Politically speaking, what is “straight talk?”
Straight talk is an under utilized yet necessary tool for politicians to use today. As a definition, it is the avoidance of skirting around questions, and being unafraid of offending certain people. Too many politicians carefully edit their speech to be cautious of offending anyone, in order to resonate with as many voters as possible. This normally ends up annoying many while pleasing only a few. How more politicians don’t understand this amazes me…Take Justin Trudeau, for example. He avoided answering a yes/no question 18 times.Mr. Trudeau may be smart, factual, and savvy, but he sure as hell can’t straight talk.Americans especially crave authenticity. That’s partly why the country voted for Donald Trump even though many of us understood the actual content of his words to be misconstructions or lies. The fact that he still directly answered questions that most politicians would shy away from made him feel real. We are emotional creatures, and good politicians know how to make us like them by going after our trust instincts. Their numbers, anecdotes, and stories may be fabricated, but if presented in a confident no-bullshit matter, we ignore the logical side of our thinking since we feel like it’s true.More politicians, particularly democrats, need to utilize this way of speaking to voters. Hopefully they can match their words with genuine facts, but that would be a unicorn politician. If you find one, please safely capture it so we can run studies.
Politically speaking, what is an Independent?
It means me. I am an independent conservative libertarian. This means that when the republicans left their conservative roots, I joined the TEA Party movement to draw the republicans back to their roots. It means that when the republican is the best person for the job, I vote for the republican. When the third party candidate is the best, I vote for them. When the democrats is the best...well that has not happened in a while, but if it ever does again, I would vote for them. I am with you. Anyone who votes for a person because they have an R or D after their name is a mindless sheep who will not take the time or does not have the sense to learn about the candidates. My next push is to throw out every incumbent that I can get removed DURING THE PRIMARIES. This is because there are so many sheep that vote party line. It is this sheepish following that makes it where a Congress that has a 9% approval rating can get re-elected in 87% of the seats in 2008. If we want to truly impact change, we must do it in the primaries. Bill J...actually us independents CAN make up our minds. You registered dems and reps can't make up your own mind, you base your vote on what your party tells you, no matter which way your party turns. It is truly pathetic.
Does Quora lean to the left, politically speaking?
Q: Is it just me, or are the links on Quora very left-leaning politically speaking?Links must be paid for. Quora is a business, and they don’t simply give free space to other companies. If a news outlet wishes to publish a link on Quora, they must pay Quora. It’s not exactly an ad, but it’s still a sponsored link. The revenue from sponsored links is important to Quora because that’s how they make a living.With this in mind, you most of what you need to understand why you see this or that link in your feed. Quora wants you to click on the links you see, because if you don’t, the sponsoring company will say “Meh, we pay for that but I don’t see much return, it’s not worth the cost”, and they won’t pay anymore. As a result, your feed reacts to your previous behavior: which links you followed and didn’t follow, which questions you answered, and so on. If you consistently don’t click on links from a given source, these links will gradually cease to appear in your feed; and if you consistently click on links you like, similar links will keep appearing in your feed.For instance, while there’s not much overlap between my own views and those expressed by the writers of Reason (libertarian) and National Review (conservative), the mere fact that I keep clicking on some of their links entails that my feed keeps proposing me such links. These links are of interest to me because, even though I often find myself disagreeing with their content, I regard it as important, on the one hand, to have a first-hand understanding of what those who oppose my views think, and on the other hand, to challenge my views rather than ignore opposing views altogether.I also have many links to Vox (which I appreciate because it’s an overall reliable, if obviously left-leaning, source) and quite a few to The Atlantic (ditto). By contrast, I rarely click on HuffPost links, because their articles are of rather uneven quality; as a result, I don’t have that many links to their articles.
Politically speaking--When did we lose our Honor?
Can you honestly look at politicians and think that they have any honor? They don't even read the bills before they vote for them. But then, the American people as a whole, I don't know, do we have any honor, either? Bankruptcies, living on credit cards, the demise of the family. The list goes on and on. Did you know that the greatest percentage of the stimulus checks that were sent out a couple years ago was spent on internet porn? The government gives people money, and most of it gets spent on porn. As far as politicians go, how do we get some honor back in Washington? It's called "term limits."
Politically speaking, why do people get so wrapped up over "conservative" and "liberal"?
I'd consider myself an Independant. It's obvious both parties have "issues" and frankly I'm not a big "fan" of politics to begin with. But I realize a responsible adult should pay attention to certain issues and should participate (vote) accordingly, else (as some like to say) have no reason to complain. I know this will be a controversial statement and will be met with a lot of smart comments, but I think people are extremely small-minded who allow themselves to follow one political party on all issues, no matter what. Who says Republicans are conservatives and Democrats are liberals? The media? Who or what came up with this "side definition", and why must it be defined that way? I'm "liberal" on some issues and "conservative" on others. But I hear a lot of people (usually always Republicans) say "No. You have to draw the line. You're either this or that. Black or white. If you can't decide there's no room for you here." Does your political affiliation affect your life that much?????
