to turn a profit, the government doesn't. So, for public utilities you actually often end up paying less when it's run by government or at least through a public corporation than when the same is run by a private firm. Thus, pushing for a business to run such an enterprise isn't embracing the benefits of the market, it's corporate welfare.

Republicans often look to private contracts and business as inherently better and more efficient, almost as an article of faith. But very often, the most efficient outcome requires substantial government intervention. I would say that after 35 years of a broad program to deregulate business, cut taxes and devolve federal authority we have reached a saturation point of the benefits that can be derived that way.

u/lizzieb_23 · 17 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

SECOND

What the "Iranian nuclear threat" was actually all about, was a pretext to impose regime-change in Iran, pushed by the Isreaelis and NeoCons, just as they pushed for the Iraq war with bogus claims about "WMDs in Iraq"

They exaggerated the iran threat
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-27/israeli-government-has-exaggerated-iranian-nuclear-threat-years

And the Iraq threat
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-12-04-israeli-iraq-threat_x.htm


The pushed for the Iraq war
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-to-us-dont-delay-iraq-attack/

and a war on Iran
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-prodding-us-to-attack-iran/

The pro-Israeli lobby had been pushing a PR war on Iran for a long time already, ie:
http://www.uscatholic.org/culture/war-and-peace/2008/06/iran-spam

And AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) spent millions of dollars trying to undermine the deal

https://www.thenation.com/article/inside-the-effort-to-kill-the-iran-deal/

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/06/429911872/in-iran-deal-fight-lobbyists-are-spending-millions-to-sway-12-senators

See, the Israelis (and Saudis) and their supporters in the US including the NeoCons and Iran hawks consider an improvement in US-Iran relations as coming at their expense, so they don't want to see the US and Iran getting along and they would rather see the US engage in regime-change in Iran

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/john-bolton-iran-regime-change-231586

http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/01/05/its-time-to-pursue-regime-change-in-iran/

This book is all about that: http://www.amazon.com/Manufactured-Crisis-Untold-Story-Nuclear/dp/1935982338

On the other hand, there are people who say that the US should "go to Iran" just as Nixon went to China because that will promote US interests the best
https://www.amazon.com/Going-Tehran-America-Islamic-Republic/dp/1250043530

Note that when Nixon decided to recognize Communist China, the US had to dump relations with Taiwan. Israel does not want to become a Taiwan if the US decides to mend relations with Iran.

Here's another book I plan to read once it comes out: https://www.amazon.com/Deal-Century-Iran-Blocked-Wests/dp/0997896507


FINALLY

The nuclear agreement called the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) is not technically a "treaty" but is an "executive agreement"

Executive Agreements are more common in international affairs than treaties, they also don't have the same formalities such as a need to be ratified through the Senate. There's a lot of hype claiming that Obama somehow violated the constitution by entering into the agreement but there's absolutely nothing unconstitutional about executive agreements, they're actually VERY common. https://www.state.gov/s/l/treaty/faqs/70133.htm

There's all sort of BS being claimed, namely that Iran did not "sign" the agreement and that it is not "legally binding" -- but in fact international agreements including treaties are not legally binding (there is no court, judge or police to enforce them) and instead they are political agreements that are "binding" only as long as each party agrees to be bound by it. International agreements are also not a car loan that require you to sign them to be valid.

It is also claimed that there were "Secret concessions" made to Iran which were "exposed" by the UN.
Example:

>U.N. watchdog exposes secret concessions in Obama’s Iran deal

http://www.theblaze.com/news/2016/12/25/u-n-watchdog-exposes-secret-concessions-in-obamas-iran-deal/

But in fact literally EVERY WORD in that headline is actually false. The documents were not "exposed", the signatories themselves decided to make them public so as to end the hype about "secret deals", there were no "concessions" just technical agreements like agreeing to not count unrecoverable waste Uranium in the amount that Iran was supposed to be able to keep, and in fact the IAEA is not part of the UN but is an independent agency, and it isn't a "watchdog" either its role in the NonProliferation Treaty is just as an accountant that measures declared nuclear material to make sure the declared amounts match the actual amounts, that's all (it isn't an investigative agency or an intelligence agency charged with finding WMDs, in fact its actual job is to promote the use of nuclear technology)

The JCPOA required certain measures by Iran for at least 10-15 years (after which the "normal" Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations will continue to be in place) ie to limit the number of centrifuges it operates that are used to enrich uranium before using the material to make reactor fuel rods, to only enrich to 3.65% which can't be used for bombs (Iran never enriched uranium to bomb-grade anyway) to reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium, and to cease work on a heavy water reactor and to export any heavy water it produces beyond its domestic needs. Iran has done all of that and the IAEA has verified it in its reports. https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/16/11/gov2016-55.pdf

However the opponents of the deal have been claiming that Iran has supposedly "violated" the deal by producing 0.1 ton more heavy water than a the 130 ton "limit" contained in the agreement. The problem is that there is actually no such limit in the agreement.

