The GOP doesn't seem to be a very healthy party these days. It's just racist fury & cultural rage

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Trinopus

My favorite counter-rant, alas, is that this can produce tiny little parties that have the power to be disproportionately effective. If you have 45% R, 45% D, and 10% L, the L party has almost complete control! (It's like being the swing vote on a divided Supreme Court. That one person is the Supreme Court!)

So? Nothing wrong with that. It's not a parliamentary system, there's no need to get a majority-coalition together to "form a government." Party L in your scenario could be the "swing vote" but in an issue-specific sense, voting with the Pubs on issue A and with the Dems on issue B as issues arise -- in other words, much the way it would go in a big national town-meeting if such a thing were possible.

Furthermore, I don't think your scenario is a likely result of proportional representation, etc.; I would expect, rather, the permanent breakup of the two-party system as such, the dissolution of the Democratic and Republican parties, and the emergence of five or six parties across the ideological spectrum, all more or less equal in size and none with any hope of being the majority party ever, which means they would have to compromise and ally to form even issue-specific majorities to get anything done -- again, the way a national town-meeting would be.

"[Legislatures in the United States] should be an exact portrait, in miniature, of the people at large, as it should think, feel, reason, and act like them." -- John Adams

"... the portrait is excellent in proportion to its being a good likeness,...the legislature ought to be the most exact transcript of the whole society... the faithful echo of the voices of the people." -- James Wilson at the Constitutional Convention.

But what we have instead, what the single-member-district winner-take-all system inevitably produces, is more like a distorting funhouse mirror, with some parts of the image-of-the-whole-people grossly exaggerated and others shrunk to invisibility.

"The Electors [voters] who are on a different side in party politics from the local majority are unrepresented... [This system] is diametrically opposed to the first principle of democracy, representation in proportion to numbers." -- John Stuart Mill, in Considerations on Representative Government (1861)

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Oakminster

This rant is just as bigoted as the positions you attribute to your political opponents. People that disagree with your politics are not evil. They view the world differently than you do. Rational minds can differ.

Yes, of course, but only within certain rational limits. The Tea Partiers are not rational minds. The OWSers, goofy as they appear, are highly rational by comparison.

[adaher]

Being rational implies that you can have a demonstration without getting arrested or creating a local disaster area wherever you've been.

[Oakminster]

Originally Posted by Shayna

There isn't a single, solitary idea that this racist, hateful, anti-democracy, ignorant, religious nut job Republican party holds at the moment that could possibly be described as "attractive" to anyone but a racist, hateful, anti-democracy, ignorant, religious nut job lunatic.

How do you explain the fact that the College Republicans outnumber the College Democrats by 250,000 to about 100,00?

[adaher]

Not to mention, Americans don't like small government and free markets?

The problem with insulting the GOP in such a way is that by extension you insult half the electorate.

[Beware of Doug]

Originally Posted by adaher

Being rational implies that you can have a demonstration without getting arrested or creating a local disaster area wherever you've been.

Would you have said the same in 1965? How rational or irrational were the civil rights marchers of that day?

[adaher]

They didn't create the mayhem, those who tried to hose them down and set dogs on them did.

[Beware of Doug]

But they got arrested, therefore they were irrational. And?

[adaher]

Through no fault of their own. The OWS protesters acted like fools, purposely broke the law, got arrested. And trashed the area they occupied.

Tea Partiers somehow manage to always have peaceful protests that don't involve mass arrests. Even with many of them carrying arms.

[Beware of Doug]

That might just be testimony to the average age of the 2 groups.

[Oakminster]

Originally Posted by Beware of Doug

That might just be testimony to the average age of the 2 groups.

So young liberals are incapable of complying with the law? That doesn't exactly help the argument for rationality.

[Beware of Doug]

Of course they're capable. Yes, they overstepped boundaries. But if you comply with every law, there's no way to stage a protest of any kind. Even if you did, it would shortly be made illegal anyway. You can get stomped for standing still, saying nothing and carrying a sign in some contexts.

[adaher]

Then there's the irrationality of protesting against something the party you nominally side with expended a lot of capital fixing. I kept on asking supporters of OWS, "Haven't the Democrats already solved this problem with Dodd-Frank?" Apparently not.

[gamerunknown]

Originally Posted by adaher

The OWS protesters acted like fools, purposely broke the law, got arrested. And trashed the area they occupied.

Trashed the area? Cite?

Also, the civil rights protesters purposefully broke laws, too.

