One thing that keeps the two sides apart is the need to exaggerate, often grossly, the position of the other side. That was an excellent example you gave. I think you hit the nail on the head! That post was purely illustrative of that tendency, right?
Actually that bit about “an study commissioned by Exxon indicated otherwise” is wrong, Exxon scientists actually did agree with the IPCC and other science groups, but that has been kept under wraps by many right wing sources to their readers and viewers. That is one reason why we are in this position.
Our Allies will have their own beds to clean up. IMHO…Trudeau is going to get ousted. Sweden may Swexit (?)…France and the UK are only a few riots and attacks from going right. The only thing keeping them from doing so now is Jacob Trump Marley.
Or when they started trying to differentiate between “true” conservatives and RINOs, which has been one of the more ominous developments in my view.
The global financial crisis and the disastrous campaign in Iraq were the end of the road for moderate conservatism. The Republican party for much of the 20th Century endorsed neoliberalism. When their policies failed, they were discredited. The Jeb Bushes, John McCains, and John Kasiches of the party, despite being conservative, weren’t conservative enough. And they were blamed for their party’s failures in 2008. With the establishment badly weakened, the fringe saw a clear path toward Republican leadership.
Having been highly critical of conservatives and the GOP up to this point, I must say that going forward, I do worry that the Democratic party is undergoing a similar transformation. Seeing the potential rise of a fringe left concerns me almost as much as the rise of the right. The rise of Bernie Sanders was positive in some respects, but I also saw a similar kind of unruliness and disregard for proper decorum that concerns me. In no way is Bernie Sanders responsible for what happened to Rep. Scalise but the kind of chaotic energy that I saw in some of his legions of supporters is something to keep an eye on.
What I absolutely hope this country can avoid is having the two major parties splinter into intense intra-party rivalries. That would be an extremely dangerous tipping point for our democracy. I realize it has already happened to some extent but to date the parties themselves have have had enough strength to prevent full-on break-ups from happening. But a multiparty congress with the wrong kind of Executive would be a potential nightmare.
Mind you, it looks a lot like what I see in the USA, IMHO a lot of the extreme right wingers in power are the ones that are in the position that many Republicans in power were in the prohibition and “let the people eat cake” of the 1920’s era. They were then also lousy with power but it was actually close to collapsing for the reason that in reality a lot of the people were not really in favor of their remedies.
While I don’t believe that Republicans and conservatives are evil and/or hateful people, for the most part, I wonder and worry that trying to convince liberals, Democrats, and moderates that they are, in the same way that Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Brietbart News, Trump, and others try to convince conservatives (pretty successfully, apparently) that liberals and Democrats are evil/hateful/unAmerican/anti-freedom/etc. might be the only winning political strategy.
If so, that’s a damn shame, but I’m not sure if being “pure” and reasonable would be worth Trumpian rule for years and years, if the above strategy is the only way to win.
I agree that there are reasonable Republicans with at least passably realistic views on climate change, but there are very very few of them and they align themselves with science at their peril. The majority that infest the House and the Senate are the types who either totally ignore the issue or deny it outright (e.g.- Rep. Joe Barton, or Sen. James Inhofe) and go so far as to use their authority to harass and threaten climate scientists for publishing information that they don’t want their constituents to hear. Jon Huntsman certain endorsed policies consistent with scientific evidence on climate change, and how far did he get in his quest for the nomination? In fact, as soon as he publicly stated that he endorsed the scientific view on anthropogenic climate change, Rush Limbaugh accurately predicted, and I quote: “Bye, bye, nomination!”. To be a Republican, apparently, you are required to lie.
Another example is Ben Sasse, a bright young Republican senator who I disagree with on many issues but who is eloquent and intelligent – the sort of guy you can’t help but like. Questioned on climate change, he said he believed that fossil fuels adding carbon to the atmosphere was a significant contributor. Questioned further (in an interview with Bill Maher a couple of weeks ago) he admitted that he did not consider it a problem and, with respect to policy, it essentially was not even on his radar. If someone as smart and well-informed as Sasse has to take this position to be an electable Republican, what position do you suppose the average Republican troglodyte like Scott Pruitt or Rick Perry is going to take? That’s a rhetorical question – we know the answer: pure, ignorant, dangerous denialism.
I’ve got a shitload of posts to answer, and a real life to lead off of the SDMB, so you’ll please pardon me if I’m not responding to everyone in as timely a manner as you’d like. Perhaps I’ll institute a personal rule of starting with the most polite posters and working my way down to the rudest ones.
Well, of course, but the general point I’m making is that when more than 60% of the people are disapproving of Trump in one of the latest polls, I do think that (as I pointed out in many past political threads) while a lot of Republicans are like that, we only need a few that do appreciate reason and science to join us. Remember, we only need a few percentage points to change a lot of the races in the USA. And what I do think many right wingers that support Trump are denying now is that they are losing the support of many independents and even moderate Republicans.