Annex 1, Part C, Paragraph 14 of the JCPOA states that Iran is to keep enough heavy water to meet its domestic needs including contingency stocks (estimated to be 130 tons in total) and any excess is to be exported for sale.

All Iran is required to do under Paragraph 15 is inform the IAEA of its heavy water stock and allow occasional IAEA visits to the production facility to monitor the stock.

Iran has done all that too.

Note that neither paragraph imposes a specific upper limit on the amount of heavy water which can be produced.

See http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/245318.pdf for the exact text I'm citing



And 24 extra gallons of heavy water is not a violation of that "estimate". Note that heavy water itself is quite harmless and can't be used as a weapon and furthermore without an operational heavy water reactor (Iran poured concrete into the reactor their were building so it can't ever work, as the agreement required) there is no way that heavy water can somehow be used to make nukes anyway (and, the reactor was subject to IAEA monitoring anyway.)

In exchange, the US is supposed to lift as many sanctions as it can and release Iran's frozen funds. OF course the Iranians and the Obama administration new that they could not lift ALL the sanctions since most of the sanctions were imposed by COngress, not the President. So some sanctions have been removed but the US and Iran still can't do business especially since existing sanctions prevent Iran from doing business using US dollars which is the international currency. And, Congress is pushing for new sanctions. The Iranians consider this a violation of the agreement which requires the US to do its best to remove all sanctions but the text of the treaty does not actually require all the sanctions to be removed.

So bottom line is that despite all the hype, neither side has "violated" the agreement.

Note however that the US and Iran are not the only parties to the deal: Russia, China, Germany, UK and France that have signed it too, and it has been endorsed by the UN Security Council. The European courts had already ruled sanctions on Iran to be illegal before the deal,

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-sanctions-eu-idUSBRE91514220130206

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-iran-nuclear-courts-insight-idUKBRE96E0M920130715

and the the other countries have told the US that they will continue to abide by the deal even if the US pulls out.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/07/iran-nuclear-deal-vital-warns-theresa-may-donald-trump-vows/

http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/In-a-message-to-Trump-China-defends-Iran-nuclear-deal/article16767795.ece

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-eu-idUSKCN0PU0S520150720

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-News/Russia-Loss-of-Iranian-nuclear-deal-would-be-unforgivable-475468

http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2016/12/06/china-warns-trump-iran-nuclear-deal-must-stand/

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-iran-nuclear-europe-idUKKCN0RA2H420150910

u/come_visit_detroit · 51 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

The increasing diversity of the country plays an underrated role in the increasing political divide.

Robert Putnam's work E Pluribus Unum goes over this extensively:

>In the theoretical toolkit of social science we find two diametrically opposed perspectives on the effects of diversity on social connections. The first, usually labelled the ‘contact hypothesis’, argues that diversity fosters interethnic tolerance and social solidarity. As we have more contact with people who are unlike us, we overcome our initial hesitation and ignorance and come to trust them more...Evidence of this sort suggested to social psychologists, beginning with Gordon Allport in the 1950s, the optimistic hypothesis that if we have more contact with people of other ethnic and racial backgrounds (or at least more contact in the right circumstances), we will all begin to trust one another more. More formally, according to this theory, diversity reduces ethnocentric attitudes and fosters out-group trust and solidarity. If black and white children attend the same schools, for example, race relations will improve. This logic was an important part of the legal case that led the United States Supreme Court to require racial desegregation in the famous Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954. For progressives, the contact theory is alluring, but I think it is fair to say that most (though not all) empirical studies have tended instead to support the so-called ‘conflict theory’, which suggests that, for various reasons – but above all, contention over limited resources – diversity fosters out-group distrust and in-group solidarity. On this theory, the more we are brought into physical proximity with people of another race or ethnic background, the more we stick to ‘our own’ and the less we trust the ‘other’ (Blumer 1958; Blalock 1967; Giles & Evans 1986; Quillian 1995, 1996; Brewer & Brown 1998; Taylor 1998; Bobo 1999; Bobo & Tuan 2006)...

