No, y’all stop the cheapshots and sniping, and it will raise the level of discourse on the board. You don’t want to silence your political opponents. This place would be boring if it was all liberals agreeing with each other.
Until we start debating the President for Life Amendment, maybe…
First of all (and man I feel cliche saying this), but you don’t know my voting record. Don’t assume I’m a “y’all” on some opposite side of a sporting event as you. I can’t keep score as easily as you seem to be able because my views, opinions, and votes span both parties and then some.
Second, idiot posters on the SDMB concerns me a lot less than an organization/moniker that I hear on the news every day.
Third, and this relates back to my first point, I am not a part of some monolithic group that holds power or responsibility here on the SDMB. There is no ‘side’ that I’m on that dictates that I must disagree with you, and agree with BrainGlutton (first name of consistently liberal doper I could think of). Nor do I have any power of censorship over anyone here.
Fourth, since you replied to me, do you have examples of me jumping in consistently and unwaveringly on the ‘liberal’ side of things, or did you just assume that anyone arguing with you without the proper Conservative cred must by definition be one of those enemies on the other side? Bull-fucking-shit. I stand by my posting history as one of sometimes passionate about some traditionally liberal perspectives, but also as supporting and exploring conservative perspectives. I have called out people here on both sides of the aisle for being stupid. But if you’d rather throw a label on me and file me away under ‘liberal sheep’ because I decided to pick a small bone with you in this thread, be my guest.
Fifth, and most pathetic, ‘Stop them from sniping at us, and maybe we can talk about other stuff’? Really? So once I get Der Trihs to shut up about the evil military, then you’ll be willing to . . . what? Admit that the Republican party panders to racists and idiotic notions in order to increase its power? You bring your own honesty and integrity into question when you post something like that. I guess we’ll never know how you really feel about anything until idiots who disagree with you shut up and leave?
That is the kind of crap that I just can’t stand. If you think something is wrong, then freaking say it! Don’t defend it or ignore it because the “other side” also thinks it’s wrong, or because it’s a card you can somehow hold to keep your hand strong. Don’t come into threads and say, “oh yes, I agree, but oh those liberals will hate this!” Make a point, share an opinion, but don’t turn a thread into a pissing match. Hell, you claim to want the ‘more obnoxious’ liberals on the board to stop sniping you, yet you came in here and called them out! So which is it? Do you want honest discussion, or do you want a political scoring match, where we all just say anything whether or not we believe it, just so we can feel good about pointing out the log in the other guy’s eye? Have some balls and take a stand for what you actually believe and let it stand or fall on its merits instead of letting your opinions be dictated by whatever will score the most points for Team Conservative in the moment.
I’d like to see political threads where people talk to each other instead of scream at each other. It’s hard to do that when a small but vocal minority insist on poisoning the well with the constant “all that oppose the radical liberal agenda are scum” nonsense. Voicing a conservative opinion here is an invitation to a pile-on, and that gets tiresome.
Its going to take some getting used to, this sensitive, vulnerable side to you guys, how easily hurt you can be. We got kinda accustomed to the Wilford Brimley gruffness when you were running things, and are still a bit surprised at this sudden flowering of tenderness. It would appear that losing elections is good for you, brings out your empathic side!
We must endeavor to assure that you have many more opportunities for such personal growth! Who’s with me!?
Midland, Texas, has a newspaper? Whatever for?
Here’s my problem, the complaints of the Tea Partiers just don’t have any substance. Obama has not raised taxes, he has however lowered taxes on the middle class. But more importantly, current tax rates are low compared with historical rates especially for the rich. The growth in taxation has been at the state and local level, the exact opposite of what tea baggers claim.
Far from creeping tyranny, the Supreme Court has largely ruled to limit the powers of the govt, not increase it. Roe v Wade, lest we forget, restricted govt’s ability to regulate women’s medical options. The ban on school prayer was about limiting govt’s role in a child’s religion. The Miranda decision increased an individual’s rights and restricted the behavior of the govt. All of those rulings are an anathema to Tea Baggers. If they truly want to guard against tyranny they should applaud them.
Sure we have a huge problem with the deficit. It was created by reckless tax cuts based on fairy tale economic theories. Reducing the deficit is going to require raising revenues. There is absolutely no way that spending cuts alone can reduce the deficit.
Saying “I’m against bad things and for good things” is not a political philosophy. Want to make things better? Here are some ideas: campaign finance reform to reduce the role of lobbyists and make politicians responsive to their constituents again. Restore the tax rates to the level they were when the economy was strong and the deficit was lower. Get us the fuck out of the pointless war in Iraq. Tell govt to keep it’s nose out of the business of who marries who. Pass an amendment that make it clear that corporations are not “people”. And most importantly, when politicians lie to you don’t reward them by re-electing them or paying them hundreds of thousand of dollars to speak to phony “grass roots” organizations.
