quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:

quote:

Originally posted by QuirtEvans:
Yeah, we get it. You don't like her.

Except I don’t just sit here and call her names, I speak in specific detail about how asinine her proposals are if you get beyond the fawning headlines in Vox and actually read them.

OK, you just call the proposals themselves and the headlines in Vox names.

It's probably time for me to give a more detailed explanation of why I said what you quoted above.

I go beyond the headlines too, probably just as much as you do, and I like her. As I've said, I don't agree with all of her proposals, and it's quite clear that that majority would never make it through the Senate. But she's got the right mindset, she's a fighter and that's what we need right now. She's smart and thoughtful. And she'd placate the left, which we also need to do.

Your virulent opposition her proposals is, in my judgment, unjustified. And I'm not sure you articulate that opposition very well. "As expected, Elizabeth Warren has an asinine proposal in this area" is not exactly thoughtful analysis, and it makes it sound as if your opposition to her proposals was pre-ordained.

Let's take the specific one you're talking about here. I can certainly see a point in disagreeing with it. However, it is not nonsense. Just using your numbers, here's how someone rational might articulate it:

Under 132K -- no change, everything remains status quo.

Between 132K and 250K -- no change, everything remains status quo.

Over 250K -- you people need to pay more, and you will.

Now, if you were designing a system from scratch, would you design it with that sort of donut? No. But we're not. We're trying to work within the framework of the system we've got. And the way to get buy-in from everyone under 250K is to say this: "all of you people, nothing changes. We'll just charge the wealthy more." Do the people in the middle bracket "get a break"? They do not. They just pay what they are currently paying. Politics is the art of the possible, and this seems a more achievable way to go.

Again, it's not the way to design a system from scratch, and there are certainly principled reasons to say, that's not a good idea. But to call it asinine? That's behaving like Trump and moving to the most extreme adjective you can think of just because it's something you disagree with. It makes me take your opposition to this proposal, and to her, less seriously. It's not asinine. There's certainly room to disagree with it, but it's not asinine. Unless, of course, one were very invested in opposing either the specific proposal for unarticulated reasons, or Warren generally.

And then, when you call Vox "fawning", that also makes me less likely to think seriously about your objections, because I don't see Vox that way at all. Fawning implies that Vox is so enamored of her and her proposals that it will virtually debase itself to endorse them. I've never seen that once from Vox. That histrionic adjective makes it sound as if you are railing against Warren and her proposals and anyone who might say anything complimentary rather than thinking about them.

I've always liked Warren. However, for a while now, I have discounted the plausibility of her candidacy, in large part because of your strong opposition to her. I thought, if jon is so adamantly opposed, maybe she isn't as terrific a candidate as I think. Jon's a smart guy and he's well-informed and pretty rational. He's probably a decent proxy in our little WTF focus group for intelligent people a little left of center. We need those people. If he can't support her, maybe there are a lot of people in that cluster who can't. And I definitely want someone electable.

But I am starting to see your opposition to her differently, because it seems to me that you've nearly reached the "if Warren proposed it, it must be awful" level. Your opposition to her and to her proposals seems almost angry and not thoughtful to me, and so it is starting to have less influence in my internal balancing.

These are just my reactions to your posts. Other people may feel differently.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
The saving may be artificial, because the government really hasn't "invested" that person's payroll tax money in anything real. It has gone out the door to pay their parents. Our system is pay as you go, despite the "trust fund," which is just a promise.

I disagree.