Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
On another note, it would be nice to see federal law enforcement and the media to start referring to our homegrown terrorists by the proper title.
Dave
Staff member
Nothing new. If they can't do it online they won't vote. It's why the old white guys keep winning and the US keeps getting more terrible.
I don't think so at all. Pat always speaks only from his perspective. "I see it as this." And even though I disagree, speaking your own opinion should never be shunned.
He rubs some people the wrong way, but I assume they are adults that can ignore him if it bothers them that much.
Good thing they aren't the Knig brothers then.
The nuance of excuses is also infuriating. "We didn't win last time, so why bother?" "My area always goes the other way, so there's no point in voting." "What if I vote for someone and they were the wrong person? There are too many things I don't know for me to make a decision."
But yes, there's also plenty of "it's too hard." Meanwhile you have people their age and younger marching through towns across America. But it's too stressful to put a piece of paper with a stamp in a mailbox.
You've been nothing but supportive of my situation?! Yesterday you spent three hours arguing, along with Krisken, that I was the one who was being dangerously intolerant and I was the one who had the attitude that was going to lead to open war, and it would be my fault for refusing to sit down at the table with literal Nazis. Then, when I was obviously upset and called you out for it, asking you specifically which words in my original post I had called out Republicans - which you were in the process of scolding me for doing - you figuratively threw your hands up and literally said
If you literally had no idea why I was upset at being called out for calling Republicans right-wing terrorists, when I never did in the first place, then you either need to seriously re-examine when and to whose defense you're going to come. And if this is your idea of supporting my position, maybe you need to re-evaluate what you consider "support." And if you literally didn't have time to understand why people are upset, then what are you doing stirring shit up?!
One of the big reasons I'm upset and seem to be posting from deep in fight-or-flight territory (I'm not, by the way), is because people I considered considerate, calm, rational people have suddenly started arguing for the point of my needing to sit down at the table and accept people who are literally killing Jews for being Jewish, literally sending bombs to people who oppose their political views, and literally want to strip people - including some members of our very forums - of their civil rights based on their gender identity; and to accept their views, or if I don't, it's going to be my closed-mindedness that causes the downfall of our nation. No. It will never be the fault of the people who stand up for the rights of all humanity that those who want to take them away, who are willing to do so with violent acts, do so. There are literal terrorist attacks happening on a nearly daily basis now, every day multiple - multiple - accounts of racism are reported from minority communities. On a daily basis, police are being called on people of color for being in "white" areas. On a daily basis, multiple reports are coming out of law enforcement officers violating the public's trust, or abusing their power. If you're not upset about this - and from your constant need to provide the opposing viewpoint, it would certainly appear that you're not - then what will it take? The canary in the coal mine's whole family has been erased from existence. Can we maybe start considering that it's time to get out of this mine?
In 1991, we had four white cops beat the hell out of a black guy on the side of a freeway in LA. They got off scott free. Now, as long as a cop says they feared for their life, or that they judged someone to be a danger to the community, they can shoot an un-armed kid in the back and get of scott free. The time to fix the police situation before it got any worse belonged to my parents' generation, and they utterly failed. The time to fix the encroaching Fascist onslaught is on my generation. I refuse to fail.
I will point out that we no longer teach kids how to do things like mail a letter, write or read cursive, write a check, or pay a bill outside of certain, non-mandatory "life skills" classes. To you it's a slight inconvenience, to them it's LITERALLY something they were never taught how to do or had to figure out how to do because they can do EVERYTHING ELSE they need to do online. I've read accounts of swaths of new voters being unable to register because they didn't have postmarked mail with their address... mostly because they've ether never received a letter or didn't know what the word ment.
To put it lightly, registering to vote is a NIGHTMARE and figuring out how to do it in your state is even worse. We need national standards for this shit.
I was specifically pointed to legislation which said that I didn't need to register to vote, because I would be automatically registered as soon as I got my driver's license. After that, it was a confusing maze from hell trying to get to the actual registration form, which you can then fill out online, but have to print and mail in - because they actually need a physical signature on file, it's a good reason, just inconvenient - because I simply wouldn't need something like that. Why would I want to do that, when I could just go get my driver's license? Why make it hard on yourself? Get your driver's license, get registered to vote. What's your problem? Can't drive, or are you an immigrant, trying to steal our elections by voting illegally?