Why do you think California is so liberal, politically speaking?
I think a strong influence from illegals and gangs, also I believe that their lack of having a strong government both state and local. Both of which refuse to enforce the laws on the books that has lead to the decay of their society. Hollywood and the liberal celebrity influence has also forced opinions on society in California.
Politically speaking, if I have equally extreme right wing and extreme left wing views does that make me a centrist?
The idea that there is a line with some people on the left and some on the right does not accurately depict the relationship between liberals and conservatives. That relationship is not linear in nature.The United States was once the envy of the world because we had a large, expanding Middle Class. The goal of liberal policy is to get as many people in the Middle Class as possible, of all races, sexes, religions and sexual orientations. When that happens, you get what’s called a Bell Curve of distribution of income. Not a lot of people are poor. Not a lot of people are rich. Most people are somewhere in the middle.Conservative policy tends to do the opposite. Deregulation, regressive tax policy and wage stagnation tends to concentrate wealth and power in just a few hands as people drop out of the Middle Class. Upward mobility goes away. That would ultimately lead to a distribution curve that looks like this, with poor people to the left, rich to the right.This is the reason the United States no longer tops the list as the country with the highest standard of living or the highest “happiness index.” Moreover, when the Middle Class is expanding and people have upward mobility, they are far less likely to start looking for someone to blame for their misfortune, like blacks for example, or gays, or immigrants, or Muslims, or labor unions, or liberals. When people can provide for their families, anger dissipates. Hate crimes taper off. So does crime in general.Literally, the majority of people of all races are better off under liberal policy, with one exception: a handful of billionaires who would have to settle for being multi-millionaires. Those billionaires WANT you to think that there is a “left” and a “right.” There isn’t. If you aren't piling up people in the Middle Class, you are increasing the number of people living in poverty, plain and simple. There is no “centrist” position in that scenario.
Politically speaking, do people ever feel that their side or party has gone too far on an issue, i.e. the burqa? Even Iran has called them "backward", then I hear liberals arguing that burqas should not be banned by civilized societies.
First let me address the Burqa. I don't allow anyone wearing one to enter my business for the same reason I don't allow trick or treaters to come into my business with their mask on.,,SECURITY. But as dehumanizing as they appear to be, this is still the United States of America, not Turkey, Tunisia, Syria, Egypt or Iran, and if women want to wear those hideous things it's none of the government's business like in those other countries where everything is the government's business.Although I don't have a Party, I am a Conservative, and I do at times think my compadres have gone too far. Here are a couple instances:One time is when Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) put forth his budget with no funding included for the new Obamacare, he didn't put back into the Medicare fund the $500,000,000,000 the President grabbed from it to balance the (at the time) proposed Healthcare Bill. As far as I'm concerned that made him, and the Republicans/Conservatives who voted for that budget, as bad as the President.Another is when the Republicans/Conservatives recently caved in and approved extending the payroll tax cut. That tax cut is pillaging Social Security when everybody knows the program is going, or has already gone, into the red. How could they approve taking out less from our payroll checks for Social Security at a time when there must be changes made to the program in order to make it solvent.
Politically speaking, why do very religious people tend to be conservative, and atheists more liberal?
Because conservative Christians tend to ignore the passages in the New Testament that they don’t like. They ignore the parable of the Good Samaritan, they ignore the fact that Jesus was an itinerant who had no personal possessions except the clothes he stood up in and gave teachings such as those to the ‘rich young man’ “go, sell your possessions, give to the poor, then come and follow me’. They ignore that he said you cannot follow mammon and God. They ignore that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. They ignore that their God created and loves the non-white people they fear so much every bit as much as He loves them and their children, and that according to their own teachings He died to save them. Yet I’ve seen Christian forums describing their opponents as ‘dirt’. The very people their God, who they say they love so much, died to save and they take it upon themselves to pour vitriol on them. So much for turning the other cheek! So much for loving your enemy and praying for him. They can’t even love those who simply disagree with them. There seems to be very little compassion or humility in the religious right but a great deal of cruelty and spite. So many of them approve of Trump, a man who of hatred and lies. You hear fatuous phrases such as ‘God is using DJT as part of His plan’. It beggars belief. That a God of ‘love’ needs a man of hate and habitual lies to do his will. They are driven by fear, the very opposite of love. Also, they have a very tenuous relationship with the truth. They are anti-science. The denial of evolution reminds me of the church’s persecution of Galileo when it put him on trial for saying that the Earth was not the centre of the universe. It took 359 years to officially admit it was wrong! So much for humility. The problem with conservative Christians is that they put belief before reason and this makes them gullible.