Let's Just Say It, the Republicans Are the Problem

[Simple Minded]

Masochist: Beat me!
Sadist: NO!

MG,

try this version out, a Sadist and a Masochist (not sure which is the Repub and which is the Dem, I guess it depends on which is the incumbent, anyway) are walking down the street. The masochist turns to the sadist and says "Hurt me... hurt me.... please!!!!" The sadist replies "No."

[Simple Minded]

Both parties are pathetic, but a distinct subset of the GOP are the worst of the worst in American politics today. This is just a reality that every non-right-wing-American (and maybe some Likudniks) in the world accepts.

ROFLMAO, Ibrahim, you made my day, reminds me of a few people I know who could be described as:

I'm not a binary thinking hack (actually driven by my emotions) who constantly divides the world into two kinds of people, out to gain political power to control the lives of others.... but....... those dumb fucks who are not in lockstep agreement with me 100% of the time are the cause of all the problems. Everybody with a half a brain knows this is self-evident!

Oh.... and I also don't believe in profiling!

Where would either party (or some of the more zealous religions) be without the "Us right!" "Them wrong!" True Believers?

Makes for excellent circuses! Especially in an election year!

[Simple Minded]

Hoping you find this apology funny and not snarky.........

Thank you. It's cool everybody, and maybe that was a response that shouldn't have been posted. Happens sometimes when you are working two boards at once and you have a 'rep' to carry in that other one. Things get dangerous.......;p"...........

Of course that should have been posted...... I don't think anyone was offended..... Those types of post give these forums some spice.

Cides offense is always in the receiver....

[Simple Minded]

Lets look at the demographics of the country:

http://www.census.gov/popest/data/inter ... INT-01.xls

Under 18 - 74,134,167
18-24 - 30,530,346
24-44 - 82,211,153

What does this math tell us?

I've been saying this for years, neither party has much of a clue that Generation We is about to usurp them both in a few years.

Those stuck in the Liberal vs. Conservative, or Republican vs. Democrat, or Left vs. Right memes are missing the upcoming sea change.

Yee Haw....... it's gonna be a hoot nanny!!!

[cincinnatus]

Enki,
Only on page 2 and 3 of this thread was there any mention on your part about the "Violence Against Women Act" having some association with gay men. Why is that? Why did you not mention it in the initial post? Did you not know the particulars of this year's bill compared to last year's bill? If you knew the particulars, why not include all the relevant facts at the beginning of the thread? When called on it, you toss accusations as if anyone who disagrees with you has some beef with gay men (no pun intended). If gay men getting raped and not having access to treatment is such an epidemic, by all means, lets debate the stats on the Senate floor. Let's look at how many poor unfortunate gay men were impregnated by their rapist and unable to get medical care because they were afraid to go to a hospital (yes a joke, but this is the type of concern for women needing crisis centers and most certainly not gay men).

But don't f-ing attach it to a bill about women, for the first time ever, in an election year and have the audacity to pretend it is anything other than crass political games. You can lament all you want now, on page 3, about gay men and access to facilities. But I don't remember ever reading any posts about this horrible problem before this election year. If it really is such an issue, I'm sure some good folks from the Democratic party who are in the House or the Senate will introduce a stand-alone bill to get it done.

And stuff the BS "you're not in politics so you are ignorant" BS. I actually would turn it back on you and say that you officially have a dog in the fight now, so you're biases are now not just ideological, but personal. So, when challenged, you act like we're personally challenging you the person, vice having a damn conversation and sometimes disagreeing (the HORROR...the HORROR).

[Mr. Perfect]

Oh yes, I LOOOOOOOVVVVVEEEEEE the Tinker thing about "you're not in local politics so you have no right to say anything" or whatever.

Recall Tinker before he got into local politics was among the most voluminous spouters in the world. And yet he would deny to others what he himself did. Endlessly entertaining, that young man.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

If the party is going contrary to people's interests they will change their affiliation. It's not a complicated notion.

Who or what defines the people's interest? Leftist peer pressure is a powerful tool, but it really doesn't mean a whole lot.

People say this like it's gospel. But including gay men in the ability to receive funds from rape crisis centers doesn't seem all that controversial. Everything gets reduced to its electoral play that we forget that sometimes people do things because they actually believe in them. You know that a lot of Democrats actually believe in the principles that get them elected right?

Individuals sincerely believe all sorts of things and I'm sure the individuals who placed this bit in believe sincerely in the cause, but we aren't talking about bureaucrats pushing paper around for utilitarian purposes; these are politicians who function by forming friend/enemy groups. That's at the heart of politics and cynicism has little to do with it. They clearly forced a friend/enemy distinction on a piece of legislation that everyone was previously "friends" on. If that was not deliberate, one would have to think they either aren't good politicians or they aren't sincere about their beliefs. Since I'm sure they are reasonably sincere with their beliefs, and I'm certain that bad politicians don't rise that far; it only leaves one sort of explanation.

