You're like a battered woman. Sure, he's lied to you, started wars, raised taxes, exploded the deficit, exploded the size of government, and shredded the constitution, but he still tells you that he wants to settle down and really get "back" to following conservative ideology (which he's never actually practiced in his entire lifetime), and that he really means it this time.

Nice to see you finally coming out of the closet. It's OK. Some of my best friends are Republicans.

@NetRunner, well, to be honest I'd vote for Charles Manson over Pelosi. She needs to go. But, you're right, the Repubs have typically betrayed the people who've voted for them. Their platform changes once in office. There hasn't been a single Republican president in my lifetime that has been worth an ounce of urine.

But then there's the Dems which also lie, start wars, explode the deficit, shred the constitution, etc. I don't think there has been a single Democratic president in my lifetime worth that same ounce of urine.

>> ^blankfist:

But then there's the Dems which also lie, start wars, explode the deficit, shred the constitution, etc. I don't think there has been a single Democratic president in my lifetime worth that same ounce of urine.


Right, which wars did Carter, Clinton, and Obama start? Which way did the deficit go under Clinton and Carter, and what are the long-term projections under Obama, better or worse?

How did Carter and Clinton shred the Constitution? Isn't the worst you can say about Obama and the Constitution is that he's failed to undo the damage that Bush wrought?

Oh, and you tell me, is Pelosi pro-war? Pro-bailout? How did you come to that conclusion, exactly?

Do you honestly think helping John Boehner replace her as speaker will end the wars and prevent future bailouts?

Do you honestly think helping John Boehner replace her as speaker will end the wars and prevent future bailouts?

No. I do not. Not in the slightest. I think you and DFT are so polarized by partisan politics that you comprehend any anti-Democratic rhetoric as pro-Republican. My father does the same thing but with anti-Republican rhetoric.

Blag, how could something sensible turn into such vitriol.

Anyway. If he is, most likely he will be marginalized, driven out or called a racist like Kucinich or Ron Paul. You won't find change in politicians until you have widespread change in the population. I don't know if it is possible to stop the momentum of factionalism that is greatly represented in this thread. The ability to smear an entire conversation with elephant or donkey tags as a means to discredit it for your group-think faction is the direction we have been sense the beginning of time. And mostly gone are the protections from the damage that human nature brings. Your fighting a loosing battle, but it is the right battle, I salute you.

>> ^blankfist:

I think you and DFT are so polarized by partisan politics that you comprehend any anti-Democratic rhetoric as pro-Republican. My father does the same thing but with anti-Republican rhetoric.


Title of blog post: The New Face of the Republican?

Quote from text of post: "Is this new Republican platform simply empty rhetoric? Or is the party shifting its political paradigm?"

Answer from me: "Are you fucking kidding me? You're falling for this shit?"

Reading comprehension fail.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:

If he is, most likely he will be marginalized, driven out or called a racist like Kucinich or Ron Paul.

Or he'll just quietly go down to defeat in a district that's heavily Democratic.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
You won't find change in politicians until you have widespread change in the population. I don't know if it is possible to stop the momentum of factionalism that is greatly represented in this thread. ... And mostly gone are the protections from the damage that human nature brings.

I totally agree. Everything is falling apart, all our old norms are failing. From where I sit, that's happened due to a combination of Republicans ruthlessly working to erode those standards and norms, and Democrats failing to put up much of a fight at all for the ideals they claim to believe in.

You and blankie think that's exactly backwards, thus the factionalism.

The problem isn't the parties -- blankfist wants a new party that more consistently follows the ideology of the Republican party, but he wants to scrap the New Deal first. He doesn't want to focus on things where he can find support from people like me.

For my part, I want Democrats to follow their principles and ideals more closely, and while that includes a lot of things blankfist would like (end the wars, end the drug war, repeal DOMA, repeal Patriot), he's ready to call me a Nazi for supporting our very market-based health care reform (or even just scary people like *scary voice* Nancy Pelosi!).

We need to find a way to coexist under the same federal government. Unfortunately, I just don't see how that's going to happen anytime soon. All trendlines point to escalating hostility, which is really, really bad.

Understanding blankfist's politics fail.

Ya, the violence and fervor of it all scares me by and large. Usually, I just try not to think about political stuff as of late, sweep it under the carpet so to speak. But, whenever I visit the folks, I always end up neck deep in political debates. He is extremely "republican", so it usually subsits of me trying to talk him down from a watch tower with a rifle aimed at liberals. As a result, much like Blank was talking about, in his eyes I seem far to pro-democrat for his liking. Statements like "you sound like a democrat" can be frequent and rather annoying. Not that I don't like being associated with dems, I am anti-war and all that crap, but I just hate that there seems to be this need for people to put these very ridged categories on people so they can decide if they are on their side or not...an elimination of critical thinking.

