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

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Cheats on his current wife-We don't know about his relationship with his wife. That's their business in my opinion.

I think you're missing my point about the family values stuff.

Treats his kids as a financial obligation-His kids I think like him.

http://fortune.com/2016/04/24/trump-act-like-wife/

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He just doesn't care. On top of all that, he looks and talks about his daughter like a piece of meat.

My point is that for deeply religious people, or people who say they value what Jesus taught and everything that is in the Bible, to reconcile that with such deep support for Trump is practically impossible. Somewhere in that little arrangement is a weakness/misrepresentation of where one stands, whether or not they want to admit it. Trump is objectively a bad person and morally bankrupt, and personally, preaching of family values and such from a Trump supporter is suspect at best. None of them were forced to support him, and there were many other options in the primaries, yet here we are, with religious "leaders" such as Falwell having gone to bat for such a disgusting man who goes against almost everything they say they believe in, and in Falwell's case, even before he became the nominee. Falwell is a joke. A complete and utter joke.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Cheats on his current wife-We don't know about his relationship with his wife. That's their business in my opinion.

I think you're missing my point about the family values stuff.

Treats his kids as a financial obligation-His kids I think like him.

http://fortune.com/2016/04/24/trump-act-like-wife/

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He just doesn't care. On top of all that, he looks and talks about his daughter like a piece of meat.

My point is that for deeply religious people, or people who say they value what Jesus taught and everything that is in the Bible, to reconcile that with such deep support for Trump is practically impossible. Somewhere in that little arrangement is a weakness/misrepresentation of where one stands, whether or not they want to admit it. Trump is objectively a bad person and morally bankrupt, and personally, preaching of family values and such from a Trump supporter is suspect at best. None of them were forced to support him, and there were many other options in the primaries, yet here we are, with religious "leaders" such as Falwell having gone to bat for such a disgusting man who goes against almost everything they say they believe in, and in Falwell's case, even before he became the nominee. Falwell is a joke. A complete and utter joke.

No. Life ain't that simple. For these people, the Supreme Court is more important than some stupid things Trump has said in the past. He's not even that different from a generic Republican, unfortunately.

I could just as well say that all Clinton supporters aren't honest and trustworthy. It'd be just as hackish.

This isn't about how certain conservatives vote on the Supreme Court issue.  The issue is that Trump was propped up by the Christian Right as a pious, God-fearing, evangelical rockstar when in reality he's lived all his adult life doing the opposite of what Christ taught.  If Trump ran as a Democrat, he would've immediately been portrayed by the social conservatives as an elitist Manhattan-bred snob who embodies all the moral corruption of the 'other side' of the culture war: where image and wealth and power and celebrity influence trump family values and creating a moral society.  Where adultery and remarriage are a-okay.  Where bragging about grabbing a woman's genitals is a mere slip of the tongue.  (Now, mind you, Romney was guilty of none of these things yet Trump received far better treatment from these folks than Mitt ever did... because he was *gasp* a Mormon.)

But no.  These churchy folks were sucking on Trump's teat well before and during the primary season, when they had sixteen or so alternatives to choose from.  Now look at the primary map and tell me who won almost every Bible Belt state.  None other than Donald "New York values" Trump.

The SBC, though such was not always the case, can better be described as a right-wing thinktank with a prayer room; "the Republican Party at prayer," as Nathan referenced.  Now we know the emperor has no clothes.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

It will bother me.  It will be more evidence that this place is biased against conservatives, and that political leanings are taken into account when banning posters.

Are you saying conservative mods and a conservative Modadmin are voting to ban other conservatives to purposefully persecute conservative users?

What conservative mods?  Blue Avatar doesn't equal conservative.

I'm saying the recent bans have traditionally been one way - banning conservative voices from this site.  There are plenty of users here with red avatars that are far more abusive and abrasive than Krazen or even Eharding, but they rarely get banned.  And, no, I'm not going to name names - as I think banning anyone should be exceedingly rare, regardless of their political views.

This may shock you, but on the thread where the Cave muses about the Atlasian problem children, red avatars in the dock are well represented. We also give out warnings privately that are not publicly disclosed. Finally, even more shocking, sometimes red avatar Mods go after red avatar problem children, and blue avatar Mods go after blue avatar problem children. The Cave is a complicated place I guess. Or maybe, it is more about trying to have a judicial temperament, and applying the TOS fairly and even handedly, Heck anything is possible.

I can readily attest as a longtime former denizen that ideology is the last thing anyone in the cave considers in possible bans (temp or otherwise). The possible exception is the occasional Stormfront or neo-Nazi troll who wanders along.

However, Krazen is an out and out troll, not a conservative. Cynic, no one has ever ever ever mentioned one word about banning you or 90% of conservatives (like 90% of liberals) in the cave. It's just chronically disruptive a$$holes like Krazen who love to create $hitstorms who hit the block.

That said, his conduct hasn't improved one iota since his oh-so-effective temp ban. If anything it's gotten worse. The only change is he doesn't post as often, but when he does he almost never even tries making a cogent (to him) point. It's like he's daring the mods to ban him, and enjoying crossing the line without consequence.

He is literally the posting equivalent of a gorilla throwing its poop at participants in a debate tournament.  Just because he consistently picks one side of the debate to throw his feces at doesn't mean "it's just a legitimate alternative point of view". No. It's poop. He knows it's poop. And revels in the fact he throws his poop while getting away with it. 

Torie and Muon, even if you won't admit it to yourselves, many here believe the only reason Krazen won't finally get the well-deserved ax is you'll have one less playmate on the redistricting threads. Which is a crying shame considering if his pre-tempban conduct warranted a tempban, his conduct since returning has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that he's simply an irredeemable nuisance.

