Treason Season??

[Dartz]

I met a Republican congressman in a bar in DC once and we had a great conversation. Disagreed on fucking everything but in a fair and understandable way - an 'I get why you think that' sort of way - bought each other a pint and parted ways amicably.

[Rajvik]

Some of you may have noticed that i haven't been in the political threads recently, or at least i haven't been posting here, the reason for that is that i have instituted a mandatory "sleep on it" rule with myself that is basically that if i see anything that i feel the urge to comment on, that i sleep on that and then come back to it the next day. That has kept me from commenting on a lot of the things i see here as an echo chamber, one that seems to reinforce certain beliefs in people like Labster and Matrix Dragon

Labster, let me point something out that you seem to miss in both of your most recent posts. The US is NOT A DEMOCRACY it is a Representative Republic. We were never a democracy because our forefathers recognized the failure of ancient Greece, that they did nothing but debate and talk and thus took no action when it was necessary.

Now, to touch on something else you mentioned, the guy that threatened you from the truck, What did your signs say perchance? If they said what i expect them to say you damn skippy he yelled and VENTED at you for being the little liberal socialist green that you are. No sense in taking offense at being yelled at for either being stupid enough to believe everything that CNN has told you, or being what you are. if you believe what you had on your signs either stand up for it or shut up.

Now, on that note, you think that the conservatives are going to be the ones lining people up against the wall, you want to compare numbers because MAO, LENIN and STALIN, (you know, all those good socialists) individually have more bodies buried than the entirety of the United States through all her wars, and that's not even bringing in Hitler.

Conservatives are not the people trying to drive family's from all over into the cesspits that are democrat run cities, they are not the people trying to tie them hand and foot to a welfare state, nor chain them to the fields that they no longer own because the state has taken them to "Provide equally for the people" You hate us, and yes you hate, don't deny it. You hate us because we do not bow to your "Greater Good" and because we stand up for ourselves and do not cringe cower and apologize for existing when you accuse us of being against something. NEWS FLASH: it is not going to go your way any longer. The majority of middle America has seen someone that will stand up not just for them, but to YOU and your type of journalist and they finally have someone to rally behind that wont abandon them for political expediency.

at least that is how they see Trump, and while i am not that level of idealist, i can appreciate how he will tell the establishment media to go fuck themselves over something so inane as the fact that he's been married 3 times. Your democrat run media outlets have become to used to the Republican party nominees for anything cringing and apologizing for things they may not, (and usually are not) guilty of, that Democrat nominees get a walk on.

You want a revolution Labster? Go live in Venezuela, they're ripe for one, and maybe by going there you'll see the HELL that you have been advocating bringing to the US.

EDIT: Dartz, that is what i wish i could do here, however i sometimes lose my temper, thus have instituted my sleep on it rule as mentioned at the top. We should be able to agree to disagree and part as friends

[Dartz]

I can show you the mass graves of unchecked capitalism if you'd like.

Little mounds and gardens behind churches all across Ireland where people were consciously starved by a government - not because there wasn't enough food for them to eat - but because, somehow, it was morally repugnant for the government to provide any form of relief works to people who had gone hungry through no fault of their own. It was far better in their minds for the landowners to receive their money, than for the poor to receive the food they produced for them.

The mass graves of capitalism are not those shot in the back of the neck with a State bullet - but those quietly left to die for no crime at all, beyond not being able to scrape together enough money for a loaf of bread.

I get Trump enough to have won 200 quid betting on him to win - but that doesn't mean I don't find everything about him to be utterly morally repugnant.

[Rajvik]

Dartz:

as i find the majority of the Socialist agenda and it's sycophants who seem to think that they are going to be the ones in charge, doesn't mean we can't agree to disagree and leave it at that. For some though, it is a zero-sum game, they have either won, or they lost and they cannot stand to lose.

[Matrix Dragon]

Seriously Raj? You're saying that Labster getting death threats for daring to hold a protest sign is fully justified. Fucking CHARMING man. Disagreeing with a sign is not a reason to threaten someones life. And given how often your country has lunatics with guns going on killing sprees for various reasons, it can't just be waved off as 'one of those things.' It needs to be considered a valid threat, because your society continues to put the rights of unhinged gunowners above the rights of people to live.

