Embittered election postmortem (please let's just have this one thread to vent)

[Ljube]

Vacumist election, as I felt the same way in 2004. But we still won in NH and Va our prez battlegrounds. Appeals Crt Nominees for judgeship are held up in cmtee anyways, due to blue slip policy. Trade, resume Iraq airstrikes will be on table. But, this hasnt transformed the senate for 16 as NH, IL WI and Pa will be pickups as well as winning them for prez.

Quinn had no business running, he should have been primaried.

Yes. If we can't win in NH and VA in off years, it is going to be tough, next to impossible to win there in presidential years.

[Ljube]

What gives me hope is that on the specific issues... Democrats actually support those issues. ARKANSAS voted to increase the minimum wage. Run on that fools! Want an expansion of Medicaid? Vote for us! How about... expanding Medicare so that everyone under 18 is covered? Democrats need to remember what they stand for and stand proud for it so voters know. Remember those 'keep government out of my Medicare' folks? Go up to them and remind them who gave them Medicare in the first place.

Most Republicans support those same things.

[Ljube]

This was an awesome thread.  We must do this another time, say, in two years?

I'm sure there will be a thread like this in two years...

Let's hope the Dems start that one too.

[Ljube]

-Denying climate change because it is good for the profit margins of your donors is morally depraved and reprehensible

This is the one of your charges with the least BS.  But even here you ascribe too great an emphasis on this motivation.  Sadly, there are those who actually do disbelieve that climate change is being caused by human actions.  Also there are those who quite reasonably want to deal with change in the most economic manner, and that might well be by dealing with the effects as they happen rather than trying to prevent them from happening in the first place.

With the current technology level, there is zero chance we can do anything to prevent the climate change from happening. Therefore, the only rational response is to deal with the effects of it.

The environmental fanatics call anybody who tries to talk that way a "climate change denier".

[Ljube]

-Denying climate change because it is good for the profit margins of your donors is morally depraved and reprehensible

This is the one of your charges with the least BS.  But even here you ascribe too great an emphasis on this motivation.  Sadly, there are those who actually do disbelieve that climate change is being caused by human actions.  Also there are those who quite reasonably want to deal with change in the most economic manner, and that might well be by dealing with the effects as they happen rather than trying to prevent them from happening in the first place.

There is zero chance we can do anything with this technology level to prevent the climate change from happening. Therefore, the only rational response is to deal with the effects of it.

The environmental fanatics call anybody who tries to talk that way a "climate change denier".

Who says we're stuck with our current technology level?

We aren't. But there's no logic in doing anything with this current level. We can do a lot with the technology level some 50 years from now.

Edit: I rephrased my previous post for better understanding.

[Ljube]

-Denying climate change because it is good for the profit margins of your donors is morally depraved and reprehensible

This is the one of your charges with the least BS.  But even here you ascribe too great an emphasis on this motivation.  Sadly, there are those who actually do disbelieve that climate change is being caused by human actions.  Also there are those who quite reasonably want to deal with change in the most economic manner, and that might well be by dealing with the effects as they happen rather than trying to prevent them from happening in the first place.

There is zero chance we can do anything with this technology level to prevent the climate change from happening. Therefore, the only rational response is to deal with the effects of it.

The environmental fanatics call anybody who tries to talk that way a "climate change denier".

Who says we're stuck with our current technology level?

We aren't. But there's no logic in doing anything with this current level. We can do a lot with the technology level some 50 years from now.

Oh, FFS.  There is plenty we can do with the current level– note how solar has become cheaper than coal– and that is even before taking into account the massive and continually ignored costs associated with inaction.  We can't afford to wait- and that's even before you un-naive your analyses and take other unchecked environmental externalities into account.

Can we do more in the future?  Sure, I hope so, we're even more f**ked otherwise.  But even that requires a dedicated R&D push, which itself requires action and a shifting of resources now.  "Let's pretend like nothing is wrong because science will magically make things better!" while forgetting that making things better in the future requires investment now is short-sighted and circular reasoning of the very worst kind.

In other words, coal makes us sick?


OK, this is just a joke.

But, seriously, any action we do today is an infinitesimal action with huge costs compared to the action we can do with a smaller effort and much larger benefits 50 years from now.