The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

She endorsed Bernie, and criticized the DNC for putting their thumb on the scale in the primary

Yeah, this is literally all there is to it. In Hardcore Bernie World, if you're a politician who supported Bernie - regardless of your personal or political positions and whether any are progressive or not - you're a True Progressive. If you're somebody with an identical record or have a comparable number of ideological transgressions as "Generic Progressive" but who didn't support Bernie, you're a neoliberal hack.

It's really not complicated. It's also why a) the push for ideological purity from these supporters is so laughable and b) why this movement is very likely to continue falling flat on its face in terms of enacting legislation/policy. They'll just keep supporting anybody who kisses the ring as "progressive" (i.e. supporting Bernie and/or a handful of other figures) and then get all mad when half the candidates that they actually do succeed at putting into office don't turn out to support them on a particular initiative.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I don't have the time or patience to care much about Atlas these days but the canonical explanation for why the average 3rd generation Mexican-American who is 35 and cannot speak Spanish does not consider himself/herself to be White relates to the fact that the Mexican identity has been replenished by waves of immigration. For those who are totally detached from the roots of their grandparents, it's rather easy to maintain a loose affiliation with these roots when there are large numbers of people who are around your age who are present to remind you of those roots.

This is true of other Hispanic immigrant communities and does not even note the fact that most Hispanics live in highly concentrated/segregated neighborhoods. I suspect that this will change going forward but, look, I'll never consider myself to be White and I have a White Dad! This is because my Mom is from Mexico. Anyone who has a direct connection (read: parental) to a Latin American country will have a hard time seeing themselves as White so long as they grew up before ~2020-2030.

As for the statement that "Trump Can't Reverse the Decline of White Christian America", sure, he cannot but, politically, this does not matter. He can disenfranchise or humiliate those who are non-white and who have immigrant ancestry. He has already made America a much less desirable place to emigrate to, as evidenced by the fact that graduate schools in the South are much less attractive for international students in 2017 than they were in 2016. You don't need to assume that Asians and Hispanics (former way more likely than latter imo, 2nd gen Asians mix well with White people!) will assimilate to Whiteness in order to argue that Trump's coalition is durable/viable. It's extremely viable. Remember, there were still plenty of white working class people who voted for Clinton...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The national view of antifa is very different from the actual interactions I have had with antifa members in real life, and it makes it hard to give an answer. The anarcho-communist antifa members who smash stores, throw rocks at cops, and bring weapons to rightist protests are a group that I have always called - until this year - the "Black bloc." This was the term used on the local news, by politicians, and by most people I talked to in person, never "antifa."

In contrast "antifa" was basically a group that would hang out at bars to watch Sounders games, talk about politics, do some political volunteering projects (i.e. petitioning, planting trees, etc.) when there wasn't anything interesting going on. The only times I heard about them actually protesting was when they went to a Planned Parenthood that had a group of hecklers outside, and they tried to help people using the facility get in and out without facing their wrath or having to be on camera. Other than that, there just wasn't much of an antifa presence in any kind of public discussion.

That really changed this year when the black-bloc protesters seem to have adopted the antifa label, while other groups that were formerly antifa don't seem to use the label themselves much anymore. That's not to say there's absolutely no overlap between the groups, but my gut reaction is that antifa is the good side of the left-wing protest groups while black-bloc are the bad side. Should the terms continue to become increasingly synonymous, however, that probably won't be my gut reaction much longer.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

JerryArkansas has become one of the nastiest and most ignorant posters on this site, and that is no small feat over the past several months.

His political views are not as inherently toxic as those of many others here, but anyone who defends his brand of aggressive belligerence has some things to learn about how people get along with one another.

Of course it has become fashionable to bash politeness in certain political circles - whether politeness is dismissed as a form of political correctness, or privilege, or bourgeois values, or whatever - but how many of you would want to invite someone who behaves like Jerry to a party?

It's as if we've forgotten the idea that it's possible to be both highly political, even radical, while also being charming and charismatic. Never mind any notions that we have things to learn from each other.