Then the actual ballots got here, and - in our county - the sole Democratic candidate for congressional representative's name was so small on the ballot as to be nearly illegible. The county sent a lackluster "apology" card to everyone, making sure we knew that, even if we couldn't read it, the name was there.
Another thing 18 year olds don't do anymore: drive. Ride sharing is easy and cheap, especially if you have 2-3 friends splitting the fare.
Caution: WORDS
As for my stance on intolerance, there is never** going to be a time when I think something gets to be justified with the phrase, "Well it's only ok when WE do it," by which I am describing hypothetical hypocritical statements like, "To save all the brown people, we must kill all the Republicans!" because murder is murder regardless of what color skin is on the dead people. And that is what I think @Krisken was getting at, a warning that it is easy to go down the anger->hate->suffering path and become what you despise, and all that. @figmentPez even says, "There is no acceptable middle ground where we 'just kill some of the people,'" and like it or not that also applies in reverse (i.e., we can't just go kill some of them first before they can go and kill some of the people).
I don't believe "The Conflict" has started yet, but only because each of the regions you mention is busy right now with their own INternal conflicts over getting their affairs in order, purging the faithless/crushing opposition/revving up the propaganda machines. Once all that is done and they've each taken their movement from a smoldering cigarette in a couch cushion to a full-fledged house fire, though? THAT'S when I expect them to start casting envious eyes at their neighbors and looking around for some excuse to locust their way over to some other place they see as infested with inferior beings (or full of exploitable resources) and that's when "Conflict" will grow its capital C. As you said, this isn't about that one Hollywood-style big bad out there, growing in power and making everyone whisper, rather it's at least half a dozen or so. I can see them growing in strength (though I don't know which is moving the fastest) and I would LOVE to see these movements all die a-borning before they have the chance to ruin countless lives/ecosystems/economies, but my personal influence is limited to the region in which I reside. I can do effectively nothing about Brazil or England, or for that matter California or Iowa, but you can bet I'll be voting here for whomever I think will do the most to avert such behavior across as much of the populace as possible.
The things you list are also ones that "probably fall under 'objectively wrong.'" I thought that went without saying. I don't know how you then go straight to the GOP, though, since Pez only talks about "White Nationalism" and the "Right Wing." I'm with you that it's a strange coincidence how most of these people happen to have an "R" after their names, but my personal belief (opinion!) is that calling for the death of Jews and locking up children are actually NOT core tenets of the Republican Party, rather that the party itself was infiltrated/corrupted/controlled by (WN/RW) people who used its influence to place themselves (and their drinking buddies) in places of power where they could better effect their nefarious plans. The rest of the party? Pressured to toe the purported party line or else exiled from the enclave, much like a Chrysler plant employee would be if he refused to trade in the Ford Festiva he is seen driving to work every day. Still reprehensible behavior on their part, I agree, though I doubt the ones being cowed see it as anything other than extortion, really.
And as for my advice, yes, I do support you. You've suffered enough, I don't believe you deserve to suffer more. I hope my advice is useful, and helps you avoid potentially painful pitfalls that might make things worse as a result of your trying to make them better.
My opinions (the opinions that I hold and which belong to me) on epithets and perjoratives depend heavily on context. I find "Koch-suckers" to be not a simple gay slur, but a clever construct which carries a lot of inferred meaning packed into it, the same way people might talk about "Massholes" or "Republican'ts." You may find the term offensive, and that's completely ok. The speaker could even mean some third thing that neither of us considered, but what we can all agree on is that the speaker must have some sort of beef with the person being described in order to have chosen to use it in the first place. Nobody is asking you to sit down and drink tea with these people and treat them as equals, all they are asking is for you to not stoop to their level and/or give them ammunition for their cause (either by being baited into something or just losing your cool and getting told, "See? I told you people like him never listen!")
And for what it's worth, I don't believe the ship has sailed on what I'll call "cop reform," but I agree with you that avoiding National Fascism is the higher priority right now, and Local Fascism will have to come later. When the number of "honest mistakes" (like ballot "misprints" and the like) gets to be SO LARGE, that really starts to suggest that they are neither honest, nor mistakes.