Good post. I disagree with some of it, but you’re talking and not screaming. I’ll return the courtesy.
Campaign finance reform --SCOTUS frowns on it. Gonna be tough to draft something that will pass muster with them.
Iraq – We had no business invading in the first damn place. Get out as soon as practical.
Afghanistan-- You didn’t mention it, but it’s also a stupid war with no discernible objective or exit strategy. Get out as soon as practical.
Bring our troops home. Let the Guard and Reserves go back to civilian life except for their regular training weekends and summer camp.
Take the money we are no longer spending on two wars, and pay down the national debt. No new programs, no bailouts, no giveaways. Pay off the national debt. Balance the budget, and learn to live with it.
Gay Marriage–let it happen, already. Equal protection of the law means equal protection of the law.
Corporate personhood is a legal fiction that works. Haven’t seen a proposal for a workable alternative.
First Amendment–grass roots organizations get to listen to whoever they like, and pay them whatever price is negotiated. That’s not government money.
I don’t understand why everyone is getting off on how the Tea Party is ineffective because they can’t agree with anything. Doesn’t this make the OP’s point? They aren’t a monolithic entity, so there’s no way to assign them a single characteristic like this.
As for why did they only start caring when a black guy is President: surely I don’t have to inform you that correlation does not imply causation. I can answer this really easily: When’s the last time we had a big recession and a Democrat in office? The Tea Party may be accepting Democrats now, but it was largely formed as a Republican (or at least conservative) movement. Once you have an organization with no clear objectives, it’s easy to get other people to join, as there’s now something to join.
BTW: My own opinion is that this really isn’t grass roots at all, as there were reports when this first started that certain rich and powerful politicians actually started it. They may be grass now, but their roots were clearly astroturf.
I agree. The govt has nothing to do with it and shouldn’t. I think it hurts your cause’s credibility though, when you invite a speaker that spouts one deliberate mis-truth after another. We can’t fix the problems we have until we start dealing with facts. Whether one agrees with UHC or not, it just did not have the sort of death panels in it that Palin claimed. Joe the Plumber was another hero of the Tea Baggers that spread nonsense. He had absolutely no grasp of how taxes worked, the difference between net receipts and gross income, or marginal rates.
I don’t like liberal orthodoxy either. Illegal immigrants are here in defiance of the law. If we do not enforce one set of laws it de-legitimizes the rest. I’m all for immigration reform, raising the number of visas, and other changes, but until the law is changed it must be enforced.
There are very few threads in GD that involve liberals screaming at conservatives (the Pit is another matter). When the conservative posters actually back up their arguments with citations that support their arguments instead of parroting talking points or political axioms, the debates actually become informative and interesting. When that happens - such as in a few of the health care threads - there’s often the revelation that the two sides aren’t very far apart.
Why is everything a tu quoque quid pro quo? We’ll recognize hypocrisy and criticize the crazies, racists, and paranoid government nutjobs in our group if you recognize the hypocrisy and criticize the assholes in your group? Why on earth is one dependent on the other? If you are serious about your cause, it seems you would be the first one in line to ex-communicate the fellow travelers who are undermining anyone taking your cause seriously.
This. Thanks for expressing my point so eloquently.
I’ve decided to go see one of these things for myself. If anybody in the Central Florida area would like to join me, let me know.
'though I’ll be in New York on my honeymoon for the first week of May and I suspect I may have trouble finding one in Manhattan…
We can grow a solution to the problems posed by coprorate personhood incrementally.
I note that corporations do not have a voting franchise. This suggests that the assertion that they are not citizens has at least some validity. It strikes me that they could be barred from participation in the political process on those grounds, to the same degree that a natural person who is a non-citizen permanent resident is barred from participation.
It looks like an amendment might be necessary to make that happen.
P.S. Congratulations on your upcoming nuptials, RNATB, and best wishes for the future for both you and your spouse.
No true Scotsman distances himself from the Tea Party.
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan, are you saying that those Republican Party candidates are Tea Party members?
ETA: Thanks, kd!
:eek: Don’t give them any ideas!
I am saying that, nor matter what happens, it won’t be enough. If the candidates repudiate a racist, that isn’t enough. If the local Tea Party repudiates a racist, that isn’t enough either.
The left has apparantly taken it into its collective head that the way to counter the Tea Party is to scream racism. Unsurprisingly, in common with every other movement in recorded history, there are some nutjobs associated with the Tea Partiers. The trick is to get everyone else to accept that “the nutjobs on their side define them while the nutjobs on my side don’t count”. SOP for both sides.
Congratulations and best wishes to you and your future spouse.
Regards,
Shodan
But isn’t the whole question “we” who?