Facebook Debate

A friend from Dartmouth Facebook chatted me late tonight and we decided to debate about liberalism and conservatism. This is what we came up with. *Conservative is me, and liberal is him*

12:39am (Liberal)
everything aside, lemme ask you something

12:39am (Conservative)
ok...

12:40am (Liberal)
do you worry that some of the tea party people that support you music wise the tea party in particular

12:40am (Conservative)
that wasn’t coherent to me
i don't understand the question

12:41am (Liberal)
yeah it wasnt
i got caught in a convo n then didnt realize i typed that idiotically
il restart
do you worry that some of the tea party supporters, are hiding behind the issues that they dont know much about because they are more worried about race?
not all obviously
but ive watched some footage of tea party rallies

12:43am (Conservative)
lol not at all
i think people that are concerned about race are a lot (not all) of people that vote for Alvin Greene and Obama
I would argue that a lot of people voted for Obama voted for him because he was black than people who didn't vote for him b/c he’s black

12:45am (Liberal)
i wont lie, there obviously is a race factor that helps obama with some people

12:45am (Conservative)
a lot of people
95% of black females voted for obama


12:45am (Liberal)
yeah, but id argue that most of the time black females vote democrat anyway

12:45am
i have been to several tea parties and have seen a multitude of people from many different cultures

12:45am (Liberal)
obviously not 99%
i always said if a black man got the democratic nomination he would win

12:46am (Conservative)
there are a lot of "tea party" candidates running in the mid-term elections that are black
look specifically to Lt. Col. Allen West
(who is the man btw, should run for pres in 2016 hopefully)

12:47am (Liberal)
ill look him up
but then what do you think is the reason that there are so many people ignorant to the real issues but so adamant in the fact that its this administrations fault

12:48am (Conservative)
bc it is this administrations fault in their opinion
he had a mission to "fundamentally change America"
new health care, new business regulations, quadrupled debt, cap and trade
things they believe that are detrimental to growth in this country

12:49am (Liberal)
but most of these people don’t have any clue what the actual policies are

12:49am (Conservative)
i would argue tea party people have a much better understanding of spending and debt than the average democrat
you believe a majority of those people show up because they hate black people?

12:50am (Liberal)
ok spending and debt aside, most dont understand what the health care bill is at all
i dont know if it's a mojority

12:50am (Conservative)
this is where we come to an ideological stand off

12:50am (Liberal)
id say it most likely isnt a majority
id say a minority in fact
but id say that it is at least a part.

12:51am (Conservative)
i believe the average citizen is capable of understanding those issues, most liberals (not necessarily you) believe a group of intellectualized elite are the only ones capable of understanding things
i don’t think it's too hard for people to realize that when you subsidize something you get less of it

12:52am (Liberal)
what i think needs to happen is in terms of everything political, we need to intellectualize the country so everyone understands everything

12:52am (Conservative)
the govt subsidizes tobacco and makes smoking cheaper, then wants us to pay health insurance for people who smoke 3 packs a day
a private business would never do something so counterproductive
^ to your last point, fighting teachers unions and privatizing education would be a good start

12:53am (Liberal)
ooh with my dad as a teacher ill have to disagree with that wholeheartedly
but

12:54am (Conservative)
is ur dad a good teacher or a bad teacher?
ur a smart guy, he’s probably a smart guy

12:54am (Liberal)
yeah he taught for 35 years at a public high school and is now a professor at a community college

12:54am (Conservative)
i imagine he is a good teacher. Does he not think he should be compensated for the hard work he puts into his students as opposed to teachers who just throw in a movie and don't do anything extra to help kids

12:55am (Liberal)
he thinks the teachers that do that should be fired
however, there isnt enough young people that are bright that are willing to teach

12:56am (Conservative)
teachers unions make it practically impossible to fire bad teachers

12:56am (Liberal)
bc it isnt lucrative enough
so in return you get people that are average usually

12:56am (Conservative)
maybe with incentives for better teachers people would try harder?

12:56am (Liberal)
possibly
but how would you rate a god vs bad teacher?

12:56am (Conservative)
definitely, if you know u can slack and get away with it why wouldn’t you?

12:56am (Liberal)
good*
thats where the issue on this is

12:57am (Conservative)
it's all about incentives in my opinion
reward good teachers penalize the bad
you will find a lot of people rise to the occasion when given the chance

12:58am (Liberal)
i dont disagree with that
but how do you decide who's doing well opposed to not doing well

12:58am (Conservative)
their kids test scores
and there are some other things as well

12:58am (Liberal)
what tests?
standardized tests?