This is abject nonsense. Both parties are the 'Insider Party of America'. This paragraph isn't even meaningful. Not every member of the Democratic party is an 'insider', in fact, most are not.

It's plenty "meaningful"- being a member of the Democratic Party is much more prestigious and offers more power. People always flock to the mighty. It's smart. Take a list of people you know who associate with both parties: Which party has the better artists? Who has had better schooling? Which party has more members of the Fortune 100 CEOs? The ultra-wealthy (the ones with the most prestige and actual power) tend towards one party over the other. Why is it that women when they marry or have kids suddenly move from one party to the other? For ideological reasons? Which party uses contempt and which one uses resentment more often? Contempt is much more higher status than resentment...and the "media" isn't left-wing or some sort liberal conspiracy- they are simply acting out their class status. It's like if you are well educated and reading the New York Times and consider yourself conservative, you are either extremely rebellious or a moron. One party is clearly much more high-status and powerful than the other. They are in essence, "hip."

So people flock to where the action is, it's only natural. It takes a special sort of person to follow a nerdy/weirdo like Newt or an orange-man like Boehner down the rabbit hole. And the last time that the Democrats seem to lose a little bit of prestige, more young flocked towards Reagan like starving children. Like the Bob Dylan song says: "When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose." And it's just realistic.

I am really beginning to reevaluate my opinion of you, which was formerly fairly high, but you're talking about politics like a child. Everything is purely and totally about the power games for you. 'No one actually thinks that gays should be protected from violence, no, it's just a cynical attempt to pick up votes in an election year.' 'The Democratic party is the insider party.', this second one is not even wrong. Anywhere there is power there are insiders. David Axelrod is a Democratic party insider and Karl Rove is a Republican party insider, while Gary Johnson is a Libertarian party insider.

But I am sure you're right. No one actually ever does anything for any reason other than trying to win votes. Building issues based coalitions has nothing at all to do with the actual issue, no one in the coalition, not a single one actually believes in the issue they are building around, no, they do it just because they want to be 'insiders'.

Idiotic.

Yeah, misconstruing what I said and trying to change the narrative doesn't help. Anyone who reads my original post and your response here can see you flailing with this digression about David Axelrods and Karl Roves...now, besides being condescending to me, do you have an actual argument? You are very quick with these ad hominems about my intelligence and what you think about it but you can't divert attention from your actual lack of argument.

It's got nothing to do with 'hip' and 'unhip'. You sound like the sort of person who lives in a commodified and mediated reality where everything is about marketing and branding and personal human contact and relationships have nothing at all to do with it. You see party affiliation as merely having the best commercial, rather than the painstaking work of hundreds of thousands of people like me across this nation building relationships within their own communities. Loyalty, Friendship, Community, those words are meaningless, they have no bearing on politics, nope, none at all. All those old-timers have to do is put up a fancy ad-campaign and the young kids will flock to their club. People don't join the Democratic party because it's 'hip'. They join the Democratic party because they meet with other members of their social circle and become a part of it.

Meanwhile, back in reality, people join the Young Democrats clubs because they meet people who are in those clubs, they form a relationship and get interested in the political process. They participate in a political campaign once that introduces them to a whole bunch of people that they end up having a relationship with and hanging out with. They work together on issues that range anywhere from fixing up an intersection in their neighborhood to stopping hydro-fracking. They start out with a set of core beliefs on core issues and they organize with the people who share those beliefs. Young Dems or Young Reps associations have people on college campuses who hang out with people their own age and matriculate them into the organizations. The simple fact of the matter is that 50-80 year olds DON'T HANG OUT with 18-30 year olds. It is much easier for 18-30 year olds to recruit other 18-30 year olds than it is for 50-80 year olds to do so. This is not a principle limited to politics, it holds true for the Elks, Freemasons, Rotary, Catholic Church, The World Federalist Society, or any other institution.

No, there is no actual relationship or real work going on, it's just people sitting around reaching for a ring.

This is a message board entitled "On the Nature of Things" right? Shall we dig up your numerous quotes on controlling the narrative? You can try to construct a narrative all you like but it doesn't change that organizationally; young people/old people do not live in vacuums and there is a reason why the young (as they always have) can tell you who holds actual power by the ways, and en masse, they gravitate towards that power.

After all: For all this talk about the practical ways groups organize, you evade the point that people (including you, from your own words on this board) want power.

Is that why in a matter of months you went from "being above political parties" to selling out so you can "work within and change the system?"

If you are going to bullshit, you're gonna have to do much better than this.