Mods, please do your jobs here.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

It's neat how this is a reverse of the usual "But that's why Trump won" argument.

"If you wern't being such thin-skinned snowflakes, we would never have kneeled during the anthem!"

Also:

Arab Muslims were responsible for 9/11.  And many Arab Muslims in America, at a minimum, have a degree of sympathy for Islamic Jihadists.

WTF? What you said was basically what many Americans believed about Japanese-Americans before the government forced them into internment camps.

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/articles/opinion-polls.aspx

26% of younger American Muslims believe suicide bombings are justified.  (Pew Research)

19% of American Muslims believe violence is justified in attempts to establish Sharia Law.  (Pew  Research)

20% of American Muslims believe violence is justified to advance the cause of Islam.  (Pew Research)

33% of American Muslims believe Sharia Law should be superior to the Constitution.  (CSP Poll)

49% of Muslim-Americans say they are "Muslim first", 26% American first.  (Pew Research)

21% of Muslim-Americans say there is a fair to great amount of support for Islamic extremism in their community.  (Pew Research)

This is from polls conducted by public research firms, not information from conversations with Trump Rally attendees.  

FB, here's a pro tip. Don't take your stats for me website specifically drawn up to explain why Muslims are in fact the exception rule for peaceful religions and why they should be kept out. They just might be a Teensy bit slanted.

Go ahead and Google Pew research views American Muslims. Just in the last 2 months you'll find some of the following

If memory serves, 84% of American Muslims believe it is wrong to kill civilians to advance a political government goal. That compares to only approximately 67% of non Muslim Americans. In other words good old Americans like you and me, FB, are willing to accept collateral damage from drone strikes and bombing raids at a much higher rate than Muslim Americans are willing to tolerate suicide bombers.

A majority of American Muslims believe that the teachings of the Koran must be reinterpreted 4 modern day circumstances. Kind of ironic that you're willing to both impose the worst versions of a littlest interpretation of the Bible on secular society, just as you're willing to and turf with the worst verses of the Quran strictly against Muslim Americans to a degree that even they do not.

The percentage of American Muslims who believe that more than one version or teaching of Islam is acceptable as a post only the traditional interpretation of Islam is comprable to the same percentage of American Christians who believe the same, in the low 60 percentile range. Again, rather ironic considering you are in the minority there as well.

Finally, 92%-- let that number sink in-- 92% of American Muslims say they are proud to be American. Given all the shenanigans going on with the various sports teams protests, I wouldn't be surprised that number was lower among the non-muslim American population.

Again, choose your statistics source from a more legit vendor. It might actually change your views

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I mean, they're right but for the wrong reasons. 9/11 was a reaction to our imperial overreach in the Middle East. We didn't deserve it but frankly, anyone who is surprised by the events that happened that day are part of the problem and not the solution.

How long are we going to just say 9/11 9/11 9/11 9/11 and use it as an excuse to intervene in these backwater hellholes filled by people who hate us? We literally set the conditions for ISIS to rise, and I can't blame any young Iraqi or Syrian for joining their cause when you consider the alternative is NATO and the west blowing up their schools, bridges, and hospitals to secure their oil.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

ho burnnnn

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Just another success of the tax reform. It's almost like letting companies keep more of their own money allows them to actually use that money towards productive ends in the economy. Gee, how strange...

Yeah... the problem is... America needs more roads, bridges, upgraded rails, air traffic control upgrades, properly maintained dams and waterways, replacement of huge numbers of sewer and water systems, electrical grid upgrades, school building upgrades, home energy efficiency upgrades, healthcare options for the poor so they don't cost more down the road... 

Not more iPhones.

That you can't see or understand this exposes a major problem with your logic systems.

America does need those things, but it's not Apple's job to provide them. However, with Apple bringing in their overseas money and paying taxes on said money ($38 billion, according to the article) AND creating new jobs (those workers will now be paying taxes too), more money will be going to the government to fund those projects you speak of. The economy is not some zero sum game, where if Apple increases supply of iPhones, money has to be taken away from somewhere else; new wealth is being created in this situation, not being diverted away from public projects towards iPhones, as you suggest.

So now we're only talking about Apple?  Not corporations in general?  And no, it's not a zero sum game.  Nor is it an infinite sum game as you suggest.  Economic growth potential is not infinite.  And one of the great limits to economic growth is the quality of infrastructure available to facilitate economic growth.  So yes, it is entirely possible that an economy is inefficiently giving excess profits to corporations at the cost of infrastructure maintenance which reduces potential future economic growth.  Beyond that, the distribution of wealth to the consumers in an economy is a major limiting factor in their ability to purchase the products and services that might contribute to innovation, progress, and economic growth.  If you give one guy billions and 100,000 people some debt owed to the billion aire and a wink and a smile... things won't go well for very long.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Re: Thomas Jefferson political party

Clearly Democratic. He would balk at the sight of the plutocratic Republican party, and their desire to concentrate power in the hands of the few.

Broadly speaking, history has very rarely been about "big govt vs. small govt", otherwise the French Revolutionaries would be considered right-wing. Rather, it is about studying power structures and competing interests.

This concept of the government providing for its people through things such as social welfare was largely proposed during the Progressive Era, over a century after Jefferson. The very function of today's government would have made absolutely no sense to people before the Progressive Era, let alone to people before the Industrial Revolution. The government of Jefferson's era largely had one goal: to protect private property. The underlying left-wing basis that ties the left to government intervention, wealth distribution through social programs, simply did not exist.

