The Oldiesfreak Deluge of Absurdity, Ignorance, and Bad Posts III

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

18 as a purchase age, no actual drinking minimum.  The best way to prevent unhealthy relationships with alcohol is for parents to expose kids to booze themselves, in moderation- that way it's not some sort of forbidden fruit.

FWIW I was 16 when I first had alcohol and that seems about "right".*

As for the scourge of drunk driving, the obvious solution is to raise the driving age instead.   Maybe start introducing learner's permits at 18, and don't issue full licenses until 21.  (I would also consider raising the age to serve in the military or to own firearms to 21, along with driving- the privilege of operating deadly machinery is not a right in the way that votin' or boozin' is, and really does need to be only entrusted to people who have demonstrated sufficient maturity.  Sorry folks.)

*I would not necessarily oppose a purchase minimum of 16, but it would have to be coupled with raising the driving age for me to support it; and I also don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for teenagers to be able to be exposed to alcohol before they're allowed to buy it themselves.

Terrible parts in bold.

I'm aware that my specific proposal regarding the driving age is more idealistic than practical, and I'd be happy to have an open discussion about that- keeping in mind, of course, that "automobile ownership" and "mobility" are far from the same thing.  (I'm aware that this point is not obvious to many- and the fact that it is so obscured is the first problem we have to tackle.)

But it is an indisputable fact that cars are indeed deadly machinery (more deadly than firearms in fact), and thus need to be regulated and restricted to protect the life and limb of both its operators and victims.

The main problem here is you are basically forcing people to live with their parents until 21 unless not in college, especially as a learner's permit is basically worthless unless you live with your parents. I'd have no choice but to go home every summer in college until I was 21.

Considering how interested in improving public transit traininthedistance is I think he's probably already contemplated that and has long-term solutions in mind, although if one raised the driving age first that would be the short-term result, yeah.

Public transit from Bismarck, ND to Mankato, MN would be pretty tricky.

Main line from Chicago to Seattle or Calgary or both, with lots of branches?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I for one am glad that black people have bedstuy to tell them what's appropriate.

Skin color isn't a prerequisite for expressing an idea.  What a racist concept. 

Against whom is it, in this particular instance, racist?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Context not really needed.

fringe liberal Burger Court in 1974.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm certainly no fan of Chavez or Maduro, but calling them fascist does sound pretty absurd to me.

Yeah, the only explanations for that that I can think of are that ag subscribes to the 'horseshoe' thesis or that he's using 'fascist' in the 'political ideology I disagree with A WHOLE LOT' sense.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Both of those men are terrible people.  I can't even begin to explain my hatred for them. They are fascist. Plain and simple.

This really, really sounds like you're using the 'political ideology I disagree with A WHOLE LOT' definition.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

ftr that referred to the new deal

I, at least, could tell that, it's just that the unspeakably awful things that started in Europe in 1933 (or before, really--and were ongoing in East Asia no matter how you look at it) sort of outweigh the good things that started in America.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?action=profile;u=12049;sa=showPosts

He can't be real.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Rooney's been really risible today, yeah.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's a good post because it uses the delightful phrase 'Mad Haberdasher of Independence' and because aside from the welfare state stuff the things for which it criticizes Truman are very much legitimate criticisms, yes. It's a bad post because it uses the laughable phrase 'Mad Haberdasher of Independence', because of the welfare state stuff, and because the entire thrust of the argument is the, as you said, bizarre assertion that Truman's presidency was somehow the worst of all time or without significant redeeming qualities.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

It's a good post because it uses the delightful phrase 'Mad Haberdasher of Independence' and because aside from the welfare state stuff the things for which it criticizes Truman are very much legitimate criticisms, yes. It's a bad post because it uses the laughable phrase 'Mad Haberdasher of Independence', because of the welfare state stuff, and because the entire thrust of the argument is the, as you said, bizarre assertion that Truman's presidency was somehow the worst of all time or without significant redeeming qualities.

My post is a legitimate opinion backed up by reason and fact. You may disagree with it, Nathan, for that is your right. However, it does not belong here. The moderator should rename this thread "The Deluge of Posts that Red Avatars do not Approve Of." This whole thread is utterly disgusting and is a testament to close minded, anti-intellectual thought.

While it's indeed a matter of opinion rather than fact whether or not 'wish[ing] to force socialist medicine of the United States' is morally comparable to, to name the criticism of Truman that I think is the most legitimate, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I don't think it's only red avatars who find it questionable, or who find the eventual conclusion that Truman was a worse President than, for example, the ones immediately before and after the Civil War bemusing. It's not a position that you've arrived at in ignorance, and it's entirely subjective whether or not it's a bad one, but I think that characterizing Truman's presidency that way is at a sufficient disconnect from most people's standards of presidential success or failure that 'absurd' can reasonably be said to apply. Describing the Fair Deal as 'deranged', even if one disagrees with it, is also almost certainly excessive hyperbole by about any definition that doesn't already assume strident libertarianism.

I actually agree that your post doesn't really belong in this thread, it's just...I do think that it demonstrates a set of priorities that people across large swathes of most ideological spectra would agree are somewhat quixotic, and I can see Mung Beans's rationale for including it.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

We've been discussing that post for a good bit of this page now.