You can't build a functioning community without norms governing acceptable behavior that allow people to feel comfortable most of the time. Almost everyone gets cranky or loses their temper, but it's quite another thing for it to be a constant din. Particularly when that begins to mix with an illiberal enthusiasm for street brawling and political violence.

The most that we can hope is that bitter and vicious posters like Jerry, Hagrid, or Alice are only using this site for drunken venting and nothing more. Maybe they're all pleasant and tolerant people in their personal lives. God knows, no adult could function from day-to-day treating people as they do here.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's amusing that jfern believes the 2004 election was rigged and yet dismisses the russian scandal as a kooky conspiracy theory

It's amazing that jfern has 40k+ posts on this forum and yet manages to be one of the most useless posters here

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What did he do?

https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/943831712739577856

And yet...https://www.politico.com/story/2018/01/02/doug-jones-african-american-chief-of-staff-dana-gresham-320117?cid=apn

He's a slanderous disgusting wretched liar.

Saying that X is likely to happen and then X not happening is not lying. It's just being wrong.

The original rumor (that Doug Jones is going to appoint an all-white senior staff because he "feels burdened" to appeal to white conservatives) doesn't strike me as particularly believable:

1) The idea that conservatives would be impressed with an "all-white senior staff" in this day and age is flawed, and is pretty telling as to how King thinks: he (or whoever he heard this from)  is basically imagining a mirror image of the elite liberal tendency to measure progress by how many women, People of Color, and LGBT people an organization employs. For example, take the handwringing last year over how Trump's cabinet was the whitest and most male in recent memory: relatively little attention was paid to how wealthy the cabinet was or to how little government experience it had, and not enough attention was paid to the fact that it was by most measures the most hard-right of any cabinet in history. There's an annoying tendency in much  of the Left to view appointing women and people of color, even those with reactionary views, as progress: you even see it on Atlas to some degree, with people thinking that Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Condoleeza Rice must be nice moderates when they very clearly are not.
2) Jones's campaign shows that he doesn't care about pandering to racist conservatives
3) This isn't the 60s or 70s, when a Southern senator having black senior staff would have been  much more groundbreaking than it is now. Nowadays most people on either side probably wouldn't care, and anyone who would see lack of Black senior staff as a positive won't be voting Democratic anyway.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

https://twitter.com/thedemocrats/status/260497619862835201

who care

That post really does encapsulate the major criticisms of him for at least as long as I've been on the Atlas. Like, I get it. Obama criticized Romney for acting like Russia is a major enemy still. He was wrong. Obama also really dropped the ball by not realizing what was going on in 2016 and then acting too late, and ineffectively when he did. He let Republicans and Russia walk all over us (and Democrats). I can't emphasize that enough, and I'm pretty sure most users here are aware of these things...

...but why keep bringing it up? What does it add? jfern does this constantly, and with a number of other things. He brings up stuff that he feels are hypocritical or perhaps serve as a "gotcha" to the person in question (and with Hillary, often NOT the person in question...), and he'll do it even when it adds nothing to the thread and often has little to do with the subject at hand. This was always and still is my primary issue with jfern - it's like all that runs through his head is negativity and how persons x, y and z are hypocrites or liars or whatever. This constant score keeping where his sole reason for existing is to make sure people are aware of their transgressions or fumbles.

Anyway, I'll just end that rant here (or maybe not, seeing as I'm easy to prod into arguments). I'm just tired of seeing the same Obama: Russia is so 20th century thing constantly brought up in discussions where it serves no useful purpose. We get it. He screwed up!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Here are my thoughts on this issue: perhaps they are a perspective expected by someone from Scotland who lives in a totally different political culture.