>The evidence that diversity and solidarity are negatively correlated (controlling for many potentially confounding variables) comes from many different settings:

>• Across workgroups in the United States, as well as in Europe, internal heterogeneity (in terms of age, professional background, ethnicity, tenure and other factors) is generally associated with lower group cohesion, lower satisfaction and higher turnover (Jackson et al. 1991; Cohen & Bailey 1997; Keller 2001; Webber & Donahue 2001).

>• Across countries, greater ethnic heterogeneity seems to be associated with lower social trust (Newton & Delhey 2005; Anderson & Paskeviciute 2006; but see also Hooghe et al. 2006).

>• Across local areas in the United States, Australia, Sweden, Canada and Britain, greater ethnic diversity is associated with lower social trust and, at least in some cases, lower investment in public goods (Poterba 1997; Alesina et al. 1999; Alesina & La Ferrara 2000, 2002; Costa & Kahn 2003b; Vigdor 2004; Glaeser & Alesina 2004; Leigh 2006; Jordahl & Gustavsson 2006; Soroka et al. 2007; Pennant 2005; but see also Letki forthcoming).

>• Among Peruvian micro-credit cooperatives, ethnic heterogeneity is associated with higher default rates; across Kenyan school districts ethnolinguistic diversity is associated with less voluntary fundraising; and in Himalayan Pakistan, clan, religious, and political diversity are linked with failure of collective infrastructure maintenance (Karlan 2002; Miguel & Gugerty 2005; Khwaja 2006).

>• Across American census tracts, greater ethnic heterogeneity is associated with lower rates of car-pooling, a social practice that embodies trust and reciprocity (Charles & Kline 2002).

>• Within experimental game settings such as prisoners-dilemma or ultimatum games, players who are more different from one another (regardless of whether or not they actually know one another) are more likely to defect (or ‘cheat’). Such results have been reported in many countries, from Uganda to the United States (Glaeser et al. 2000; Fershtman & Gneezy 2001; Eckel & Grossman 2001; Willinger et al. 2003; Bouckaert & Dhaene 2004; Johansson-Stenman et al. 2005; Gil-White 2004; Habyarimana et al. 2006).

>• Within the Union (northern) Army in the American Civil War, the casualty rate was very high and the risks of punishment for desertion were very low, so the only powerful force inhibiting the rational response of desertion was loyalty to one’s fellow soldiers, virtually all of whom were other white males. Across companies in the Union Army, the greater the internal heterogeneity (in terms of age, hometown, occupation, etc.), the higher the desertion rate (Costa & Kahn 2003a).

>In areas of greater diversity, our respondents demonstrate:

>• Lower confidence in local government, local leaders and the local news media.

>• Lower political efficacy – that is, confidence in their own influence.

>• Lower frequency of registering to vote, but more interest and knowledge about politics and more participation in protest marches and social reform groups.

>• Less expectation that others will cooperate to solve dilemmas of collective action (e.g., voluntary conservation to ease a water or energy shortage).

>• Less likelihood of working on a community project.

>• Lower likelihood of giving to charity or volunteering.

>• Fewer close friends and confidants.

>• Less happiness and lower perceived quality of life.

>• More time spent watching television and more agreement that ‘television is my most important form of entertainment’.

At least a few of those bullet points ought to immediately remind you of Trump supporters, particularly trust in media and political efficacy ("the system is rigged!").

Next, it's worth noting the problems of social segregation. Other people in this thread have mentioned how social media allows people to exist in bubbles where they only receive information that they like. Google does the same thing by tailoring your search results to things you're likely to click on based on past activity. This is dangerous because the willingness to listen to opposing viewpoints and exercise tolerance is predicted by one’s exposure to counter-attitudinal messages. In other words, listening to viewpoints that contradict our own makes us more tolerant. In this way, the lack of ideological diversity in higher education contributes to intolerance (especially among leftist students). President Obama has made this point on occasion. However, it's obviously a problem for all of society at this point. Think of the person listening only to right wing radio and Fox, or the lefties on reddit who get their news from /r/politics.

