Excellent advice. I would pair it with listening to Tenacious-D. Life is rather ridiculous why not slap an exponent on it?
After typing that I have an urge to listen to Dio.
I am glad I have you on ignore so i didn’t have to read that. ;)
Right on! We’re the last in liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine
My winning formula:
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Get your political news from The Daily Show and Google News.
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Pretend the P&R Forum doesn’t exist, just as you pretend that news articles and YouTube videos don’t have comments at the bottom.
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Put the people on your Facebook feed who have completely opposite sociopolitical views, and who frequently feel the need to broadcast them, on mute. Except Brad Wardell, who you keep on “show all posts” so you don’t get overly complacent and forget those people are out there and must be watched until you figure out a way to destroy their God-given Second-Amendment rights and disarm them.
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Enjoy Qt3’s fine gaming, movie, book, hardware, and everything else forums at a nice, calm pulse-rate.
Normally I think I’m British, most of you are American and something gets lost in the translation :)
Also I find reading it, typing up my reply and then stopping reading it again and realising I’ve calmed down and don’t bother posting the crap I’ve just written. I can always tell when I don’t do this as I end up apologising for saying something crap or full of shit.
Reflection is important before replying.
Coward! ;)
I actually wasn’t posting this to say I’m upset with any posters here or with P&R. Reading/watching news reports has just been so awful when I look at America. That there can be so much evil and intolerance here is very upsetting to me - especially when there are countries like those in Northern Europe where the nutbag % is so low compared to here. I know no country is perfect, but America is so messed up and there are great examples of how we could make life so much better.
I can imagine that if you are that decent normal progressive thinking american citizen, then yes what you see around you must be pretty upsetting. Take a breath, and follow a bunch of advice you see here (that is good).
People can get manipulated into believing all sorts of things, i find the american media is especially tenacious at doing this, keeping it in the context of happening in a free open democratic society. So the best thing you can do is turn that shit off. Don’t add your +1 to their viewing figures or whatever it costs per year to pay company X for the privilege of being brain-washed.
I think once you get out of that particular loop you can start to see people for what they basically, mostly are, good decent people, that like yourself would rather America sticks to it founding vision, and be that beacon in the world, rather than the hijacked america that is the plaything of the Elite and ultra wealthy, and all the global crap that flows from that.
There were specific and good reasons why you guys had your revolution because of us (the uk), and i think that is all so lost in the mists of time in terms of you now becoming what we once were, which is why i am passionate about these types of discussions. We were arseholes back then (as a nation).
if you are that decent normal progressive thinking american citizen
yea, right…there are so few.
I think part of your outrage comes from your primary assumption that people you disagree with hold such repugnant views
People who would would literally see people languish and die to keep their own power and wealth at an obscene level
The idea of dehumanizing and ascribing nefarious world views to people that disagree with you politically is not new or unique. I would recommend stepping back and assuming positive intent and that they might just have different values than you.You could spend time to try to better understand those values instead of interpreting them through your worldview lens.
Just be glad you don’t live in a genuine shithole like Romania or the UK.
Or Texas.
Yeah!
^^^
Scuzz - there are tons of wonderful & great people in this country. But so much of their effort and money is undercut by the very things I mentioned above. And the reason for this entire thread is summed up by the link above. We KNOW the solution. Single payer healthcare system would cut our deficit and make healthcare way cheaper, teaching/providing proper birth control instead of abstinence-only education would fix the teenage pregnancy issues, more guns is NOT the solution to our high gun death rates. All we have to do is look at Sweden for what works. Yet Republicans, Tea Partiests, and Libertarians would rather see this country spiral into the toilet than use sound scientific logic and reason.
Texas alone shows that abstinence only education is not smart. Then Texas turns around and makes sure the poor single parents have as little healthcare as possible and the highest concentration of minimum wage jobs.
Maybe part of the problem is I feel like a failure. I’ve tried to educate people close to me, donated time (and money I don’t have) to causes that could help things be better here in Michigan.