In a two-party system a broad-base party is what you need to win: as soon as parties start focusing entirely on one part of their coalition (and yes; this includes parties focusing too much on what they perceive as the 'centre' and ignoring more radical parts of their base; left-wingers exist too and you can't just assume that they'll vote for you) then that's when they start to get to a position where they consistently lose until they can sufficiently cater to all parts of their base again.  In that regard, the presence of more conservative Democrats like Manchin in areas which would always tend to vote against Democratic candidates is a positive thing and they should be allowed a longer leash on many issues.

However; members of a political party often need to make compromises if they want to remain an elected representative for that political party.  To use a sports analogy: in Football you might sometimes be asked to play positions which you don't like: perhaps sometimes an attacking central midfielder might be asked to play in a defensive midfield position if it suits the teams overall strategy.  A good team player may well disagree with that decision and hate it but they have to go along with it: you can't just decide play in whatever position you personally want just because you'd rather do it.  The same goes for politics in many ways: if you are elected for a political party there are certain things expected of you: to support the major policy proposals of the party leadership (in the US; I suppose that would be the President when you have the Presidency) and also publicly support those measures even if personally you may disagree with them - and this is especially the case if you represent a seat that isn't strongly for the other party.  Generally the exception to this would be abortion and other similar matters of conscience but in America those issues are so politicised that isn't the case.

That's why Lipinski is being targeted over other people with similar ideologies: because he's less of a team player.  He voted against Obamacare and the DREAM Act and other major proposals of the Obama administration; he supported a dramatic expansion of domestic surveillance legislation beyond almost any other Democrat and on top of that he didn't even endorse the incumbent Democratic President in 2012.  That's the core difference between him and the few other remaining Conservative democrats: he doesn't represent somewhere like West Virginia or Alabama where support for more right wing measures might be seen as acceptable (although voting for the repeal of key bank regulations strikes me as not meeting that criteria and certainly spinnable) and also he doesn't seem to support key party policies on lots of issues; including some of the key policy measures of the previous Democratic President.  In that regard I think he crosses the line of a person who many people would tolerate as being an elected representative for their party: because he's not a team player.

Lets consider what some posting here seem to want: two parties that are almost indistinguishable with the exception of one having a pronounced left wing and the other one of the right.  That's something which would be very bad for American democracy: it'd lead to a situation where no matter who people vote for in elections; nothing really changing since you'd have this centrist majority on everything.  Another thing about two party systems: not only do they need to be broad-base parties but they also need to have a strong core ideology which is specific enough to make them distinct from the other party but also vague enough to be inclusive of lots of people - in much of the world this led to you having a broad two-party (or in some places with PR a two-bloc) system with Socialists on one side and Conservatives on the right: in America the tradition of the left is based on Liberalism instead so you have a Liberal/Conservative divide.  The way I see it: having members of a party that are basically like the other party in everything other than party membership in elected office is a negative thing because that's not representing the members of their area well: after all they voted for a Democrat and expect someone to support Democratic policies and not someone who just votes with the other side.

Again an exception to this are people like Manchin who seems to have a pretty strong personal vote and who represents a strong Republican area - but also note that if the Democratic leadership needs him on the vast majority issue he's right there voting with them because even though many people in the party may disagree with him; he's still a team player and willing to vote with the party when required - and on the other hand if they don't need his vote and have enough votes then he tends to be the first person they let defy the whip: its a fair balance.  That isn't the case for Lipinski though: not only the stuff mentioned above but also the fact that he represents a pretty Democratic area and also its hard to say whether he has a strong personal vote: he's never really faced a strong Republican challenge before (no candidate declared in 2016; the only Republican declared in 2018 is a legit Neo-Nazi and before that it was a lot of low level people who didn't seem to have a lot of financial support) but the fact that he's facing this strong primary challenge suggests that any personal vote isn't overly strong.  In that regard who can blame local party members who wanting someone else in: if Lipinski had been a team player for the party he might not be the one facing a strong challenge.

