The rise of the Independents (unaffiliated voters)

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AgnosticBoy
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The rise of the Independents (unaffiliated voters)

Post #1

Post by AgnosticBoy »

I want to discuss the validity of the independents and their effect on the elections.

The effect of independent voters
According to Gallup, 42% of Americans identify as an 'independent' voter, while 30% identify as Republican and 27% as Democrat. This shows that most Americans are not fully committed to either party since the majority are independents. If I broke these stats down state-by-state (as opposed viewing the national average), then this majority stat goes away because registered independents are not heavily concentrated in any state (except New Hampshire). Instead, you'll find states with a big concentration of Democrats or majority of Republicans, with independents occupying some percentage across all or most states. While there is no heavily "independent" party state, but here's where or when these voters will make a difference:
1. In swing states the population of Republicans and Democrats tend to be close in number. For example, the state of Florida has about 5 million registered Democrats and 5 million Republican voters BUT it also has about 3.5 million independent voters (no party affiliation). Here it is easy to see the effect of independent voters if or when the majority of them flocks to one party over the other.

The validity of the Independent voters

I should say that independent voters do not belong to any party. The rationale behind many independent voters is that the main parties have become corrupt, extreme, and too partisan. Being an independent gives you the freedom of mind to agree with and praise a politician like Trump when he's right and to condemn him when he's wrong. To be in any party, it seems you have to remain in a straight jacket and accept the entire political platform of ideas from your party, and then be against all of the ideas of the other party. If you don't believe me then try being a registered Democrat, especially one running for office, and acknowledge anything good from Trump and see the reaction you'll get.

As an independent, you don't necessarily have new views as a third party would. Instead, you can adopt the "good" views from BOTH parties while also coming up with your own views.

For the record, I was a lifelong Democrat, and I'm honestly considering voting for Trump. He seems less extreme compared to the competition. He is the lesser of two evils, imho.

For debate:
1. Do you agree or disagree that independent voters have big effect on elections?
2. Is the thinking behind the independent voter valid? Is it reasonable to remain unaffiliated?
3. Will the number of independent voters continue to increase ?

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Post #41

Post by Purple Knight »

koko wrote:Yes, it is true that these are mostly run by Democrats. But let us also be honest and admit that many of these illegals are political refugees running away from ultra right wing governments such as in Honduras which are committing mass genocide against Indigenous peoples. Political sanctuary is required under biblical law. Thus, these liberal run cities are largely in compliance with Judeo-Christian teaching.
This, unfortunately, is an airtight case and cannot be refuted. I'm not a Christian, but I do agree that you have the moral high ground.

Arguments that address functionality fail. Arguments about rights are ironclad.

"But, we can't feed all these people. The Americans will all lose their jobs and starve."

That's basically true but it doesn't have to be addressed. It's off the mark.

Rights are on the mark.

You can't just deny people aid if they're needy. You can't turn them away. It's a hard pill to swallow, but it's true. It's the right thing to do.
AgnosticBoy wrote:If you are an "undocumented" immigrant, then we don't know for sure why you are in the United States. Many may "claim" to be asylum seekers, while not truly being such.
Well, what are they then? What do they want, if not a better life?

Even if they are economic migrants, they're still needy, and must be helped, regardless, unfortunately, of whether we can.

I mean, we can't. We must borrow more and more money to keep our own people afloat. America is living on a credit card.

We can't, but we still must.

That argument, unfortunately, has no counter. It has moral backing.

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Post #42

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Purple Knight wrote:
koko wrote:Yes, it is true that these are mostly run by Democrats. But let us also be honest and admit that many of these illegals are political refugees running away from ultra right wing governments such as in Honduras which are committing mass genocide against Indigenous peoples. Political sanctuary is required under biblical law. Thus, these liberal run cities are largely in compliance with Judeo-Christian teaching.
This, unfortunately, is an airtight case and cannot be refuted. I'm not a Christian, but I do agree that you have the moral high ground.

Arguments that address functionality fail. Arguments about rights are ironclad.

"But, we can't feed all these people. The Americans will all lose their jobs and starve."

That's basically true but it doesn't have to be addressed. It's off the mark.

Rights are on the mark.

You can't just deny people aid if they're needy. You can't turn them away. It's a hard pill to swallow, but it's true. It's the right thing to do.
AgnosticBoy wrote:If you are an "undocumented" immigrant, then we don't know for sure why you are in the United States. Many may "claim" to be asylum seekers, while not truly being such.
Well, what are they then? What do they want, if not a better life?

Even if they are economic migrants, they're still needy, and must be helped, regardless, unfortunately, of whether we can.

