You might think this is hyperbole, but Republican legislatures have already tried and succeeded in multiple states to outlaw most birth control methods by redefining abortion and are trying in dozens more, and in some cases tried to ban any sex not solely for procreation with new anti sodomy laws (or by refusing to remove old sodomy laws).
How else would they enforce them besides watching you have sex?

Oh come now BOB, surely even you can do better than that.

Before Trump sniffed his chance for power running as a Republican, he had been a big time donor to the democratic party, and even invited the Clintons to his wedding.

Meanwhile Liz Cheney is a multi generational republican, with Dick Cheney's support for the part stretching back to winning his first election as a republican in 1978...

But yeah, they're the Republican's in name only, and Trump is clearly the party loyalist...

Unless you redefine republican as Trump loyalist, none of this makes any sense and is straight up madness.

I do not share your opinion. Provided Bob isn't in-fact a Russian troll, he's still an American.

Pop quiz, which is the best political party?
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Trick question, the best party in America is America.

“We’re so glad to see so many of you lovely people here tonight. And we would especially like to welcome all the representatives of Illinois’s law enforcement community that have chosen to join us here in the Palace Hotel Ballroom at this time. We certainly hope you all enjoy the show. And remember, people, that no matter who you are and what you do to live, thrive and survive, there’re still some things that makes us all the same. You. Me. Them. Everybody. Everybody.”






That said,

They'll get their own misery when they feel the policy they helped create begin to affect them. Trust me, it doesn't need help. My dad is scrambling trying to save for his retirement at 65 and scoffs at the idea of the stimulus checks he got, refuses to cash the "biden bucks"

Let me tell you. Jeff Bezos? Mark Zuckerburg? They don't give a shit about moral quandaries when offered free money, they take it, happily.
If you're pulling down millions every year and cook the books a bit, that's "smart." Walk in to a social security office with a baby on your arm a day early, that's "criminal," (almost like stealing).

Do that enough + a bunch of VERY-MUCH-NOT billionaires voting for it and u have the republican party.


-----------------

I also don't care for the malformed logic they practice. Another republican acquaintance of mine called me a "segregationist" because I said trans-athletes should be able to play on the team of their self identified sex.

Whether you agree with me on that or not, me saying that they SHOULD play on an integrated team does NOT make me a segregationist, unless you completely redefine the word.

------------------




Finally, I do agree there is some room for some anger. I don't like it when the GOP or their sycophants go on a "Let's take rights away from someone today, AS A TEAM!"

When the message is the OPPOSITE of "There are still some things that make us all the same," it's infuriating. Because if it can happen to them, it can happen to you.

Take what's happening with their complaints of "cancel culture"
Coca Cola, Disney, etc etc private companies and bakeries

The new and improved supreme court helped establish that private businesses can discriminate against you based on a genuine philosophical or religious belief. Bakery vs the gay couple "TAKE THAT, GAYS!!!"

They didn't realize that that meant ALL businesses could now do that. But again, if it happens to them, it can happen to you.

Bob here is like one of the fans throwing garbage on the field when Jackie Robinson gets up to bat. "WHY DON'T YOU JUST GET YOUR OWN NEGRO -ERR TRANS LEAGUE?"


He truly doesn't know he's being manipulated.



p.s. https://www.npr.org/2018/06/04/605003519/supreme-court-decides-in-favor-of-baker-over-same-sex-couple-in-cake-shop-case

Now, it's easy to point out "LOOK!!! no no no it's not!!! see! it says right here, they CANT just do it if you're not this specific baker." That's not stopping this guy from 6 days ago

https://w ww.whas11.co (link too long) m/article/news/investigations/focus/radcliff-kentucky-tax-preparer-refusing-business-to-lgbtq-couples/417-c2575ded-feed-45d8-b6f7-49016ec9eba3

made a tiny^ https://tinyurl.com/myd5ubrc

@newtboy
-Including race as a determining factor in your admission score
as a 'liberal' ideal
This IS happening broadly, link to how and arguments for why it is 'good'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/03/harvard-beat-an-effort-end-its-use-race-factor-admissions-what-will-supreme-court-do/
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/race/news/2019/10/01/471085/5-reasons-support-affirmative-action-college-admissions/

-Enforcement of a race based "day of absence" where based on your race you were to be 'kicked off' campus for the day
Specifically the day of absence was at evergreen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_State_College#2017_protests
Similarly reverse racist attitudes though are common enough, like chasing out a student journalist here for simply covering an event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kVGtqp7usw

-"deplatforming" people for having dissenting opinions
Jordan Peterson is the biggest example, but my local uni has also banned pro-life student clubs too, so maybe I'm a little Canada biased on this?

