I must disagree. Reasonable minds may differ, but IMO saying it’s ok to stone gays to death is considerably more tone deaf than “calling a spade a spade.”
No, I think Esk hears the tone perfectly well.
To be fair, my life is pathetic. I enjoy words like teanderthal.
There’s just something about the revolutionary “new” idea that cutting spending on social programs and cutting taxes even more will make everything all better that just forces uncontrollable laughter out of me.
You can watch these principles at work at the local level. What happens to communities already experiencing economic hardships, high unemployment, and require assistance, who suddenly stop getting such assistance?
Magic, of course. Housing prices skyrocket, jobs are created everywhere, and businesses on the brink of collapse suddenly find themselves with tons of new customers who can afford their products. It’s true, it actually happened this one time.
It works in Sim City. Just lower all taxes to zero and cut all services, and watch your community blossom. Roads fall into disrepair, schools no longer have students graduating, crime goes unchecked, fires rage, and you get a bunch of factory workers with poor health who die at 35, with an IQ of 35. Welcome to Republicantown, the freest place on earth.
You’ll definitely have jobs! All the McDonald’s, coal plants, and paper factories you could ever want, as far as the eye can see.
What’s really funny is these folks are so scared of turning us into China, that they endorse policies that turn us into China.
Exactly. By “tone deaf” I mean saying something that you have no idea is incredibly offensive. There’s no question that what Esk said was more offensive, but it wasn’t tone deaf at all.
After you’ve just said it’s tone deaf, it’s now not tone deaf?
I dunno, Pottersville looked kinda fun to live in.
Republicans, going back to “Dewey Wins”, would seem to need a new pollster organization instead of the circle jerk they have going now.
And speaking of endearing names, what can I call myself as a former Republican/conservative who would’t touch the current crop of dishonest, craven, pandering group of jackholes who hijacked the party? I’m not a RINO - they left me.
Why do you appear to act surprised? Clearly they studied well under that last guy: Clear Skies Initiative, Healthy Forests Initiative, War on Terror, No Child Left Behind, those guys made a habit, perhaps even strategy, of giving names to programs that meant the exact opposite of what they actually accomplished. This has obviously become SOP for the Republicans and the Tealusional.
May I suggest … “Democrat”?
I don’t believe SpoilerVirgin was talking about Esk at all, unless his alter ego is the Johnston fella.
An excellent suggestion. There won’t be much culture shock for **smithbs **at all, since both parties are wholly-owned subsidiaries of Wall Street.
You don’t really believe they were smart enough for that, do you? Hell no. The reality is that it’s not “The Tea Party,” but “The TEA Party,” TEA standing for Taxed Enough Already.
Then they decided to associate themselves with a historical event they thought supported their cause because it was, like, a revolution — people standing up to government, you know. Except of course they were utterly ignorant as to what the Boston Tea Party was really all about, because, well, they’re utterly ignorant about all historical fact.
Mwuaaaaaaaahahahahahaha
If I had been, I’d have told Cantor his internal polls were as stupid and off-track as Mittens’ internal polls were. I may only have been partially right about why, but at least I wouldn’t have been stupid enough to have passed them off as accurate, that’s for sure.
I still stand by my contention that Democrats absolutely made a difference in this race. Perhaps not all the difference, but a substantial enough one to have skewed the polling gap.
Exactly. If you were a Republican for any of these 15 reasons, you’ve actually been a Democrat all along and just voting for the wrong party.
This statement is incredibly offensive, but he knows exactly what he is saying, so it’s not tone deaf.
This statement is incredibly offensive; however it is unlikely that Johnston intended the “call a spade a spade” part, in which the expression used existed before the word “spade” became a racial slur, to be offensive. Since he was presumably deaf to the tone of this part of his remark, and how it amplifies the offensiveness of his prior statements, I found it to be about as tone deaf as it’s possible to be.
I think there’s a little extra sauce on that, it also implies that the speaker is a no-nonsense, hard-headed realist who disdains any pretense at political correctness. Men who’s wives have sex with them while fantasizing about Wilford Brimley.
Bull Moose?
The GOP is run by [del]Bourbon Democrats[/del] [del]Boll Weevils[/del] [del]the Slave Party?[/del] RINO’s now anyway.
While Clothahump and I are on different sides of the political spectrum I feel he is correct. Calling the Tea Party groups names is childish and adds nothing to the debate.
What the hell is there to debate? Their very name was chosen out of ignorance, and they have maintained that same level of ignorance throughout, reinforced by wide swatches of stupidity and hatred. We often change up what we call them because calling them “assholes” all the time gets to be monotonous after awhile.
You presuppose that there is a debate to be had. You can’t debate with the insane.
The Tea Party adds nothing to the debate, so…
But… so what?
A political debate is what you have when there can be disagreement between reasonable parties about the merits of a platform, ideology, policy prescription or what-have-you. Have we not quite gone beyond the point of “reasonable” disagreement?
As a matter of plain fact, did not the TP astroturfing begin, if not entirely disconnected from “reason”, deliberately and resolutely independent of evidence-based analysis? The Tea Party people have no respect for reasonable debate; their political axioms are their stone-carved Truths, unassailable through rational investigative processes such as debate or research.
Look, the purpose of childish name-calling and other types of simplistic ridicule has always been to socially delegitimize a group (or a concept, or a type of behavior, etc.) that is considered (by the name-callers) to be culturally undesirable. It is an arguably healthier response to repugnant politics than outrage and violence, but regardless of ethical merits the “childishness” of name-calling is sort of beside the point, isn’t it?