You already know I'm an intelligent, rational, sane human being (to the peanut gallery: yes, really), moreso than the average, probably even moreso than you give me credit for. I have an almost pathological need to be fair and just, to the point where I routinely pass up chances to advance my own interests or enrich my personal experience just because I feel it would be wrong to do so at another's expense. And strange as it may seem, I do not enjoy hurting other people's feelings (with the occasional extremely rare exception, but that has to be earned), so if you (or really if anyone around here) read something I post and think, "That sounds uncharacteristically hostile and/or insulting to me," then please for God's sake ASK about it before assuming I've gone insane/put you on my shit list.
Or, y'know, there's always PMs. My schedule is garbage, though, so if I take a long time to answer, it's more likely I'm just working 12hrs/day for a week, or else I'm agonizing over the wording in my response to try and minimize the chance that I'll be misconstrued.
--Patrick
*Go ahead, @Gruebeard , I know you want to.
**Except for those times when I do without realizing it (because I'm human!), but if pointed out, I guarantee I'll say, "You're right, I guess I shouldn't be doing that."
What I'm upset about is that, when I say "I think X is being stupid," the next post is someone (not always you) saying, "Why do you hate X so much?/Why do you want X to be dead?" (not real, just an example), and I am tired, SO tired of having to go back and explain myself because e.g. I chose to say "like" instead of "as" and so people think this means I must "like" a thing, or some other misinterpretation. The thing I don't have the time for is having to go back and clarify something that I thought was as obvious as rain falling downwards but it turns out what people actually think I said was that puppies make excellent BBQ fodder*. Well settle in because I have tomorrow off so I'm going to make some time, and I'm probably going to get misinterpreted somewhere anyway, but I won't be able to say I didn't try.
As for my stance on intolerance, there is never** going to be a time when I think something gets to be justified with the phrase, "Well it's only ok when WE do it," by which I am describing hypothetical hypocritical statements like, "To save all the brown people, we must kill all the Republicans!" because murder is murder regardless of what color skin is on the dead people. And that is what I think @Krisken was getting at, a warning that it is easy to go down the anger->hate->suffering path and become what you despise, and all that. @figmentPez even says, "There is no acceptable middle ground where we 'just kill some of the people,'" and like it or not that also applies in reverse (i.e., we can't just go kill some of them first before they can go and kill some of the people).
I don't believe "The Conflict" has started yet, but only because each of the regions you mention is busy right now with their own INternal conflicts over getting their affairs in order, purging the faithless/crushing opposition/revving up the propaganda machines. Once all that is done and they've each taken their movement from a smoldering cigarette in a couch cushion to a full-fledged house fire, though? THAT'S when I expect them to start casting envious eyes at their neighbors and looking around for some excuse to locust their way over to some other place they see as infested with inferior beings (or full of exploitable resources) and that's when "Conflict" will grow its capital C. As you said, this isn't about that one Hollywood-style big bad out there, growing in power and making everyone whisper, rather it's at least half a dozen or so. I can see them growing in strength (though I don't know which is moving the fastest) and I would LOVE to see these movements all die a-borning before they have the chance to ruin countless lives/ecosystems/economies, but my personal influence is limited to the region in which I reside. I can do effectively nothing about Brazil or England, or for that matter California or Iowa, but you can bet I'll be voting here for whomever I think will do the most to avert such behavior across as much of the populace as possible.
The things you list are also ones that "probably fall under 'objectively wrong.'" I thought that went without saying. I don't know how you then go straight to the GOP, though, since Pez only talks about "White Nationalism" and the "Right Wing." I'm with you that it's a strange coincidence how most of these people happen to have an "R" after their names, but my personal belief (opinion!) is that calling for the death of Jews and locking up children are actually NOT core tenets of the Republican Party, rather that the party itself was infiltrated/corrupted/controlled by (WN/RW) people who used its influence to place themselves (and their drinking buddies) in places of power where they could better effect their nefarious plans. The rest of the party? Pressured to toe the purported party line or else exiled from the enclave, much like a Chrysler plant employee would be if he refused to trade in the Ford Festiva he is seen driving to work every day. Still reprehensible behavior on their part, I agree, though I doubt the ones being cowed see it as anything other than extortion, really.