During this pre-industrial era, the majority of America lived in an agrarian society. Jefferson had a very idealized view of this agrarianism; a world of self-sufficient farmers, with no wages and no real hierarchies* (*for white men). This was in opposition to the free-market industrial capitalists of the day, who largely envisioned a class-based society. The industrial capitalists benefited from policy such as road and port upgrades, so that they could trade their goods on the open market, while Jefferson and his vision of the self-sufficient farmer had no need for such policy; thus, they saw taxes that funded these projects as money going directly to the rich elites.

It soon becomes clear how Jefferson is more similar to the modern Democratic Party, and how the Federalists are more similar to the Republican Party. This is precisely why FDR believed himself to be the ideological heir of Jefferson and Jackson (despite being the most "big government" president ever), and why the Democratic Party had begun to hold Jefferson-Jackson dinners in the late 40s (when Truman, a Democrat, desegregated the military and spawned a segregationist revolt). Though, to be fair, expecting right-libertarians to understand historical context is a little bit demanding.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

This thread is bad, and there are some people here who I don't think understand the struggles involved with being part of the LGBT community. In that regard, I've been luckier than even some people I know. I've never been forced to sleep in a tent in the backyard, like one of my LGBT friends. Being taken to a church which hates you every week, living in a predominantly conservative area, staying in the closet for your own safety, etc is still happening to some of us, and people like Lipinski and his defenders don't care.

Lipinski hates us. There's no way around that. It doesn't matter if he "respects the law" or whatever bullsh**t you come up with, he votes against laws that would protect us from discrimination. We don't want to understand his reasoning behind this, listening to hate doesn't do anyone any good. Beliefs that only hurt other people should be shut up and voted out.

Lipinski losing would have been amazing. We don't need his type in the Democratic Party. Especially not in Chicago. Yes, it's ideological purity, and it's good. As long as you give Lipinski a platform, or try to get us to understand his repulsive point of view, the dream of equality and acceptance will remain distant. Let's just hope that we get someone accepting in 2020.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

It is often assumed that religion is supposed to make someone a better person, but there are people who have became worse because of religion, from the slave owners of the 19th Century to Mel Gibson.

Do you really believe that slave owners would have freed their slaves if they became atheists?  They used religion as a justification.

Religion was one of the reasons for ending slavery.

It was also one of the reasons for preserving slavery.

"Down with the eagle, up with the cross."- Battle Cry of Freedom (Confederate version)

The Confederacy and before them, the Southern zealots corrupted every institution they could get their hands on. If you were a churchman preaching abolition in the pre-war south, you would find out just how "Christian" they really were. As I said in another thread, the only common theme among Confederate and frankly southern politicians generally (even to this day) is rank hypocrisy. They will cite any institution or cause or faith to support their cause, and abuse/violate it just as soon as it suits their whims. Like with State's Rights and the fugitive Slave Act.

A narrative has been kicked up in the past decade or so to discredit the role of religion by trying to equate protestant moralism = South = Slavery and by citing a few examples atheism = abolitionism.

The problem is this fails to acknowledge the fact that New England and the north was the center of the first and Second Great Awakenings, and it was largely under the drive of yankee protestant moralists that formed not only the base of the Republican Party, but also of the free soilers and the like. These people weren't atheists in 1860, if anything they were the strictest of Calvinists. The Quakers also come to mind, as well as Menonites and other groups. Plantation society Southerners balked at these "religious zealots" trying to control their lives, take away their strong drinks and most of all calling them out on their hypocrisy and opposing their immoral institution. It is even listed as a secondary reason why black belt Mississippi whites stayed loyal to Smith in 1928, since he opposed prohibition.

The concept of the south being the most religious region relative to all the others is a late 19th and early 20th century development, but it has entered our minds to the point where it is easy to assume that was always the case. Just ask yourself this, who was the more religious candidate between Adams and Jefferson? If you picked the Southerner, you would be wrong.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Coal and factory jobs haven't always been pleasant (nor are they necessarily so today). But, those became gateways to a respectable, middle-class life for Americans regardless of their socioeconomic background. While those jobs have largely disappeared (primary thanks to automation), the memory working class Americans have associated with those jobs and the American culture that arose during their peak (40s-60s) is one not so easily abandoned. Entire cultures developed around those industries in the communities in which they were dominant. Workers knew that a coal or factory job meant a decent wage, health insurance, pension, and other benefits that are not so easily obtained through other careers - even ones that require a college degree. The relatively high standard of living these folks enjoyed is simply unattainable in today's economy outside of certain highly skilled fields or rare exceptions (such as natural gas booms).

It's not simply an attachment to a particular type of work, but to the benefits and security associated with that work. If these people were given opportunities in their communities aside from low wage, no benefit jobs (like service jobs), then they'd take them. Instead, that's all they have and it simply isn't sustainable for families or for local/regional economies. Return the dignity of a hard days work equals good pay and benefits, and these people will do those jobs and let go of coal and factory jobs. College isn't even necessarily the answer either; trade school provides great opportunities, as do community colleges. But, that requires investment and the promise of local opportunity afterward, where they won't be forced to relocate hundreds of miles away from their home just to have career options.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/31/politics/john-boehner-republican-party/index.html

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How do you interpret Boehner's remarks?

"He's a scumbag, but he's OUR scumbag!" - John Boehner

Trump's not a scumbag for his tweets, of course.  He's a scumbag for orchestrating a Hostile Takeover of the GOP.  So, in that sense, Boehner's correct; he gives a proper interpretation to Trump's rise.

That, btw, is why I rofl over these #NeverTrump types who didn't endorse Hillary and vote for her.  I mean, if Trump was THAT BAD, THAT AWFUL, THAT BIG AN HP, why would you NOT vote for Hillary?  And if you couldn't do that, why didn't they endorse Gary Johnson, who, by any measure, was "better" in the context I'm speaking about?