The same problem happens offline in real life too. 538 has already noted how our most diverse cities are also among our most segregated, although this should not be surprising to anyone, as people naturally self-segregate. Although I don't have a source for it off-hand, that people segregate based on political affiliation as well should also come as no surprise. And without communal activities to bring them together like church among dozens of other possibilities, people no longer interact with people with different politics from their own. Putnam went over the decline in participation in these sorts of things in his most famous work, Bowling Alone.

Finally, it's worth emphasizing that diversity just has negative consequences for society, regardless of the economic impact or crime. We already have evidence that homogeneity correlates with strong democracy, that genetic diversity causes societal conflict, that ethnic diversity causally decreases social cohesion, and even that diversity increases social adversity. This should help explain the anxiety of Trump supporters despite the fact that the unemployment rate is low, and that crime is quite low historically.

u/BedMonster · 1 pointr/NeutralPolitics

The book is Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys by Victor Rios.

Two excerpts:

>The Stolen Bag of Chips

>[...] The store clerk, a balding, middle-aged, Asian American male, pointed to the door and yelled, "Only two kids allowed in the store at a time!" The three youths who were in line to pay for their items looked at the store clerk and at each other. I could see in their faces the look of despair as their most pleasurable moment of the day, to bite into a delicious candy bar, fell apart.

>Mike, who stood closest to the entrance of the door, responded, "We ain't doing shit." The store clerk looked at him and replied, "I am going to call the police!" Mike grabbed a twenty-five-cent bag of Fritos Flamin' Hot chips, lifted it up in front of the clerk's face, and said, "You see this? I was gonna pay for it, but now I ain't paying for shit, stupid mothafucka." He rushed out of the store with the bag of chips. The clerk picked up the phone and called the police. The rest of the youngsters dropped the snacks they were in line to purchase and ran out of the store. I walked up to the store clerk and gave him a quarter for Mike, who had stolen the chips. With an infuriated look, the clerk responded, "It's too late. The police are on their way to get the robbers."

>[...] When I ran into Flaco, he informed me that the police had arrested Mike that day for stealing the twenty-five-cent bag of chips. After interviewing the boys and observing the store clerk's interactions with them soon after this event, I found that Mike's "irrational" behavior had changed the way the store clerk interacted with the boys. The boys believed that the store clerk had begun to treat them with more respect. The store clerk avoided provoking negative interactions with the boys, even if it meant allowing a few more boys into the store than his store policy demanded. While even Mike's peers believed that his actions were "crazy," they also acknowledged that something significant had changed in their interactions with the store clerk.

>[...] In Mike's worldview, his strategy of fighting for dignity at the cost of giving up his freedom had paid off. Mike's actions resulted in his commitment to the criminal justice system. According to him, he was very aware of this risk when he stole the bag of chips. He had grown frustrated by the treatment he had received at school, by police, and then culminating at the store. This frustration, and a deep desire to feel respected, led Mike to willfully expose himself to incarceration.

> In the end, Mike lost his freedom, becoming supervised by the criminal justice system. Nonetheless, Mike gained a sense of dignity for himself and his peers, which, in his mind, made it worth exchanging his freedom. This scenario is representative of many of the crimes that the other boys committed. Demanding dignity from the system generated a paradox for the boys: they all indicated wanting to be free of incarceration, policing, and surveillance, while, at the same time, punitive surveillance, policing, and discipline led many of them to consciously seek their dignity and act in a way that pipelined them into the criminal justice system. Nonetheless, striving for dignity led some of the boys deeper into the system.

>The boys took control of their criminalization by using the few resources they had at hand. In this example, Mike and his friends changed the interactional dynamic between themselves and the store clerk. [...] However, the price Mike paid for this was steep, this arrest later led him deeper into the criminal justice system.

>[...] Maintaining a sense of dignity -- feeling accepted and feeling that their human rights were respected -- was a central struggle. The boys chose consciously chose to fight for their dignity, even if it meant risking their freedom.

[...]

>Defiance as Resistance

>It seemed that defiance constituted a temporary success to the boys. Watching interactions between the boys and authority figures was often like watching a life-sized game of chess in action, with a rook strategically moving in response to a queen's movement. A police officer would get out of his car, the boys would posture, an officer would grab a young man, his friends would prepare to run, and officer would humiliate one of the boys, and the boy would respond by not cooperating or by cursing back.

>As one side moved its pieces to repress, another moved its pieces to resist. The boys were almost always captured and eliminated from the chess board, but not before they had encroached into the opponent's territory, throwing the system off and influencing the rules and movements of the game.

u/a1pha · 2 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

Republic Lost by Lawrence Lessig.