And as for my advice, yes, I do support you. You've suffered enough, I don't believe you deserve to suffer more. I hope my advice is useful, and helps you avoid potentially painful pitfalls that might make things worse as a result of your trying to make them better.
My opinions (the opinions that I hold and which belong to me) on epithets and perjoratives depend heavily on context. I find "Koch-suckers" to be not a simple gay slur, but a clever construct which carries a lot of inferred meaning packed into it, the same way people might talk about "Massholes" or "Republican'ts." You may find the term offensive, and that's completely ok. The speaker could even mean some third thing that neither of us considered, but what we can all agree on is that the speaker must have some sort of beef with the person being described in order to have chosen to use it in the first place. Nobody is asking you to sit down and drink tea with these people and treat them as equals, all they are asking is for you to not stoop to their level and/or give them ammunition for their cause (either by being baited into something or just losing your cool and getting told, "See? I told you people like him never listen!")
And for what it's worth, I don't believe the ship has sailed on what I'll call "cop reform," but I agree with you that avoiding National Fascism is the higher priority right now, and Local Fascism will have to come later. When the number of "honest mistakes" (like ballot "misprints" and the like) gets to be SO LARGE, that really starts to suggest that they are neither honest, nor mistakes.
You already know I'm an intelligent, rational, sane human being (to the peanut gallery: yes, really), moreso than the average, probably even moreso than you give me credit for. I have an almost pathological need to be fair and just, to the point where I routinely pass up chances to advance my own interests or enrich my personal experience just because I feel it would be wrong to do so at another's expense. And strange as it may seem, I do not enjoy hurting other people's feelings (with the occasional extremely rare exception, but that has to be earned), so if you (or really if anyone around here) read something I post and think, "That sounds uncharacteristically hostile and/or insulting to me," then please for God's sake ASK about it before assuming I've gone insane/put you on my shit list.
Or, y'know, there's always PMs. My schedule is garbage, though, so if I take a long time to answer, it's more likely I'm just working 12hrs/day for a week, or else I'm agonizing over the wording in my response to try and minimize the chance that I'll be misconstrued.
--Patrick
*Go ahead, @Gruebeard , I know you want to.
**Except for those times when I do without realizing it (because I'm human!), but if pointed out, I guarantee I'll say, "You're right, I guess I shouldn't be doing that."
When I don't know something, I look it up. There's no way the people who do everything online aren't aware of Google.
I don't feel the 28-year-olds in that article have an excuse.
Reading this entire page has made me want to scream.
Instead I'll post this song from my favorite band released recently. It's literally become the first thing I think of when I look at politics on the internet lately.
By the by? I do consider cock sucker a classless slur.
Also, the cognitive dissonance happening in certain folk is fucking astounding.
Instead I'll post this song from my favorite band released recently. It's literally become the first thing I think of when I look at politics on the internet lately.
Daily reminder that Rep Scott King, of Iowa, self-identified Republican Congressman, recently toured Auschwitz and, afterward, expressed that the Nazis couldn't have been all bad and he'd like to hear their views on the matter has as yet been called out for his comments by only one single member of the Republican party's leadership (congratulations Rep Stivers, for not being an unmitigated ass), and not by any member of their elected rank-and-file officials. Oh, and yesterday he doubled down on his stance by claiming that the attack on the synagogue in Pittsburgh was a false-flag attack aimed at undermining president Trump and getting him impeached.
Wait, what?
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2018/oct/26/rep-matt-shea-takes-credit-criticism-for-document-/
Washington state Rep. Matt Shea is waaaaay into writing manifestos documenting reasons for holy wars in which all non-Christians are killed.
Washington state Rep. Matt Shea is waaaaay into writing manifestos documenting reasons for holy wars in which all non-Christians are killed.
Oh, good... he also likes to brandish firearms for which he doesn't have legal permits at fellow motorists, was disarmed by a commanding officer while serving in Iraq for anger management issues, referred to the press as "those dirty, godless, hateful people," and branded the Southern Poverty Law Center "the most dangerous organization in this country." Too bad he's never been held accountable for any of his actions. His charge of brandishing a firearm in a way to alarm others was reduced to carrying a pistol without a legal permit, and then dropped entirely. But, what can you say? He served in the armed forces. He's a hero.
