(Part 2) Best products from r/PoliticalDiscussion

I certainly hope so but I guess I should show my work to get to why I think the GOP might try to do this.

To start with we need to look at his history regarding climate change, the single most obvious example of this viewpoint is his 2012 tweet stating "The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
".

The opposition of climate change goes back the the better part of 25 years and has been primarily lead by conservative think tanks which help shape conservative policy and media coverage of the subject. The biggest of these groups are the Heritage Foundation, the CATO Institute, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Hartford Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). If you start to look at who appears on cable news shows and newspapers it is almost always someone from one of these groups that appear in opposition.

The book merchants of doubt does a fairly good job of describing the methodologies of these organizations many of which started out as PR firms for Tobacco companies. This academic paper also does a fairly good job of capturing trends related to this industry.

The primary reason I mention the last two paragraphs is not to debate your position but to explain why it is a key point of the GOP platform and how it is relevant to the Trump administration. Trump just named the leader of the Competitive Enterprise Institute as his nominee for head of the EPA. Pretty obviously it's clear that Myron Ebell will take steps to roll back any and all regulations on climate emissions.

As a result I expect fully expect him to roll back as many key provisions of major environmental legislation as possible such as the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, and the Endangered Species Act. I would not be surprised if there was a movement to repeal these laws and abolish the EPA entirely as advocated by prominent figures in the GOP including Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio have said they wanted to do for years.

In Trump's recent statements on the transition and priorities for NASA he said:

> The new president-elect also has plans to abandon climate research, transfer Earth monitoring funding from NASA to NOAA, and strengthen the U.S. military’s stance in orbit.

This is consistent with what Ted Cruz has said on the subject which is:

> We must refocus our investment on the hard sciences, on getting men and women into space, on exploring low-Earth orbit and beyond, and not on political distractions that are extraneous to NASA’s mandate.

Given that it's been a classic GOP strategy to defund things that they don't like I don't see why they wouldn't do this with climate research. The Dickey Amendment has been incredibly effective in preventing anyone from challenging the NRA position on gun control by banning scientific research which may reach opposite findings.

Banning Climate Research would likely greatly damage the global science monitoring mission on climate change and make it much harder to convince other governments to act. This would be a great win for Trump as he could not only block climate change policy in the United States but also help block it throughout the world. If I were him and playing tactically I don't see why you wouldn't make this move.

If Trump's moves were all rhetoric as you suggest then I don't believe he would have made those choices and statements after the election.

> Contrary to most liberal opinion, most Republicans do not want to completely abandon Climate Change.

The GOP strategy until the 2008 election was to fight climate change. In 2012 it shifted to claiming "I'm not a scientist" and "I don't know" to deflect the question entirely. In 2016 the strategy has been to completely ignore and surpress the issue. I don't believe it was an accident that none of the GOP or presidential debates had the question of climate change in them.

They've instead worked to reframe it as a national security and energy issue shifting the blame to Obama's "War on Coal". From the GOP platform:

> Responsible production of America’s vast natural resources is necessary to achieve energy independence from foreign suppliers. Our energy policy should encourage investment, lower prices, and create jobs here at home. We support domestic energy production of clean coal and hydropower, as well as solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear power. And we support drilling for oil and natural gas in an environmentally responsible way. President Obama has pushed for overly restrictive EPA regulations that have cost American consumers and businesses tens of billions of dollars. Republicans have consistently voted for job creation in the energy sector through their support of the Keystone Pipeline and continued opposition to Obama’s “War on Coal.”

They not only want to completely abandon climate change, they already have.

Note to all the people down-voting because you disagree: don't. He's contributing to the discussion and answering the question. Down votes simply because you disagree aren't productive and are a violation of reddiquitte.

Well, the whole merits of IP and how we treat IP today is a slightly different conversation.

The real conversation in regards to the original topic is the fact that the way we regard IP is very different than how we did, 50-100 years ago. Let alone the way it was handled by enlightenment thinkers and the creators of the world's first democracies and republics.

