The Loyal Opposition

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Flint

projecting your image
You know what? F U C K YOU, buddy. Keep your temper tantrums to yourself.

Yep ... Thats what I did. Uh huh. Talk about projecting.
Temper tantrum? lol All I've seen is a 3 month long temper tantrum from most of your team.
Rock on buddy, I didn't vote for him either.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

I found this to be a good read.

I found *this* to be a similarly good read.

All world views are not inherently equal. Conservative thinking is, by definition, bent on conserving the status quo. It is often regressive. A shrinking, a backward movement, a return to previous points in cultural, political, and intellectual development.

The fact that humanities departments are exceptionally lacking in conservatives and dogmatically religious people highlights this reality. Psychology, poetry, sociology, political science. People who have wrestled with the human condition, the human soul, literature and art, are the least likely to give credence to backwards ideas that are diminishing to human value and human dignity.

[henry quirk]

"Conservative thinking is, by definition, bent on conserving the status quo. It is often regressive. A shrinking, a backward movement, a return to previous points in cultural, political, and intellectual development."

Which is not the worst idea when 'progress' takes you down untenable roads or to repugnant places. Backing up when you've reached a dead end is sensible, yes?

[Beest]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

"Conservative thinking is, by definition, bent on conserving the status quo. It is often regressive. A shrinking, a backward movement, a return to previous points in cultural, political, and intellectual development."

Which is not the worst idea when 'progress' takes you down untenable roads or to repugnant places. Backing up when you've reached a dead end is sensible, yes?

If you're intent is to back up, then to set off in a new direction in search of a better avenue of progress then yes, if you are writing off progress as a failure, and just receding a halt, then maybe not.

IMHO

[henry quirk]

Sometimes there's no 'new direction' or 'better avenue'. Sometimes makin' do with what you got is the best thing to do.

Let's take the ACA as example...

I guess I'm in the minority here, but my health care (when and why I go to the doctor, how often I go, how I pay for it) is my business and no one else's.

All I want from government is final arbitration (not first, not intermediary, final) in disputes between me and the doc (or insurer or hospital), and I want congress (along with cleanly and wholly repealing the ACA) to make it so if I, livin' in LA., find an insurer in Alaska offering what I want, for the price I want, I can transact with that insurer.

Beyond that, the government should be (as it should be on a great many things) silent and neutral.

Repeal, and do not replace (do not seek a 'new direction' or 'better avenue'...just back up).

Instead: we're gonna end up with what we have (or a tweaked, and still crappy, version of it).

Progress, sometimes, ain't.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Henry, I guess this applies to you.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by a similarly good read

Personally I’m not interested in a female president for the sake of "diversity." Putting a woman in the white house in 2020 won’t mean that gender equality has arrived. We’ve had 45 presidents. It’s going to take 45 women serving as president before we even have a chance to reach parity.

Do you get it now?

Yes. Politics Makes You Stupid; author of piece is a keen example; Trump wins 2020.

[henry quirk]

Bruce,

Nope.

[Beest]

If you believe that what you have is the best that can be, the top of the curve, then travelling in any direction is going to be downhill.

The ideal system that you desire, is not what is and not what was, so you wish to progress to that state of being.

[henry quirk]

What I suggest, to me, isn't progress...it's deregulation.

I make no claim what I suggest is 'better', only that I prefer it.

I have no doubt many of those folks I saw (and heard) in footage from town halls ("without the affordable care act I'd be dead!" "without obamacare my >insert loved one< would be dead!" "without the ACA I [or my >insert loved one<] can't afford life-saving/-enhancing medicine/treatment!") would be truly in the shitter if what I suggest came to pass.

Here's the thing: each and every one of these folks operates out of self-interest, just like me. Explain why I must set aside my priorities in favor of theirs?

Unlike many of the 'hillbillies' in Bruce's piece, I'm not on the dole, am not subsidized, am not beholden (which is to say: I'm not a hypocrite).

I put more in than I take out, I ask for nuthin' except decent roads to drive on and to able to transact with others without jumpin' through hoops. Instead, I have crap roads (which I pay for) and grief tryin' to simply get what I want (my nice little catastrophic insurance, the one declared sub-standard by the ACA).

No, I'm not after 'progress'...I want a retreat from it (the philosophy of it).