Writer for Louisville, KY paper goes to gun show hoping to talk to responsible gun owners about their feelings regarding recent hate crime in Louisville and shooting at Tree of Life Synagogue; instead finds KKK robes, Christmas ornaments featuring swastikas for sale. Head of State Fair board, who own the property where the event was held, says that banning sale of all hate speech materials on their property would be going too far.
President Launches new Ad Stating that Democrats are Bringing Caravan of Immigrants to US to Kill Cops.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin to be First State Allowed to Charge Medicaid Recipients More Based on Behaviors the State Deems "Risky."
Wisconsin will now be the first (of many, I'm sure) state in the nation to decide that people don't deserve health care based on their weight, drinking habits, and whether or not they've ever used any illicit drugs.
Oh, and just for the perfect end to the perfect trifecta of rage-inducing morning news:
Delta Airlines Accused of Racially Profiling Multiple Black Doctors on Flights - even after one of the doctors showed her credentials, twice.
Meanwhile, Wisconsin to be First State Allowed to Charge Medicaid Recipients More Based on Behaviors the State Deems "Risky."
Even the Trump Administration thought their plan of drug testing every recipient went too far, however.
Wisconsin will now be the first (of many, I'm sure) state in the nation to decide that people don't deserve health care based on their weight, drinking habits, and whether or not they've ever used any illicit drugs.
Oh, and just for the perfect end to the perfect trifecta of rage-inducing morning news:
Delta Airlines Accused of Racially Profiling Multiple Black Doctors on Flights - even after one of the doctors showed her credentials, twice.
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Not only that, but one of the most accredited doctors in one of the best (top 5) hospitals in the entire goddamn country.
So long as you don't eat them well done, it's totally cool that you dine on BBQ puppies.
This isn’t technically politics-related, but I just want to say I get royally pissed whenever anyone advertises how much they love negative selection in general, and I think that any company who encourages/promotes it should be allowed to go bankrupt once their profit-motivated stupidity bites them in the ass.
“Insurance” is a process whereby multiple entities contribute small, presumably affordable slices into a pool against the eventuality that they may need to unexpectedly withdraw a large amount in the future to avoid being somehow ruined. This process BY DEFINITION gets more effective as more people contribute, so ideally you want as many people participating as possible in order to spread the payouts over a large base.
Some people claim this isn’t fair, and turns out those people are almost always the ones with the lowest risk. TOUGH SHIT. The ideal insurance product does not favor anyone over anyone else. For maximum efficiency, it must be blindly agnostic in order to minimize the buy-in cost and maximize the benefit. This is not open for debate, it is pure mathematics. Anyone who says otherwise (such as by offering to “reward” people who actively work to minimize their individual risk, for instance) is trying to play favorites and shift the costs of that privileged minority onto the backs of those who really need the insurance. e.g. “I don’t know why I’m mandated to buy some kind of health insurance.” Because the more people who buy it, the cheaper it gets, that’s why!
What is supposed to happen is that any company that actively chases away some segment of its contributors will go out of business once they choke off enough of their supply that they can’t make their expenses. And this is the part that I don’t get, because the instant any provider announces, “we like you people, you make our job easier, you get to pay less” while at the same time telling a different group that “It is getting harder to provide adequate coverage at our current rates so your prices are going to have to increase, sorry,” the non-special people should react by immediately jumping ship to some other provider, forcing that short-sighted provider to now somehow make its payouts solely via the newly-constricted contributions of the privileged people they decided to keep, and then die the death of the greedy when they are forced to break down and tell the privileged group that their rates have to go back up, and are met with “You told us we were special, and now this? We’re leaving.”
Now I know that the reason this doesn’t happen in real life is that every insurance industry is a morass of complicated legal junk and paperwork and redlining and more, and that there really isn’t a whole lot of competition, but the instant any company starts making noises about how it’s going to reduce premiums “...but only for people meeting certain requirements,” anyone with any kind of knowledge of math, economics, finance, or even just common decency should immediately be going, “Hey, wait a minute...”
And in case anyone thinks I’m talking out of my ass, here, YSK that I used to work in the insurance industry, so yes, I know exactly what I’m talking about, and now YOU know why I get so incensed about it.
—Patrick
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