They couldn't because they wanted it both ways.  They wanted to wash their hands of the dirt from the Tweets and the comments and the Trump-being-Trump, but they wanted a "Signer-In-Chief" turning their legislation into law.  And that's what they have in Trump.  How hard is it to take Trump when he'll sign the legislation your House of Congress passes if you're a Republican?

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

You impecunious and hunchbacked Democrat teenage virgins do understand that;

1. Vermont has no party registration.  Sanders could not register as a Democrat even if he wanted to. 

2. Sanders would have qualified in 2016 with this statement alone he made in a Feb. 2016 town hall; "Of course I am a Democrat and running for the Democratic nomination."  Which is all the proposed rule asks of a candidate. 

3. It is effectively unenforceable, pointless, and only comes off as spiteful. 

And I have no clue why calling oneself a "Democrat" is some kind of badge of honor to you dweebs.  Donald Trump called himself a Democrat from 2001-2009.  Tribalism is a bad, you see. 

Anyway, register on Atlas After Dark, you losers.  Free hat. 

http://atlasafterdark.freeforums.net/

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Hell must have frozen over - I am putting a Fuzzy Bear post in here:

Private prisons are a conflict of interest.  A company that profits on the incarceration of others has the financial incentive to lobby for more restrictive drug laws, minimum-mandatory sentences that take away judicial discretion in sentencing. abolition of parole, "truth-in-sentencing" laws that minimize the possibility of early release for good behavior, and the sort of corruption that leads to inmates being unnecessarily (or even wrongly) infracted questionably for rule violations while confined that lead to loss of good time toward earlier release or a negative mark on their incarceration record that a parole board will see at a parole hearing.  To say nothing of Judges being on the take and handing out prison sentences to people who would have ordinarily received probation (e. g. first-time non-violent offenders) in order to use up "bed space", as if prison is some kind of hotel and the Judge is getting a booking fee like Expedia.

Democrats and Republicans alike spread this cancer, but the GOP is far worse, and the industry has far more GOP officials that are pretty much in their pocket.

Bullock's not the worst in this area, and I wouldn't rule him out just because of this.  It's possible that the Montana Legislature is pushing this and he has more pressing priorities.  This was, however, his chance to be part of the solution, and he passed on it.  Private Prisons are a stain and a cancer.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Any god whose existence can be verified by degraded worldly "science" is not worth worshiping.

Does that mean that you reject all science or are you speaking of a certain kind of science.
It sounds like the former, but I don't like to make assumptions, so I am asking for clarification.

Let's start with science before we deal with God. Science is a particular method of experimentation that presupposes certain things about the universe it's operating: self-consistency, the existence of general principles acting upon it, reproducibility independent of who is observing, etc. Science does give us real information about the universe, but that doesn't mean it's the only source of information about the universe. In fact, the statement that science is the only method of discovering real information about the universe is self-refuting; it cannot be discovering via science. For some more pedestrian examples of information gained through avenues other than science, consider qualitative experience, thought, language, and propositions. (Sometimes people will argue over whether or not deductive reasoning should count as science, and if you think it shouldn't, since it isn't strictly developed using the scientific method, then you have another very obvious example.

The Abrahamic God is not a thing within the universe but entirely beyond it, something like the creator of a video game can't be found by wondering around the game as a player. (This analogy is imperfect because the video game designer simply builds it and walks away whereas God is still sustaining the universe in existence, but it's a good enough analogy for our purposes here.) Similarly, the simple fact that the video game contains elements that appear to players as random/stochastic/probabilistic doesn't mean it didn't have a designer.

Victor Stenger seems to be conflating (in his blog post at least) the answer to the question how with the question why. He seems very hung up on Kalam-style arguments that are related to how we have a universe but doesn't seem interested in why. Now, I'm not going to quite make the often cliche religious argument that science is about how and religion/philosophy is about why, because it's obviously more complicated than that and religion/philosophy clearly does have some things to say about how as well as why. But science does focus relentless on the question of how in such a way as to disregard why entirely (or at least it does if people take it as the only source of truth). To illustrate this point, ask why we have a liver. Science, which uses the word "why" but really means "how", will go on to describe the process of evolution that led to humans having livers. But there's more information here than just that. We have a liver to filter toxins out of our blood. Now, in that example, science is capable of demonstrating that the liver does filter toxins out of our blood and that having one is evolutionarily beneficial, but it doesn't and cannot in principle say we have a liver in order to filter toxins out of our blood. That is a statement interpreting scientific findings through a philosophy that includes teleology. Scientists, like people of most highly educated professions can sometimes tend to make the classical mistake of thinking that because they spend all day working with hammers, everything must be a nail. The non-existence of teleology is a philosophical idea that can be argued, but it must actually be defended rather than brushing over it and using the word why to mean how.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Re: How to rebuild the Wyoming Democratic Party

Anecdotally, my mom's family is from Wyoming and are all Democrats. I might be biased because of this, but I think there's a path. This is something of what it would look like:

- Distance the local politicians from the national politicians. Make sure they are all totally cool with no gun restrictions, and preferably are avid hunters themselves.

- Massive GOTV operations in Native and Hispanic areas.

- Get local Democrats enthusiastic about running for office. Laramie is a good place to start for this, given the large civil society presence at the University. Jackson has too many carpetbaggers.

- Run against Republicans as "big government" authoritarians.

- Run against the Bureau of Land Management as big government trying to suck up our precious land and resources to feed the desires of the East Coast corporatists.

- Have an environmental message, but keep it far from Al Gore-style environmentalism. Talk about God's precious Earth and our role as stewards over it. Tell people to vote against letting corporations pollute our beautiful lakes and rivers so our kids can play in them but DO NOT talk about climate change or global warming.