Quite frankly, the incentive that would have been in their minds (and people like Smith), would have been that people would be able to extract a certain amount of money out of their creations (purely by being the first people to do it) and that eventually the knowledge would be released in some way to an intellectual "commons".

The history of these ideas and how they've changed is really interesting, but maybe a bit much to relay here. Some really good books on the subject:

The Anarchist in the Library

Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity

Essentially, for most of society there has been a concept of "the commons". Public spaces that everyone was entitled to use. The (earliest? not sure) most popular manifestation of this was common ground for grazing livestock. It was public land that anyone could bring their animals to, and was regarded as a public service that was in the best interest of the society. It eased pressure on land disputes, let poorer farmers stay above water, etc. Simply, just a good thing for everyone involved. Of course, since it was essentially free animal food, there were instances where the commons were worn down and rendered useless. This is where the phrase "tragedy of the commons" comes from. Regulations were put in place to make the commons effective for the common good, but also sustainable.

These types of initiatives/societal mechanisms were thought by enlightenment thinkers as necessary for our advancement. And those types of things were included in the way they thought about IP, as well. Simply put, it looks much different now than it did then. Things like "The Mickey Mouse Preservation act", for better or worse, made those changes.

So, what someone like Smith would say, is that there is "common good" that comes from free IP. The idea that no one has the patent on the concept of a car is a good thing because it frees up capital for different car companies to compete and make the best car. The individual loss of intellectual "ownership", and whatever that might mean on a broader societal scale, is outweighed by the benefits of "the commons".

But Smith had no concept of "ripping a movie". None of these enlightenment thinkers had any idea of what technology would become, and how that would fundamentally alter the way their theories actually played out in the real world. And since they didn't "cover that", we are left to be the philosophers and thinkers of our time instead of relying on the big ideas of the 1700s. In light of digital technology, the capability to replicate things, the transmit them almost instantaneously all over the world, putting the means of media production into the hands of every man woman and child in an effectively affordable manner... how do we need to build our society? How can we maintain incentive? What is the role of the commons? What are the real ramifications of our decisions? What do we want to achieve, and why?

It's all very interesting to me.

A useful approach is to take a political ideology that you're interested in (for your own benefit, pick one you don't agree with), and then look up the arguments made in favor of that ideology. Make sure to pay special attention to the founders and the intellectual carriers of the movement, not the popularizers. So, for example, let's say you're interested in neoconservatism, what the heck does this neo- prefix mean anyways? Well, do not go look at speeches made by George W, instead take a trip to wikipedia.

Well, it looks like what we have is something more complex than the talking points! From skimming the first paragraph of the wikipedia article, it looks like "neoconservative" was originally an insult used by socialists against other socialists who had drifted to the right. But, many fought back by taking the label with pride, claiming that those further to the left were failing to realize the dangers of the USSR. So, looking at this citation, it appears that neoconservativism was originally the term applied to the anit-communist left, but neoconservatives shifted rightwards even more on foreign policy to the point where they supported all sorts of intervention to promote democracy and prevent the emergence of rivals. However, economically, they supported things like the welfare state.

It looks like the term neoconservative lost a lot of its meaning during the Bush years, with critics of the Iraq war using it against anyone who supported it, and thus associating neoconservative with the far right. You won't find many neoconservatives today who support the welfare state.

So, after gleaming that information from the wikipedia and national review articles, I found two sources that offer much more information. The first is a book, entitled They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons, which is widely considered to be a fair treatment, though with slightly conservative bias coming from the author. I also found this think tank called "Project For The New American Century" (PNAC) that seems to have been the most influential think tank for neoconservatism. A fundamental principle of PNAC is "American leadership is both good for America and good for the world." Based on that principle, they wanted to take charge in Iraq, instead of hoping for a revolution or waiting for democracy to come back. Their idea is not just about exporting democracy though, they also want to act strategically so that they benefit America, therefore giving her even more strength to spread democracy.