I worry, though, about this decay of conversation and, at least as the media portrays it, escalating violence. I ponder, like blanky was mostly, if the decay is reaching a precipice to which only an escalation of violence is in store. So, if the "people" don't step up and fulfill a very clutch role, politicians have no reason to. All we can do is to do our part I guess. I am bad when talking to people to talk "at" them instead of "to" them, so for any that end up reading this and fallen victim, I apologize.

He reminds me of Senator Pat Geary. You know, THAT Senator Geary.
I'm sure he'll find a nice family to support him.

>> ^blankfist:

Understanding blankfist's politics fail.


Oh? Which part of what I said wasn't accurate?

You do want to leave the New Deal alone and work with people like me on things we agree on? News to me.

You don't want a party that believes that limited government doesn't just mean less taxes, less spending, and less regulation, but also that drugs should be legal and people should have the right to marry whoever they want?

I know, maybe instead of saying one party is ruthlessly breaking up the norms of this country, you would say both of them are? Not a big difference from what I said.

Seriously blankfist, if you don't think I understand your politics by now, then that's a blankfist articulation fail.

Frustrating NetRunner win!

@GeeSussFreeK I know what you mean. I'm definitely guilty of that type of partisan sorting you describe -- I'm sure blankfist is nodding his head at that.

I guess I mostly do it not so I know who's good or bad, but so I know who's the choir, and who're the skeptics. I like talking with skeptics more than preaching to the choir.

Lately though, I don't get the sense that politics is about conversations anymore. The left is pretty mad that even with the White House and huge majorities in both chambers of Congress, they barely got half of Obama's pretty moderate platform enacted.

The right is mad that Democrats still occasionally get modest legislative victories at all, since we're all un-American socialists who want to kill your grandmother, or something.

All signs point to two more years of a really awful status quo, at best. I don't even want to think about the worst case scenarios.

LOL. You don't get to use the term 'pro liberty' and then accuse others of partisanship. Claiming that your ideology is the ideology 'of liberty' is as partisan as it gets.

>> ^blankfist:

Do you honestly think helping John Boehner replace her as speaker will end the wars and prevent future bailouts?

No. I do not. Not in the slightest. I think you and DFT are so polarized by partisan politics that you comprehend any anti-Democratic rhetoric as pro-Republican. My father does the same thing but with anti-Republican rhetoric.

DFT hath sayeth the rules of politics. They maketh no sense, but he hath sayeth.

@blankfist

From dictionary.com:

par·ti·san  /ˈpɑrtəzən, -sən; Brit. ˌpɑrtəˈzæn/

1. an adherent or supporter of a person, group, party, or cause, esp. a person who shows a biased, emotional allegiance.
   
   
2. Military. a member of a party of light or irregular troops engaged in harassing an enemy, esp. a member of a guerrilla band engaged in fighting or sabotage against an occupying army.

Only someone who is so biased towards their cause thinks that "liberty" only applies to their side of a political debate.

Worse, they think assertions like the above "don't make sense".

What part are you confused by?

>> ^blankfist:

DFT hath sayeth the rules of politics. They maketh no sense, but he hath sayeth.

DFT hath labeled thy confused when thy is not.

And I appreciate that NetRunner copy-and-pasted partisan's dictionary.com definition. Classic.

I see that the two of you think I'm using liberty in a way that makes me partisan. If the tea partiers use the word, as well, does that mean any use of the word is partisan? Or are you referring to me being Libertarian, as in part of Libertarian Party? Well, I am not a member of that party.

Would you agree that liberty means freedom? Would you agree that liberty is what a free individual has? That is, it is to be 100% free without coercive influences and restriction? So murder would also be an act of liberty. I do understand that true liberty isn't my version of liberty, because my ideology excludes things that harm other people, so maybe that's what you two are thinking makes me partisan, I don't know.

I suppose when I say partisan, maybe I should say bipartisan. How will that do for you two? Fair?

You give the impression that you believe your own personal politics are somehow above partisanship. I think it is linked with your inability to see your own thinking as subjective. I believe Ayn Rand had the same problem when she titled her movement 'objectivism'.

As far as 'liberty' goes, haven't we discussed this ad nauseum? You believe in 'free market' liberty. I believe in 'democracy' liberty. I see the free market as intrusive on the liberty of the working class, the poor, the sick, the handicapped, the elderly, minority ethnic groups, women, etc. You see democracy as intrusive on the liberty of business and 'the individual'. I'm not trying to convince you that you are wrong - because that is a lost cause - just that your concept of liberty is limited and subjective.

....and it's not just you, this is a common problem among American-style free market libertarians. They see the 'libert' in the title as objective moral authority and see anyone who opposes them as opponents of freedom. That's how it appears to me, anyway, in my own completely subjective mind. I could be wrong.

We have discussed this ad nauseum, yet I still feel miscategorized. I believe in free markets, yes, but that's not to mean my flavor of liberty is free market liberty. It sounds to me like you're trying to shoehorn my politics into a nice neat label so you can pick apart a particular aspect of it: particularly the free market approach to business.