- Blame any and every ill facing anyone in Wyoming on the decades of one-party Republican rule, whether fair or not. Basically what the Republicans did in Michigan in 2010.

- Drive a wedge between the religous right and the business/neo-con right as much as possible. Wyoming has one of the largest irreligious Republican constituencies of any state.

Interesting thing to ponder.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I'm going to be blunt here and call out all these Republicans ITT whining about "optics", "temper tantrums", "entitlement" and "graceless moves". Your faux outrage is nothing more than hypocritical histrionics. You are embarrassing yourselves; don't be surprised when everyone stops taking you seriously.

For at least two decades the go-to Republican strategy in close/contested elections has been this:

If the Republican has a narrow lead:
1. attack the Democrat as a sore loser
2. demand the "result of the election is respected"
3. attempt to suppress/interrupt the remaining vote count
4. demand absolute adherence to insanely strict deadlines to abrogate the democratic contest
5. when courts step in to ensure all votes are counted, attack them as liberal "activists"
6. push propaganda that delegitimizes the democratic process; character assassination on Democrat

if the Democrat has a narrow lead:
1. refuse to concede under any circumstances
2. attempt to abuse the judiciary to overturn the will of the electorate
3. Yell loudly about fraud even when there is no evidence of it
4. dig your heels in for months to prevent the Democratic winner from timely taking office
5. attempt to commit blatant fraud if possible (most obvious example here is AL 2002)
6. make up lies to delegitimize the Democrat ("Christine Gregoire "found" a box of ballots in her trunk")

I have no doubt that every single one of you attacking Stacey Abrams have also been defending Bruce Poliquin in Maine as he demands to change the entire electoral system so he can "win"

This election was full of extremely suspicious irregularities from the very start and a heavy dose of skepticism should be applied to literally anything Brian Kemp has said either as a candidate or as the Secretary of State, especially because he didn't even pretend to respect the boundaries between those two roles. He repeatedly abused his role as the putatively "neutral" arbiter/administrator of the electoral process to fraudulently push the election in his own favor, going as far as to fabricate claims of "democratic hacker investigations" and suppress the minority vote for spurious reasons.

For our democratic process to have even the faintest trace of legitimacy, it is absolutely essential for the judicial system to thoroughly examine every questionable element of this election. Stacey Abrams is a bona fide Profile in Courage here: taking an unpopular stand to ensure the ideals of our republic are respected and every vote is fairly counted. If you think she's doing this for selfish reasons or a sense of entitlement then you fundamentally misunderstand who Stacey Abrams is as a person. She knows she's facing a wall of institutionalized Republican corruption designed to keep itself in power at all costs. She knows the hyperactive and highly funded right wing propaganda machine will dedicate every moment of this process to a character assassination that will ruin any future she could have otherwise had in statewide politics. If she was acting out of self interest she would have dropped out fairly quickly. She's making a principled stand here, to shine a light on the pitiful excuse for a democracy that exists in our state.

Besides it's not like there's any rush for her to step out of the race so the complaints about how she's "stalling" or whatever don't even make sense. Nathan Deal is still governor until the second week of January. Any potential runoff election isn't until December and realistically they'd easily be able to hold the election with a just a few days' prep time. Hell, worst case scenario, it'd be trivial for a court to delay the gubernatorial runoff so it occurs on the allocated date for federal office runoffs.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Yes, so we could finally have a conservative party that wasn't tainted by Lincoln.

Yes, so we could finally have a conservative party that wasn't tainted by Lincoln.

I have no use for any form of conservatism that doesn't embrace and cherish Lincoln's legacy (even if it disagreed on some of his methods). Conservatism at its root base is and should be about the opposition to arbitrary rule and the inequity that results from it. There is nothing more arbitrary than the slave powers who embraced and abandoned ideology when convenient for the preservation of their cash maker. They didn't give a damn about state's rights when it came to Northerners who objected to being forced to hunt down their slaves for them, or when it came to being forced to accept them bringing their slaves north as "protected property under the constitution". There is nothing conservative about political expediency for personal profit!

Conservative is not and never has been about smaller government uber alles (That is libertarian not Conservative). Conservatism is for restraining the imbalance created by the overbearing weight of the federal government and the detrimental effect that it has on the federal system by usurping powers from the people to the government and the states to the Washington DC. Conservatism would never endorse the abolition of government though, nor even of the federal government. Conservatism is about restraining the bureaucratic state and its rules because it is arbitrary and not elected. 

The simple fact of the matter is that we have had an alliance of convenience with various groups who ever the course of the last 70 years have hijacked conservatism. Eliminating the GOP will not solve the problem because American Conservatism as it presently exists, is fundamentally rotten to the core, completely out of touch the current needs of its voting base and hopelessly contorted by extremists who are pulling the thing in five different directions and trying to exterminate everyone who disagrees with them.

Conservatives have let neo-liberals (emphasis on liberals) dictate our economic policy to the point where the greatest disruptive force (something conservatives would naturally oppose in terms of a foreign threat or social upheaval) has come from within in the name of unrestrained Creative Destruction and free trade. We have let our foreign policy be dictated by the Wilsonian Left, so that now we have a whole generation of people who despise the right and the Republican Party because of a war embraced and fought for Wilsonian justifications. We have let the religious right dictate social policy to the point that rather being an ideology based on the stability of faith, family and community, its known for divisiveness and hate.

American Conservatism is one big clusterf@%K and it did not have to be this way. When we started allowing each faction to pull us in five different directions at the same time and also demand purity with each knew set of demands, you end up like the spokes on a wheel shooting out in every direction, but the key thing is you are being pulled further and further apart. You cannot be for smaller government and be in people's bathrooms and bedrooms and other country's business. You cannot be for the stability of faith, family and community and perpetrate the greatest economic upheaval since the Great Depression on large swaths of rural and urban America and embracing radical proposal to abolish/eliminate government.