So, this comment represents an hour of research, including of course writing down the process and results as I was doing it. If you try doing something like this on political movements that you're interested in, you will become knowledgeable in no time! My main advice to you is to ignore the propagandists and get straight to the source. Every political idea, underneath all of the circlejerking and emotional appeals, has at it's core a fundamentally strong and unique set of principles.

Manhunt by Peter Bergen is about the ten-year hunt for Osama bin Laden by the United States government, written by the only Western journalist to ever interview OBL. It's hard to find someone involved in the hunt whom he didn't interview, and the result is fantastically fair and even-handed.

If you're looking at something a bit more big-picture, The Art of Intelligence by Henry Crumpton is a solid overview of modern intelligence operations as framed by his career. It's not for cynics, but it's a good read nonetheless.

I also went on a Supreme Court-related kick this summer after the Obamacare decision. The definitive look at how the Supreme Court functions comes courtesy of Bob Woodward's The Brethren. He wrote it 25ish years ago with Supreme Court insiders (including a former Justice) as sources. The subject matter is a little historical (he covers the Burger court from 1969 to 1975) and at times a little technical (I'm a SCOTUS dork and even I had to look a few things up) but if you're interested in how the Court actually works, it's essential reading. I highly recommend the chapter on the 1973 term - Woodward devotes at least 50+ pages to their ruling in United States v. Nixon (the Watergate case) with a blow-by-blow account of Watergate from the Supreme Court's perspective. If you're a constitutional dork like me, it's both heartening and heart-pounding.

For a more recent perspective on the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine is worth checking out. He writes about the Rehnquist Court from about 1992 to 2006, and while it's neither as well-written nor as neutral as Woodward's book, it's still pretty insightful about the current Court's jurisprudential disposition.

I've actually written a book on this: "Importing Democracy"

And I can say without a doubt, No, it would not.

Now, I'm not fan of first past the post. But honestly, the "Alternative Vote" system you describe is already known primarily in the U.S. as "instant runoff voting." It is used in a few places in the U.S. already; but it is functionally identical to "runoff voting."

In short, the system that you are describing is actually in use in most of America; the advocates for "instant runoff voting" are mostly interested in saving money by not having to pay for a runoff election.

But you're close.

Fixing campaign finance has to come first; and so I focus my efforts there, but you are right that having viable alternatives to the two major parties discourages hyperpartisanship through game theory - in short, in a two-party system, suppressing your opponent's votes is equal to a gain for your own. In a multiparty system, suppressing your opponent's votes is not effective - the voters will just move to a similar party and form a coalition.

But you cannot have a viable multiparty system without either a proportional or transferable system. Proportional representation is just like what it sounds like - people vote for a party, rather than a candidate, and the percentage of seats in the legislature are equal to the percentage of votes each party got.

The other way to do so is through transferable voting. This would use the exact same ballot as the "alternative vote" that you mentioned, but it would elect candidates in larger "superdistricts" and fill multiple seats.

In short, in transferable voting, a candidate does not have to get 50% of the vote to be seated. They only need enough votes to be "clearly elected" - that's 1/(number of seats +1) + 1. So if there were 4 representatives, you would only need 20%+1 of the votes to be seated.

The trick in transferable voting is that not only do the unsuccessful candidates' votes get transferred (as you describe) but also that the successful candidates overage gets transfered as well.

So, let's say you have 3 seats up for grabs, and 800 people voted. You need 201 votes to be elected.

Candidate A recieves 300 votes. 200 of them chose Candidate B as their second choice, while the other 100 chose Candidate C.

Candidate A would immediately be seated. Candidate B would then get 2/3rds of the 99 "overage" votes, or 66 votes. Candidate C would get the remaining third, or 33 votes. If these votes would put either Candidate B or C over the 200 vote threshhold, they would be seated as well.

This system is used in Scottish elections, Irish elections, the U.K. EU Parliament elections, and the Australian Senate.

What's interesting about the Australian Senate is that they have a bicameral system, and they only use Transferable Voting in the Senate. The house uses Instant Runoff Voting (or the AV system you describe.) The Australian House is effectively a 2-party system. The Senate is a multiparty system, with more independents and more minor parties.

