?
Oh, right - the emoji site.
Some giraffes are athletes, it’s just a safety measure.
I realise not directed at me, but gotta say that this is the pit - should we be putting on kid gloves with them, then?
Eh, I’m more a Raffer than a Durper so it’s not a novelty to me to call a smarmy fucked up cuntbag a smarmy fucked up cuntbag. 
Thank-you for responding. 
I think this thread bump vindicates me.
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21401118&postcount=5537
To which John Stamos Left Ear replied:
Yes, it’s a terrible thing to wish for, but what else can wish for when stubborn minds won’t change? Experiences have a way of changing people. People who say “Get a job” to someone who’s down on their luck needs to go through the experience of being fired from a job. Everyone who assumes that people with illnesses are just somehow ‘weak’ need to suffer from a debilitating illness. If someone doesn’t have compassion and a sense of justice, I want them to suffer, even if it means the rest of us have to suffer too for a bit. I live in the real world.
Keep in mind: I don’t want them to die. I want them to experience pain.
Pain can be educational, transformative. I honestly hope for the best.
It is like the House midterms did not take place at all…
Like I said before, Vodka is a hell of a drug.
It’s clear from the first post that the OP was just gullibly swallowing the talking points hook-line-and-sinker—ready to believe anything Trump said. At that time, he/she just had no critical thinking skills, and was spouting off things which anyone who has lived anywhere but in the most sheltered parts of California knows to be ridiculously untrue. I mean, the OP was clearly someone who would buy the Brooklyn Bridge twice, and all the swampland in Florida you could serve up.
IOW, the OP was a classic Trump dupe. Maybe the OP is an exception, and has realized the scam, but most of them haven’t, and it’s clear that Trump is counting on that. That’s why he continues to spew out the most obvious lies—he knows that these lies are only obvious to people who have at least a small bit of critical thinking ability, but the people that keep him floating politically don’t have even that. They’ll believe anything he says, and he knows it.
They will – until they feel pain.
Pain can be a beautiful thing sometimes, the most effective teacher a person will ever have in his or her life.
Those soybean farmers who have rotting product and now downward spiral pricing, unable to meet lending requirements…that’s pain. And it’s beautiful, because it means that these individuals are one step closer to enlightenment. One step closer to anger and rage. One step closer to demanding something better than what they have.
See a therapist, you psychopath.
Every decent parent understands that there’s a time when you have to stop being the protector, when you have to stand back and let the kid fuck up and take the consequences because if you don’t you end up with an eternal spoiled brat endlessly insisting that the world be made to conform to his preferences and desires. As a country, we’re all experiencing the consequences of the childish tantrums and refusal to grow up and take responsibility that many of us have watched coming for decades. The bill is due and it will be paid–a painful lesson, but it won’t get any less so with more time and indulgence and squirming to get out of it.
Sadistic fuckwad.
Why do you think they voted for Obama? When that didn’t work out for them, why did they vote for Trump?
You’re an addlepated, monstrous buffoon. Your only idea for how the country gets out of this mess is for everything to destruct. A few problems with that: history, even recent history, shows that doesn’t work. Second, who the hell pays the bill for climbing out of this mess? All of us. This theory that the destruction of society will be its salvation is absurd.
Grow up, you drunken troll.
I wonder if it will ever get to that point. In fact I pretty much said the same thing EXACTLY THREE YEARS ago in this thread:
I knew even back then that it would take much more than three years, but I’m starting to wonder if it will ever happen, because–apart from a very few cases like the OP of this thread–I really haven’t seen much eye-opening.
Well, in all fairness, that’s part of the problem. People just mindlessly vote for “change”–without any idea of the policies of the candidates. It happens every four years–there’s always a large voting block who don’t like the present state of the nation, so they just vote for whoever creates the best image of “change.” They don’t know shit about what has actually caused the problems they perceive, and they have no clue about how government works, or how it might solve the problems. They just have some vague notion of “change.” They are particularly clueless in thinking that a new president will be able to walk in, wave a magic wand, and suddenly fix everything.
Let’s face it: the vast majority of U.S. voters are too mentally lazy to know what any given candidate is likely to do. They’d rather watch reality TV than to actually learn about real solutions through government. Trump exploited this (in fact, that’s about all he knows how to do), and that’s how we got where we are today.
I hate Chump as much as the next person, but I have to wonder if you maybe, say, enjoy cutting yourself.
Which supports my argument as well: they’re not going to learn. Hoping that their “pain” teaches anyone anything is ludicrous. They’ll just vote for more “change”.
They don’t care about pain; they just care about hurting others. They’d gladly all die painfully as long as everyone who isn’t a carbon copy of them died *more *painfully. And preferably before them, so they have a chance to gloat about it.
The ultimate goal of the typical Republican is to be the last fanatic left alive on a world of corpses.
Why am I a sadistic fuckwad? Obviously, I wish we weren’t in this position. I wish this country weren’t so fucking ignorant, but we are. I wish we hadn’t bought into the idea that Saddam Hussein was part of Al Qaida, but we did. I wish we hadn’t rewarded Bush/Cheney with re-election, but we did. I wish people had not given Obama an obstructionist congress (2 years after GOP policies caused the worst recession in 80 years), but they did. I wish this country hadn’t voted for Trump but they did.
Consider that the most progressive legislation in the history of our country came as a result of pain – and outrage. Sometimes people just need a good kick in the nuts to come to their senses. Hate me all you want, but it’s hard to argue with the above and you know it.
Who’s “they”?
History shows it might work. The New Deal came as a direct result of deep financial pain and outrage. You could argue that it wasn’t necessary to have a financial crisis, but that’s kinda obvious and missing the point. In truth, back then, just as now, things appeared to be ‘okay’ on the surface, when in reality there was widespread economic inequality all along, making a financial and political crisis all but inevitable. When that smouldering crisis finally exploded into the realm of the existential…it produced arguably the most effective series of laws this country has ever seen. So you see, sometimes, you just have to pop that pimple and see what happens.
Yes, but we all should have been thinking about this before now. Too late at this point.
Maybe you’re right - you could find examples that would support your viewpoint. I’m not necessarily disputing you. But then again, history also shows that the opposite can be true as well.
Revolutions can go both ways. They can fail by succumbing to their own zeal without having any strategy and competent administration in place to deliver the goods.
But sometimes revolutions - like the New Deal, for instance - can succeed if you have essentially a consensus (and for all practical purposes a ‘consensus’ is probably 60% or so) who acknowledge that something has to change - and then you need competent, stable administration that can establish credibility with the voting public.
And yes, sometimes, a little authoritarianism, not to be confused with outright despotism, may be required as a means to an end.
That’s why I have SDMB.
You’re my therapy. 