>In an era when special interests funnel huge amounts of money into our government-driven by shifts in campaign-finance rules and brought to new levels by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission-trust in our government has reached an all-time low. More than ever before, Americans believe that money buys results in Congress, and that business interests wield control over our legislature.

>With heartfelt urgency and a keen desire for righting wrongs, Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig takes a clear-eyed look at how we arrived at this crisis: how fundamentally good people, with good intentions, have allowed our democracy to be co-opted by outside interests, and how this exploitation has become entrenched in the system. Rejecting simple labels and reductive logic-and instead using examples that resonate as powerfully on the Right as on the Left-Lessig seeks out the root causes of our situation. He plumbs the issues of campaign financing and corporate lobbying, revealing the human faces and follies that have allowed corruption to take such a foothold in our system. He puts the issues in terms that nonwonks can understand, using real-world analogies and real human stories. And ultimately he calls for widespread mobilization and a new Constitutional Convention, presenting achievable solutions for regaining control of our corrupted-but redeemable-representational system. In this way, Lessig plots a roadmap for returning our republic to its intended greatness.

>While America may be divided, Lessig vividly champions the idea that we can succeed if we accept that corruption is our common enemy and that we must find a way to fight against it. In REPUBLIC, LOST, he not only makes this need palpable and clear-he gives us the practical and intellectual tools to do something about it.

>About the Author

>Lawrence Lessig is the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University. Prior to rejoining the Harvard faculty, Lessig was a professor at Stanford Law School, where he founded the school's Center for Internet and Society, and at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

u/n4ggs · 24 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

This is an opinion piece written by and about Trump supporters.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/08/media_antitrump_frenzy_will_backfire.html

If someone supported Trump because he represented the right to say what you believed in the face of a culture that overwhelmingly labeled those beliefes racist/facist/sexist how would you respond to someone threatening your political win with violence? Coming from that point of view, it would confirm that you made the right choice. That Trump is the freedom candidate and his opposition is worse than you imagined in the past.


I think it's useful to view the anti-political correctness chunk of Trump's support in terms of a counter-culture movement.


https://www.amazon.com/Counterculture-Through-Ages-Abraham-House/dp/0812974751

I want to highlight the description on the back of the book.

"Product Description

As long as there has been culture, there has been counterculture. At times it moves deep below the surface of things, a stealth mode of being all but invisible to the dominant paradigm; at other times it’s in plain sight, challenging the status quo; and at still other times it erupts in a fiery burst of creative–or destructive–energy to change the world forever. 

But until now the countercultural phenomenon has been one of history’s great blind spots. Individual countercultures have been explored, but never before has a book set out to demonstrate the recurring nature of counterculturalism across all times and societies, and to illustrate its dynamic role in the continuous evolution of human values and cultures. 

Countercultural pundit and cyberguru R. U. Sirius brilliantly sets the record straight in this colorful, anecdotal, and wide-ranging study based on ideas developed by the late Timothy Leary with Dan Joy. With a distinctive mix of scholarly erudition and gonzo passion, Sirius and Joy identify the distinguishing characteristics of countercultures, delving into history and myth to establish beyond doubt that, for all their surface differences, countercultures share important underlying principles: individualism, anti-authoritarianism, and a belief in the possibility of personal and social transformation. 

Ranging from the Socratic counterculture of ancient Athens and the outsider movements of Judaism, which left indelible marks on Western culture, to the Taoist, Sufi, and Zen Buddhist countercultures, which were equally influential in the East, to the famous countercultural moments of the last century–Paris in the twenties, Haight-Ashbury in the sixties, Tropicalismo, women’s liberation, punk rock–to the cutting-edge countercultures of the twenty-first century, which combine science, art, music, technology, politics, and religion in astonishing (and sometimes disturbing) new ways, Counterculture Through the Ages is an indispensable guidebook to where we’ve been . . . and where we’re going. "

Counter culture movements feed off the violence used to suppress them. They feel like they are growing, and so do the people that they scare. If that is all true, then Trump is the begging.

u/IrrationalFantasy · 4 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

Yes, conditions are very good for the success of a third party nominee. The Libertarian Party will do well this year. But no, conditions aren't perfect.

