Print

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

[MetalSlimeHunt]

-wrong thread-

[Flying Dice]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 It may just be the lack of sleep but that one made me laugh until I snorted. I do agree with you however. It would be nice if people could just act like reasonable adults and not make such petty attempts to smear each other.

I don't believe that that will ever happen, largely because it is much, much easier to say "look at these OOC quotes and strawmen" than "hey look at how we really don't know what we're doing either".

Although I have one thing to say for the Tea Party politicians: I sometimes (in my more cynical moments) prefer open insanity and/or bigotry to the sort of corruption that we normally get, because hey, at least they're honest.

[mainiac]

Mitch McConnell is a very honest politician.  He's a bastard but he's a lot smarter then his tea party fellow travelers.  He also plainly tells people things like wanting a weak economy so Obama doesn't get reelected because he knows the media pays no attention to such statements.

[G-Flex]

MSNBC is on the liberal side, thats the only one I can think of off hand.

MSNBC might lean "liberal" by the standards of American media, but that doesn't make it liberal.

People giving her shit for spending money on makeup (hint: this is what is expected of women by society; the shit is expensive, and it's generally kind of necessary).  Calling her the "queen of rage" along with extremely unflattering photos that, unsurprisingly, make her look possessed.

People give politicians shit for spending money on anything they see as frivolous (whether it is or not, and the issue here would be how much she spent, not that she spent any at all), and publishing unflattering photos is done of male politicians as well. The catfight thing could obviously be considered a tad misogynistic, though, since at the very least it's using an extremely gender-loaded concept.

[Vector]

... "The Queen of Rage," though?

Really?

[G-Flex]

... So? If a man were called the "King of Rage", would that make it misandrist? This is English; we have words which vary depending on gender. I'm not convinced that misogyny has anything to do with that case. If using any gender-specific word to refer to a woman makes you a misogynist, then, well, that's pretty silly.

[Vector]

I haven't seen equal press on male candidates.

But whatever.  It's all bullshit.

[Reelyanoob]

People giving her shit for spending money on makeup (hint: this is what is expected of women by society; the shit is expensive, and it's generally kind of necessary).  Calling her the "queen of rage" along with extremely unflattering photos that, unsurprisingly, make her look possessed.

That picture of Bachmann eating the sausage reminds me of Sarah Palin getting ridiculed for eating a piece of Pizza in public with a knife and fork. Can't really win, can you?

Bachmann maybe should have used a knife and fork. Maybe smarter to get the soon-forgotten written criticisms than permanent photos of yourself gorging on food like that?

[Vector]

I wouldn't even say "gorging."

I'd just say "eating."

[Reelyanoob]

Inoppourtune photo at the right moment can look really bad, like the McCain sticking his tongue out photo.

[Grimshot]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

 This is off topic but whenever I think of inopportune photos this comes to my mind first.

[G-Flex]

I haven't seen equal press on male candidates.

But whatever.  It's all bullshit.

To be fair, Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman are very prominent figures lately.

And yeah, of course it's all bullshit, but a lot of the bullshit you're talking about is the same kind of bullshit that happens to politicians in general. I agree that gender attitudes flavor it one way or another, but if they were male, they'd still be getting flak. Maybe they'd be different kinds of unflattering photos (remember all those ones of George W Bush?), but they'd still exist. You can't assume that any bad press a female candidate gets is due to her gender.

[Vector]

I definitely don't assume that any and all bad press a female candidate gets is due to their gender.

On the other hand, the fact that female candidates (and other politicians in general) are referred to by their first names and male candidates by their last will never stop pissing me off.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

On the other hand, the fact that female candidates (and other politicians in general) are referred to by their first names and male candidates by their last will never stop pissing me off.

I have to say that I haven't seen this. I don't ever recall hearing "Sarah" and "Michelle", but I do recall "Palin" and  "Bachman".

Hillary Clinton hasn't gotten any coverage this cycle, but if you were referring to her that's more of an exception due to her husband also being a famous politician. Hence, you have to be able to easily tell them apart, and "Bill" isn't very notable.

[GlyphGryph]

As far as spending money on superficiality - anyone remember the botox thing from a couple cycles ago?

What possible issue could a third party have that would help these issues and that doesn't already have a place on our two party axis?  Legalize drugs?  Left wing democrat.  Stop immigration?  Right wing republican  Stimulate the economy?  Left wing democrat.  Cut federal spending?  Right wing republican?  Some sort of 'moderate'?  Obama and maybe Huntsman fit that bill for ya.

First of all, neither party supports any actual drug legalization. That's certainly one of them. Individuals in the party (on both sides) may, sure! But neither party supports it as part of their platform.
How about methods? Neither party supports an empirical method to decision making.
How about combinations of planks?
How about a god-damn dedication to doing their job and what needs to be done?
Anti-lobbyist/anti-corporate? Neither party has that as a platform.
How about a pro-science investment platform? The democrats occassionally mention it, but only in service to their ideology, not as a plank in and of itself.
Heck, and I'm tired right now, wait till morning and I'll come up with some much better examples.

What about some sort of "efficiency" party? Supports government healthcare because evidence shows it works more efficiently than the private system, supports cutting spending AND raising taxes, stripping government down to a limited number of services that it runs really well...