For example - I have a cousin who I saw at my Uncle’s funeral in September. He lost his job, lost his health insurance and is potentially dying of cancer (depending on whether his colon cancer has spread). He’s only 35 years old. While we were talking I felt so bad for him and said I hoped Obama got re-elected as that would maybe give him the best chance for some decent healthcare coverage. My cousin then went on a rampage about how awful Universal healthcare coverage is, and that Obamacare was a direct route to us being just like a “Stalinist Communist Regime”. I explained to him socialized medicine was almost always a good thing in developed nations and would be a boon for everyone expect for-profit health insurance companies. He then went on to say how awful Euros like Sweden were and I was stunned. Sweden blows away nearly everything about this country and yet he thought it was a Stalinist dictatorship where the people had almost no healthcare, got ignored for emergencies and heart surgery, and died constantly from medical neglect. I very gently tried to explain that if there was any nation for us to copy it would be one like Sweden or Norway and how much better things are for sick people over there.
So now, my cousin IS dying of cancer and he wouldn’t believe me. He is $35,000 in debt, could/did not get care when he needed it, has a colostomy bag, and is going to pay the ultimate price.
He worked 65 hours a week as a chef for years, but the pay was so low (and “salaried”) he came away with nothing when he was laid off. Yet he remains a Tea Party rank and file supporter.
He is the nicest person and is so thoroughly brainwashed by the Rush Limbaugh/Glenn Beck propaganda machine he cannot see what groups are trying to deny people like him healthcare and help.
You’re a kind and sympathetic man, Jeff, but you can’t help people who don’t won’t to be helped.
JP, sometimes you just have to take a step or two away from the things that “get your dander up”. If P&R arguments affect you in a negative way, then don’t go there. You are the arbiter of what you read or don’t read. Ultimately you set your own standards. It’s sort of like asking other people how to stop your children from watching TV shows that you don’t approve of. Don’t leave it to some unspecific other. Do it yourself.
Sure, I understand the attraction to “just check out P&R” for a second. But it sucks you in. Personally I have a bad time with it. Religion specifically is my bad spot.
And I’ll be honest, I don’t follow my own rule. Lately I have been trying real hard to hold back my nasty shit. I suppose there is a lesson to be learned here.
But for you, specifically, JP, if it affects your mental well-being… if it really is a big deal, ignore that place.
You are a really nice guy. As far as I can tell. Maybe you might find another place to discuss or even just read political or religious news and events. I don’t have any idea where that might be. Because, honestly, any discussion of the P or the R is usually fraught with bile and anger.
Good luck my friend and stay healthy regardless.
I’d like to specifically caution you against talking to people you know about this. It doesn’t work. People form their worldview over the course of a lifetime. Your forwarded links and political discussions at family events are a drop in the bucket. They’re ineffective.
Preaching to the choir isn’t very useful either. But at least it’s not aggressively pointless. If you have to waste your time with this, at least start a blog and let people find you. And try to raise your children to your worldview, of course.
I don’t, but sadly threads like this turn up in other boards from time to time.
What I try to do is remember that the odds are, the person I’m debating with is someone I would like in “real life”.
For instance, you and I are on different parts of the political spectrum. But we know each other in real life. So whenever we are talking about a topic we don’t see eye to eye on, we can just visualize our friend on the other end and we’re just having a good natured discussion.
I really think most of the stress we get in online forums would go away if people just met more of them. Then we’d realize that the “person” we’re seeing is really not the real person, it’s just a characterture.
Every once in awhile, it’s good to take a break, cool down, and come back. So if something gets you really going, just take a break for a bit and remember that the person who got you upset is (statistically) someone who you’d probably like if you met them.
Written communication, it’s a tricky thing. ;-)
There are very few truly evil people in this world. I believe it exists, but in very small doses. The person on the other side likely isn’t evil, he/she has a different view. When you say “Look to Sweden” they say “Sweden is a homogeneous country of 9 million; there is as much similarity between the US and Sweden as NYC and Provo Utah.”
Is one side more reasonable than the other? I’m not so sure. Cut them some slack, they are working off a different playbook of things that are important to them. Hopefully they will cut you some slack for thinking Sweden is comparable to the US.