The thing is, Hilary Clinton is fundamentally a normal candidate. She's out of step with her party and is an insider in a year of outsiders, to say nothing of the email scandal. However, America has been run by insiders before; more centrist voters may think that she does not a bold reformer, or that she'll be involved in some scandals during her term, but the business of the United States will function as usual. It's important to remember that during a general election, the candidate closest to the centre of the political spectrum--the least far away from espousing the concerns of the majority of Americans--usually wins. Americans may not like her, but I suspect they'll vote for her.

What would have really changed the dynamic is if both parties fielded outsider candidates, not just the Republican party. Sanders might not be the ideal example here, because he's well-liked, but even he planned to drastically change the economics of the United States, which by its very nature is a new risk to the country and could in theory result in unintended economic consequences and new hardships. The partisans who decide primaries want bold reformers, but general election voters are relatively risk-averse and more likely to want someone who will keep the country running (maintain steady economic growth, respond to unplanned world events, defend against attacks, etc.).

Gary Johnson isn't bad in this regard--he's relatively moderate for a Libertarian candidate, and has a record and the experience of governing New Mexico. However the ideal third-party candidate would probably be a moderate, business-friendly centre-right candidate, who could distance himself from Donald Drumpf and earn the votes of both mainstream Americans and disaffected conservatives.

u/rcafdm · 2 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

> but the difference in health care costs between Japan and the US are not anywhere near so easily explained, I believe

They are statistically very well explained by AIC or disposable income and they are very credible as causal factors because economic theory, long term historical data (elasticity of HCE prior to evolution of modern health care system, 3rd party payers, etc), common sense, and more supports this too. It's also worth pointing out that this (AIC|disposable income) not only explains the moment-in-time levels between countries but the long term growth rate patterns within the US and other countries exceptionally well (CMS and other agencies routinely use disposable income as their main go-to exogenous variable for historical and projected growth) and quite a bit at a sub-national level too (although elasticities are usually slightly less than 1 overall this is to be expected due to transfers, in-kind subsidy, and spillover effects). One could further add other factors to this model like, say, % of population sick/injured (see: obesity & diabetes rates, historical smoking rates, car accident rates, etc), age structure, prevailing wage rates, etc, which I suspect would make the US health expenditures look even more reasonable on balance, but these are pretty marginal as determinants of the overall health expenditure levels.


> Also, there is the issue of comparing a population with massive income disparity with one with relatively little.

No, probably not because (1) the national elasticities are typically much larger than one whereas whereas individual income elasticities are typically pretty close to zero and (2) careful estimates by individual income within the US find very little difference in health expenditures associated with income -- in fact without controlling for health status lower income actually consume somewhat more care and with extensive controls for health status the higher income consume slightly more. Like lots of other things in economics, the mean level of disposable income in society ultimately determines expenditures far more than the individuals own. Third party payers pay the vast majority of most health expenditures in the US and other developed countries. Differences in coverage, reimbursement rates, etc by payor associated with income are quite modest in the scheme of things (especially if you control for mean disposable income in a given nation and/or subnational area).

The US actually has below average out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of health expenditures. If we did more of this we'd probably have lower total expenditures, but these aren't popular either.

u/nosecohn · 2 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

> ...her philosophy that the collective is equally or more important than the individual in raising a child.

On what do you base that? Do you have any evidence to support the "equally or more important" interpretation?

I haven't read the book, and I presume you haven't either, but the publisher's description says nothing of the kind. The user reviews on Amazon also indicate that those who have read it disagree with your characterization.

> That doesn't mean all the profits should be given to government.

Who said anything about "all the profits?" In the video you linked to, Warren herself says the successful businessperson should "keep a big hunk of it."

> Government didn't build it either. Tax money from citizens did.

Yes, she agrees with you. She says:

> You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for.

"The rest of us" = the taxpayers.

> Prospering businesses should pay a fair tax rate to contribute to a successful city and state but not as much as she is abdicating.

How much is she advocating? I tried to find information about her supporting tax increases, but the only thing I turned up was her signing on to a bill that would have ended the sequestration in exchange for an unspecified income tax hike on people making over $1 million per year. Does she support raising the corporate tax rate?

u/Minardi-Man · 1 pointr/NeutralPolitics

There's a book specifically on this subject that you might find interesting - "Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism". The author is Nima Sanandaji, a Swedish-Iranian/Kurdish author, and the president of the think tank European Centre for Entrepreneurship and Policy Reform. He is also a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies and the Centre for the Study of Market Reform of Education, both in London. He is a co-founder of the Stockholm-based think tank Captus, which he headed as CEO for several years until 2011. He has conducted research at Chalmers University of Technology, Royal Institute of Technology and Cambridge University, and holds a PhD from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (in polymer engineering). His earlier work, "Scandinavian Unexceptionalism: Culture, Markets and the Failure of Third-Way Socialism", also deals with the topic.