-The entire circle-jerk of intersectionalism:
---"whiteness" needs to be defined as something inherently negative
Here's the Standford course on it if you or your parents wanna enrol:
https://explorecourses.stanford.edu/search?view=catalog&filter-coursestatus-Active=on&page=0&catalog=&q=CSRE+32SI%3A+Whiteness&collapse=

---"Racism" needs to redefined as not simply racial prejudice, but racial prejudice PLUS power(you know, so only white people can be racist under the new definition)
Likewise offered at Stanford, unless this is the lone critical race theory course that doesn't champion the above prejudice+power definition.
https://law.stanford.edu/courses/critical-race-theory/

---"systemic racism" getting defined as anything with unequal outcomes, so if asian students do too well in math it must mean the system is favouring them and we need to step in


And I'm out of time,

but seriously I'm a little baffled this was remotely controversial? Identity politics is a game the left has been playing at HARD for at minimum the decades since Affirmative Action was launched. The notion that the idea would eventually get national level push back should have been easy to see coming.

I think it's super important people recognize that Bob's point here is actually very correct.

A huge part of Trump's support IS reactionary against runaway liberal ideals.

The most blatant was on University campuses:
-Including race as a determining factor in your admission score as a 'liberal' ideal
-Enforcement of a race based "day of absence" where based on your race you were to be 'kicked off' campus for the day
-"deplatforming" people for having dissenting opinions
-The entire circle-jerk of intersectionalism:
---"whiteness" needs to be defined as something inherently negative
---"Racism" needs to redefined as not simply racial prejudice, but racial prejudice PLUS power(you know, so only white people can be racist under the new definition)
---"systemic racism" getting defined as anything with unequal outcomes, so if asian students do too well in math it must mean the system is favouring them and we need to step in

All of that filth was and still is almost universally wide spread through Academia as 'liberal' good ideas.

People need to very seriously wake up and recognize how many of the quiet folks who openly detest Trump, are also going to silently still vote Republican because of their disgust and push back at the above ideals.

What happened to the Deep State?

Also, we have a redacted 400 page report and Barr's word as to what's in there (he has a history of outright lying in his summaries, so this can't be taken at face value).

We also have investigators for the Muller team saying Barr's conclusion does not follow from the report they handed him.

Incidentally, even Barr, as deep in the tank as he is for Trump, had to define "collusion" as equivalent to a criminally provable conspiracy in his summary to make it deniable. Clearly he wouldn't have needed to redefine the word if the President wasn't guilty under the standard definition. Ergo, clearly the President and his team DID collude with Russia. It may not amount to a federal crime, but they absolutely did collude. Hell, they've even admitted it publicly (after getting caught).

Driving is considered a privilege and gun ownership is a right granted by the second amendment, so i don't think the two are comparable at this time. I'm all for making gun ownership a privilege, but assume that would entail amending/redefining or removing the second amendment. Someone correct me if i'm wrong about this.

I was hesitant to vote on it but given the length and the fact that it did go into the fact that the driver was never charged, I decided to give it a pass on possibly being snuff.

I do think we need to redefine the snuff rule though. It is very subjective except for a really blatant case.

I normally don't like jumping in to these political fights, but come on, please stop propagating the term "fake news" as a term for news you don't like versus actual fake news websites.

There's no way any of us should allow that term to enter in to the public lexicon the way Republicans are trying to co-opt it for their agenda.

Knock it off. Words have meaning. Quit redefining terms just for your own liking.

Sounds like an exercising in rearranging the furniture on the Titanic to me.

In a world where discrimination and separatism is qualitatively and quantitatively on the rise, people in charge must be ecstatic that they can appease people without having to do anything meaningful that might piss off the extremists on the right, or "shareholders". And people are so used to being told that change is only possible through incremental adjustments that they'll eat it up like candy and think this is progress.

"People people people, if you're going to call someone a filthy tranny and throw fast food at xem on public transport, at least use the proper pronoun when you verbally abuse xem."