Conservatism was about being the voice of reason, about checking the radical impulses of everyone else and fighting for that simple family in that simple village who just wants to live their lives in peace. But how many times has it been us who has busted in the front door and ripped them apart? We bitch endlessly as Conservatives about broken families being the root cause of poverty, yet how many times have conservatives sent their fathers to die in foreign wars or come back suffering from PTSD and told you are on your own, meanwhile the kids and wife suffer b/c smaller government!?  How many times have conservatives locked their father's up for ridiculous lengths of time in the name of the war on Drugs? How many times have conservatives sent the father's job to China and told them to "work harder or be smarter next time"?

"Movement Conservatives" have done more to destroy the American Family in the past 30 years then Liberals ever could have dreamed. For 30 years, we have been perfectly fine with using government to break sh**t and then are the first ones to cry foul when someone one wants to use Government to fix it. And yet you wonder why every person of color hates us and why the youngest generations of Americans are coming to devour us alive?
 
It is not the Republican Party that is the problem, It is not even Donald Trump (he is just the manifestation the chickens coming home to roost) it is American Movement Conservatism, its inconsistencies, its simultaneous extremism and conformity with impossibly inconsistent sets of demands and its complete lack of awareness as to the damage it has caused. 

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

This is the most Mitch McConnell-esque exanmple of DARVO I've seen from a Democrat. It's pretty clear that Pelosi fired the first shot (after AOC helped secure the left's votes for her). The disgusting part of this is when Pelosi decided to march The Squad out for their Rolling Stone photoshoot, while dismissing them as "four people" on multiple occasions with the other. She doesn't see AOC or Omar or Pressley or Tlaib as useful members of the caucus, she sees them as props to virtue signal about how diverse her caucus is and how women of color are starting to take leadership roles. And now she wants to talk about "unity" after attacking them? Get that BS outta here.

Let's go down the list of the establishments' attempts at "unity" with the left:

* Tom Perez, 2017. After his fight with Ellison for DNC chair, he decided to purge Ellison's supporters (including my state party's chair - one of the most competent state parties in the nation) from leadership posts and replace them with his loyalists. These included lobbyists for Big Oil, long-time establishment members, and Fox News lobbyists.

* Hillary Clinton, 2017. Her supporters are still blaming Bernie in the Year of Our Lord, 2019 for daring to run against her, the most Experienced Nominee since Eisenhower, and have been a part of that vicious smear campaign for years. She could have ended it all and joined the call for unity in her book. She officially endorsed the smear campaign on multiple occasions, because how dare Bernie run against The Anointed One, a long-term politician who was destined by her experience to become the nominee.

* The Entire Damn DCCC, 2018. The Democrats' Anointed One in NE-2, Brad Ashford, lost the primary to Kara Eastman, noted Bernie candidate, liberal, and breath of fresh air. Never mind that Ashford had already lost to Bacon and was an ex-Republican. The Anointed One lost, so they cut their losses, moved it to triage, and moved on, abandoning a pickup opportunity. And we haven't gotten into my favorite "women's interest group" failing to endorse Eastman until the general, or the deafening silence from the same anti-Bernie crowd who crucified Heath Mello for having the same beliefs on abortion as Ashford did. I guarantee you that if Welder won the KS-3 primary, he'd be another example of this.

* Kim Jong Bustos, 2018. You're still seeing the DCCC play Politburo today, expelling all consultants from the party who defy their will in the name of protecting those poor conservative zealots in liberal districts.

If you look at the situation from an unbiased view, those who are calling the loudest for "party unity" are waging a war against people like AOC and Scott and me, and they expect us to be good little ducklings and follow along because their Enlightened Experience gives them the God-given right to rule.

The establishment doesn't give a flying f*** about unity. They don't care about resistance. Their first concern isn't even stopping Trump and the various abuses of power he's committed (and will continue to commit). The primary goal of the Democratic Party is making the left submit to their will. They know they're not serving the voters. They know we're the real threat to their power. And they'll do everything they can to cling to that power - even if it means extending our long national nightmare by four more years.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Wonderful to see the CBC has joined in on the gaslighting. Alongside a lot of the stuff we've discussed to death, we've seen William Lacy Clay literally compare the Justice Democrats to Russia (absolutely ridiculous!).

We've also seen Gregory Meeks claim that the CBC endorsed noted white men like Mike Capuano to "protect the majority". You know, because Ayanna Pressley had such a tough race to win the general against... literally nobody.

Also curious how there was no major push from certain CBC members to endorse Donna Edwards over the establishment's pick of Chris Van Hollen. Jesus tapdancing Christ, even EMILY's List gave their all for her and showed some damn backbone.

I can't speak to whether or not Pelosi's a racist, but we can certainly identify that "anonymous Democratic" staffer who compared AOC to a Goomba is a sexist.

Mostt damningly of all, Pelosi's "do not tweet" order apparently only applies to The Squad and their allies, and not... the official account of the caucus.

https://twitter.com/HouseDemocrats/status/1149856308801286148
Truly Orwellian stuff we have going on here, folks. Appeasement is strength. Submission is unity. Misogyny is civility. The right-winger who vowed to block Hillary Clinton's nominees into her presidency is a #Resistance hero, and so is the biggest attention whore in the history of the Senate (who backed up his talk with absolutely no action). Meanwhile, the left-winger who dared to give her a primary challenge contributed to the rise of Trump. They say Trump is the enemy, but if you look into their actions, you'll see who their real enemies are.