The book is partially an examination of, and a response to, the discussions regarding the possibility and desirability of implementing the Nordic model of democratic socialism, as popularized and propagated by Bernie Sanders and his supporters during the presidential election, elsewhere, including the United States. The gist of the book's argument is that what American liberals like about Nordic societies is not a product of socialism, but rather has more to do with their unique culture—and free markets—than with their welfare state policies.


He argues that the culture in place in Scandinavia allowed it to achieve the bulk of its current prosperity and equality early on, before the introduction of third-wave socialist policies and the expansion of the welfare state in the second half of the 20th century. According to his data, everything that Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama, and other leading Democrats admire about Nordic countries already existed in the middle of the twentieth century, when these societies had small public sectors and low taxes. In fact, and I think this is one of the most interesting aspects of the book's argument, these outcomes seemingly can be found in the United States, too, among a specific group of people: Americans with Nordic ancestry. According to the book, today, measured by GDP per capita, Danish Americans’ living standards are 55 percent higher than those of Danes; living standards of Swedish Americans are 53 percent higher than those of Swedes; and Finnish Americans’ living standards are 59 percent higher than the Finns’. Even for Norwegian Americans, who lack the oil wealth of Norway, living standards outpace those of the Norwegians by three percent, which the author presents as an argument in favour of his thesis that the prosperity of the Nordics is not a product of their policies.

The overall line of argumentation the author presents along this and his other works is that there is nothing magical about the Nordics which, like most other countries, have thrived economically in periods of free market reforms and have stagnated when taxes and government involvement in the economy have increased.

Personally, I do not have a very strong opinion as I find the argument over whether this approach would benefit a country like the United States to be strictly academical, but I do find Sanandaji's writing and research to be rather convincing.

u/Seifuu · 3 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

By my appraisal, in the US, it's largely


a) Jingoism trussed up as international policy.


US Americans are, culturally, one of the most nationalist and patriotic people. Because it is cultural, many Americans are unaware of it and assume that citizens of other countries are just as nation-focused.


Something that's important to understand is that the jigsaw puzzle of sovereign nation-states is largely a modern invention. It was pushed by land-owners and empiricists to further the strength of existing "nations" (like the UK) and give them justification for colonial holdings/future cultural imperialism (like Japan).


So, this is generally where fear of "Globalists wanting one world government, etc etc" comes from. People have been conditioned to believe in a competitive, invidious world state that really only came about in the last couple centuries and that, I might add, runs counter to the idea of a nation-state (which is a unity of people based on economic, territorial pragmatism, regardless of cultural differences, etc.). "Suppression of traditional cultural identities" refers to things like gay marriage, the non-denominational holiday greetings, etc. which are all White Christian culture finally being forced to give up its top position (which is why many non-discriminatory modern nationalists call for "White America").


b) An inherent feature of modern economies being blamed on the scapegoat of globalism


Basic, academic consensus economic theory teaches us that it is better to participate in a global market - allowing certain countries to produce or trade goods for which they are better equipped (i.e. bananas coming from tropical regions).


However (and this is the same fear as the one of automation), in the US, those benefits go to private businesses and then the government is supposed to tax those businesses and distribute those taxes as benefits to the people (oversimplification, I'm sure). Since businesses at that scale seemingly exist solely for profit, their structure requires them to try to avoid taxes and maximize income. Large businesses will continue to pour resources into successfully finding/squeezing through tax loopholes (because they're basically in a spending race against the US government) and smaller businesses might see modest expansion tethered by increased taxation.


In Western economies, that's basically the existing plutocracy increasing its capital aka "the rich get richer". Which is a natural consequence of the US economy in which the more capital you have, the more capital you can get. It's as true domestically as it is internationally - wealth disparity in the US was worse in the early 20th century, when isolationism was popular.


Reading this comic might give you a clearer picture on the rationale behind US populism. You'll notice the fear of international influence (China), the lack of belief in international regulatory or diplomatic solutions to exploitative business practice (moving of labor/production), and the mindset that any benefit to the existing hegemony is taboo. Not to say that there weren't/aren't legitimate grievances with this specific trade agreement, but they're muddled by omen.