[adaher]

They did sit ins or marched when they weren't supposed to because racist mayors and governors wouldn't give them permits. They didn't break random laws against vandalism, theft, and assaulting police.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lano...tent-city.html

and in Wisconsin, guess who came to help pick up all the trash left behind:

http://www.sodahead.com/united-state...stion-1561585/

The Tea party.

[HMS Irruncible]

What will probably happen is what's already happening... they will take their existing hatreds and strawmen and cultural-warrior bullshit and repackage it as deep, passionate concern for economic issues that all happen to strongly favor rich people, and if not rich people, then white straight people.

It remains to be seen whether the Republican party can pull off this metamorphosis, or whether its supporters will have to flock to another party to make this happen. The Tea Party is one version of this, where the nutty cultural fringe barely conceals itself behind the fig leaf of fiscal responsibility. The Libertarian Party is being hijacked as a lifeboat for people jumping the Republican ship, who understand that they must reluctantly toss the cultural baggage overboard if they want any hope of preserving the existing unfair economic system.

[adaher]

Well, that economic liberalism stuff is as surely on its way to the scrap heap as social conservatism. We are always moving towards more and more freedom. Those that want to control people, either in the name of puritanism or fairness are going to be awfully disappointed over the coming decades.

[Fear Itself]

Then it is inescapable that the property-centric parts of libertarianism are also headed for the scrap heap. Feudalism didn't survive the Renassaince for the same reasons you have outlined; people crave freedom, and will not stand for a system that only guarantees the freedoms of property owners, while relegating the rest of the population to the status of serfs, bound through poverty to landowners.

[adaher]

Except that our system has made most people property owners.

[Fear Itself]

Originally Posted by adaher

Except that our system has made most people property owners.

So it's OK to subjugate the rest?

[adaher]

No one is subjugated. It's a free country. Targeting rich people for restrictions on their liberty won't make us any freer.

[Fear Itself]

Originally Posted by adaher

No one is subjugated. It's a free country. Targeting rich people for restrictions on their liberty won't make us any freer.

Is justice served when taxes are collected from property owners at the point of a gun?

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by adaher

Being rational implies that you can have a demonstration without getting arrested or creating a local disaster area wherever you've been.

No, it doesn't, actually; because that is not to the purpose.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by adaher

Then there's the irrationality of protesting against something the party you nominally side with expended a lot of capital fixing. I kept on asking supporters of OWS, "Haven't the Democrats already solved this problem with Dodd-Frank?" Apparently not.

So what? OWS is not a branch of the Democratic Party, not even in the very limited sense that the Tea Party is a branch of the GOP.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by HMS Irruncible

The Libertarian Party is being hijacked as a lifeboat for people jumping the Republican ship, who understand that they must reluctantly toss the cultural baggage overboard if they want any hope of preserving the existing unfair economic system.

Don't see how "hijacked" really applies there. The LP needs a much broader base to have any hope of success.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by Fear Itself

Is justice served when taxes are collected from property owners at the point of a gun?

[shrug] How else were they ever collected? The gun/sword is almost never used but is always in reserve and implied. That does not make taxation theft, no more than it makes any other form of law-enforcement slavery.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by adaher

Well, that economic liberalism stuff is as surely on its way to the scrap heap as social conservatism.

Come on, now, be honest, is that really what you see when you look around you at the country and, more importantly, the world?

[Evil Captor]

Originally Posted by adaher

Well, that economic liberalism stuff is as surely on its way to the scrap heap as social conservatism. We are always moving towards more and more freedom. Those that want to control people, either in the name of puritanism or fairness are going to be awfully disappointed over the coming decades.

She's right. The rich are going to fuck everybody else over big time. Hooray!

[Lumpy]

At the risk of hijacking this thread into another libertarianism debate, too many people seem to have fallen into the trap of using the following logic to assume what libertarianism means:

• most libertarians favor individual property rights, as opposed to classic anarchism, and maximum freedom from government interference.
• the rich and powerful possess the majority of property today.
• therefore, libertarianism is simply a shill for the disproportionally rich to maintain their privilege free from the requirements of social welfare for a humane society.

The fact is that this is largely a strawman. This sort of Dickensian system, or even worse some formal sort of "corporate feudalism" simply wouldn't work. When it happened in the 19th century the result was a near-revolt by the working classes; you really would have the workers manning barricades and seizing property if anyone was foolish enough to try it; and the rich themselves are well aware of this. The system we have now is the result of modifying the previous laissez-faire system to something humanly sustainable. What conservatives and libertarians hold is that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, towards an almost Chinese view of civilization as the total adminstration of society by the government.

