The Sam Spade Memorial Good Post Gallery

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

A solid majority of working class whites (outside of the South) are loyal Democrats, and most have more liberal views in general (but particularly on economic issues) than middle and upper class whites (which are the bulk of this forum's posters, so...).

This might be true if you set the income level low enough - it really depends on what constitutes "working class" - but even among the $50k and less crowd, whites are quite surprising in some states.

And holy crap: look at those "white working class" states that are supposedly voting said way because of racism. Look at West Virginia. Of course Atlas doesn't get it:

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Doesn't belong here.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I'm not sure if I completely agree with this post, but it's definitely thought-provoking in some way:

YES.

We should also end the war on poverty, the war on obesity, the war on whatever problem-du-jure inspires the use of the phrase of "war on ..."

War is hell, and our use of the word war for things other than actual wars desensitizes us and makes us fatter and more stupid and more insensitive to the fact that wars lead to rape, poverty, starvation, murder, and generally a very bad scene.  The "war on drugs" was a stupid idea for many, many reasons, not the least of which is that it encouraged the use of war in a way that makes us forget that real wars do exist and that we should never forget to avoid wars.  Goddammit I hate the use of the word "war" in this tawdry and hackneyed way.  It needs to stop.  And yes, the "war on drugs" needs to stop as well.  Our prisons are full of nonviolent offenders whose only crime was attempting to escape reality for a while.  Who can blame them?

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Fresh- do you live near Almost Heaven.

I`ve got a good friend up there.

fRESH - I LIED TO PRIVE THAT REPUBLICANS CRY OUTRAGE WHEN A DEMOCRAT LIES TO THEM. bush lied about yukka in Nevada.

Bush lies when he says hes a conservative.
 Republican voters cant name a liberal that has spent more money than bush. CONSERVATIVES STAND FOR SMALL GOVERNMENT, FISCAL SPENDING.

They supporty him despite his politics. So i tested to see if they are only angry when a democrat lies to them. and they are.

Hence a supporter of bush that believes in small government, fiscal spending and less control of your liberties is A HYPOCRITE.

sO FRESH - are you for big government, high spending and control of your liberites then hence you r right to vote bush.

IF NOT YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I absolutely support this, not sure why supporting cuts in the National Endowment for the Arts while we run huge deficits makes me a coward though.

I'm not saying this necessarily applies to you, but generally those who support cutting the arts do so either because they fail to see the value of the arts in society, or because they see artistic expression as a possible form of dissent or political commentary that needs to be stopped. Those in the latter group are the ones I would describe as "cowards." Also, Scott put it very well. We're talking about a cut that would hardly benefit anyone, while hurting many people.

Or maybe they think that spending millions or even billions on art is not the role the government should be taking, and that that money could be better spent on programs that actually grow the economy. (Not politically and racially motivated handouts for votes. That doesn't grow the economy. It weakens it).

They probably also think - through strong evidence - that these kinds of programs benefit only a select few of politically like-minded people and creates unnecessary bureaucracies that leads to entrenched power and serve no purpose to the 99.9% of the American people (other than spending their money). The money for these programs also almost always gets misused for political purposes.

Finally, they realize - quite obviously - that art in society is not going to suffer one bit by removing government handouts.

The biggest flaw among liberals is that they project what other people think. You basically just accused a wide swath of your countrymen of being barbarians who hate art and fascists who want to shut down dissent. The thought that they have very good, logical, and moral reasons for their beliefs - whether you agree them or not - didn't even occur to you.

They don't believe what you believe so they must be evil.

lol, nice strawman. I never once used the word evil. Talk about projecting. I'm in a generous mood, so I'll respond, knowing that I could just be wasting my time.

As others have mentioned, 150 million is small potatoes in a national budget, but speaking as an artist, the NEA does make a difference in the lives of many artists. It's a small amount of money that provides support to programs across the country, many of which are struggling from an enormous lack of funding, and offers just a bit of support for people who get very little appreciation in society. We support and fund many other fields to a much greater extent, and yet I don't talk about that sort of funding as being a handout. Many artists and artistic communities depend on that small amount of support, and targeting or eliminating them does not actually help anyone or save a significant amount of money. Many arts programs in schools have to fight tooth and nail to get any funding at all, and we face lots of smug comments like "music isn't going to cure cancer" or "theater won't protect us from terrorists." I'm not saying people don't appreciate the arts because I'm an elitist with first world problems. I'm saying people don't appreciate the arts because a lot of people really don't appreciate the arts, and many artists and teachers of the arts feel as though their way of life is hanging on by a thread.

Sorry, but people who say that the arts aren't important are generally speaking from ignorance. That doesn't make them "evil", since we all do it from time to time, but nearly every argument I've heard about why the arts aren't important involves incredibly simplistic thinking. I could point you to a great deal of research on how art benefits the human mind from a scientific standpoint, or the fact that art plays a critical role in any form of entertainment or recreation, or how it provides a creative and productive outlet that helps many people reduce stress and remain healthy. This is not something that only affects 0.1% of the population. Slashing arts would not only harm artists (who are more than 0.1% of the population, by the way), but also anyone who benefits from art in society, which is everyone.