12:59am(Conservative)
idk what tests, i know some people think those tests are racists (/sarc)
it should be improvement based i think
beginning and end of the year kind of stuff
I don't claim to be an expert here but I am sure some people out there have good ideas
this isn't my area of expertise

1:00am (Liberal)
fair, but then you are teaching a kid how to teach a test in order to get paid more yourself rather than teaching a kid important things in life
or feeding into their interests
here's my opinion on how to get better teachers

1:00am (Conservative)
i do know the system is completely backwards though

1:01am (Liberal)
id say offer higher pay to start
and begn attracting the best minds out there

1:01am (Conservative)
we spend 10x as much money on less intellectually gifted children as we do the gifted
then we are paying the crappy teachers more and they can’t get fired
i don't believe throwing money at the problem helps
it is structurally based
we have spent an incredible amount of money in the last 50 years, test scores have not gone up
dropout rates are still depressingly high

1:02am (Liberal)
agreed but th money has been thrown everywhere but the teachers

1:02am (Conservative)
not true
they get free health care for life, a 3 month vacation, and benefits for their entire families
a lot of private citizens see that as a good gig

1:03am (Liberal)
i meant recently thrown
bc those are nice
but the base salary is low
and teaching, especially in poor urban areas ranges from stressful to dangerous at times

1:04am (Conservative)
agreed
imagine if parents had the ability to send their kids anywhere they wanted
location meant nothing

1:04am (Liberal)
education is a tough subject but probably the most important one for the countrys future

1:05am (Conservative)
there won't be a future if we keep spending money like this
so i would respectfully disagree and say we need to get a balanced budget

1:05am (Liberal)
there is open enrollment
you can send your kid pretty much wherever you want

1:06am (Conservative)
Chris Christie (R) and Mayor Booker (D) are doing some good things together in NJ to try and fix their broken school system
not true

1:06am (Liberal)
and im not sure what good a balanced budget does if the rest of the country suffers

1:06am (Conservative)
kids have to go to certain public schools
otherwise no one would choose to go there

1:06am (Liberal)
naw i was in public school
and went to the one i wanted to

1:06am(Conservative)
i went to public school too

1:06am (Liberal)
not the one i lived in the district of
you just have to fill out the paperwork

1:07am (Conservative)
i am pretty sure the way it works not anybody can do that

1:07am (Liberal)
and explain why you want to go somewhere else
i lived in sheffield lake ohio, and went to lorain city schools

1:07am (Conservative)
shouldn't everybody have that opportunity? than when no one wants to go to bad schools, those people will figure out how to make it a better school to keep their jobs
or they will higher better teachers or whatever

1:08am (Liberal)
i mean if open enrollment isnt nationwide it should be
i dont disagree with that

1:09am (Conservative)
do you think Obama is spending too much money?
not necessarily Obama, but congress and then Obama allows it I guess

1:10am (Liberal)
yes and no
because
i feel like there are alot of places that need money infused because so much of the economy in those areas is dead
places where peoples pentions are gone
where there is nowhere to work

1:11am (Conservative)
do you think the government does a good efficient job of spending people's tax dollars?

1:11am (Liberal)
and cities are literally dissapearing

1:11am (Conservative)
I personally believe a lot of that money is wasted and goes to earmarks and wasteful backroom deals

1:12am (Liberal)
in honesty i do wonder alot of times where the money goes because it doesnt seem to help where its supposed to

1:12am (Conservative)
the cities that are disappearing I would argue are the ones that have been dominated by liberal policies (Detroit for example)
exactly
787 billion $ stimulus

1:13am (Liberal)
but i dont think the answer is spend less... i think its spend smarter

1:13am (Conservative)
they could have given 100 grand to every single unemployed person in this country
instead it goes to "govt programs"
butt load of people lost jobs, taxes will increase, debt increases
horribly inefficient in my opinion

1:14am (Liberal)
well giving out money to individuals would have been a temporary and overall bad solution too
and the things that killed detroit werent local
but really i know this is where our divergence in political beliees begin
so im not going down that road

1:15am (Conservative)
i wouldn’t advocate for giving the money to those people, just an analogy to put in perspective how much money that was and how ineffective it was

1:15am (Liberal)
fair enough
but back to my original point about what i think needs to be done
and what we can possibly do
we should make a feature ill call it
me jmath you and ruf
sit down and really explain all of what we believe and why

1:17am (Conservative)
we all want the same thing

1:17am (Liberal)
then try to explain the issues

1:17am (Conservative)
have different ideas on how to get there

1:17am (Liberal)
agreed

1:17am (Conservative)
that's why it's so frusturating to hear ignorant people calling us greedy, selfish, etc

1:18am (Liberal)
i agree... same happens opposingly to us
so why not really educate everyone
we should do it... study the issues and explain them
same with current policies
and film it all
throw it on the internet

1:19am (Conservative)
i think again it comes down to belief on the strength and capableness of the individual
every issue stems from that
i think less government more individual

1:20am (Liberal)
i think in some issues less, i some issues more

1:20am (Conservative)
in every area of life, politicians gain more power by increasing the size and scope of government, so anyone with the aim of increasing govt aims to give themselves more power

1:21am (Liberal)
i see the logic in that theory, but i dont know if i applies all the time though id say it does some of the time
because certain times the government has to have regulations or else things get out of hand

1:22am (Conservative)
I'm out though. early Bible study tomorrow morning.

1:23am (Liberal)
ight, think about what i was talking about though in terms of educating people
because i really think it could help out

1:23am (Conservative)
I encourage you at some point to go to a Tea Party. See if the tone is Anti-Obama-because he's black
or anti big government and out of control spending
i think you would be surprised