I think this argument shows that the word "populist" has lost all meaning - not that it really had any in the first place.  Certainly doesn't seem to be a term to describe Lipinski at all.  It also shows a very... weird perspective about what working class voters are like, almost like everyone who is working class is the same and that there are no working class women, or gay working class people; or working class immigrants; or working class people who benefitted from the ACA...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Could people stop with this insane idea that the Republicans were ever a "liberal" party in the American sense? They have been the party of big business and Wall Street from the 1870s to present. Hell, they weren't even "liberal" in the European sense in the 19th century: they were arch-protectionists and major supporters of high tariffs (both for protecting American business and for revenue purposes).

The big shift isn't in the party platforms so much as who made up the party. The mass defection of African-Americans from the GOP to the Dems from 1930s-1960s ended up making the Northern Democrats the party of civil rights (can't get elected in NY or IL or etc without the black vote), which alienated white conservative Southern Democrats and gradually pushed them into the GOP in the 1970s-2000s. It's inaccurate to say the parties "switched platforms" generally, though. The main groups that made up the GOP in the 1920s (big business, highly-paid professionals, Midwestern farmers) are still all mostly Republican groups, while the main groups behind Northern Democrats (recent immigrants, labor unionists, religious minorities, the poor) are mainly still Democratic voting blocs.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

He should and will get off. He's an idiot but there's reasonable doubt and the problems lay more with the system than with him as an individual.

He shouldn't have been a cop, too jumpy.  The system should have stopped him yes, but it doesn't absolve him of his guilt and shouldn't remove any punishment he should be receiving.  Do we blame driving schools or the DMV when someone does something stupid while driving?  Maybe, if there is a pattern, but even then we'd still punish the bad drivers too.

He needs to go to jail.  He killed someone because he heard a loud noise.  If you can find some blame to lay on the "system" fine, lets look into it, but this guy shouldn't be able to walk away clear.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This board is full of small, insignificant and insecure people who want to feel agency in their otherwise dull, powerless lives. This leads them to do things like come on to this board, get outraged at the idea that people have opinions, habits and preferences other than their own, and try to regulate the speech of others and clamor for those they find different from them to be removed, all to demonstrate to themselves that they have some control in some way whereas in most other arenas they do not. People's overplayed outrage at Texarkana is a perfect example of that. People found one or two posts that offended them and, because they live in a world where so many things bother them and they can't do anything to get rid of them, they latch on to this person here who says a few dumb things, turn him into an enemy, and try to get rid of him.

Texarkana has said some really dumb and offensive things, some of which haven't made their way into this thread yet, but the people asking for him to be banned are children who will, within a month, move on to some new target for their bullying and ask for him too to be banned. I have a hard time believing that people on this board really are that offended by a sexualized signature, and that they aren't just trying to prove to themselves that they matter and can have control over the fate of another person. In any event, I can think of several people on this board (some of whom have posted in this thread) who are far more harmful or obnoxious to the forum community than Texarkana, and I would be very disappointed to see him banned while other truly horrible people were allowed to stay.

How out of touch with reality are you? There is no reason to read into something that is not there when basically everyone feels the same way. The same line of argument works for not banning a Nazi like Einzige. "Oh, you can't control the opinions you see in the real world, so you want to ban him here."

This is about wanting a forum community with literally any degree of decency. "One of two posts"...I have him on ignore with Ignored Users invisible, and I still see dozens of atrocious posts coming through in quotes. It is not a difference of opinions and habits. I don't come here to see these types of comments. Every time I see a new post was made in a thread, it is from him, and it is spam - I don't know what "valuable contributions" we would be missing out on. We have standards for a reason. If you have a problem poster who does not conform to certain standards of decorum, you get rid of them. It's rather simple. No reason to put up with something nobody wants to see.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The annoying thing about this guy is it isn't fundamentally untrue or even controversial to say something like "the Democrats are too interested in culture war bickering over material issues". Even SJWs (which I am often labelled) often agree with that. The problem is that he is so OTT with analysing every issue through this prism, his perspective is distorted. It's Mark Latham disorder - people who complain all day that all the left talk about are genderqueers and cultural appropriation, without realising they are contributing to the same issue. They never bother talking about tangible stuff to help the working class , white or otherwise - no interest in health policy, little interest in education unless it's scaremongering about sex ed or whatever, no interest in workers rights, no interest in the redistribution of wealth, no interest in anti-poverty platforms ... I can go on. All it is is bickering about stuff that is irrelevant to 90 percent of workers' needs.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Both Tim Walz and Kristen Gillibrand supported gay marriage when they were elected in 2006.