It's Manichean us vs them, the USA vs other countries, the poor vs the rich - which pretty much defines populism. You can only have a group by defining who is and isn't part of the group - and if you make it "common sense" to act in the "group's best interests", then everyone who acts against your group must be acting against your best interest (rather than acting in their own interests, or to prevent negative consequences of your group's actions). Never stopping to ask if your group is actually acting in its own best interest or if those interests were even rationally defined in the first place.


Of course, that's also how things like FDA and EPA regulation got implemented. I'm not sure exactly where the line is between "slaughterhouse sanitation policies reduce risk of disease" and "the Chinese are coming to take my land and the Muslims are coming to kill us all". I think it's to do with significant, measurable risk vs nebulous potentiality.

u/[deleted] · 3 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

> This is a similar argument to reducing taxes on businesses and the wealthy which is supposed to decrease unemployment which is simply not the case. Companies hire when they need more hands to meet demand for their product. They don't hire just because they have more money; it's not charity.

Its a different argument entirely.

The minimum wage does exactly what we expect it to, it reduces employment based on core supply & demand. Eliminating the minimum wage allows employers to hire people for positions that otherwise they wouldn't fill, positions they would merge with others and be more willing to hire people on without experience. Here is a paper looking at some of these effects and here is a book on the same issue.

> Also, killing those social programs, even if it makes sense fiscally, would be politically unimaginable in the short-term. That battle would go on for some time.

That's why they will never happen. People who are covered by these programs today would be financially far better off under a new system but partisanship will prevent from from seeing those benefits. It might seem like programs are being killed when we are simply subsidizing people out of the situation which requires them to exist.

> It could curb over consumption, but keep in mind that if we were in that business we could tax things we think are bad and not tax things that are good without doing any of the other stuff. This is pretty disagreeable by most, I believe.

Its not to tax something "bad" so much as it is encouraging people to defer, with consumption taxes people tend to shift purchases in to the future and prefer to buy with savings rather than credit.

> Sure, it would be easy to get the basic necessities if you still have a job

A NIT or consumption pre-refund would mean you don't pay for necessities, its basically like having a guaranteed minimum income without the poor consequences of encouraging people not to work.

> but now you want a decent TV

A TV would be more affordable actually. The rationalization of the tax system would result in a lower effective tax rate for everyone, best guess on the effect is about a 4% drop for median income with a flat consumption tax. Although the TV might cost ~20% more your income has risen by 26% so its more affordable then it was previously.

u/saMAN101 · 3 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

I would recommend Economics in One Lesson (which you can also buy here) because it teaches you how to use reasoning in economics and figure out where people are using bad logic in their economic thinking.

I would definitely recommend this as one of the first books you read because there are a lot of economic fallacies out there put forth by pundits, talkshow hosts, and even some economists; this book will allow you to see whether or not their economic thinking and logic is sound.

On a personal note, this is one of the first books on economics that I read, and I absolutely loved it. While it might not be the most entertaining read, it is certainly more interesting than your standard economics textbook.

After you finish that book, I would recommend you read How an Economy Grows and Why It Crashes because it explains, in a way that even a child could understand, why an economy grows. The overall concept is fairly simple, but it is vital to fully understand it before trying to understand more important concepts.

u/beezofaneditor · 2 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

His 30+ books are all great (though not the most exciting of reads), but Conflict of Visions his a pretty good analysis of the conservative/libertarian viewpoint compared to its alternatives.

u/mr-aaron-gray · 0 pointsr/NeutralPolitics

If you're interested in learning about Libertarian ideas and the philosophies of freedom, here are some good resources:

https://fee.org/articles/these-five-freedom-philosophers-will-liberate-your-mind/

https://mises.org/

​

Another good book (although a long one) is Thomas Sowell's A Conflict of Visions, which lays out the underlying worldview differences between the Left and the Right. It does a pretty good job answering questions like, why do most people who believe abortion is wrong also believe that people should have the right to own weapons that can kill people? Why do the same people end up on different sides of the debate on so many different issues? Why is there this phenomenon where people who tend to disagree on one particular issue tend to disagree on a lot of other issues that seem to be completely unrelated? If you weren't interested in putting in the time to read the whole book, I think you might find that just reading a summary of the book yields some interesting insights into how each person's worldview shapes so many different seemingly different political views about life.