But then, here you are, telling Labster that his efforts to get into politics and make a difference working as part of the system are something YOU WILL NOT STAND FOR. You proclaim that we hate you, while endorsing violence against Lab for peacefully protesting. I don't know how he feels about you. But me? I don't hate you. I fear you. You and your brand of blind hatred, contempt for anyone that holds a different opinion, your refusal to consider evidence from outside your worldview, and your belief that violence and death against other people is justified.

You terrify me.

All my life, I've lived in a small country town. I've seen people like you before. I've worked with people like you before. I've lived with people like you before. As he gets older, my own father becomes more and more like you. He blames 'coons' for everything without hesitation or evidence, openly says that boats full of asylum seekers should be sunk because 'you know what their sort is like', despite the fact he's never met any of them in his life. I've never discussed the fact I think I'm bisexual with him because I remember his reaction when my cousin came out. When I see you here on these forums? I see where he's going, and it terrifies me.

...There is a part of me scared of my father. I only just realized that. I suppose I should thank you for that.

[Dartz]

The whole point of getting into government is to be the one who governs - not to govern correctly. All politics is like that - it doesn't matter what you believe, they all want to wear that face-stamping boot. Idealists are all eventually subsumed by those who wear the boot and the boot always wins.

But that's another aregument. I'd argue otherwise that the socialist agenda' has - for the most part, been remarkably succesful where it's been employed in Europe.

We have problems in Ireland - most of them related to a government that absolutely refuses to fund anything. They refuse to pay the frontline soldiers, nurses and doctors that keep the system running in spite of itself - and then gloat about how much money they're in the black by this year. That seems somewhat reprehinsible - almost like they're deliberately trying to crash the systems of the state and those it depends on.

I still prefer our HSE to the US equivelant. I've had relatives lives saved by the evils of socialist medicine. Enough said. If you are fucked with something weird and unusual - the public system is far more effective than private. Private care here is normally used for electives, or quality of life items that could have long waiting lists in the public system. Eventually the government needs to go but while it's there it still needs to be governed itself.

In my experience - few if any public services have benefited from privatisation. Even something as simple as bin collections - once a private operator took it over from the council the price doubled, and it went from a collection at a very regular time to one that could happen any time during the day. People here are dreading the water services being privatised - which is why they object to charges on it so vehemently.

Our entire power grid was a socialist endeavour - this state in 1923 was brand new and large parts of the country were completely non-industrialised. The entire power grid was build by a state owned company funded initiall from taxation. It was a third of the State's annual budget at the time - and they built the largest industrial project of its type in the world at the time. The State paid private companies to build it - but it was always a State owned and run asset. The social benefits were massive - it completely changed the social fabric of Ireland. People could buy modern electrical appliances from shops owned by the State - they could be put on layaway onto your electric bill if you couldn't afford the full price now. It was almost Soviet Union level shit and it worked for decades until the early 2000's when it didn't need to anymore. For a long time, there was no market here worth setting up in for a private operator so the State had to provide.

In many ways it still is - the State still owns all of the electric infrastructure in Ireland. The State still operates it. And while there is a power market for generation - you can finance a generate, build it, and buy and sell power as you like, it's a very carefully run market and the majority of generation infrastructure - the tactical strategic shit to keep anyone from Enronning the fuck out of the market is still State owned.

[robkelk]

Fucking politics forum. I know better than to read it, but I keep coming back.

Hey, Bob, is there any chance that this quote can be put as a permanent banner at the top of all of the Politics forum pages?

As for the posts following classicdrogn's in this thread... <sigh> I have no horse in this particular race, so for me it isn't about the politics. I do care about the willingness to think for oneself, and I'm seeing a lot of parroting of party lines here and not very much thinking.

Also, I suspect the level of acrimony being expressed here might lead to issues elsewhere in the forums.

[Rajvik]

I'm breaking my own rule here but what the hell, i will stop if i can't remain civil.

Matrix, what you are failing to realize is that the guy was just venting, if he even felt half of what he was yelling he wouldn't have waited to go home and get a gun, he'd have circled the block with his truck and RUN THEM OVER. As for MY country, yes we have incidents where people go on a rampage, but before you rant and say how we need gun control, lets just look at how well that has worked for the urban areas that have it, IE LOUSY an NOT AT ALL. and yet the planners continue to plan. I can at least give Robert Francis O'Rourke props for being honest when he says "Yeah, we're coming for your guns" but i doubt he'll make it through the primary.