Obama didn't until Biden forced him to in 2012, and in 2008 he pointedly refused to condemn an anti-gay African-American cleric, Donnie McClurkin, who spoke on his behalf before the SC primary.

My point is that it wasn't some utterly fringe position. And she's not under fire for not supporting gay marriage anyway.

It wasn't an utterly fringe position, but bigotry wasn't a fringe position either, with a very large fraction of the population at that time thinking gay sex should be illegal:

http://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx

I assume you don't think anyone who thought that at the time should now be completely unemployable, so I'm curious where you think the line is.  They shouldn't be employed as a cable news host?  Or in any kind of role that makes them a public figure?  Or they can be a public figure as long as they apologize?  Or they can be a public figure as long as they didn't express their bigotry in a public forum on the internet?, etc.

She needs to apologize.

Honestly the most cringeworthy aspect of this is the white people saying that she should get a pass because she's a black woman. It's part of the racist notion that minorities are too stupid to be liberal on non-racial issues. There are plenty of black people who are not horribly homophobic.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I don't agree with all of McCain's views, but he's a good man and dedicated public servant, and deserves much better than what he's getting from his very ungrateful party.

Has John McCain apologized once for the countless innocent people he personally incinerated in an unjustified proxy war?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Good. The Irish-Catholic nationalism of old was a pox on Ireland.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

(d) this is not a winning issue that Democrats think it is.

I'm going to not address the rest of your points right now, but I wanted to tackle this one. Why the hell should I, a private citizen, give a s**t in terms of what I think is important or interesting or worth discussing based on whether or not "swing voters" care about it? Why should any of us here?

I hate this insane "this isn't what voters care about, therefore you shouldn't talk about it" thought policing nonsense on online political forums. We're supposed to be here to discuss what we care about and think is important. If people here want to talk about health care reform or tax policy or tariffs or Russian collusion, that's all fine. Please don't tell users that certain topics are just off limits for discussion here because they're not hot-button enough political issues.

Why the hell should I care if what I talk about is an issue that gets Democrats elected or not? I'm not an employee of the Democratic Party, nor are most people here.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

[Quote Deleted]

I'm absolutely done with you. You've become a worthless poster. Off to the ignore list, with the likes hofoid, forever.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I can not believe I am actually quoting this poster here:

Once again those tweets were NOT AN ISSUE. the only outlets reporting on them were Breitbart-esque right wing blogs that obviously your typical MN-05 voter doesn't pay attention to.

If Minneapolis was full of voters with a burning raging desire to throw all Jews into the sea then I'd wager they probably wouldn't have elected a Jewish mayor last year.

Yeah, like I said, that's probably why Haaretz didn't even mention it. It's just not widely-known, which to me is sad because it shows the media is too absorbed in identity politics (of both sides) to raise serious issues and make politicians face them.

Look Wyman, you can keep deferring this if you want, but the stuff is stacking up for Omar. She has very strong performances in Jewish areas, she has strong endorsements from many Jewish individuals in the community such as Frey, Applebaum, Freitag, Multiple Bernie groups, etc. apparently you say Haaretz is favorable to her now, etc. You can make excuses or try and spin it a certain way for each of these points, but at a certain point, it becomes obvious where the stuff is stacking up.

Also for those of my fellow friends with a pro-Palestine sentiment, just learn to brush it off when people call you an anti-semite or a prick or a racist, and draw horrific comparisons, etc. Your beef with Israel and support of Palestine alone does not make you these things, and know this is just a talking point and a distraction.

