samsmart
DP Veteran
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There's a difference between following a process you want reformed and following a process you want abolished. Would you call republicans hypocrites for criticizing deficit spending while participating in deficit spending? I'd say they're hypocrites, and so do the democrats who are in power.
I don't have a real choice. T.R. did.
You don't have a choice. T.R. did.
No, he didn't, in order to get elected, because back then corporations were the only ones with the money available to raise the contributions needed to get politicians elected. You have to remember the difference in media back then and today. Back then, every politician was beholden to business interests. It's just that they were beholden to different factions of business interests.
For example, the Republican Party was beholden to the business interests of the industrialists in the North, while the Democratic Party was beholden to the business interests of the agri-businessmen in the South. The progressives and the populists of both parties also represented the business interests of farmers and miners in the West.
After all, you have to remember why the People's Party of the 1880's was formed. It was formed by groups of farmers who wanted the government to have regulation power over the businesses who provided services that those farmers relied on. For instance, the farmers wanted the government to have power to regulate the price of shipping over the railroad so the farmers (who sell their produce as a business) wouldn't pay too high of a profit margin paying the unregulated costs of shipping their produce on the railroads.
And while I don't think corporations should have more power over politics than others, I do think that those who are corporatists have the right to representation in government.
Then what does constitute hypocrisy? If anyone were to argue for prohibiting X,Y, and Z while privately being guilty of performing X, Y, and Z, then that person is a hypocrite. How can we take TR and the progressive movement seriously if TR and progressives secretly go against everything they stand for...right up until it becomes law? That's like a republican advocating for repeal of Roe v. Wade and then forcing his daughter to have an abortion. It's not hypocrisy, according to your logic. According to everyone else, it is hypocrisy.
Well, regarding the underlined, why are judging the whole platform of progressive philosophy based on a single issue? That is disingenuous to political thought. That's like saying that we shouldn't listen to Republicans about fiscal responsibility because pro-lifers like to use pipe bombs against abortion doctors.
As for your analogy, yeah, I would call that hypocritical of that Republican to do so. But I think abortion rights and campaign finance laws are too different issues. Abortion is a personal issue. Campaign finance is an issue regarding the process of the body politic. I think that those two things make them inherently different. I think there's a difference between controlling someone's personal life and coming up with a system of government policy.
You're comparing people who have a choice and people who don't have a choice. The freedom to choose makes a big difference.
You can choose not to pay taxes. You can sue to not pay taxes. You probably won't win, and you may have to suffer negative consequences for doing so, but you still have the choice.
The thing you have to choose is to determine if the cost of accepting a policy is less or more than the cost of protesting a policy. Your behavior, however, is up to you.
You actually agree with the Citizens United ruling?!?!
Yes I do. Start a thread on it, and I may make my opinion of it known in that thread.
Again, see the example of the conservative anti-abortion republican and his pregnant daughter.
Again, I think there's an inherent difference. There's a difference between how a person operates with regards to his or her personal life and how a person operates within the social contract. I don't think those issues should be considered in the same way. How people act on an individual level and how people act as a governed society are two different things. They should be considered in different ways.