US Politics: flaking out and coming uncorked

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Yeah he's like that asshole you know that is 'real nice' so no one calls them an asshole. 

And I'm pretty sure he's been called an asshole. Like a lot.

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, r'hllor's redrum lobster said:

jesus smokes, gwb's body count is in the millions, to say nothing of his policies on abortion/global gag rule, stem cell research, and some of y'all are trying to claim he's not porpusefully cruel because he wouldn't have been mean on twitter...

Nah, this is a fundamental difference in perspective.  Some people can differentiate policy preferences - and in this case a president's policy outcomes - and whether the individual in office has ill intent.  You mention body counts - what about LBJ?  On a lesser level, what about Clinton and Kosovo?  I believe Bush as president should be judged in the harshest possible terms.  But that does not mean I can't distinguish his terrible and abject cruelty in ill-founded policies with the decision-maker that thought what he was doing was right.  Did his inner demons defeat Bush's better angels while in office?  Inarguably.  But attacking him as evil and even as a Nazi (which was going around quite a bit at the time) denigrates the credibility when we accuse office-holders or advisors that actually do hold such ill intent. 

This is the problem with polarization - even recognizing many on the other side don't hold evil in their heart is considered a perversion to your tribe.  I find this with my students as well; most profess they will not be friends with cohorts from the other side of the aisle.  The country will never be put back together again with this attitude.  For instance, I can't abide the politics of, say, Murkowski or McCain, nor the cruel outcomes that their beliefs undoubtedly would lead to, but I certainly don't think they themselves are evil or cruel.  There's a mountain of difference between finding beliefs unacceptable and the person holding such beliefs unacceptable.

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

And I'm pretty sure he's been called an asshole. Like a lot.

Yeah but then a more flagrant asshole shows up and all of a sudden the other guy is romanticized.  I mean between the raincoat tomfoolery and W's affection for Michelle Obama all of a sudden he's the goofy, loveable, uncle who destabilized an entire region, started a war on false pretenses, and generated more anti-US sentiments than the last five Presidents combined.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Yeah but then a more flagrant asshole shows up and all of a sudden the other guy is romanticized.  I mean between the raincoat tomfoolery and W's affection for Michelle Obama all of a sudden he's the goofy, loveable, uncle who destabilized an entire region, started a war on false pretenses, and generated more anti-US sentiments than the last five Presidents combined.

I hear you, but I say give Trump time. He might just make this a reasonable comparison before he is done.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

Yeah but then a more flagrant asshole shows up and all of a sudden the other guy is romanticized.  I mean between the raincoat tomfoolery and W's affection for Michelle Obama all of a sudden he's the goofy, loveable, uncle who destabilized an entire region, started a war on false pretenses, and generated more anti-US sentiments than the last five Presidents combined.

 

I despise W. In fact he turned me from a moderate Democrat into someone who will never vote R. I don't get all the W love either. I got in an argument with a friend about it. However, you may want to consider that it may be terror driven.

House Republicans Barely Pass a Budget. Now Comes the Hard Part.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2017/10/26/house_republicans_passed_senate_s_budget_to_begin_tax_reform_process.html

New Polls Suggest Trump and the GOP Won’t Get Away With This

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/new-polls-suggest-trump-and-the-gop-wont-get-away-with-this.html

 

[Lord of Rhinos]

4 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

If some guy or gal says "I’m voting Republican cause I care about other stuff", then fair enough. 

But, I don’t think that is what lot of Republicans actually say. In fact, it would seem than many of them just go around spewing the nonsense the Republican elites tell them. That’s at least my experience.

Sure, there's a lot of Republicans that don't understand macro economics. Then again, I'd say the same about Democrats.

4 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

But she has a potentially deadly chronic medical condition. If she's not at the very least considering health care as an issue that effects her vote, then why the fuck is she even voting? This goes so far past "low information voter". This is potentially a suicidal vote for this woman.

She seems happy with her health insurance and Trump promised to put something even better in place.  She thought it was handled.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

But then, we are in agreement that the margins may be what makes the difference.