Liberty to me is the freedom for people to voluntarily engage in activities and consensual agreements without coercion. That's pretty much it. My only caveat, which I agree is a modification of pure freedom, is that your exercise of liberty cannot aggress against other people. That makes it subjective, I agree. It's subjective because it adds an arbitrary parameter to an otherwise pure ideology.

But your idea of democratic liberty, if that's what you believe, would seem to be a very focused and extremely arbitrary freedom to be democratic. But, subjectively speaking of course, that would mean you use the apparatus of government as force to influence others violently. Your system of 'liberty' is not freedom at all, because you only have the freedom to democratically vote, but if you disagree with the majority then you have no freedom to go against their will, which is coercion and morally wrong.

It was because of majority rule, or democratic liberty if that's what you want to call it, that the US has experienced intrusive acts of aggression against minorities, the working class, the poor, women, etc. It was this monolithic process of growing government that created the corporation as it stands today. It was this process that is systematically squeezing the small business entrepreneur into nonexistence and shrinking the middle class.

History shows that Bush II ran on a platform of non-interventionism and smaller government yet increased government size more than any previous president.

Well, there was that thing with the turbaned vermin crashing planes into buildings. Even though Bush was a half-liberal who spent like an amateur one, isn't it odd how quickly the economy bounced back after 9-11, with no failouts (and the Bush legacy AFAIC, is a failure because of the ensuing failouts).

Hey, remember me? I'm the Two Years AFTER Bush II left office. Taxocrat-controlled Congress? His Earness the Spendaholic in the Red House? Have you seen the deficit lately? Government spending? Tyranny is NOW.

Is this new Republican platform simply empty rhetoric? Or is the party shifting its political paradigm?

Well dude, as elections go, you/me/we have little choice in the matter. The 'losertarians', like all 3rd parties, have little to no effect on anything. And if enough people did want to legalize the weed etc., the smarter of the Big Two parties would steal the idea and claim it for themselves. It's why RoPaul is a Republican.

The chocie is pretty clear at this...juncture. We're not going to survive another 2 years of unopposed Odumbo, the angry left-wing radical who is a "moderate" only to those left of fcking stalin. You're kicking the tires and complainin' about the business-as-usual shortcomings of pre-'06 Republicans? Won't mean shit if there's no country to defend, and obama's commicare if not repealed immediately after November 2nd, just might be the last straw before revolution.

Oyess, revolution is an option. Guvmint can't keep stealing from the productive to buy the votes or loyalty of the unproductive. Now who you want to cast as the villains in that statement is up to you, corporations or unions or whomever. The fact remains: the center cannot hold.

November 2nd, 2010 is the most important election in your lifetime (before 2012). Don't blow it.

@blankfist the impression I get from you is that your true political philosophy is exclusionism.

What I mean by that is that you seem to define your politics by taking a look at the entire school of thought about moral, political, and economic philosophy, and then permanently crossing off parts of it as you find things you don't like.

Read about Stalin, cross off communism. Read something about Andrew Jackson, cross off the Democratic party. Read something about tyranny of the majority, cross off democracy. Watch a worldwide economic crash happen, cross off free markets. Corporations do bad things, cross off corporations. Ayn Rand says something icky, cross off objectivism. If mainstream libertarians say or do something you don't like, cross off libertarians.

It's like you think if you can avoid taking any kind of ownership for any established political philosophy, you can avoid having to defend any faults people find with it.

I say this, because even with people like me and DFT who are pretty damned clear on what you believe, you often object to whatever shorthand we use to refer to your beliefs, as if that's a response to whatever criticism we raised about your beliefs.

For example, DFT raised the perennial conversation about positive and negative liberty. You, as you so often do, pretend as if it's violent coercion vs. no violent coercion.

You fail to recognize that there's just as much violent coercion under any libertarian/anarchist mix, you're just pretending that things like enforcing "no blacks allowed" policies are some sort of enlightened self-defense, whereas funding food stamps is some sort of form of slavery.

I love that he's pro-liberty. That seals it for me. I can only support anti-liberty candidates.

If you take power away from the people, who do you think will usurp that power? .....and once you've taken voting and democracy out of the equation, what tools do you use to stop the tyranny of powerful individuals?


>> ^blankfist:
But your idea of democratic liberty, if that's what you believe, would seem to be a very focused and extremely arbitrary freedom to be democratic. But, subjectively speaking of course, that would mean you use the apparatus of government as force to influence others violently. Your system of 'liberty' is not freedom at all, because you only have the freedom to democratically vote, but if you disagree with the majority then you have no freedom to go against their will, which is coercion and morally wrong.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

I have nothing to contribute except that I really enjoyed reading this thread. At the very least you're all civil in your viewpoints. There may be hope for us yet.

[/Android Party 2024 voter]

Is this new Republican platform simply empty rhetoric? Or is the party shifting its political paradigm?


I got some good land in Florida I'll sell ya, Blankie, reeeeeel cheap.

I don't know anyone who can stand Pelosi. I'm surprised she's held office for so long.