[xoxoxoBruce]

So you don't believe, "There, but for the grace of god, go I".
Fuck those Hillwilliams and poor folk who's sweat dug the coal and picked the cotton to make the economy flourish and your life better.
Fair enough, that's your privilege. But I consider it an Ayn Rand selfishness I can't agree with.
My college apartment mate and best friend at the time, worshiped Rand, Atlas Shrugged was his bible, and we had many long arguments about it. The funny thing is it was my money that allowed him to not have to live in the dorm.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by henry quirk

I put more in than I take out, I ask for nuthin' except decent roads to drive on and to able to transact with others without jumpin' through hoops.

What makes you think that less regulation would decrease the number of hoops you have to jump through? Many regulations are big hoops upstream that eliminate many small hoops that people downstream would otherwise have to jump.

And everybody is downstream of more things than they are upstream on, even people who are at the head of their particular stream.

Heck, on food alone, the number of hours saved by the average person not having to research every vendor and their supply chain (even if they had the authority to demand the information needed for that research) offsets a good portion of their tax liability.

It's easy to think how nice it would be if there was no regulation on the things I do; it's harder to take into account having to deal with all the other unregulated assholes.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Agreed, without regulation the multi-nations would be in the snake oil business.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Yes. Politics Makes You Stupid; author of piece is a keen example; Trump wins 2020.

Spoken like a true privileged individual. I didn't think of it first, I just stole it first in this thread:

Equality Feels Like Oppression When You're Used to Privilege

I'd prefer to believe you *got* the point of the article and are just cherry picking your quotes to reinforce your confirmation bias. Otherwise I'd have to conclude that your narrow quote is a reflection of you not getting the thrust of the article, that tolerance and diversity for their own sake, for a mathematical balance of opposing points of view are not that important.

The context of the quote you excerpted was that there's a very, very, very long history of IMbalance in many areas of our society and when puckishly asked about when we'd be "even" or "enough" the follow up was your quoted. Do you think a woman and a man have equal ability to judge, to lead, to protect and defend the Constitution? If so, then how is it that we've had 45 male presidents in a row? Can't be luck, really, or coincidence. It's sexism and to say anything otherwise is just wrong. The author's larger point is that our society has a very long history of inequality to "metabolize".

The quality of an idea should be a measure of its value. Discuss it, debate it, challenge it, test it. Measure it. And by many measures, the inequality in our society is yuge. I pointed out that the two articles were similar because they both pointed out that being tolerant and open minded doesn't mean I can feel the breeze blowing through my ears. From the article: "Not all ideas are equal". They're not. And a lot of the ideas I hear coming from the conservative right are crap. I'm not obliged to give them equal credence, since the facts don't support that position.

xoB's article suggested that a progressive might want to stop tilting at windmills trying to persuade their political opponents with facts, and the article I linked to suggests that tolerance is not giving all ideas equal time and that we in America have a long way to go, still, before the truths held to be self evident, the equality of all men, endowed by our Creator in our Declaration of Independence are realistically, measurable, available to all.

[Undertoad]

Spoken like a true privileged individual.

Oh you figure you can counter any argument by talking about the arguers sex and race.

And you also think you're in the "smart" group.

Well pick one, cos you can't have it both ways!

Do you think a woman and a man have equal ability to judge, to lead, to protect and defend the Constitution? If so, then how is it that we've had 45 male presidents in a row? Can't be luck, really, or coincidence. It's sexism and to say anything otherwise is just wrong.

That's true! (Gosh when did you discover it? What a find! OMG did you read history books or something??? Oh you didn't??? Well, that makes it more amazing!!!)

And the piece's answer, and your answer, to that is to have an equal amount of reverse sexism.

Feminism used to be about equality. Now it's about inequality, ensuring women are superior for 240 years. You know, for "justice". We can only assume that the real problems of feminism and racism are entirely gone now that we are concentrating on righting the events of all of history. Society has changed -- and is continuing to change -- but that's not enough. Let's visit the sins of our forefathers because maybe we don't feel bad enough about it. And if you don't agree? You must be sexist and racist. We don't call it that, we call it "privileged". And even if you grow up in a poor, integrated neighborhood and wind up working at a ghetto pawn shop, that's your tag!

And we get to win every argument about it just by NAMECALLING! We think that's a smart way to go about this. Well,

FUCK YOU,

~ and ~

TRUMP 2020. Guaranteed. Because of people like you.