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Originally Posted by Mathgod
He didn't woodshed a goddamn thing. He just has a dogmatic attachment to conventional thinking. His head is still in 1980 or 1990, and he doesn't realize that it's 2020 now, and a lot has changed.
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And when you say conventional thinking you mean understanding the political system, policy and policy formation, cultural norms, and voter behaviors? Dude, you're just embarrassing yourself at this point.
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All of his "arguments" could have been used to justify the continuation of slavery 300 years ago. "Oh, what's that? You want slavery to be abolished? Awww, that's cute... but sorry, it's not a policy position, my local community college said so."
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Great issue to pick as an example. Slavery. Let's talk about it and what it took for the end of slavery to get from the "idea" stage, to a policy stage, then to implementation.
"Some" of the founding fathers believed in the idea of giving their slaves their freedom, and had the free will to do just that, but never followed through on that. They had the "idea" but never acted upon it themselves. Why is that? Cultural norms, societal expectations, and laws made the idea impractical, so it remained nothing more than an idea, one the founding fathers spoke about quietly and privately. When the constitution was finally ratified it included clauses in the document (the 3/5ths clause, the fugitive slave clause, and the electoral college) which were entrenched in policy to maintain slavery and the power of the pro-slavery southern colonies.
So fast forward 60 years, to 1854, and a lawyer named Abraham Lincoln began talking about ending slavery and granting all people their freedom and access to the same liberty that white men shared. Lincoln spoke to not only the injustice, and the moral failings of slavery, but also to the economic and legal reasons to ending slavery. This was the first moment when someone really started the shift from the idea phase to the analysis phase, where the political machinations could be brought together to understand the larger issue. This was an evolution in Lincoln's thinking as only two years earlier he had presented the stillborn idea of colonization to solve the slavery problem - sending freed slaves to Liberia where they could start a new life as freed men (the irony). This was an important moment because someone in a position of political power (Lincoln had won a seat in the Illinois General Assembly in 1836 and maintained that seat until 1842) was showing support for the idea. The abolitionists, those who were in support of the idea ending slavery, but had no policy or political influence, were quick to join the conversation and make this a more broad issue, shifting this to the beginning of the consultation phase of the policy cycle. Lincoln was able to articulate the position clearly and begin to find loose support for the abolition of slavery.
The next critical step for the anti-slavery movement was to gain broad political support for the cause. Lincoln ran for Senate in Illinois and had a number of famous debates with Stephen Douglas to socialize the many concepts in the developing policy, many of which Lincoln had to soften or give completely on to garner public support. In doing so he openly admitted that blacks should not have the right to vote, right to hold office, or right to have relations with white people. Douglas had legal and political support behind his side of the debate including the Kansas-Nebraska Act (which would actually result in the birth of the Republican Party), which made his case much easier to make.
Lincoln would go on to organize a coalition (the Kansas-Nebraska coalition) of anti-slave support in the new territories and then organize the Republican Party itself in 1856, moving on to the coaltion building and coordination aspects of the policy cycle. The legal landscape was still clearly stacking up against the anti-slavery and abolitionist movements as the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision declared slaves could not be citizens, even by birthright. Lincoln would have popular public support for his positions but lose the Senate election to Douglas.
The loss of the Senate seat was not a step backward as the exposure from the Lincoln-Douglas debates elevated Lincoln and the issue to prominence in some circles. Lincoln had put together the appropriate support and political mechanisms where he could then move to the program design aspects of the policy cycle. Lincoln would earn the nomination and gain the party support for to establish the policy of anti-slavery as a platform plank.
Lincoln would go on to win the 1860 Presidential election on November 6th and give him opportunity to implement policy. On December 20th, South Carolina would secede from the union putting the country on the fast track to civil war. Before Lincoln was inaugurated in March of 1861, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, and Texas would follow South Carolina's lead and further divide the nation. Virgina, North Carolina, and Arkansas would later join the Confederacy shortly after hostilities were initiated. So began the bloodiest and most deadly time in American history, all because of the development of a policy.
Lincoln would move forward with the implementation phase of the anti-slavery policy, first abolishing slavery in Washington DC (the dry run) then beginning the full throated implementation with the introduction of the Emancipation Proclamation to congress for their approval. On January 1st, 1863 the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered, providing the first legal support to the policy. On February 1st, Lincoln would sign and deliver the 13th Amendment, but it would not be ratified and adopted for another two years. That would require the end of the civil war, the surrender of the confederacy at the Appomottax Court house on April 9th, 1865, and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln at the Ford Theatre five days later. The 13th Amendment, the final execution of the anti-slavery policy, was ratified on December 6th, 1865. We are still in the evaluation phase of the policy cycle.
That is how policy works. That is how hard and brutal policy development can be. This was obviously a very extreme example of the policy cycle, but a great opportunity to see how policy development happens, from idea through to implementation, and all the machinations required to achieve a political outcome.
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I just hope he understands the irony of talking about the evilness of Trump, then turning around and scoffing at UBI. Maybe he thinks the US was some kind of paradise prior to Trump's election?
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I don't even know what this means. Is this an attempt to build a strawman? Is this an attempt to deflect from your ignorance? What does this even mean? Like your ideas on policy and UBI, it is clearly not well constructed and has no clear meaning.
I get that you are enthralled with the idea of UBI, and think it should be something that becomes policy. But the reality is that there is little support at this time, even in the midst of a pandemic where people are struggling financially, to make UBI even a discussion point. In all the discussions and deal making to keep people whole has UBI been discussed or presented by anyone in congress? Nope. Why? Because there is no support for it. It is not a policy, it is not even in the infancy of being a policy. No one is going to make this an issue and try to throw their weight behind it because it will get crushed at the ballot box and any politician who suggests such nonsense.
Could it one day become a serious policy? Sure. Anything can. But there is a very long road ahead to have this idea gain the appropriate fiscal, political, and legal support for it to become a policy position for any political party.