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Irreconcilable differences
- Thread starter mongo18
- Start date
It's taking the piss. If he is, his commitment to the gag is so extreme that he's no better than the pretense, based on things I've seen him say. And again, his republicanism or otherwise is irrelevant to this particular conversation. It's about his level of confidence that his belief is right, even though he's in a clear minority, being so high that he doesn't even show common respect or decency to victims of shootings just on the off chance that he is wrong.
Kinda reminds me of one of my favourite quotes from modern times - absolute certainty is a trait shared only by the very stupid (From cracked writer seanbaby, a very funny and insightful writer - https://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-people-planet-are-all-donald-trump/)
History is full of examples of ruling classes that misjudged how much that was. I'm not saying it will happen again, I have doubts that the masses could even win a war against the rich and powerful few, in this age. But I do hope that there's some limit to what they can get away with. The older I get the more I suspect that there isn't.
Still putting equal blame on both sides. This is where we have to part ways. I don't say the democrats are perfect or even necessarily all that great, but I can't see how anybody who's been paying attention to US politics for the last decade could argue that one side isn't more to blame for the level of dysfunction than the other. Like I said, I landed in the USA less than 15 years ago thinking I would be a republican. Maybe you're just used to them, having lived in the USA your whole life, but they seemed like insane radical fanatics to me, pretty much every single one, and they're a problem that the USA is going to have to deal with eventually.
The false equivalency of the far right.
This puts it into perspective nicely. I also liked the line from The Newsroom - "If democrats said the earth was round and republicans said it was flat, the headline would be Democrats and Republicans can't agree on the shape of the earth!"
Objective : expressing or dealing with facts or conditions as perceived without distortion by personal feelings, prejudices, or interpretations
Neutral : not engaged on either side
Unfortunately, mainstream medias choosed to be neutral rather than being objective.
We had a civil war in this country when men lost the desire and ability to reason.
I'd say we're getting close to that point again, at least on the right. Trumpsters are not reasonable people. They're tribal, emotional, perpetually persecuted (as they see it) reactionaries.
Hopefully the left doesn't follow the right down that catastrophic rabbit hole. Their tendency over time has been not to, but there have been some concerning flashes of late.
I'd say we're getting close to that point again, at least on the right. Trumpsters are not reasonable people. They're tribal, emotional, perpetually persecuted (as they see it) reactionaries.
Hopefully the left doesn't follow the right down that catastrophic rabbit hole. Their tendency over time has been not to, but there have been some concerning flashes of late.
Rey C.
Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.
Sorry, Johan. AOC lost me when in the original draft she proposed a universal basic income for those unable (which I'm cool with) or unwilling to work.
I, like my father (who remained a Democrat because of Franklin Roosevelt's original New Deal), firmly believe "let him who will not work, not eat."
Rey C.
Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.
Yeah, but even when the masses have been successful in toppling those at the top, they've often made some pretty poor replacement choices: Lenin/Stalin, Mao, Castro, et al.
Doesn't have to be exactly equal for the rowboat to sink. Even within the same company, I've dealt with plant level management at one struggling facility that sucked less (or more) than the plant level management at another struggling facility. And the very same is true of the unions that were on the other side of the table. At times, the only (and I do mean only!) thing that they had in common was their willingness to tell me every bad thing that they could think of about the other side... if I let them. I try to let those people spend a reasonable amount of time airing their grievances. But I wasn't there to judge who was worse - even if one side was worse. I was there to decide if enough common ground could be found to keep the facility open and make it viable.
All this to say: I know plenty of Republicans. And I know plenty of Democrats. And whatever the national parties are up to (good or bad), I know plenty of people who identify with one group or the other and I judge them based on my interactions with them. As for the national parties, they each have positions that I agree with and others that I disagree with. But OK, the Republicans are worse (as you see it) and the Democrats are... less worse? I'm OK with that. Doesn't do anything to convince me that I should change my (pretty much) lifelong stance of not being a party line voter though. Their guy is a thief. Our gal is only a liar. Vote for her! Uh... don't think so. Think I'll go for option #3 or #4 if that's all I have to choose from with the majors.
Something else that I hear every time I talk to Repubs and Dems in real life. A good many Repubs voted for Trump more out of a dislike for Hillary than a love of Trump. And a good many Dems voted for Hillary more out of a dislike for Trump than a love of Hillary. Course, there are others that would vote for any empty suit (or pants suit) that had the appropriate R or D stamped on it. I can see those folks out in the surf, but they're too far away for me to worry about trying to save.
And kind of back to your original query in this thread... at some point, I might send a short email back to HQ: FUBAR... no hope. :dunno:
Since you obviously love Trump and all of his policies, you agree that the FDA, y'know the department that makes sure the food we all buy and eat doesn't kill us because it is rancid or filled with maggots or rotten or filled with glass shavings or mercury or any number of substances which will seriously injure if not outright kill someone that ingests food laced/infested with them must be abolished, right?