When there's a hole in the boat and you're taking on water, the least of your concerns should be about what language you use to describe the in-rushing water or shape of the hole, nor arguing over the colour of the material you use to repair it.

I'm sure some people will see this as a victory. Until next time they apply for a job and not get hired due to transphobia. And the manager of the company, with a gleam in their eye, begins the rejection letter with 'Dear bun/bunself', then sniggers to themselves and says "fucking trannies."

What I'm trying to say was summed nicely in a tweet i saw the other day:
ALTRIGHT/NEO NAZI: your all going to the gas chambers!!!
NEOLIBERAL: you're*

If this is the extent of what activism is able to achieve, i should say that the establishment/elite have won by pacifying and declawing the protesters. It's no longer about breaking the shackles of oppression. We can't go around breaking shackles everywhere - think of the effect on the economy? And what about people getting hit by shrapnel? No, instead the LGBTQ community will be given multi coloured chains, the black community will be given slightly longer chains, and we'll pad the shackles with silk so that everyone is much more comfortable. Don't complain about the concept of being chained, instead complain that your chain is not as nice as the next guy's chain.

It's as though the great struggle of protest and civil disobedience has been taken over by the liberal intelligentsia, and the worst kind of discrimination faced by a 20 year old middle-class university student with rainbow coloured dreadlocks and a nose piercing is the letter they receive about their student loan that begins "dear sir/madam". So they go out and march about it and think they've made progress when they get their own pronoun. In their life, in their experiences, they are treated equally in other respects, so they think they ARE fighting inequality.

But for the working class male or female transsexual who gets filthy looks and a seat isolated by themselves on public transport, to travel to their entry level job where they've been skipped over for promotion for not looking the part, or getting the right level of respect from the trans-phobic staff, getting snide whispered comments from customers about the size of their hands, getting abuse yelled at them as they travel to have a night out at the ONLY trans-friendly bar within a 20 mile radius....... I get the feeling that receiving a letter with the correct pronoun isn't exactly going to change their fucking lives.

To remove a weed, you go for the roots. Some wanker calling you him/her when you prefer bun/bunself is not the root of this problem. The problem is that they are trans-phobic, not the language - which is just the tool they use to discriminate against you. To change the language and think that you've won is a bit like redefining room temperature and claiming you've warmed everybody by a few degrees.

If you march for equal rights, fair pay, fair treatment then people are going to see that and join your protest because they also want those things. Those things will solve the problems faced by the trans community, feminists, masculinists, minorities alike! And through common goals and by supporting each other en masse for simple, unified goals like EQUALITY, progress will be made, change will happen. It is a concept called solidarity and seems to be going out of fashion, but our grandparents knew.

The objective for the establishment is to drive a wedge between groups of people so that their demands are more manageable, and they can be turned on each other. Feminists, masculinists, LGBT, everyone... can't you see how better off you'd be marching together for common values that lie at the core of what every human wants?

Wall of text, sorry... and I know it looks like i'm being insensitive. So congratulations, genuinely, for getting someone to use your preferred pronoun if that makes you feel better. But whilst people have been fighting tooth and nail to get their own pronoun (in civilised settings only), we've suffered huge leaps backwards in freedom and tolerance behind their backs whilst they were bent over intently concentrating on the finer detail of what their ideal equality looks like.

Kinda hit the nail on the head with that.

I would love to see Valve blow everyone's minds with a genre redefining masterpiece that changed gaming forever.

But at this stage, I'd be happy with a reasonably produced machining that just finished the damn story!!

There are systems other than democracy which have the kind of cheques and a balances you are referring to.

Just that not all of them place that power indiscriminately in the hands of the demos. e.g. a Meritocratic system expects its voters to earn their votes by demonstrating competence in a given field (those qualified in healthcare can vote to choose administrators of health etc.)

Democracy as we know it is a deeply unsophisticated way of attending to the problems you describe. There are alternatives that may well prove better, were we to actually try them.

It's pretty clear actual unlimited democracy doesn't work as no country in the modern world uses it. So it appears it's only the recourse to peaceful regime change that's important here, not necessarily the means by which it is achieved.

But even then, that blow off valve is usually defined in pretty narrow parameters and the political landscape carefully maintained by societies elites. Were it not, the aforementioned repeal of the death penalty and such would likely have doomed the ruling regime to be replaced by something more representative of the demos's backwards attitudes.