The main difference is that conservatives mainly want to turn back the clock to maybe what existed before the 1960s, while libertarians propose something different: that the answer is the maximum personal empowerment of individuals. To be neither "the masses" in a collective, nor subjects of an all-encompassing quasi-socialist nanny state, nor exploited workers kept in line by cops and goon squads.

[Fear Itself]

Originally Posted by Lumpy

The main difference is that conservatives mainly want to turn back the clock to maybe what existed before the 1960s, while libertarians propose something different: that the answer is the maximum personal empowerment of individuals.

I would argue we are as close to that as the working class will allow. Unions are destroyed, corporations are people, and moneyed interests have consolidated power at a level not seen in over 100 years. To the contrary, government is the weakest it has been in decades.

[j666]

Originally Posted by astro

I attend various Republican party functions. I drink with them afterward and listen to their opinions after a few beers or scotches. To the party faithful the fact that a "nigger" is President of the United States is positively infuriating, and if you do not think this fuels a large part of the antipathy toward him over and above purely political issues you need to think again.

They do not just disagree with him they hate and fear him on a very visceral level.

I'm surprised that this post seems to have been completely ignored. There has been subtle (the uproar of the shoe photograph) and not so subtle ("you lie", the ridiculous finger waving) evidence of this widely reported, but it always fades away. No-one will address this.

A lot of people are absolutely enraged the White House is being so sullied, but no-one will admit it. "I take him at his word" got more negative press.

[Oakminster]

Originally Posted by Beware of Doug

But if you comply with every law, there's no way to stage a protest of any kind. Even if you did, it would shortly be made illegal anyway. You can get stomped for standing still, saying nothing and carrying a sign in some contexts.

Really? So "Same-Sex Kiss Day at Chick fil A" didn't happen? Where are the stormtroopers in riot gear pepper spraying the protesters?

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by j666

I'm surprised that this post seems to have been completely ignored. There has been subtle (the uproar of the shoe photograph) and not so subtle ("you lie", the ridiculous finger waving) evidence of this widely reported, but it always fades away. No-one will address this.

A lot of people are absolutely enraged the White House is being so sullied, but no-one will admit it. "I take him at his word" got more negative press.

I've said all along that it's not just an issue of racism. Yes, obviously racism is there but this isn't really about racism.

Conservatives hate Obama. Conservatives hated Clinton and Carter also. They hated McGovern and Mondale and Gore and Kerry. They will whip up hatred for whichever person stand between them and power. In Obama's case, they use race as an easy weapon to stir up. If Hillary Clinton had been elected, they'd hate her because she's a woman. If John Edwards had been elected, they'd hate him for cheating on his wife. Regardless of who it was, they'd find a reason to hate them.

[Oakminster]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

I've said all along that it's not just an issue of racism. Yes, obviously racism is there but this isn't really about racism.

Conservatives hate Obama. Conservatives hated Clinton and Carter also. They hated McGovern and Mondale and Gore and Kerry. They will whip up hatred for whichever person stand between them and power. In Obama's case, they use race as an easy weapon to stir up. If Hillary Clinton had been elected, they'd hate her because she's a woman. If John Edwards had been elected, they'd hate him for cheating on his wife. Regardless of who it was, they'd find a reason to hate them.

Yeah, and liberals are so tolerant. Why, there isn't a single post on this board denouncing all conservatives as evil, stupid, ignorant, racists just because of a difference in political opinion.

Oh wait....there are posts like that in this very thread.

[carnivorousplant]

Originally Posted by Oakminster

Yeah, and liberals are so tolerant. Why, there isn't a single post on this board denouncing all conservatives as evil, stupid, ignorant, racists just because of a difference in political opinion.

Oh wait....there are posts like that in this very thread.

The wealthy want to keep their money, and the poor want them to pay more taxes.
What is so difficult to understand?

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Oakminster

Yeah, and liberals are so tolerant. Why, there isn't a single post on this board denouncing all conservatives as evil, stupid, ignorant, racists just because of a difference in political opinion.

Maybe. But I've never seen any liberal saying they hate Mitt Romney because he was born in Kenya and he's a Muslim. When people start inventing things just so they'll have a reason to hate somebody, it's a whole different level of hate.

[j666]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

I've said all along that it's not just an issue of racism. Yes, obviously racism is there but this isn't really about racism.

Conservatives hate Obama. Conservatives hated Clinton and Carter also. They hated McGovern and Mondale and Gore and Kerry. They will whip up hatred for whichever person stand between them and power. In Obama's case, they use race as an easy weapon to stir up. If Hillary Clinton had been elected, they'd hate her because she's a woman. If John Edwards had been elected, they'd hate him for cheating on his wife. Regardless of who it was, they'd find a reason to hate them.