Tellingly, the Senate also has better representation of minorities and women - a side-effect of multi-party systems. I go into why that is in my book, but suffice to say that that's really just kind of icing on the cake.

No.
Look, I've loved Bernie Sanders since he came to the Senate, but some of his presidential supporters are clearly new to politicking and quite rabid in their fervor; which can lead to blindness. To suggest DWS has had any significant impact over the primary outcomes is laughable. Believing that she could change the super-delegate rules/nomination process itself single-handedly is laughable. Believing that, even if she could, that she is going to go/should/has an obligation to go out of her way to stop the first female president from being elected is remarkably naive.
It's amazing how the Ron Paul '08 crowd has turned into the Sanders '16 crowd---I'm sure that most are not the same people but the attitudes and level of familiarity with politics and political realities is truly striking.
What is upsetting though is that after all this time it kills me to see that the younger generation still falls into BS narratives that don't match reality: "She (DWS) reversed campaign finance laws prior to the primary(,) essentially inviting special interest groups and thier money into the political process."
Wut?
Yes. Being chair of the DNC means you are more powerful than the Senate/House and Presidency. You get to single-handedly change FEC rules and election laws. Before DWS, special interests had no influence over our elections at all. Yup. That totally sounds correct.
I'd recommend anyone that actually believes that to read Larry Lessig's Republic Lost and Zepher Teachout's Corruption in America
I appreciate Sander's supporters' passion and that so many want to move portions of American government in the Socialist direction ala Nordic democracies. But please, if this is your first time understanding how the nominating process works, don't believe everything you hear, get news/fact-checks from different and varied sources.

Well...I agree History is key...but...

You really need to read Political Theory first for a foundation. Every modern day political ideology is based off of these books in one way or another.

• John Locke - Two Treatises of Government
  
• Kant - Political Writings
  
  -Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Basic Political Writings
  
  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - Introduction to the Philosophy of History
  
  And....
  
  Bentham and Mill - The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill
  
  Karl Marx, Freidrich Engels -The Marx-Engels Reader -Second Edition Don't worry, it still contains the Communist Manifesto.
  
  Machiavelli couldn't hurt to know either.
  
  For some basis on International Organizations - whether it be trade theory, regimes, etc.... this book is top of its class.
  
  Friedrich Kratochwil, Edward D Mansfield - International Organization and Global Governance: A Reader
  
  You also should really read into and understand the Treaty of Westphalia
  
  Then from there
  
  You can look into History, Economic Theory, and/or whatever specific part of the political spectrum you have interest in.
  
  If you are a student try to take advantage of JSTOR...if you aren't a student...you can always purchase access if you are genuinely interested in this stuff.
  
  AFTER you atleast have a foundation under your belt.
  
  You can then use Think Tanks most of what I will link are Internationally known and used and are unbiased, non partisaned.
  
  

• Atlantic Community (This is a german think tank *In english)
  
  
• DIW Berlin - A Economic Think Tank
  
  *Think tank for Action on Social Change - Based out of Ireland
  
  
• Ecologic Foundation - NZ Based, it focuses on Environmental Policy, used world wide.
  
  All of these are widely used, widely respected. Whether you agree with their stances or not. Each of them have had their fair share of Criticism.
  
  I firmly believe that Think Tanks provide the best source of political information, and that they allow one to mold their own political views on grounds of academia and not propaganda and misinformation. (I'm looking at you MSN and Fox news)
  
  Conservative
  
  Acton Institute
  
  American Civil Rights Union
  
  American Enterprise Institute
  
  Bradley Foundation
  
  Center for Security Policy
  
  Claremont Institute
  
  Employment Policies Institute (Fiscal)
  