But then, here you are, telling Labster that his efforts to get into politics and make a difference working as part of the system are something YOU WILL NOT STAND FOR. You proclaim that we hate you, while endorsing violence against Lab for peacefully protesting. I don't know how he feels about you. But me? I don't hate you. I fear you. You and your brand of blind hatred, contempt for anyone that holds a different opinion, your refusal to consider evidence from outside your worldview, and your belief that violence and death against other people is justified.

way to misread what i said there Matrix, completely. That said, fine you don't hate us. Fear is an even worse emotion to display simply because people do anything with the justification of fear. You Fear me, my line of thought, you don't have a clue what my line of thought actually is. I watch and listen to you and your diatribe about my government's elected officials, i dont comment about yours, i keep my mouth shut, you know why, because it's YOUR PROBLEM not mine.

Now, let me point something else out Matrix, since because i find myself getting irritated and irrational i am not going to post here any more today. You say you've lived and worked your entire life with people like me, that your father, as he gets older, sounds more and more like me. Maybe you might want to consider that i came to a realization early on in my life, something that the people around you have been learning, something that you could stand learning.

i dont blame the innocent, and i dont discriminate, but i also dont coddle the lazy and entitled. i have no care about what you do in your bedroom or who you feel you love, thats your business. But i do feel sorry for you, the fact that you either dont feel you can, or maybe can't open up to your family and be accepted for who you are, that is wrong.

[hazard]

Labster, let me point something out that you seem to miss in both of your most recent posts. The US is NOT A DEMOCRACY it is a Representative Republic. We were never a democracy because our forefathers recognized the failure of ancient Greece, that they did nothing but debate and talk and thus took no action when it was necessary.

It fails at being a representative republic because by and large the legislative bodies that's supposed to act as the representation of the people do not do so. They do not represent by any measure a cross section of the population's racial diversity, or their gender, or their age, or their political stance, or by and large the issues that the population copes with, nor does it attempt to address their political stance and their issues.

This is not a failure unique to the USA. But it is a failure that is inherent in FPTP voting systems that the USA uses and that can be made worse substantially by gerrymandering and other voter suppression tactics which are heavily employed by the Republican party. The Republicans are admittedly not the only ones who have used these tactics during the USA's history, the Democrats have also, but they really should be considered crimes on the basis that it corrupts the electoral process.

Now, to touch on something else you mentioned, the guy that threatened you from the truck, What did your signs say perchance? If they said what i expect them to say you damn skippy he yelled and VENTED at you for being the little liberal socialist green that you are. No sense in taking offense at being yelled at for either being stupid enough to believe everything that CNN has told you, or being what you are. if you believe what you had on your signs either stand up for it or shut up.

Rajvik, the USA has a gun violence problem. I can very much believe that if he had his gun with him he would've emptied it on that protest. If he'd spoken those words and been shot that instant I would've considered it the rightful defense of self and others on that basis.

I don't mind he got angry. I don't mind he vented. I mind that apparently murder is a valid answer for him when it comes to a political difference. If he did not mean that, he should not have spoken those words. There's a way for such things to be resolved, it's called the political process, and he sought to deny people the right to peacefully assemble and petition the government by way of murder.

Now, on that note, you think that the conservatives are going to be the ones lining people up against the wall, you want to compare numbers because MAO, LENIN and STALIN, (you know, all those good socialists) individually have more bodies buried than the entirety of the United States through all her wars, and that's not even bringing in Hitler.

Mao? Perhaps. But perhaps you should look into the ways the USA has been treating its minorities? The conservative's policies are perhaps not as prolific every year, but their politics have had a steady death toll just in the racial violence they stoke and the deprivation of the means to survival they encourage.