With respect, you are naive and wrong. No recent president has been treated with such flagrant disrespect as Mr. Obama by his fellow politicians.

[astro]

Originally Posted by Oakminster

Yeah, and liberals are so tolerant. Why, there isn't a single post on this board denouncing all conservatives as evil, stupid, ignorant, racists just because of a difference in political opinion.

Oh wait....there are posts like that in this very thread.

The main point I was trying to make is that aside from political differences the people that constitute the Republican party base these days are not the same type of people I associated with when I registered as a Republican in late 70's.

I'm talking about character. While there are pockets of sanity there are large swaths of Republican voters these days who are fundamentally racist regardless of the fine points of their political beliefs. The Republicans on both the national and state levels over the past decade have distinguished themselves as spoilers about cooperating with virtually any type of progressive legislation, and are unashamedly willing go to almost any lengths to protect the interests of the 1%.

The level of hubris necessary for the legislation calling for the harassing penetrative sexual exams for women wishing to have abortions beggars the imagination. The hee-haw war against science. Creationism taught as science in classrooms. These are things Republicans are comfortable with.

It's plutocrats pulling the strings of frightened, raging yahoos and the politicians that service them. It's a sad mess.

Democrats have their own issues but the GOP really needs to reform.

[Oakminster]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

When people start inventing things just so they'll have a reason to hate somebody, it's a whole different level of hate.

You mean stuff like this?

Originally Posted by Shayna

There isn't a single, solitary idea that this racist, hateful, anti-democracy, ignorant, religious nut job Republican party holds at the moment that could possibly be described as "attractive" to anyone but a racist, hateful, anti-democracy, ignorant, religious nut job lunatic.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by j666

With respect, you are naive and wrong. No recent president has been treated with such flagrant disrespect as Mr. Obama by his fellow politicians.

I dunno. Senator Helms said (in a newspaper interview) that President Clinton was unfit to be Commander-in Chief and "Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard." That's pretty flagrant disrespect.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by Oakminster

You mean stuff like this?

Terms like hateful and ignorant are somewhat subjective but I'll assume Shayna would be willing to state under oath that she believes them to be factually true. That's certainly nothing there that's as clearly and objectively false as the claim that Obama was born in Kenya and is a Muslim, which is what I wrote.

[adaher]

Originally Posted by astro

The main point I was trying to make is that aside from political differences the people that constitute the Republican party base these days are not the same type of people I associated with when I registered as a Republican in late 70's.

I'm talking about character. While there are pockets of sanity there are large swaths of Republican voters these days who are fundamentally racist regardless of the fine points of their political beliefs. The Republicans on both the national and state levels over the past decade have distinguished themselves as spoilers about cooperating with virtually any type of progressive legislation, and are unashamedly willing go to almost any lengths to protect the interests of the 1%.

The level of hubris necessary for the legislation calling for the harassing penetrative sexual exams for women wishing to have abortions beggars the imagination. The hee-haw war against science. Creationism taught as science in classrooms. These are things Republicans are comfortable with.

It's plutocrats pulling the strings of frightened, raging yahoos and the politicians that service them. It's a sad mess.

Democrats have their own issues but the GOP really needs to reform.

So basically the problem with the Republicans is that they are like the New Deal-era Democratic party.

[Little Nemo]

Originally Posted by adaher

So basically the problem with the Republicans is that they are like the New Deal-era Democratic party.

Where did that come from?

Were the New Deal Democrats:
"spoilers about cooperating with virtually any type of progressive legislation"?
"unashamedly willing go to almost any lengths to protect the interests of the 1%"?
"calling for the harassing penetrative sexual exams for women wishing to have abortions"?
Supporting a "hee-haw war against science"?
"plutocrats pulling the strings of frightened, raging yahoos"?

Seriously? You're saying these are descriptions of the New Dealers? WTF?

[adaher]

Anti-abortion, racist, anti-science, plutocratic, definitely.

As for serving the 1%, it may not have been their intention, but they sure liked to put the little guy out of business to serve the interests of large corporations. They found the market "unruly" and thought competition was one of the causes of the Depression. So the very first thing they did when taking power in 1933 was cartelize industry.

[Oakminster]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Terms like hateful and ignorant are somewhat subjective but I'll assume Shayna would be willing to state under oath that she believes them to be factually true. That's certainly nothing there that's as clearly and objectively false as the claim that Obama was born in Kenya and is a Muslim, which is what I wrote.

Um, read it again. The part about all Republicans being racists. That is clearly and objectively false. Also bigoted and willfully ignorant.