  Goldwater Institute
  
  The Heritage Foundation
  
  Manhattan Institute for Policy Research
  
  National Center for Policy Analysis
  
  Libertarian
  
  Ludwig von Mises Institute
  
  Cascade Policy Institute
  
  Cato Institute
  
  Competitive Enterprise Institute
  
  Foundation for Economic Education
  
  The Heartland Institute
  
  The Independent Institute
  
  Reason Foundation
  
  Progressive
  
  Center for American Progress
  
  Center for Economic and Policy Research
  
  The Century Foundation
  
  Drum Major Institute
  
  Institute for Policy Studies
  
  New Democrat Network
  
  Third Way (Independent - Dem leaning)
  
  World Policy Institute
  
  
  Liberal
  
  Economic Policy Institute
  
  Economic
  
  American Institute for Economic Research
  
  Analysis Group
  
  Committee for Economic Development
  
  Global Financial Integrity
  
  James Madison Institute (Free Market)
  
  Milken Institute
  
  National Bureau of Economic Research
  
  Peterson Institute for International Economics
  
  Political and Economic Research Council
  
  Tax Foundation
  
  National
  
  Center for a New American Security
  
  Center for Defense Information
  
  Discovery Institute This one has a religious agenda. It's a good use...but beware they are attacking Religion
  
  
  International
  
  American Foreign Policy Council
  
  Aspen Institute
  
  Atlantic Council
  
  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
  
  Center for Global Development
  
  Council on Foreign Relations
  
  EastWest Institute
  
  Foreign Policy Research Institute
  
  Inter-American Dialogue
  
  Migration Policy Institute
  
  RAND Corporation VERY good Think-Tank
  
  Washington Institute for Near East Policy
  
  Non-Partison Public Policy
  
  Brookings Institution
  
  Center for Ethical Solutions
  
  Center for Governmental Studies
  
  Center for Immigration Studies
  
  Center for International Policy
  
  Center for Media and Democracy
  
  Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
  
  Foundation for Excellence in Education
  
  Global Development and Environment Institute
  
  Hoover Institution
  
  Hudson Institute
  
  Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
  
  James Baker Institute
  
  New America Foundation
  
  Pew Research Center (I love Pew)
  
  Urban Institute
  
  
  
  Bi-Partison
  
  Center for Strategic and International Studies
  
  Constitution Project
  
  
  Most Universities around the World have think tanks also
  
  The only one I care about and rely on is the Think Tank at the University of Virginia.
  
  The University of Virginia's Miller Center
  
  Think Tank Directory
  
  Elections, Candidates
  
  Vote Smart
  
  On The Issues
  
  
  Sorry in advance if the Format is shit

I'm a socialist and this is right on. We have to distinguish between long term goals (a more equal society) and short term relief of suffering. I think we (the left) should be more willing to consider market solutions in the short term.

One example would be letting charities play by the same rules as companies. Yes, the people who make money in the charity business would make more money, but it would also give more help to those the charities exist to help. (http://www.amazon.com/Uncharitable-Restraints-Nonprofits-Contemporary-Perspectives/dp/1584659556/)

I think we need to drop our ideology with regard to the short term, in favor of what works. There are a couple of heterodox economists I really like, lefties to be sure, but with interesting nuanced appreciation of the good that markets can do:

• Dean Baker (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/)
  
• Ha-Joon Chang (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/hajoonchang)
  They have both written really good books, too.
  
  If market policies succeed (as I believe they often can), and this leads less power for the left, so be it. But I don't think that will be the case.

> . . .as they usually are . . .

Are they?

I'm not convinced. Indeed, there is significant research to show that "experts" are not particularly good at making predictions, with some exceptions, primarily in the physical sciences and engineering fields.

Have a read of "Rational Choice in an Uncertain World"; it will give you a good overview of the subject.

> We need to climb back up to the highly regulated/taxed economy that we had in the 60's when income inequality wasn't so bad, but instead of sliding back down, moving forward with the kinds of policies FDR and MLK had in mind.

Ok. Why?

And, let's assume you are correct in your prescription. The question is now: How? If you assume that the current government serves the will of some few elites, how would you recommend convincing that same government to cease this action--fully recognizing that it functions this way because these same elites serve as benefactors to elected officials in a number of ways.