As for people with a Pro-Israel sentiment, I want you to know that most everybody is not out to get you or wishes your country or people to be destroyed, most people like me really just want to live side by side in peace.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Somehow as absolutely horrible as something is in reality, people are always able to find a way of making an absurd hyperbole around it.

There are ways of being appropriately harsh about this without denigrating and dismissing every other aspect of the Catholic church and the priests and lay people within it who are standing up against this and calling the hierarchy to account.

It's also not clear to me exactly how much worse the Catholic church was in this time frame when most of these events occurred than other institutions.  It may have been, but how do we know?  Others shouldn't be cocky without holding up their own groups to scrutiny.

what other institution could even come close, is there some other group that the Catholic church is in competition with?  College sports organizations?  They've had 2 high profile cases in the last decade, horrible.  Lets say it's really bad and there are ten times more of these things going on that we don't know about and lets be generous to "the Church" and say every single case of abuse in the Church has been uncovered, the numbers still aren't close....at all.

I guess I also don't understand the attachment to the church...do you really think being a Catholic is the ONLY way to get to Jesus?  That's what we were taught in S.Baptist circles (that Catholics don't play well with other Christian organizations)...but we were taught a lot sh**t about Catholics and only some of it ended up being true, is this one true too?  Do you really think heaven is out of reach for you if you start going to Lutheren church to do your "Christianity"?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Institutional religion (particularly Christianity) has been in decline in the Western world since the development of capitalism and its consequent factors of industrialization, urbanization, and globalization. The disruptive socioeconomic forces unleashed by that system, to which Protestant Christianity has been fervently wedded for centuries, is, arguably, the primary culprit of the cultural changes that have made faith in and practice of Christianity feel meaningless and, often, disagreeable for an increasing number of people.

There is no turning back the clock for Christianity in the modern, Western world. The future of that religion lies in the Global South (Latin America, Africa, Asia, Oceania). To the extent it survives in Western Europe and the Anglo world will be as a set cultural relics - old customs, objects, and places that once held transcendent meaning, but are now bereft of any life save for anthropological curiosity. The decreasing number of adherents will have to form enclaves and focus on familial and group transmission of knowledge to perpetuate their living traditions within a generally indifferent-to-hostile society.

What happens to religious beliefs in a more general sense is an interesting question. There's no substantial evidence of some impressive growth in Atheistic/strictly materialistic beliefs. The overwhelming majority of people hold some religious ideas, whether it's expressed in an organized or eccentric/individualized fashion. The decline of Christianity has simply coincided with an increase in beliefs in the existence or supernatural power of cryptids, astrology, meditation, yoga, divination, "universal life force," and so on. Religion has simply taken a more individualized, disorganized, and esoteric form - which permits less obligations, moralism, and prescribed behavior as such belief systems lack any organization, hierarchy, or structure. That fits perfectly with our increasingly alienated and atomized lifestyles, but will only exacerbate the negative side effects of that lifestyle, namely depression, anxiety, and vulnerability to extremism.

Overall, the decline of Christianity offers positive benefits, such as improved quality of life and access to rights and resources for historically underprivileged and persecuted groups. It also allows society to adapt its moral values to new material and social conditions. However, it also exacerbates some of the most psychology harmful aspects of modernity - alienation. But, we're in new and uncharted territories that will allow us to shape our personal lives and communities in ways we hadn't been able to before.

First time I've ever seen this in this thread:

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The best way is true Christianity. We are called to love others. Doesn’t mean we have to agree with everything they say or do. But a true christian’s character should be love.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Absolutely ridiculous I am banned till Nov 3rd on 2020 board. I bet most posters would agree.

Too bad

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I actually have MATTROSE94 on ignore because I got sick of reading his "ironic" posts of bad analysis written seriously and deadpan which is not and never has been funny but does result in threads being derailed with unironic replies to it (really wish others would quit taking the bait though because I can still read their posts and it's insufferable.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

early emo bands like Fugazi

Most emo is post-hardcore, but most post-hardcore is not emo.