Then there's the religious nutjob crack. Also false. I'm not hateful, ignorant, or anti-democracy either. But don't let facts stand in the way of conservative bashing.

[Qin Shi Huangdi]

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Where did that come from?

Were the New Deal Democrats:

"calling for the harassing penetrative sexual exams for women wishing to have abortions"?

Abortion wasn't even on the table then. And that example and most others are extreme ones.

[foolsguinea]

Originally Posted by Bricker

When's it going to start happening?

I mean, the last national election was 2010, and that was nothing but good news for the GOP. Or did you just mean presidential elections?

I'm with Bricker. The racists are winning.

Well, racism, anti-abortion sentiment, liberal gun laws, contempt for feminism and "progress" in general, property rights fanaticism, opposition to the principles if not the practice of the welfare state, and tax cuts for everybody--oops, tax cuts for "me", tax raises for "bums"--these are popular positions. Doesn't matter if you or I disagree with all of them. There is a firm, uncompromising plurality of the country that are committed to them, and their power is growing.

[foolsguinea]

Originally Posted by BrainGlutton

[...]they are the oldest of the nine typology groups -- 61% over 50 -- and their children and grandchildren will never think quite they way they do. They will not go gentle, but as a political force they peaked almost as soon as they discovered their strength. The GOP will gradually become sane again by process of generational attrition.

Meh. They have grandkids. These are the ones who'll say they got more conservative when they got older. "Oh, yeah, when I was young, I experimented with not being a gubmint-hatin' xenophobe, but now I find myself reverting to what I was taught: God gave me the right to guns, Jesus gave me capitalism, the world doesn't owe anything a life, and regulation is just against freedom! And my gay spouse thinks the same way!"

Originally Posted by Trinopus

My favorite counter-rant, alas, is that this can produce tiny little parties that have the power to be disproportionately effective. If you have 45% R, 45% D, and 10% L, the L party has almost complete control! (It's like being the swing vote on a divided Supreme Court. That one person is the Supreme Court!)

Then if the L gets too annoying, the two bigs can do a unity government. Or parts of R & D splinter off to form the "anti-L" faction. Not that big a problem, really.

Nah, what's really freaky is a situation like in Greece's last election, where the two big center-ish parties were both split by the same unpopular stance, and five parties became seven, and nobody could get a coalition going for a while. (Have they yet?) Exacerbated this time by the fact that their constitution gives extra seats to the plurality-winning party, which in this case was on the losing side of the unpopular issue.

I'm still in favor of multi-party systems, by the way. Fractious uncertainty is not so much worse than unassailable cocksure commitment to dubious ideas.

[Beware of Doug]

Originally Posted by foolsguinea

I'm with Bricker. The racists are winning.

Maybe they're just whining. (How I first read that. )

[foolsguinea]

Originally Posted by adaher

Long term, the Republicans do have to avoid the nativist inclinations, get a sounder fiscal policy, and appeal to a more diverse populace. But none of these problems are hard to overcome unless they are stubborn.

What would be left of the base then?

Originally Posted by Lumpy

What conservatives and libertarians hold is that the pendulum has swung too far the other way, towards an almost Chinese view of civilization as the total adminstration of society by the government.

Really? Really?

Is this some kind of fear of Chinese? Is that where it comes from?

Or do you actually think that government properly should only govern part of the country? No, of course, that's it. You want government to be in some kind of power-sharing detente with the church and the family, so its jurisdiction stops at various arbitrary points within its territory. Churches can offer sanctuary (and defy the law). Families will be self-governed (however vile). You must think people like me are totalitarians. Well, maybe we are.

Originally Posted by Little Nemo

Conservatives hate Obama. Conservatives hated Clinton and Carter also. They hated McGovern and Mondale and Gore and Kerry. They will whip up hatred for whichever person stand between them and power.

And that's it. It's all about straight-up bitchy powerlust. They want the power, and they'll fight like Sun Tzu to get it.

Originally Posted by adaher

[The early New Dealers were] Anti-abortion, racist, anti-science, plutocratic, definitely.

As for serving the 1%, it may not have been their intention, but they sure liked to put the little guy out of business to serve the interests of large corporations. They found the market "unruly" and thought competition was one of the causes of the Depression. So the very first thing they did when taking power in 1933 was cartelize industry.

Sweet screaming monkeys! You contend that Roosevelt was not the anti-plutocrat of his day, hated as a Bolshevik traitor to his elite class? And you can hardly show the New Deal as anti-science in the way the present GOP is, running and hiding from anyone who would burst their little bubbles of false hope and superstition!