Hell I could even conceive of ways to just apply enough of that same veneer of democratic accountability to Sophocracy, technocracy and Noocracy, without resorting to a full blown meritocracy or oligarchy. One need only define the parameters that limit the demos in a way which demands leadership candidates have requisite qualities/qualifications.

It really could be very similar to what we have now, but with the parameters shifted to define a different sort of viable candidate.

It's already a hybrid of elite and demos, just redefine the elite and let the demos keep the blow off valve within the new parameters.

And then one day in the future perhaps, leaders will not always have to be emotionally flawed humans?

I heard the kid say that he didn't trust his left hand and he was pulling his punches -- not doing as he was trained in the fear of the moment.

I thought the leader did a terrific job with the kid.

I loved his acceptance of the tears. Paraphrasing what @aslo said elsewhere, jokingly, it is the scars that cry. (I paraphrased badly, by the way.)

We have to redefine what it means to be a "man." So much toxic masculinity out there.

Not a fan of hitting on the father, though. That was weird.

Now we need to talk to our girls like this. Be a woman. This is what it means to be a woman.

Good stuff. I loved this.

I'm sorry, but that is an oversimplification too great to just allow you to apologise for and continue on with the point.

To suggest a narrative in which all Thatcher did was close a few factories and blame the communities for being too lazy to fend for themselves or find a new job is not only naive and ignorant of all the facts, but incredibly insulting to people from those areas.

An apology for oversimplifying? I personally think you owe one to the hard working people of northern mining towns that were not only made redundant by Thatcher (with no other jobs available), they were victimised by her and then blacklisted so that they would not be able to find work again - some have only been vindicated in the past few years.

The only redeeming aspect of your frankly disgusting ideas about deprived areas in the UK is that you are clearly not in possession of the facts. Lazyness? The miners were the backbone of this country, the WORKING class - you know? Steelworkers lazy?

To some people in this country there has been no recovery, they are more in debt than ever, they have less job and home security, they are depressed, there is no future and it doesn't even seem like their kids will be able to do any better. David Chameron appears on the TV and tells them we're all doing better and the recovery is going great and they laugh at him... THEY'RE USING FOODBANKS TO LIVE. Their families eat by the grace of generous community members who donate food... in 2016....... in the United Kingdom, ex-fifth largest economy in the world. Recovery!? That's how the recovery was FUNDED!!! By taking money from the poorest and most desperate in the form of cuts and austerity! They're using foodbanks right now so that you can claim the UK had a recovery. Disabled people committed suicide because they felt as if they were a burden, because they were scared and saw no hope, all so that people could claim we had a fucking recovery. But the average person is no better off and the debt that Osborne made such a big deal about has increased. He's missed every target he made for himself and redefined poverty so that the statistics looked better!

And that isn't BECAUSE of brexit - that was before brexit. Many people are blissfully ignorant of how some people have to live their lives in this country, especially those most influenced by the Westminster bubble. Politicians and political commentators have completely misjudged the mood of the nation; that led to brexit, that has led to Corbyn who in fact has been the ONLY man in parliament to be making these points.

And they think he's no leader? When he goes to work every day he has to deal with around 400 people spitting abuse and doubt at him. He stood in parliament with hundreds of them jeering him and faced them down and made the democratic will of hundreds of thousands of people (who were not in attendance) felt. He is the only man who looks like a leader right now, the only one who looks like he knows what the hell to do.

According to whom?

They don't normally do that. They decide "well, they wrote X, but clearly the intent was to also cover Y and Z" is how they usually interpret laws. Creating entirely new law based on entirely new circumstances is NOT how they are supposed to work...but I do admit it has happened, just not often.

The Judicial exists for a reason. Interpreting and enforcing laws is what they are here for. Let them do their job and interpret laws so the legislature can (not) do theirs and write new laws to cover new circumstances or re-write old ones to actually SAY what's intended, and remove or redefine parts that have been interpreted in ways that were not intended or that had unexpected consequenses.

EDIT: I would point out that it's judicial interpretation that has given the right to own and bear arms to individual citizens rather than only well regulated militias, the amendment only specifically gives it to "people" not "persons"...which technically means only groups of people are allowed to own them. It was new, recent judicial interpretation based on a challenge to the DC gun ban that granted the right to individuals, no where in the amendment does it spell out that individuals may own and bear arms.