It will still take a while, but I do think that a significant number of Republicans will realize that they should not vote for the current crop of the deniers of reason in power.
Trump wants NATO (and presumably South Korea and Japan) to spend more / take a bigger role in their own defense, and perhaps to pay the US for the role we play in their defense. None of that has anything to do with my post that you were theoretically trying to respond to, which I’ll repeat here again for you:
Do you understand how “Trump wants South Korea to pay the USA for stationing troops there” is nothing like a rebuttal to ‘we don’t want European countries to design and manufacture their own tanks and jets’?
Well that’s good, because it sure as hell didn’t include the part about every European country designing and building their own tanks / jets.
I don’t know who Lovelock is, but that doesn’t sound like a ‘climate model’, with “error bars”. Does Lovelock have an actual ‘model’ / projection that would support k9bfriender’s claim (again, quoted below for clarity)?
You seem like it’s really important to you personally to be able to say “you are wrong”. I asked for a cite. I don’t think your post really is one, at least by the usual definition, so I guess I’m still waiting. As far as the bit about every European country building their own tank and fighter jet, you haven’t proven that either, so I guess I’m still waiting on both counts.
By all means though, carry on with your ‘you were wrong, deal with it’ nonsense. Very convincing stuff. :rolleyes:
I’d be delighted to do so, once I’m off wolfpup’s clock, but I already feel bad that my simple point about begbert2’s silliness has hijacked **John Mace’**s nice thread about political civility into another climate change debate. If you’d like to start a thread dedicated to the ACA and AHCA, I’ll try to join and comment, or when I get a few minutes to write a decent OP, I’ll start one. Let’s take this discussion there, if you don’t mind.
Is this a typo? Or are you using some other definition of ‘extinction’ than the one I’m familiar with? I’m confused, but feeling strangely lucky to be in existence still. Could you elaborate on this point?
I asked Mr. Mace to write his own version of the list above to educate us, but he has so far not done so. How about you? Can you manage a ‘civil’ version of that list?
It is a bit like a distinction with not much difference, when Trump tells others that they will not get any more weapons unless they pay, the logical solution is to get them elsewhere or to develop their own; and the Europeans are not too bad at that.
Again I think you are only trying to deny that Trump did tell to Japan and Korea to do that regarding nuclear weapons, that is indeed their own weaponry, while talking about Europe too, I do not think that was just about their nuclear arsenal anyhow.
Nope, the one with no evidence to counter is you. You are only reduced to nitpick away, not to deal with how Trump did indeed demand others to do more, not just with money. And in the climate issue you are still wrong when going about goose chases. **I’m not the one making the point that the entire world will end. ** Only that it is unlikely but that it is really foolish to listen to the ones out there that propose that we should ignore that still possible if unlikely result. In the meantime, the most likely results that we will get for doing nothing as Trump and minions want will not be a pick nick at all.
Sorry to hijack, I just think it’s an interesting subject, and one I don’t know a lot about. Apparently there’s a great ‘‘Science Vs.’’ podcast on climate change my husband recommended me, which ultimately comes to the conclusion that climate change is a huge problem but also the potential ramifications are overblown. So a nice, moderate outlook, apparently. I haven’t heard it but I wholeheartedly recommend anything coming from Gimlet Media.
And while I’m not the one proposing the end of the world scenario, the fact was indeed there are scientists that talked about that possibility. As mentioned, me and the experts out there do not take him much seriously. But I have to point here that it is really hard to take seriously anyone that discusses about this issue and does not know who James Lovelock is.
I still remember how Nordhaus pointed that trillions would be lost by not dealing with the issue now. As he told us “for less than that nations have gone to war” And that IMHO is one big reason why while I do not think that global warming will cause the end of our civilization by itself, the problem is that I do not have much hope that humans will not fall for xenophobia and hatred when people will move around the globe to avoid things like the rise of the oceans. And while in a possible future we could talk about how global war was the reason for the practical end of our civilization it would be really bad to forget what was one of the main reasons why we came to that.
No Mr. Trump, what you did was still penny wise but pound foolish.
That’s cool. And it works well for you, too, since the most polite posts tend to be the least argumentative and the easiest to respond to.
But I also note in passing that “politeness” consists of more than just language use. It more fundamentally consists in acknowledging the facts of an opponent’s argument, such as the fact that if 148 of the parties to the Paris accord that include the world’s major industrialized nations have all ratified it, and the Republican-dominated senate in the US would never do so, then it’s at least highly plausible that the problem is not in the accord, but in the ideology of the Republicans. Another aspect of politeness is that if an opponent requests “And kindly don’t remind me that I’m being mean to Republicans. If you want to respond constructively, please start by addressing the facts.” that one respects the opponent’s wish to discuss material facts rather than etiquette. But you are of course at liberty to proceed as you wish.
