Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[freeformschooler]

I have discovered that I no longer want to read internet news if it starts off as newsy and unpolitical and then midway through jumps on the political bashing train, regardless of the target party. I don't want to read about the author's political opinions. I want to read news.

@G-Flex: of course it's "more complicated". Did you see the recent interview with Boehner where he says that they'll do anything to tank Obama's chances at a 2nd term, even if it means temporarily tanking the economy?

Or where Pelosi and the democrats pulled the ole switch-a-roo and started voting Yes on an extreme far right budget, which the republicans bring up just to stall all the time. The republicans panicked, because if it passed they would have been on record as having authored a bill and attempted to completely kill medicare and social security so they voted against their own bill .

It's quickly getting to the point that the Republicans would legalise being able to punch babies in the face if Obama came out against it.

What what is this madness. Is this the kind of thing that's keeping the panicked US budget/debt/default fustercluck afloat?

[Vector]

Coverups on Katrina shootings.

So apparently Assange did rape those women.  What do you know.

[SalmonGod]

Conservatives have an overwhelming, irrational hatred of government.

I have a lot of trouble believing this, given the types of things they like to do with government.  It seems more like they have an overwhelming, irrational hatred of human differences, and have no qualms about using government power to enforce cultural (or even genetic) conformity.

[Vector]

Some radical conservatives, perhaps.  Surely not all.

I actually kind of like hanging out with republicans, as long as we're not talking politics and I don't have to open my mouth to show myself as Non-Conformist.  Feels sort of safe and clean.  Of course, that might also be the fact that the conservative relatives I'm talking about served extensively in the military, and thus have a certain residual something about them.

[G-Flex]

Some radical conservatives, perhaps.  Surely not all.

The unfortunate thing about current American politics is that the "radical" conservatives are vastly overrepresented, both in politics and in the public consciousness. As in, they compose a surprisingly large percentage of the conservative movement.

[SalmonGod]

Definitely not all, and I'm not one to condemn everything about conservative politics.  I wouldn't say it's only radicals (radicals in this context meaning uncommon).  The majority of people I've been surrounded by my entire life have been religious conservatives, and it's rare not to hear some expression or implication of prejudice in just about any conversation.

[Vector]

Oh, I see =/

I meant "radical" as in "suggesting policies far off of the theoretical status quo," but then I guess that is a lot of people--because the status quo on paper is very different from what it is in meatspace.

[Truean]

On the conservative thing:
Privatization = better.
Lower taxes = fix anything and everything. (God knows how but it will....)
Businesses will fix everything if we get government out of the way.
It wasn't the bank's fault it was the government's (whom the bank lobbied by the way...).

I will grant you that they do love using government to push their agenda. Anyone opposed to that agenda is somehow "unamerican."

I dunno, the vast majority of my conservative relatives are racists. They really like to use the N word and especially about Obama. You can disagree with the man and his presidential policies all you want, but what is the point of calling him that except to be a racist shit?

Does this color my view: probably. (who are we kidding, of course it does, but I admit it).

And in the Latest BS:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/GOP-leader-says-give-Obama-apf-725560.html?x=0

So they all realize they have no choice whatsoever but to raise the debt ceiling, but are all absolutely terrified of doing so, because their big inflexible campaign promises said they wouldn't until they got their way. So rather than take the heat for doing it themselves, the GOP in congress wants Obama to do it instead. 

Problem: That still doesn't take away the fact that it would be you, Congress, that would be giving Obama the power to raise the debt ceiling. So who cares if you didn't do it yourself, you enabled someone else to do your dirty work for you. Great plan.... *sigh*

CYA finger pointing / deniability. Failure to admit your dogma doesn't work and we have no choice right now....

[Vector]

I think mine might be, in a sort of closeted way--my step-grandmother grew up in Nazi Germany and was in the Hitler Youth, and she hasn't been able to leave absolutely everything behind.  Doesn't help that she still doesn't speak English with any sort of proficiency.  She suggested, a few years back, that everyone who dyes their hair should be deported--and she still has a bit of a thing for a stereotypically "Aryan" appearance >_>  On the other hand, she was extremely against the Bush administration for warmongering, and I'm citing a couple of isolated incidents over 21 years of knowing her.

But for the most part, these are more... they have beliefs that I find problematic, but they're not ones I think are really uncommon, even among democrats.  Not super-nasty people at all.  I don't think they'd ever use a word like that about our president.  They come off like good people with occasionally disagreeable opinions.

[Aqizzar]

It's a bill that gives a rape victim the ability to sue her rapists in the workplace...

Surely we can all agree that rapists should get prosecuted and rape victims ought to be... no?

Seriously, what the fuck else is there to assume?