[Typhoon]

Well MTV has been rocking the vote for decades now, and the vote still doesn't rock.
You can have them, I won't even contest them, when they start getting older they will vote for me without any effort on my part. I like results with no effort.

. . .

'

Are you running for office?

An incumbent?

Do tell.

[Demon of Undoing]

Been reading some stuff on quantum mechanics. Both the left and right are true/ not true simultaneously, and entangled. Only when individual questions come up is the phenomenon observed. It's all insane and unavoidable. God does indeed play dice.

[Mr. Perfect]

Are you running for office?

An incumbent?

Do tell.

Ooops! Maybe a little Freudian slip. Who can say?

[Typhoon]

There is a marketing aspect to the naming such bills, I presume.

While this is a marginally relevant question to scoring points in the game of Republicrat vs Demopublican,



I'm curious as to what content in this "Violence against Women" bill those who voted against it found objectionable.

Just google "why did the Republicans vote against the violence against women act" and you can find a Washington Post story about it. Evidently, after years of the same bill being reauthorized without incident, this year, for some arcane reason (cough cough election year), someone added riders that included expanding the bill to include gays and illegal alien access to the funds. Alas, the attempt to change our fate from dastardly binary choices in America to unitary choices was dashed once again. F-tards run both selfish parties.

I see. Comes across as an election year attempt at point scoring at the spy vs spy level.

[noddy]

the demographic that doesnt get any representation except token lip service and doesnt appear at any rallies or media polls is the poor suckers for whom work takes up 10+ hours a day, 5 to 6 days a week, with family and recovery taking up the precious little time left over after that.

used to be called the silent magority but they are probably borderline as a magority now .. treated with contempt from both sides as a just a resource to be exploited... and they are cynical at both sides and they typically arent that interested in hip uni ideals or anti hip conservative ideals... thats all just gobbledy gook to em.

from the outside, i cant see either side speaking to them at the moment, not like reagan or clinton managed to do anyway.

the ultra's on both sides might need to watch out if their cynicism gets much higher, silence only means consent in the short term and only fools take it that way, it can be slow building rage aswell.

[Typhoon]

Are you running for office?

An incumbent?

Do tell.

Ooops! Maybe a little Freudian slip. Who can say?

Well, it would be interesting if one of the OTNOT posters was running for public.

[Ibrahim]

Well, it would be interesting if one of the OTNOT posters was running for public.

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Well, it would be interesting if one of the OTNOT posters was running for public.

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

I imagine you'd help stuff the ballot box for the lot of us, right?

[cdgt]

Both parties are pathetic, but a distinct subset of the GOP are the worst of the worst in American politics today. This is just a reality that every non-right-wing-American (and maybe some Likudniks) in the world accepts.

ROFLMAO, Ibrahim, you made my day, reminds me of a few people I know who could be described as:

I'm not a binary thinking hack (actually driven by my emotions) who constantly divides the world into two kinds of people, out to gain political power to control the lives of others.... but....... those dumb fucks who are not in lockstep agreement with me 100% of the time are the cause of all the problems. Everybody with a half a brain knows this is self-evident!

Oh.... and I also don't believe in profiling!

Where would either party (or some of the more zealous religions) be without the "Us right!" "Them wrong!" True Believers?

Makes for excellent circuses! Especially in an election year!

[Ibrahim]

Well, it would be interesting if one of the OTNOT posters was running for public.

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

I imagine you'd help stuff the ballot box for the lot of us, right?

If anybody on this forum is elected to anything it will be mayor of some fake elf village in an MMORPG.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Well, it would be interesting if one of the OTNOT posters was running for public.

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

I imagine you'd help stuff the ballot box for the lot of us, right?

If anybody on this forum is elected to anything it will be mayor of some fake elf village in an MMORPG.

Is dwarf-immigration an important or unimportant issue for you? Please rank 1-5 from least important to most important.

[Ibrahim]

Well, it would be interesting if one of the OTNOT posters was running for public.

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

I imagine you'd help stuff the ballot box for the lot of us, right?

If anybody on this forum is elected to anything it will be mayor of some fake elf village in an MMORPG.

Is dwarf-immigration an important or unimportant issue for you? Please rank 1-5 from least important to most important.

As long as they are hard-working Protestant dwarves (dwarfs?) I'm ok with it.

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

Well, it would be interesting if one of the OTNOT posters was running for public.

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

I imagine you'd help stuff the ballot box for the lot of us, right?

If anybody on this forum is elected to anything it will be mayor of some fake elf village in an MMORPG.

Is dwarf-immigration an important or unimportant issue for you? Please rank 1-5 from least important to most important.

As long as they are hard-working Protestant dwarves (dwarfs?) I'm ok with it.