And you love and agree with Trump's environmental policies which if enacted would have the ENTIRE coastline of the United States ringed with oil rigs and allow chemical companies and coal plants to just dump all their waste...well one can't really call it water...liquid mix of toxic chemicals straight into the nearest river, stream, lake, or watershed, no matter if that watershed is the water supply for a nearby town or major city and oh yeah the elimination of the EPA. You think that's awesome, right?
And you agree with all of the judges that Trump has nominated and that have been approved by the Senate and are now serving on various Circuit court districts across the US who either refuse to say or have said that they don't believe Brown Vs. Board of Education was decided correctly. (That was the Supreme Court case which struck down segregated schools in the United States.) But you agree with Trump and those judges that it was decided wrongly and that segregation is an awesome and great and wonderful thing, not just in schools, but restaurants, hospitals, libraries, swimming pools, public parks, supermarkets, hotels, gas stations, movie theaters, bathrooms, you think all of those things MUST be segregated by race, right?
And you love and agree with Trump's environmental policies which if enacted would have the ENTIRE coastline of the United States ringed with oil rigs and allow chemical companies and coal plants to just dump all their waste...well one can't really call it water...liquid mix of toxic chemicals straight into the nearest river, stream, lake, or watershed, no matter if that watershed is the water supply for a nearby town or major city and oh yeah the elimination of the EPA. You think that's awesome, right?
And you agree with all of the judges that Trump has nominated and that have been approved by the Senate and are now serving on various Circuit court districts across the US who either refuse to say or have said that they don't believe Brown Vs. Board of Education was decided correctly. (That was the Supreme Court case which struck down segregated schools in the United States.) But you agree with Trump and those judges that it was decided wrongly and that segregation is an awesome and great and wonderful thing, not just in schools, but restaurants, hospitals, libraries, swimming pools, public parks, supermarkets, hotels, gas stations, movie theaters, bathrooms, you think all of those things MUST be segregated by race, right?
That's why you need to vote for Bernie bro.
I think you're a closet progressive. Whenever you're ready to come out of the closet we'll be here for you.
Rey C.
Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.
Rey C.
Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.
progressivism: support for or advocacy of social reform.
Me?
What kind of "social reforms" and what does the road map look like? The devil is always in the details, isn't it? Even those of us who believe in the (limited) capitalist economic model, that we have in the U.S. now, can see the need for certain (limited) socialist programs. Other than strict libertarians, not many people would argue against things like Social Security, Medicare or the VA system, troubled though they are. But once you get into things like Medicaid, Disability and SSI, many of us see a need for reforms... not necessarily expansion. Gigantic, centralized bureaucracies just don't function efficiently - never have.
Sorry, Bernie's core socialist beliefs are against my core economic beliefs. I do have a certain amount of respect for him, because I think that he's sincere in his beliefs - unlike a LOT of the others. I don't sense that he just says things that he believes people want to hear. He was saying roughly the same things decades ago, when his positions weren't the fad de jour on college campuses, as they are now. But still, his core beliefs don't align with mine.
Just in my lifetime, the two major parties and conservatives/liberals have had numerous ideological shifts. Some people here are caught up in the here & now, and it's always been that way ("Every generation's memory is exactly as long as its own experience." --John Kenneth Galbraith) . I'm guessing that "progressives" *may* morph and evolve too. If they do, and I'm still above ground, sure, we can chat. As long as both parties approach the conversation with open minds and a willingness and ability to see the other person's point of view (and why), we might learn something from each other - unlike the talking
I addressed in the previous post.
Voting for far leftist socialist??!!! Bernie is not even a progressive. I don't see Rey C voting for him in all honesty.
Rey C.
Racing is life... anything else is just waiting.
Nope. Wouldn't happen.
Think of it this way: General Ulysses S. Grant had a certain amount of respect for General Robert E. Lee's devotion to his cause, as well as being a worthy military opponent. But if it had come down to it in battle, he would have killed Lee in an instant. Once he'd defeated Lee, he allowed him to live and didn't humiliate him by throwing him in chains. Now, don't take that to mean that I'd off Bernie or put him in chains - I wouldn't. I'm just saying that even in the most extreme examples of people being at odds, there can be respect for the other person having sincere opposing beliefs. I actually do think that Bernie is sincere. But that doesn't translate to being on his side, or ever voting for him (as long as he espouses economic beliefs that are pretty much the polar opposite to my own).
Think of it this way: General Ulysses S. Grant had a certain amount of respect for General Robert E. Lee's devotion to his cause, as well as being a worthy military opponent. But if it had come down to it in battle, he would have killed Lee in an instant. Once he'd defeated Lee, he allowed him to live and didn't humiliate him by throwing him in chains. Now, don't take that to mean that I'd off Bernie or put him in chains - I wouldn't. I'm just saying that even in the most extreme examples of people being at odds, there can be respect for the other person having sincere opposing beliefs. I actually do think that Bernie is sincere. But that doesn't translate to being on his side, or ever voting for him (as long as he espouses economic beliefs that are pretty much the polar opposite to my own).
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