I mean, we can't. We must borrow more and more money to keep our own people afloat. America is living on a credit card.

We can't, but we still must.

That argument, unfortunately, has no counter. It has moral backing.
If looking for a better life was the standard, then we should just let everyone into our country. Why stop with just Central Americans?

Again, I'd be all for this if we had unlimited resources, land, etc, but we don't. If we're not even able to provide on a smaller scale by feeding and housing OUR OWN poor, then what makes liberals believe we can and should do this on a bigger scale by feeding and housing ALL (including non-US citizens)?

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Post #43

Post by Athetotheist »

AgnosticBoy wrote:If we're not even able to provide on a smaller scale by feeding and housing OUR OWN poor, then what makes liberals believe we can and should do this on a bigger scale by feeding and housing ALL (including non-US citizens)?
How do we know what we're "not able" to do when we're really not even trying?

https://itep.org/notadime

And so you'll know, I'm also an Independent.

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Post #44

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Athetotheist wrote:
AgnosticBoy wrote:If we're not even able to provide on a smaller scale by feeding and housing OUR OWN poor, then what makes liberals believe we can and should do this on a bigger scale by feeding and housing ALL (including non-US citizens)?
How do we know what we're "not able" to do when we're really not even trying?

https://itep.org/notadime

And so you'll know, I'm also an Independent.
Then let us try to feed, house, and support our own homeless or poor. The best way to show that we can do that is by actually doing it. In science, this would be similar to putting a theory to an empirical test. So far we have not shown that we have solved our own poverty problem.

I also notice that we're jumping around now. Open borders by itself is bad for national security, and that's true regardless of poverty and how we handle it.

I've proven that there is a border problem by showing how our immigration laws can and have been abused. At least under Trump administration, the Republicans have been better at border and immigration enforcement than the Democrats.

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Post #45

Post by Athetotheist »

AgnosticBoy wrote:
Athetotheist wrote:
AgnosticBoy wrote:If we're not even able to provide on a smaller scale by feeding and housing OUR OWN poor, then what makes liberals believe we can and should do this on a bigger scale by feeding and housing ALL (including non-US citizens)?
How do we know what we're "not able" to do when we're really not even trying?

https://itep.org/notadime

And so you'll know, I'm also an Independent.
Then let us try to feed, house, and support our own homeless or poor. The best way to show that we can do that is by actually doing it. In science, this would be similar to putting a theory to an empirical test. So far we have not shown that we have solved our own poverty problem.

I also notice that we're jumping around now. Open borders by itself is bad for national security, and that's true regardless of poverty and how we handle it.

I've proven that there is a border problem by showing how our immigration laws can and have been abused. At least under Trump administration, the Republicans have been better at border and immigration enforcement than the Democrats.
We have indeed been jumping around. Your original questions for debate were about being an independent voter, not about immigration.

As I believe someone pointed out above, no one has said that there isn't an immigration problem. I think, however, it's been fairly well illustrated that the immigration problem isn't immigrants. It's largely our (mis)handling of foreign policy which makes so much of the world so hard to live in, and this administration doesn't seem to be doing anything to make that better.

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Post #46

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Athetotheist wrote: We have indeed been jumping around. Your original questions for debate were about being an independent voter, not about immigration.

As I believe someone pointed out above, no one has said that there isn't an immigration problem. I think, however, it's been fairly well illustrated that the immigration problem isn't immigrants. It's largely our (mis)handling of foreign policy which makes so much of the world so hard to live in, and this administration doesn't seem to be doing anything to make that better.
The rationale of the independent voter is part of the topic (refer to question #2 ). I brought up the fact that Trump being imperfect does not mean that the Democrats are the perfect party given their own problems, immigration being one of them.

While interventionist policy may play a role with our immigration problem, but that doesn't make sneaking into our country or abusing the asylum laws the right thing to do. The latter two acts are wrong and they are done by "immigrants". To say that the immigrants are doing no wrong (the bold font part of your post) shows that you are okay with open borders. . We should be changing our interventionist policies while also deterring illegal immigration. Liberal thinking like yours, would be weak at deterring the problem.

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Post #47

Post by Athetotheist »

AgnosticBoy wrote:
Athetotheist wrote: We have indeed been jumping around. Your original questions for debate were about being an independent voter, not about immigration.

As I believe someone pointed out above, no one has said that there isn't an immigration problem. I think, however, it's been fairly well illustrated that the immigration problem isn't immigrants. It's largely our (mis)handling of foreign policy which makes so much of the world so hard to live in, and this administration doesn't seem to be doing anything to make that better.
AgnosticBoy wrote:To say that the immigrants are doing no wrong (the bold font part of your post) shows that you are okay with open borders.
If immigrants----who commit far fewer crimes in the US than native-born citizens----are a problem, then native-born citizens are a far bigger problem. Entering the US for asylum may be illegal, but it's not a "crime". Don Jr. was wrong. Refugees are not poisoned Skittles.