Conservatives are not the people trying to drive family's from all over into the cesspits that are democrat run cities, they are not the people trying to tie them hand and foot to a welfare state, nor chain them to the fields that they no longer own because the state has taken them to "Provide equally for the people" You hate us, and yes you hate, don't deny it. You hate us because we do not bow to your "Greater Good" and because we stand up for ourselves and do not cringe cower and apologize for existing when you accuse us of being against something. NEWS FLASH: it is not going to go your way any longer. The majority of middle America has seen someone that will stand up not just for them, but to YOU and your type of journalist and they finally have someone to rally behind that wont abandon them for political expediency.

Funny. From where I'm looking those Democrat run cities are not perfect, but they aren't endless money devouring pits the way Republican run territories are. Indeed, it's quite curious that people keep moving towards those cities rather staying in those supposedly well run Republican towns and rural areas.

But, if you want to get rid of the welfare state, what do you say about things like striking out the farming subsidies? Or the relief grants given to farmers because of Trump's trade war with China causing their crops to rot on the fields for lack of buyers? Or the 20 billion in oil, gas and coal subsidies the USA governments spends on the businesses? I assure you, there's a significant gains to be had in removing such spending that could perhaps be spend more wisely elsewhere, or used to lower the deficit.

at least that is how they see Trump, and while i am not that level of idealist, i can appreciate how he will tell the establishment media to go fuck themselves over something so inane as the fact that he's been married 3 times. Your democrat run media outlets have become to used to the Republican party nominees for anything cringing and apologizing for things they may not, (and usually are not) guilty of, that Democrat nominees get a walk on.

The establishment media don't mind him having been married 3 times. They mind him projecting himself as a righteous, Christian man while, among other things, committing sexual assault, adultery and marrying 3 women and divorcing 2 of them. They protest the hypocrisy and they are just as harsh over Democrats committing similar or lesser offenses.

You want a revolution Labster? Go live in Venezuela, they're ripe for one, and maybe by going there you'll see the HELL that you have been advocating bringing to the US.

A revolution in the USA is becoming ever more likely Rajvik. Ask yourself where the people stand, and pray they manage one where no bullets fly.

[Labster]

Just going to make a couple quick points this time:

First, I don't want a revolution in the United States. I want three hundred million revolutions. Or more. Seriously, this is why I don't talk Utena very much because people don't really get it.

I've met some very nice Republican members of Congress, and I've met some others that yelled at me from across their office. "No, sir, I was not telling your staffer that we should allow more terrorists in the country." As on both sides, quality may vary. AOC gets on my nerves too, but sometimes I agree with her.

I'm not involved in Politics to get power. I just want a voice at the table, that's all. Honestly being in charge of people terrifies me, which is why I'm not enjoying recent developments at work.

Finally, I'm fine with this animosity spreading to other parts of the forums. There have been countless events that should have offered some moral clarity here, from the "grab 'em by the pussy" line to the fact that we're still keeping children in cages. At this point, it just seems like anyone who sides with Trump is choosing to promote evil. They should be ostracized, else we normalize fascism as an acceptable idea on polite society. It is not, and they should be pushed off to the fringes where they belong.

[SilverFang01]

I have read elsewhere the warning from Pericles that “citizens may not have interest in politics, but politics will always have an interest in us.” Labster, I want to congratulate you on stepping forward and making your voice heard. We all have that duty, no matter the form it takes.

[classicdrogn]

... I am such a wanker without a social persona in place. I still have no idea what "path" you think I should walk, but even if I'm trying not to be a downer about it the fundamental assessment of this world as not worth saving remains.

[robkelk]

Well, that's the wrong path. There is always something or someone worth saving, and there is always something a single person can do to make (a small part of) the world a better place.

[Bob Schroeck]

Holy cow, I missed a lot of traffic in this thread in the last 24 hours.  Best I can figure is that I hit the bottom of a page and didn't realize it kept going.

Fucking politics forum. I know better than to read it, but I keep coming back.

Hey, Bob, is there any chance that this quote can be put as a permanent banner at the top of all of the Politics forum pages?

Sadly, no, not as I have things set up on the forums now.  My banner plug-in cannot be set to be board-specific.

Finally, I'm fine with this animosity spreading to other parts of the forums.  

You may be, but I'm not. I created this board at the behest of a number of users to quarantine political discussion away from the rest of the forums, and I will not allow it to boil over and flow back into them.

That said, this thread is in the process of descending into vitriol and namecalling. It stops now.