You really have a thing for Protestants.

(...I believe you are right in it being dwarves since we are talking about fantasy- dwarfs is usually used when talking about real people.)

But speaking of real and elf villages: our congress is already made up of elves, clowns and kennedys...so that line is already blurry to begin with: so hey, you never know.

[Simple Minded]

What does the Federal Government have to do with domestic abuse anyway?

If there ever was a state/city/municipal issue, this would be it.

Otherwise, this is a real neat-o thread about the Democratic talking points. It's like in Tropic Thunder when Ben Stiller's character went full-on retard, and Robert Downey Jr reminded him that you don't win any awards by going full-on retard.

Bravo!! Bravo!!

I always think it sad to see the idiotic, binary spin put on complex issues.... but hey... some people make good money at it...

Then again, I don't do this for a living, and the political animals on this forum also know you don't win elections by appealing to the most intelligent segment of the population. Lowest Common Denominatior Kicks Butt!!!

If those women don't want to be the victims of violence.....
they should either stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.... (that outa satisfy half)
or wear a hoodie....... (and thats for the rest)

Hows that steroid use in Baseball thing comin long?

Vote LCD4U in 012!!!! (gotta say oh-one two and not twelve or it ain't much of a campaign slogan...)

[Simple Minded]

Been reading some stuff on quantum mechanics. Both the left and right are true/ not true simultaneously, and entangled. Only when individual questions come up is the phenomenon observed. It's all insane and unavoidable. God does indeed play dice.

Demon, help me out here, these are the guys that work in the back of the Volkswagon dealership, right?

[Enki]

Enki,
Only on page 2 and 3 of this thread was there any mention on your part about the "Violence Against Women Act" having some association with gay men. Why is that? Why did you not mention it in the initial post? Did you not know the particulars of this year's bill compared to last year's bill? If you knew the particulars, why not include all the relevant facts at the beginning of the thread? When called on it, you toss accusations as if anyone who disagrees with you has some beef with gay men (no pun intended). If gay men getting raped and not having access to treatment is such an epidemic, by all means, lets debate the stats on the Senate floor. Let's look at how many poor unfortunate gay men were impregnated by their rapist and unable to get medical care because they were afraid to go to a hospital (yes a joke, but this is the type of concern for women needing crisis centers and most certainly not gay men).

Because I was talking about Republican women voting for it versus men. Why are you so hung up on homosexuals and won't talk about the gender divide in the vote? I didn't make a value judgment on the bill, I just pointed out that there is a gender divide in the Republican party.

But don't f-ing attach it to a bill about women, for the first time ever, in an election year and have the audacity to pretend it is anything other than crass political games. You can lament all you want now, on page 3, about gay men and access to facilities. But I don't remember ever reading any posts about this horrible problem before this election year. If it really is such an issue, I'm sure some good folks from the Democratic party who are in the House or the Senate will introduce a stand-alone bill to get it done.

But do you have anything to say about the gender divide or do you just want to rant about homosexuals?

And stuff the BS "you're not in politics so you are ignorant" BS. I actually would turn it back on you and say that you officially have a dog in the fight now, so you're biases are now not just ideological, but personal. So, when challenged, you act like we're personally challenging you the person, vice having a damn conversation and sometimes disagreeing (the HORROR...the HORROR).

I don't believe people who are not in politics are ignorant. But a lot of people are saying some really ignorant bullshit. "The point you are making is too complex so I am going to angrily insist on this oversimplification." Notice how even you have not addressed the actual central point and have instead addressed my ideological leanings or my personal behavior.

What is it about the topic of this thread that you find so threatening that you won't address it?

[Enki]

Youngsters don't vote reliably. Then they become oldters and vote GOP reliably. I like this trend.

But that isn't your problem- by the time they become old they are pretty set in their ways and are further left than the previous generation. Those kids are busy building the infrastructure; just because they don't want to pay for it later doesn't really matter by that point. It's an ablative strategy that works.

So what do you then?

^^This exactly.

In my thirties I can reach teenagers. In my 50s, I cannot. It's really rather simple. The Manhattan Young Democrats organization has grown since 2008 from 25 members to over 300. 300 people between the ages of 18 and 36 can do a lot of outreach. I know people organizing walkouts in the High Schools to protest school closures tomorrow. Those people are reaching THOUSANDS of teenagers and showing them that they actually CAN affect political outcomes. So who is going to reach those young people? The people who are ALREADY ORGANIZING THEM?

The candidate I am working with played a role in taking out Ted Stevens in Alaska, just sayin'.

[Marcus]

. . there is a gender divide in the Republican party. . .

And do you not think or understand that the same can be said of the Democrat party? This conversation is deep, really, really deep . . .