Maybe, just maybe the fact that I've devoted a great deal of my life to one of the fine arts (music), and not only studied it, but studied the impact it has on the human mind and society makes me a slightly better source on the subject than someone who has merely passively noticed art without giving it much thought. Does that make me an elitist? So be it. I guess doctors who think they know more than me about medicine are also elitist! And those computer scientists who think they understand code better than I do. Elitists, I say! Some people are better authorities on subjects. Either that or reality is elitist.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Why isn't Atlas banning violence and extremists statements in signatures?

Dinkins gets re-elected, for starters

With Re-Election of Dinkins then NYC would have remained the Crime Capital of America to these probably much worse than Chicago and Detroit. NYC now would not be like it is Today. It would definitely just like in the 70's, 80's and Early 90's with full of Crimes, Violence, Shootings, Stabbing, Kidnappings, Robberies, Drugs, Prostitution, Slums, Poverty, Graffiti and e.t.c.

Crime started to reduce under Dikins start again.

"Under Dinkins' Safe Streets, Safe Cities program, crime in New York City decreased more dramatically and more rapidly, both in terms of actual numbers and percentage, than at any time in modern New York City history."

Try Again.

No, he hasn't. He's fine. You not liking his views doesn't make him a bad poster.

This is basically the "I put posts in here that I disagree with" thread.

None of these belong here.  Stop.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

For the record, I'm not in Tulsi's camp for 2020 (or anyone else's for that matter), but if you want an argument for why she could be a legitimate contender beyond "muh berniebros," here goes.

First, it's not like there's a blueprint for what makes a serious contender.  From Barack Obama to Bill Clinton to George W. Bush to Ronald Reagan, there's a lot of differences among their resumes and backgrounds.  Plus, those are just people who won the presidency, not even counting the litany of people who didn't win but were definitely serious challengers in the primary.  So, I'm not sure there's any blueprint for what makes a serious contender, but there's definitely things that have helped candidates in the past.

She is a combat veteran and one of the few female veterans in congress.  Being a veteran isn't really the silver bullet that it used to be in American politics, but it's still a big boost.  Virtually any veteran politician gets labeled as a rising star (Jason Kander, etc.  Note that people are wanting him to run for president with even less experience than Tulsi Gabbard).  Being a veteran helps her in a number of ways.  It gives her real life experience to draw from outside of government and politics.  That's *always* a plus, especially when that experience is something like serving your country or being some sort of humanitarian.  It's also pretty much the backbone of her ideology.  She's used her experiences to justify a lot of her positions, from her evolution on lgbtq rights to her position on war and foreign policy.  It also helps her that she's been actively working to help veterans as a Congresswoman.  She's sponsored and worked on several veterans bills, everything from sexual assault in the military, to helping veterans find work, to helping disabled veterans get on flights, and combating child abuse.  These are all things that make her look genuine (genuine people work on issues that have always been important to them, like Tim Kaine said last year), they boost her standing among the veteran community for caring about their issues, and a lot of them are kind of issues that are difficult to attack for her opponents.  Lastly, as a woman, being a veteran helps give her an appearance of strength, even if her views on war are relatively dovish.  She's also on both the committees on foreign affairs and armed services, which are two of the traditional stepping stone committees to running for president.

She is also a prolific and skilled fundraiser with friends on capital hill.  The last I checked, she had one of the largest warchests of any politician in Hawaii with the exception of maybe Brian Schatz.  She definitely has a bigger warchest than Hirono, I know that much.  The fact that she has a contingent of loyal footsoldiers outside of her district means she has a bigger pool of donors to draw from than most people in the House of Representatives.  I know she's been taking the Bernie strategy of asking for very small donations but asking for them frequently, which proved to be a winning strategy for fundraising last year.  Her strength as a fundraiser also means that she has the ability to help other politicians if she wants to.  For example, last year she asked her supporters to donate to Rick Nolan's campaign toward the end of the election season to help him get over the finish line.  Considering that Nolan just barely won election, I wouldn't be surprised if he's feeling pretty appreciative of Tulsi.  I don't know of a lot of other specific examples, but that is exactly the kind of thing that can earn a politician endorsements in a primary.  It also means that she'll have the money to get out her message, which is always a problem for presidential contenders.  And despite arguments to the contrary, it means she is safe in her district.

Lastly, she seems to have her fingers dug into a lot of pots.  She's fairly popular on both the progressive left and the right for different reasons.  She has some fairly right wing views on foreign policy, but she's also an environmentalist and she's taken up some popular progressive causes from Dakota Access protests, to campaigning against military aid to Saudi Arabia, being anti-TPP and all that.  Like I've said before, politicians that are willing to fight for those causes do not grow on trees.  I think that this might actually be her undoing, because while it means she has a lot of potential supporters for very different reasons, it also means that lots of very different people have reasons to attack her and dislike her.  But it still means that she has a potentially wider pool of supporters than candidates that are more niche in terms of their issues and ideology.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

The core problem here is that you're a bad person who doesn't deserve to be with anyone. Most normal women will quickly sense this and thus not want to be with you. If you insist on demanding love from people who are better than you it will make you an increasingly bad person and compound the problem. As someone already noted you should start by fixing yourself to be a decent human being.

Bad people often hide behind an idea of social ineptness or whatever but it usually isn't the thing and it certainly isn't in this case. Seek help and stop harassing this poor woman who has been raised by society to be polite to creeps and thus feels uncomfortable telling you to leave her alone.

This is a really good post in the context of the thread, but it also points out something that's rarely acknowledged: we live in a society that's more concerned about the comfort of terrible people and creeps than about the victims that have to endure them each day.