Do you really think law is that simple? You don't even know what the bill actually says. You can't judge a bill based on a simple summary of its intended purpose. A bill can have an ostensibly decent purpose but still have negative effects attached to it, through anything from shoddy phrasing to ill-conceived implementation of that purpose in general.

You don't sign a bill just because it "sounds good". Well, actually, a lot of the time that does happen, but it's ridiculous. You have to consider all the implications of a bill as it is written, not just what the general purpose of it seems to be.

I'd just like to point out that the text of the bill is available online.  I quoted it even.  It's right there, you can read it for yourself.  That's the whole thing.

[SalmonGod]

I don't even have a problem with people having feelings of prejudice, so long as they can maintain a respectful composure and resist the temptation to force their prejudices into public institutions. 

My grandfather fought in the Korean war and generally disliked and distrusted all asian people up until the day he died, but to my knowledge those were just his feelings that he mostly kept to himself.  He also had traditional views of women's roles in a family, but wasn't strict about enforcing those views and to my knowledge was never condescending (at least not too much) or abusive or got up in arms about women who did get into positions of authority.  When he expressed racist or patriarchal opinions, people could find it comical and he could be good-natured about people having that response.  I considered him pretty conservative.

Compare to my wife's grandfather who we visited about 5 weeks ago.  He spent the majority of a night conversing with some other members of his family about businesses they were boycotting (like... Home Depot...) because they had sponsored gay pride events, and they don't think homosexuality should be allowed to be publically expressed.  Anyone who didn't approve just left the room, because they knew that any dissenting opinion would just lead to a fight and poisonous long-term family politics.

Most of the conservative people I've known (being the majority of people in my communities growing up) have been like the latter example.

[G-Flex]

It's a bill that gives a rape victim the ability to sue her rapists in the workplace...

Surely we can all agree that rapists should get prosecuted and rape victims ought to be... no?

Seriously, what the fuck else is there to assume?

Do you really think law is that simple? You don't even know what the bill actually says. You can't judge a bill based on a simple summary of its intended purpose. A bill can have an ostensibly decent purpose but still have negative effects attached to it, through anything from shoddy phrasing to ill-conceived implementation of that purpose in general.

You don't sign a bill just because it "sounds good". Well, actually, a lot of the time that does happen, but it's ridiculous. You have to consider all the implications of a bill as it is written, not just what the general purpose of it seems to be.

I'd just like to point out that the text of the bill is available online.  I quoted it even.  It's right there, you can read it for yourself.  That's the whole thing.

Damn, I missed that. It's not bad, although I'm not sure why it has to be limited to the specific crimes mentioned.

At any rate, KaelGotDwarves didn't seem to be arguing from the perspective of knowing what the bill says, so my point stands in that regard.

[Truean]

I don't really understand why we don't invest in massive public works.

We've got a shitty housing industry, which means tons of out of work construction workers. We've got roads and bridges that are falling apart. Concrete is a domestically produced product. Yeah, there would be a significant portion of debt, but what are we gonna do? Not maintain the roads until they just crumble?

[Nadaka]

I don't really understand why we don't invest in massive public works.

We've got a shitty housing industry, which means tons of out of work construction workers. We've got roads and bridges that are falling apart. Concrete is a domestically produced product. Yeah, there would be a significant portion of debt, but what are we gonna do? Not maintain the roads until they just crumble?

Actually, that is exactly what we have been doing for the last 30 years.

[ggamer]

It's a bill that gives a rape victim the ability to sue her rapists in the workplace...

Surely we can all agree that rapists should get prosecuted and rape victims ought to be... no?

Seriously, what the fuck else is there to assume?

There's the favorite GOP strawman: "One person might somehow abuse this law and sue a poor, innocent, defenseless corporation injustly. So no one should have the power to sue any corporation."

That's pretty much deregulation and "tort reform" in a nutshell.

Well, it is tragic that all these women go unnoticed by the law.

But think about how many bullshit class-action lawsuits there are?

What's to stop a poor woman from claiming that John McCain raped her? You know that as soon as the bill would be passed, about a hundred women would claim these things and lie about them

And that, good sir/madam, PISSES MY RIGHT THE FUCK OFF.

There are Women, probably into the hundreds that get raped by buisnessmen and don't get a case in court, yet there are THOUSANDS MORE who would gladly lie to get a settlement.

It makes me so mad.

Conservatives have an overwhelming, irrational hatred of government.

I love how they say they love this country but they absolutely refuse to pay for it.

YOu know what that's called? GENERALIZATION.

How about I say all liberals are basically the same as communists? They're on the same side of the political spectrum. It would be just as fair as saying some arbitrary fucking statement like "Conservatives hate America".