So my statement that immigrants aren't the problem is not a statement that no immigrant ever does anything wrong, and certainly isn't an advocation of "open borders". To state that I favored open borders I would have had to state that I was in favor of abolishing the screening process entirely. If you look back at what I've posted, you'll see that I have never stated this.

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Post #48

Post by AgnosticBoy »

Athetotheist wrote:
AgnosticBoy wrote:To say that the immigrants are doing no wrong (the bold font part of your post) shows that you are okay with open borders.
If immigrants----who commit far fewer crimes in the US than native-born citizens----are a problem, then native-born citizens are a far bigger problem. Entering the US for asylum may be illegal, but it's not a "crime". Don Jr. was wrong. Refugees are not poisoned Skittles.

So my statement that immigrants aren't the problem is not a statement that no immigrant ever does anything wrong, and certainly isn't an advocation of "open borders". To state that I favored open borders I would have had to state that I was in favor of abolishing the screening process entirely. If you look back at what I've posted, you'll see that I have never stated this.
Again these are your own words and you only issued your softened explanation AFTER I exposed how extreme your view was. I'm sure many Democrats don't want to have OPEN BORDERS pinned to them but yet they don't realize how their views point to just that.

You said the immigrants are not the problem , so that includes the ones who get here by sneaking in and exploiting our immigration laws. When I go back to read your previous comments in light of your most recent comment, it becomes clear why you resisted the idea that immigrants can abuse our immigration laws. How could it be wrong or an abuse of law if immigrants arent the problem? (According to you) You even put emphasis (italicized) on your claim.

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Post #49

Post by Purple Knight »

AgnosticBoy wrote:If looking for a better life was the standard, then we should just let everyone into our country. Why stop with just Central Americans?
We should. And the resources they seek would be pillaged.

The only reason America isn't living on the edge of starvation is birth rates. The countries with low birth rates are not starving. The ones with high birth rates are.

This is even true on the level of individual families. The families with ten babies would (generally) starve if not for welfare, but those with zero or one are not starving, though now they struggle more.

The result is that those with high birth rates now need the resources of those who tried to be responsible, and scrimped, and saved, and struggled, and thus had fewer children.

They should have them. This is a case where fair is one thing, and right is the opposite.
AgnosticBoy wrote:Again, I'd be all for this if we had unlimited resources, land, etc, but we don't. If we're not even able to provide on a smaller scale by feeding and housing OUR OWN poor, then what makes liberals believe we can and should do this on a bigger scale by feeding and housing ALL (including non-US citizens)?
They don't believe we can. They believe we must.

And yes, whatever the result, that's the moral high ground.

But they'll lose the argument if they concede that we should feed our own poor first, that we should make sure we have the resources to help before we actually help, which is why they should stick to the moral argument.

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Post #50

Post by Athetotheist »

AgnosticBoy wrote:
Athetotheist wrote:
AgnosticBoy wrote:To say that the immigrants are doing no wrong (the bold font part of your post) shows that you are okay with open borders.
If immigrants----who commit far fewer crimes in the US than native-born citizens----are a problem, then native-born citizens are a far bigger problem. Entering the US for asylum may be illegal, but it's not a "crime". Don Jr. was wrong. Refugees are not poisoned Skittles.

So my statement that immigrants aren't the problem is not a statement that no immigrant ever does anything wrong, and certainly isn't an advocation of "open borders". To state that I favored open borders I would have had to state that I was in favor of abolishing the screening process entirely. If you look back at what I've posted, you'll see that I have never stated this.
Again these are your own words and you only issued your softened explanation AFTER I exposed how extreme your view was. I'm sure many Democrats don't want to have OPEN BORDERS pinned to them but yet they don't realize how their views point to just that.

You said the immigrants are not the problem , so that includes the ones who get here by sneaking in and exploiting our immigration laws. When I go back to read your previous comments in light of your most recent comment, it becomes clear why you resisted the idea that immigrants can abuse our immigration laws. How could it be wrong or an abuse of law if immigrants who are not seen as seen as a problem. You even put emphasis (italicized) on your claim.
I haven't "softened" my explanation; I've clarified it. Anyone can abuse any law; I've never denied this.

You accuse me of being "extreme", but going back through the posts myself I see where you "softened" your own explanation after Divine Insight threw down on Trump's extremes.

https://www.cato.org/blog/14-most-commo ... eyre-wrong

(Yours are #s 2, 6 and 7)

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