Pfft, spare me the tolerance wordplay, that cuts both ways. You’re making the claim that Republicans are hateful and to be–at best–avoided down to the last man. You say this isn’t about Trump, I don’t know if that’s really true and you’ve always been this way, or if Trump has (understandably) skewed your view looking back on the pre-Trump days, but either way, I want to be on record as saying that’s a ridiculous outlook both on Republicans and how to live your life in a world that includes them. I can’t put it as eloquently or passionately as you, but I wanted to say something at least.
Why not stick with one of the many existing, historical names for authoritarian single-party leftism? I was going to go with Stalinism, but on reflection, I think Maoist is a better match, given the underovertones of Glorious Cultural Revolution and the fondness for re-education camps.
I appreciate it, at any rate.
I find myself not wanting to agree with @ArmandoPenblade but I also find I can’t disagree with parts of what he writes. Personally I have found that with some people here (not as much as another place) arguing on a certain side of some issues is tantamount to announcing your membership in the KKK, mainly because there is nothing subtle about an internet discussion on a forum.
I do think Gman went too far and was allowed to go to far. And as much as I want this and any forum to be able to have civil discussion about sensitive topics I also understand that this isn’t Tom’s living room, it is an internet website that occasionally has the evil’s of an internet website.
I can see why some people were offended.
The GOP has always seemed to be a the party of ‘I’ve got mine’. Not evil, but very much the party of the selfish.
Maybe that isn’t fair, and certain Democrats arent selfless, but it does seem that the GOP has a very limited point of view.
If we’re going to be reductive to the point of meaninglessness, that makes the Democrats the party of “I want yours.”
Why not stick with one of the many existing, historical names for authoritarian single-party leftism? I was going to go with Stalinism, but on reflection, I think Maoist is a better match, given the
underovertones of Glorious Cultural Revolution and the fondness for re-education camps.
Penism has a lot of advantages over those other names. For one, It sounds better. Just say it out loud a few times. Let it roll around in your mouth. Notice how it it comes off the tongue a lot easier than Maoism or Stalinism.
Do we? I guess, if your a millionaire or billionaire, that might be true.
But I disagreed, because in that case, what is ‘yours’ didn’t come from the aether, but earned through the hard work of you and your employees. Or earned from public lands, roads and works.
Or gained because of society.
Those who earned the most due to society, owe the most to society.
“Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”
I find that phrase enlightening, even more considering it’s an absolute itself. ;)
Well said, hear hear.
See, that’s a little less reductive, and therefore a little more conducive to discussion. It’s not saying ‘the GOP is the party of the selfish’, or, conversely, saying, ‘Democrats are leeches’.
If I were actually interested in discussing politics at Qt3, I would go into some detail here about how the American left’s desired policies are literally impossible to pay for without chaining the middle class to tax rates unprecedented in American history, but I’m not (actually interested in discussing politics). Please don’t take that as a reflection on you; it’s more the atmosphere here and the way dissent turns into big dogpiles.
The point is that starting with ‘the GOP is the party of selfish billionaires’ or ‘the Democrats are the party of envious Sandinistas’ is not a position you stake out if you’re anticipating a useful discussion, and indeed drives off the sort of people you might end up having a useful discussion with. Clearly, there are a number of posters in this thread who don’t care, and don’t even think that apolitical interaction is possible, much less reasoned political discussion, but for the community’s sake I hope they’re still a minority.
Okay, but we can all agree that Registering your Yacht in the Caymans is a shit move right?
Rightly or not, if you literally think the other side is trying to kill you there is neither room for compromise nor negotiation. Sadly that’s what electing Trump has done for Progressives. OTOH, more extreme reactionary conservatives (certain religious leaders, talk radio heads, ect.) have literally been saying that sort of thing for decades about liberals; but always with tongue in cheek. Ever since the 60s liberals have the reputation for pacifism in the West. These new militant, not going to put up with shit anymore kinds of progressivism, freaks those who like the status quo and want gradual change right the f’ out.
Republicans have clearly been pretty horrible for some time now and the unwillingness of conservatives (in general, not necessarily here at Qt3, but in society at large) to face these things and only focus on whatever small transgressions Democrats may have done really is the fundamental political crisis today, because it means well meaning but somewhat unimaginative conservative voters will dutifully line up and vote ‘R’ no matter who they are or what they’ve said, because of the “idea” of conservativism that espouse personally and remain loyal to politically, even if the theory in no way even half approaches the practice.
If the Republicans are running Hitler, and the Democrats Hillary Clinton, you basically have a duty as a citizen of the world not to abstain from voting but actively vote against the Republican. By and large this is something Republicans, polluted by decades of whataboutist propaganda on talk radio and Fox News, are unable to do. So belief in abstract conservativism as policy seem kind of quaint when the actual Republicans in power, by and large, seem every cycle to act more selfishly, short sightedly, irrationally, and divisively; and their voting base refuses to hold them accountable for their failings. Instead the core primary voters have pushed ever more extreme, irrational and illogical politicians to the fore. And the more extreme Republicans are becoming, the more normalized these views are becoming in society. It’s no wonder liberals are freaking out.
Sure, Democrats have big problem, but they’re not your problems. Republicans need to clean house first. If they’re unwilling to do this, they can’t expect Democrats to meet them halfway.
In a sense, moderate Republicans want a seat at the table like the old days, like everything is still the same. Progressives are now wondering out loud if these moderates actually know what the hell they’re doing, and if letting them take a seat is normalizing the horrible things they’re not trying very hard (if at all) to stop. And moderate Republicans are freaked out now, saying “that’s not me!”. But a lot of moderate Republicans, or supposedly moderate Republicans, dutifully lined up and voted Trump.