The problem isn't voting against their economic interests per se. The problem is i) not realizing it and ii) complaining about being "ignored" and looking for scapegoats.

Sure, margins definitely matter and can give groups an outsized influence on events and nominations, but that doesn't mean they're the majority. 

I say Republicans have definitely been drifting to the right and I attribute it almost entirely to right wing media.  I have a hard time calling extreme conservatism radicalism though.  After all, most of there objectives are simply to roll the clock back.

[Altherion]

2 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Did his inner demons defeat Bush's better angels while in office?  Inarguably.  But attacking him as evil and even as a Nazi (which was going around quite a bit at the time) denigrates the credibility when we accuse office-holders or advisors that actually do hold such ill intent.

G.W. Bush was most certainly not a Nazi and I am glad at least somebody is aware of the danger of overusing such words. However, even in the most generous interpretation, he was an imperialist tool of a certain set of corporations and, by any objective measure, caused at least an order of magnitude more harm than Trump (though to be fair, Trump isn't even through his first year in office whereas G.W. Bush had eight years).

[all swedes are racist]

2 hours ago, dmc515 said:

You mention body counts - what about LBJ?  On a lesser level, what about Clinton and Kosovo?

lol, what about them? they are cruel and evil motherfuckers that should [have] be[en] fucking hanged as well. 

 

2 hours ago, dmc515 said:

But that does not mean I can't distinguish his terrible and abject cruelty in ill-founded policies with the decision-maker that thought what he was doing was right. 

thought what he was doing was right? like, do you really think he was incapable of understanding invading two nations and launching a poorly planned war would just like, surgically strike out the "bad guys"? and you really, really believe he thought what he was doing was morally right, especially irt iraq? gtfoh

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

17 minutes ago, r'hllor's redrum lobster said:

thought what he was doing was right? like, do you really think he was incapable of understanding invading two nations and launching a poorly planned war would just like, surgically strike out the "bad guys"? and you really, really believe he thought what he was doing was morally right, especially irt iraq? gtfoh

 Yeah, pretty much. I think he probably knew the bullshit he had to shovel to get us there was not morally defensible, but the Wars themselves? You don't really have to dig that deep to find moral justifications for both of those Wars.

 That's not to say that it wasn't a misguided decision and a complete clusterfuck on many levels.

[Darzin]

With people voting against their own interests I think some of it comes down to blind anger and resentment not only racial (although that is a huge part) But if you listen to the  way conservatives talk about , Hollywood, New York, Washington DC, you see a seething resentment of liberal control of the culture. True these places have some conservatives but they are beltway types and libertarians. God and Guns types have basically no influence over the culture and if you spend anytime on line or in person in places they hang you'll see this resentment. White conservative America is losing economically and culturally and they just cannot handle it. That's where you get this burn it all doen mentality. They also feel they've lost at every turn, gay marriage, Obamacare, the fact that multiple GOP governments have failed to reduce the government in any meaningful way, true they've mad cuts but the average GOP voter wants the thing burned down. Now with trans rights and rape culture coming more and more to the forefront they see another loss. Even with a reprehensible reactionary GOP government, the culture move on regardless and that is why we see this seething anger because they cannot pass their goals of moving the clock back socially to 1950 and economically to 1890 it's just not going to happen and they get angrier and angrier about this and here we are. How to fix it I don't know, wait for them to die I guess.

Also racist doesn't equal Nazi, there are plenty of racists and alt righters who are not Nazis just other strains of horrible, People like Vox Day and Mike Cernovich are trying to push the Nazis out, so they can be horrible racists and sexists without the Nazi baggage. There is quite a bit of drama over Richard Spencer in the Alt right sphere. Alt right = Nazi, is great rhetoric and if you are running a campaign sure use it. But if we are just talking here then I think it's worth pointing out it's not actually true. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

24 minutes ago, Darzin said:

Also racist doesn't equal Nazi, there are plenty of racists and alt righters who are not Nazis just other strains of horrible, People like Vox Day and Mike Cernovich are trying to push the Nazis out, so they can be horrible racists and sexists without the Nazi baggage. There is quite a bit of drama over Richard Spencer in the Alt right sphere. Alt right = Nazi, is great rhetoric and if you are running a campaign sure use it. But if we are just talking here then I think it's worth pointing out it's not actually true. 