Let it be known that I didn't leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

And I looked it up, apparently she does want to do 6% on wealth over $1B!  So in 20 years, Bill Gates will have lost $80B of his $110B fortune.  That is INSANE.

Do you not realize that what you call insane is actually seen by several folks hanging out in this thread (and many more out in the real world) as actually a good thing. Bringing an end to the preposterous existence of the ultra wealthy as a defined class of people is a good thing. They will never want on an individual level if this becomes a reality. None of their kids is likely to ever suffer the stings of poverty if it does either. And likely many generations down the line they'll still be benefiting in various ways from their ancestor's wealth. If not via direct inheritance then by the various levers of power a parent of that level of wealth can push to open doors for them that are shut for anyone else, even without realizing they're doing it.

So Bill Gates and company, they'll be fine. They don't need to worry about retirement under this wealth tax. Unless they suddenly figure out a way to live for a hundred thousand years or something absurd like that.

So... any argument trying to liken it to a retirement fund is absurd on face. Even before one factors in the means for which he is already stock pilling vast sums of wealth despite giving away tons of it for his own projects.

If you want to know the details of plans on how to avoid accidental promotion of tax shelter horse purchases, feel free to ask the Warren (or Sanders) campaigns what their plans are. I could speculate of course, but in general, if there exists a market for something, there tends to be ways to evaluate the cost of items in that market. Including ridiculously priced horses. Even if the horse becomes a gelding.

So... again, your argument is a little absurd.

So lets go to the unsaid argument that you hint at with the bit I quoted. You appear to be using all this nonsense as a means to argue for there existing individuals with absurd amounts of personal capital because reasons. That's the argument you're making once you cut out all the 'but mah fairness!' cries and attempts to distract with 'but what about this complicated but solvable problem, why don't you lay out every detail for me right now so I can ignore the central core of the issue entirely and nit pick about random people on the internet not being experts on horse breeding', there is this want of yours to defend billionaires as a class as a starting point.

Why? Why do you specifically want to defend their existence in our society?

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

The way the question is framed here is not entirely fair, in that China and India still have quite a ways to go in terms of providing broad-based access to wealth for their people (I'm making a few assumptions here). This is a phenomenon that was observed back in the fifties, but ironically as a point against capitalism--why were the Second and Third Worlds growing substantially faster than Europe or the United States!? As we can see now, this was largely the product of economies making up for lost time. If we were hanging out at the gym, we'd call them "beginner gains" (I think that's how the phrase goes)--the initial burst of muscular growth after one hits weights for the first few times. India, China, the US, and Europe have different starting points.

That said, there are reasons for socialism to cause lower economic growth, though they are not presented here in your premise. If we're talking about development over centuries, there are good reasons for countries that provide for rule of law and protection of private property to surge ahead of those where investment environments are uncertain. While internal trade barriers and expropriative monarchs were a threat to this in the eighteenth century, the major threat in the twentieth century has come from expropriative populists. This is a long-standing argument, but one that doesn't seem particularly relevant to the dilemma you describe.

As for Europe in particular--we're not really discussing socialism per se, but rather larger welfare states or social market economies. So why is growth slower there? If I had to guess it's just perhaps an environment less favorable to innovation or radical (economic) change. We should also remember that the population of several European countries is declining, so this may account for it in a way that political economy cannot.

We should also keep in mind, however, that growth isn't everything. Some of these societies may provide all around better economic security and even access to highly-prized consumer goods even in the face of relative stagnation compared to the outside world.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Pretty bad stuff dude. You can do better than that.

Stop being arrogant and actually listen to what the other person is trying to tell you.

Alright, if you insist.

Let’s dive into the interesting world of development economics! Now, broadly speaking, development economics is the study of how nations and communities improve their economic capacity and social capital. This field looks at how nations develop their economies over time. It also examines what lessons can be learned from their successes and mistakes.

This means taking a look at how other nations achieved high levels of human development. Take Taiwan for example. At the end of the Chinese Civil War, Taiwan  suffered from a stagnant economy and hyperinflation. The Kuomintang remnant was largely reliant on American aid. Economic activity mainly consisted of agricultural products. However, in just four decades, Taiwan would go from an economic backwater to a powerhouse of productivity, rivalling GDP per capita seen in much of the Western world. How did they achieve this remarkable feat?

Well, the roots of Taiwan’s success can be traced to the land reform movement of the 1950’s. Taiwan used to be dominated by large Japanese farms, each with a landlord and dozens of peasants tending to their crops. Indigneous Taiwanese owned little land. However, with the fall of Japan at the end of the Second World War, most of the foreign landowners fled Taiwan. This presented the KMT with an excellent opportunity to enact land reform. This was implemented through several different methods: government leases of land to farmers, land grants to tenants, and the sale of government and privately owned land.

This policy proved to be an enormous success. Crop yields increased, as farmers invested more capital into their land, inequality fell, farmer’s income increased substantially, and the price of land fell significantly. This also allowed for small manufacturing businesses in the countryside, as some farmers decided to create other enterprises to supplement their main income source.

At the same time, Taiwan enacted a strict industrial policy that imposed harsh tariffs on manufacturing products produced outside of the country. This may seem counterintuitive, given current economic consensus on trade, but these policies allowed Taiwan to develop a domestic manufacturing sector with a strong rural base. While many peasants moved to the cities, others were able to receive training and return to their home villages.

Another key feature of Taiwan’s success was American aid. USAID provided Taiwan with substantial external direct aid. This provided a catalyst for substantial economic growth on the island, with GDP growing by over 300% between 1950 and 1980. These policies also lowered inequality and increased metrics like life expectancy.