And so it seems that in practice those who vote Republican no matter the candidate are not as moderate as they like to suppose.
We had an individual in this country who bombed abortion clinics because he thought it was murder and decided to murder in order to stop murder, not even the first time it happened,… but at the same time he didn’t really care if black women had abortions. Now some people might say this is all about abortions, that it’s a political issue, maybe a religious issue, and he’s just a criminal and killer in the middle of a bigger argument that has no middle ground…but you know what else he is, he’s racist. He didn’t care if black women had abortions because he didn’t care if black babies were killed and didn’t consider them human, worth saving, not equal. So he’s also racist to the point that he doesn’t care if people who are not white are murdered, under his definition of murder. You know what else he cared about, white women birth rates… guess what else gman mentioned, yeah white women and birthrates, not all women, just… white women.
Now I don’t care if we debate about abortion, that will always be ugly, taxes, legal or illegal immigrants, religion is a rough one too but Gman took his talking points straight from white supremacy sites, material and individuals and was given a megaphone to do it; and his lingo was pretty precise too, not a layman talking about these topics but a targeted and purposeful approach using lingo designed to do exactly what he did here. It had nothing to do with Trump and nothing to do with Republicans. When you talk about white women birth rates, saving white culture… now in your race wars, and it was sanctioned here, still is really because a not small amount of people still don’t consider it to be racism. So… it’s allowed.
Republican leaders and the immensely wealthy folks that have bought & paid for them are only interested in advancing their own wealth. That’s the Republican party in a nutshell. Whatever it takes to achieve that goal, they’ll do. They’ll manipulate racists, the religious, etc, without a second thought. So no, I don’t think all Republicans are racist. But the GOP leadership has no problem using them if it means more money in their coffers.
But this is not applied to things like military expenditures. Only healthcare. Can you see why some people might not take conservative arguments about ‘fiscal responsibility’seriously when you look at the actual results? I mean the GOP tours themselves as the party of ‘fiscal responsibility’ but the reality is a far cry from that.
And the net result, long term, of the GOP tax plan is that middle class taxes will go up sharply after 10 years, in order to pay for the tax cuts for the rich. That the GOP is willing to blow up the deficit to finance that, while never looking askance at things like the trillion dollar F-35 program.
But when it comes to things like improving our broken healthcare system, making college affordable, or not allowing companies to dump poison in the waterways then the GOP trips over themselves to talk about how ‘you can’t pay for that’. Things that have a real measurable impact on people’s lives, health, and safety. So the raw truth of it is that, quite frankly, I find conservative pearl clutching to be hypocritical at best. That the refusal to even consider fixing these areas, and being a partner to the discussion, means that liberals frankly do not care about your objections.
The GOP has staked out a position that any attempts to improve the lives of ordinary citizens must be opposed by all means. So when they take a position that essentially states ‘over my dead body’, don’t be shocked when they take that offer. And right now? That’s where we are at. The time to compromise or work with the GOP on these issues has passed. If a moderate, fundamentally rooted in a conservative free market approach, solution to healthcare such as the ACA is so vehemently demonized by one side of the political spectrum, when it was explicitly crafted to garner bipartisan efforts, don’t be shocked when the next step is to say ‘fuck it, full speed ahead nationalized healthcare’.
I mean do you honestly expect liberals to take Republicans seriously when discussing climate change? Flat out denials of reality make compromise real hard to even consider…
Why is there never any money or political effort to fix the exploding cost of college, and note I do not stipulate the answer is tax funded college for all? Why is the answer always ‘let the market sort it out’, when the market solution for workingnclass kids is either take on a mountain of debt (that the Boomers dictating policy never had to deal with) that financially drains you in your twenties to the point that financial independence, marriage, and having children is almost impossible, or don’t get a degree and be stuck forever at the edge of the abyss working jobs that won’t give a living wage? When that is the reality facing working class kids coming out of high school, is it any wonder that their collective response is ‘fuck that’, and that when the GOP trips over themselves to give tax cuts for the wealthy and make a woman who puts Cayman Islands flags on her 8 yachts in order to dodge taxes the head of the Department of Education those same kids get pissed off?
No, I can not in good conscience accept the notion that these things can’t be paid for. Other countries can do it, and so can we. It’s a matter of will. And the fact is I do not view the Republican Party as an equal partner in shaping the future of this country. They are an obstacle. A party bent on returning us to the Gilded Age. One who explicitly works for the benefit of the rich, and against the poor.
And it is a damned shame. Because an actual, honest to god, Conservative party that was an equal partner in tackling the problems of the day? I’d welcome that. But that is not this GOP.
That’s because Republicans are so terrified of raising taxes and increasingly a single regulation they’re willing to burn the country down.
Hilariously, this only matters about taxes. Texas sued Volkswagen for $200 million for pollution violations and won, even though Texas has sued the EPA 31 times to reduce enforcement of environmental laws.
Even more hilariously, the plan they’ve outlined to spend the money to improve air quality excludes Austin, because f’ liberals. Republicans are just at a point now where they’re unable to think rationally about basic tax and spending policies, and the US Fed can print money, so they can essentially pass whatever they want on the Federal level and not pay for it, and are willing to shut school systems and health services down at the state level so that they don’t have to pay for it. The neurosis over taxes is driving the country into the ground.
