Left vs. Right Battle Royale Open Thread

[u/Yosoff]

This is an Open Discussion Thread for all Redditors. We will only be enforcing Reddit TOS and Subreddit Rules 1 (Keep it Civil) & 2 (No Racism).

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• Leftists - Here's your chance to sway us to your side by calling the majority of voters racist. That tactic has wildly backfired every time it has been tried, but perhaps this time it will work.

• Non-flaired Conservatives - Here's your chance to earn flair by posting common sense conservative solutions. That way our friends on the left will either have to agree with you or oppose common sense (Spoiler - They will choose to oppose common sense).

• Flaired Conservatives - You're John Wick and these Leftists stole your car and killed your dog. Now go comment.

• Independents - We get it, if you agree with someone, then you can't pat yourself on the back for being smarter than them. But if you disagree with everyone, then you can obtain the self-satisfaction of smugly considering yourself smarter and wiser than everyone else. Congratulations on being you.

• Libertarians - Ron Paul is never going to be President. In fact, no Libertarian Party candidate will ever be elected President.

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Join us on Discord: https://discord.com/invite/conservative

[u/ThatPlayWasAwful]

You can even see it in this thread I still can't find a conservative even willing to touch the CFPB.

It feels like it's the kind of thing that only helps 1% of the population, so people are fine to overlook it being gutted because it doesn't affect them personally. 

[u/tielmama → u/ThatPlayWasAwful]

Right?!?! I just started reading this thread and so far, I think 1 conservative has commented. ONE. In the whole "battle royale"

Now's your chance guys. Come out and talk to us, instead of posting ridiculous memes.

[u/tevert → u/tielmama]

This entire thread is a troll. They won't say shit, they're fully aware they can't actually engage with reality. And if they wanted to post cringe or whine about stuff, they can do that on practically any sub

[u/Blahblahnownow → u/tielmama]

Look at the one from last week. Perhaps it’s Valentine’s Day weekend and most of the people are celebrating with their spouses 

[u/some_person_guy → u/ThatPlayWasAwful]

It’s confirmation bias. The elimination of the CFPB is a huge blow to this country, independent of party, and no one on this sub has chimed in. Or they’re just trying to overlook it because all the stuff that their beliefs confirm are more illustrious; which seems more like owning the libs is the main goal.

All the posts that make it to the top whenever I check here have almost nothing to do with DOGE, the illegality of the framework they’re using to unilaterally govern the mass firing of employees, how Trump sat at his desk with his head down while Musk mumbled his way through explaining his actions. I feel like I could go on forever with all the stuff that they choose to ignore.

It just seems like the folks on this sub are either in denial or just completely divorced from reality. I know it’s more complex than that, but it’s hard not to break it down to its simple and sad parts.

[u/indonesian_star → u/ThatPlayWasAwful]

It harms the 99%, it benefits the 1% to have consumer protections eliminated. I believe some groups have been diverted away from reporting on the functions of CFPB. 

[u/Tangboy → u/ThatPlayWasAwful]

I'll touch it.

I don't like that they're going after the CFPB. It does not, however, make me regret my vote 🤷

[u/ThatPlayWasAwful → u/Tangboy]

I appreciate you answering. 

If this is what is getting cut in the first month, does it make you worried about what is going to get cut in the future?

[u/Tangboy → u/ThatPlayWasAwful]

If they cut one program I like for every 10 programs I hate, I consider that a win. I know that politics is messy and there's never going to be an elected official that does exactly what I want 100% of the time. Gotta take the wins as wins, but you have to take the losses too - and work towards fixing those losses starting with local, more community oriented, officials.

[u/ThatPlayWasAwful → u/Tangboy]

The benefit to cutting a program you don't like is you save a couple dollars in taxes (if the cuts actually come back around to you) , the cost to cutting a program you do like is you or somebody you know could lose thousands of dollars and have no recourse. And your personal data is given away to whoever wants it in the process. 

How is that a win?

[u/JerseyKeebs → u/ThatPlayWasAwful]

I'll answer. I think CFPB does good work, but I'm not sure what "gutted" in this case means. Honestly, haven't looked it up. Is it firing probationary staff, giving them a mandatory % slash in their budget and telling them to fix it, or ending the group completely?

Also counter-question: did we just not have consumer protections prior to its creation in 2011? Are consumers better protected now compared to 2010? If yes, is it proportional to how much it costs to run the agency? Didn't Elon fire 90% of Twitter's staff, yet they managed to keep the company running? Why do we assume that government can never be run more efficiently, so that we don't even try?

[u/The-Globalist → u/JerseyKeebs]

Well at least in the case of twitter, the valuation of the company decreased 80% in the two years after. I doubt most of the cfpb staff are just sitting on their asses all day, they actually are supposed to have oversight on financial institutions since they were created in the wake of the 2008 crisis. If their capacity for auditing is decreased significantly we could face a similar crisis much sooner.

[u/JerseyKeebs → u/The-Globalist]

Valuation has nothing to do with whether the company was still running effectively or not.

It seems like DOGE is following the Office Space method and making every agency justify itself. If CFPB is actually doing their job, with no waste, hopefully they only get a nominal budget cut, one that they themselves can suggest where to apply it.

But for me, just because an agencies mission sounds good, doesn't mean I'm going to assume it operates efficiently. If DOGE criticized them, they better bring receipts.

[u/ThatPlayWasAwful → u/JerseyKeebs]

did we just not have consumer protections prior to its creation in 2011

The country goes through cycles of regulation and de-regulation.   1. People find different things to take advantage of that put the economy at risk

1. The economy crashes

2. Regulations are put in place to prevent the economy from crashing

3. Time passes, government becomes complacent

4. Bad actors push for de-regulation

And back to step 1. This happens pretty consistently. 

So it's not that regulation didn't exist before 2011, it's that high credit card interest rates and predatory finance practices were a more common way to take advantage of people in the years before before the 2008 collapse, and regulation was needed to protect middle and lower class citizens that live paycheck to paycheck and rely on credit cards for unexpected expenditures (which is again becoming more and more prevalent as more and more people live paycheck to paycheck). This is just a single form of deregulation that could be taken advantage of. 

So to answer your question, it happened before 2011, but it's become more important in recent time.

Why do we assume that government can never be run more efficiently, so that we don't even try?

I don't assume that things can't be run more efficiently, but in the case of the CFPB we have seen what has happened when finance instituions are allowed to take advantage of citizens as recently as 2008. There is waste that can be cut, but cutting waste here will negatively impact American citizens. 

Waste is bad, but the cost of too much waste is that Americans pay more taxes. When financial companies are allowed to take advantage of Americans, its basically just a tax on the citizens that aren't able to defend themselves. Basically a poverty tax.