Seconded. To call these idiots Nazis is to disrespect History. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

Lou Dobbs Slobbers Trump's Knob In One Interview Harder Than Melania Has In 12 Years Of Marriage

 https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/26/16552362/lou-dobbs-trump-transcript

 

/Hang it up Lou, you're a fucking worthless dinosaur. You make the Dodo bird look relevant.

[all swedes are racist]

35 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 Yeah, pretty much. I think he probably knew the bullshit he had to shovel to get us there was not morally defensible, but the Wars themselves? You don't really have to dig that deep to find moral justifications for both of those Wars.

 That's not to say that it wasn't a misguided decision and a complete clusterfuck on many levels.

sorry, if you think there is any moral justification for an imperialistic war like iraq, and the subsequent deaths of untold numbers of innocent civilians that is the natural byproduct of such, you are fucking cruel and bordering on evil

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

8 minutes ago, r'hllor's redrum lobster said:

sorry, if you think there is any moral justification for an imperialistic war like iraq, and the subsequent deaths of untold numbers of innocent civilians that is the natural byproduct of such, you are fucking cruel and bordering on evil

 

Many folks would consider the recognition of Southern Kurdistan as an autonomous nation a justification. The arrest and subsequent execution of Saddam Hussein another. 

Neither of those two things are cruel or evil in my view.

Again, I'm in basic agreement with you. I'm not saying these ends justified the war as a whole. That said, there are reasonable justifications that can (and have) been cited.

[TrueMetis]

35 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Seconded. To call these idiots Nazis is to disrespect History. 

So what, we have to wait until they've fired up the ovens before we can call them Nazis?

Newflash, the Nazis started out as just racists. The Nazis are any of thousands of different groups that managed to get farther than the rest. (or got just as far in a few cases but we don't pay as much attention to those ones because it happened farther back, we did it, it wasn't as systematic, or it makes us uncomfortable to think about)

ETA: Wanna talk about disrespecting history, disrespecting history is acting like the Nazis were some unique evil and therefore ignoring how easily similar events can and have happened.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

So what, we have to wait until they've fired up the ovens before we can call them Nazis?

Newflash, the Nazis started out as just racists.

Newsflash, The words Nazi and Racist have distinct and separate meanings. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

16 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

ETA: Wanna talk about disrespecting history, disrespecting history is acting like the Nazis were some unique evil and therefore ignoring how easily similar events can and have happened.

But that's where we're at. The term Nazi has won the ideological bottom of the barrel label that one can hang upon another. You're right, they're not unique, but we don't say "oh that fucker is straight up Khmer Rouge" or "that bastard is a goddamn Mongol" We call them Nazis because it's universally understood as an evil, fairly modern ideology. 

[all swedes are racist]

30 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Newsflash, The words Nazi and Racist have distinct and separate meanings. 

distinct but not entirely seperate, and i am not at all sure you are clear on the meaning of 'nazi'

[all swedes are racist]

55 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Many folks would consider the recognition of Southern Kurdistan as an autonomous nation a justification. The arrest and subsequent execution of Saddam Hussein another. 

Neither of those two things are cruel or evil in my view.

Again, I'm in basic agreement with you. I'm not saying these ends justified the war as a whole. That said, there are reasonable justifications that can (and have) been cited.

lemme ask you, what's the upper limit of innocent bystanders police could kill in the apprehension of a criminal that you would consider morally justified?

eta: lmao at the kurdistan angle... we gonna start dropping white phosphorus over madrid for catalan independence?

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, r'hllor's redrum lobster said:

distinct but not entirely seperate, and i am not at all sure you are clear on the meaning of 'nazi'

True, they aren't entirely separate. Yeah, if you think say your typical Alt-Righter is a nazi, then you and I have a different definition of nazi. That doesn't make your definition more accurate than mine.