Of course, not all was well in Taiwan; the country was a one-party state ruled by the KMT, who cracked down on attempts to democratize the country or create independent unions outside of the rigid corporatist framework that the KMT imposed. However, by 1986, their control over internal affairs waned considerably, and KMT leadership embraced a transition to democracy. With the end of corporatism and state-run unions, manufacturing wages increased by nearly 60% over a three year period. Today, Taiwan’s economy has fully converged with many Western nations.

How does this relate to sweatshops? Well, it suggests that foreign-owned manufacturing may not be the only method to increase economic development. In fact, these firms may hurt economic development through rent seeking, an economic behavior where firms try to maximize wealth without adding additional value to the economy. Lobbying for more favorable regulation, for example, is a form of rent seeking behavior.

Similar to how states and municipalities offer tax incentives to attract businesses, developing countries often engage in similar behaviors in order to attract foreign investment. Additionally, foreign businesses may exploit government corruption in order to maximize their profits. This incentivizes corruption and can undermine political stability.

Sweatshops are an outgrowth of this problem. In many cases, companies are incentivized to undermine unionization efforts and government oversight. This can prolong the problem and lead to worse conditions for workers in these factories. Bangladesh, for example, is notorious for its textile industry. Work stoppages and disruptions are common, with many workers suffering from abysmal conditions in their workplace.

Are these sacrifices worth it in the long run? Perhaps, but that isn’t the question we should be asking. Here’s a better question: Can we help countries achieve economic development using a more humane approach? The answer is yes, absolutely! A combination of factors, most notably economic aid, stable government, transparency, and (in certain cases) land reform, can provide for quick economic development. Additionally, these measures produce more humane results for the working class, without generating long standing inequalities.

To say that sweatshops perform a ‘moral good’ is outrageous; their owners seek to maximize profit at every opportunity, and will not hesitate to embrace rent seeking when it provides them with an economic profit. How can this be considered a moral good? Not to mention the massive burden they place on their employees and their families.

The International community can combat the allure of these companies with a combination of direct aid and increased oversight. The ILO (International Labor Organization) at the United Nations should be further empowered to address matters such as these.

This goes without saying that there is no 'one size fits all' model for economic development. Every nation confronts its own unique set of challenges and obstacles. However, countries like Taiwan provide a realistic framework for economic development, at a smaller toll in human life.

References

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, R. of C. (T. (n.d.). Land-to-the-tiller program transformed Taiwan. Retrieved from https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=10&post=15716

Minns, J., & Tierney, R. (2003). The Labour Movement in Taiwan. Labour History, (85), 103. doi: 10.2307/27515930

Hsiao Tseng, The Theory and Practice of Land Reform in the Republic of China, 2nd edition, China Research Institute of Land Economics, Taipei, 1968

Schwab, D., & Werker, E. (2018). Are economic rents good for development? Evidence from the manufacturing sector. World Development, 112, 33–45. doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.07.014

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Credit where credit is due

I voted Likely Pressley, but I think she is being definitely overestimated by most posters. It's correct to note that Pressley was elected against an incumbent, but the difference between her and say AOC is that while AOC was elected on a broad ideological message which, as much as I may hate, has at least some sort of appeal to extremely liberal Democrats of all stripes, Pressley won off of blatant race baiting. That may work great in the only majority minority district in the state, but it certainly won't be nearly as effective statewide (I doubt AOC could win statewide either, but conflating the two is a mistake.)

The rest of the thread literally makes clear how that particular reply lacked any quality (let alone of a 'high' variety).

People are right for the wrong reasons all the time and the post itself was spot on, the subsequent ones not so much (to put it mildly).

OP claims "Pressley won off of blatant race baiting." Subsequent replies show how neither Pressley nor her campaign engaged in anything that could even remotely constitute 'race-baiting,' thereby making clear that OP's post was neither high-quality nor something "spot on" that was "right for the wrong reasons."

You yourself are just wrong (to put it mildly).

Err...Pressley did win the primary using blatant race-baiting.  Her whole campaign could be summed up as “vote for me b/c Capuano is white and white people are teh Evulz”

Yeah, Pressley herself said that she would not vote any differently from Capuano but would "lead differently" (i.e. not be a white guy).

Contrast that with AOC, another woman of color who beat a white male in his primary but actually ran her campaign on the issues.  Naked identity politics is an ugly way to win elections.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

Wow. It is difficult to emphasize just how really insane and terrible this man was. Best case scenario, he was a land-hungry warmonger who lacked the wisdom and perspective to understand how incredibly destructive his presidency was for the country. He most certainly is not underrated; the obsession high school history classes have with Polk as the "one good Antebellum president" is revisionism at its worst. In reality, Polk was an incompetent fool blinded by ideology and his own hubris whose legacy was saved only because those under him had the good sense to ignore his instructions at key moments.

Giving Polk credit for seizing the Southwest from Mexico is like giving Robert Oppenheimer credit for inventing nuclear power. At this point we might as well make the best of the situation, but it was not a good thing when he did it —and the short-term consequences (i.e. the ones he could have and should have foreseen) were the genocide of the native peoples and the fracturing of the Union, leading directly to the deaths of well near a million Americans as direct or indirect casualties of the Civil War. Pretending Manifest Destiny had nothing to do with slavery is simply ignorant of the actual historical record. (Read the Packenham Letter, for goodness' sake.) But even if you take the accelerationist view and praise Polk for accidentally hastening the end of slavery, his presidency is full-up of unforced errors (for instance, his veto of the Rivers and Harbors Act, which did grave damage to internal commerce), more than enough to bury any president.

If you want an unsung Antebellum president to lionize, Taylor is a far more deserving subject —a fact Polk bizarrely seemed to recognize in a roundabout way when he made his career for him and then tried (without success) to destroy it.