A thread for Democrats Only by THGRRI

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Signym, I should have testified ..
You're a religious fanatic, SECOND. Your religion is the Democratic Party, and your "satan" is the GOP. Your "testimony" is worth as much as any religious person "testifying" in church. Go testify someplace else.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

Signym, you have lost your fucking mind as has the typical Texas Trump voter. The exception is the Rich Trump voters. They voted for Trump to get a $1.5 trillion tax cut. That is a completely sane and healthy reason. Selfish, yet sane. As for the reasoning of the non-Rich Trump voters, they have very silly thoughts flying around in their numb skulls:

Signym, I should have testified that Texas Republicans in Harris County would vote for Putin rather than Hillary. Did you know Hillary killed four Americans at Benghazi with her bare hands and bathed in their blood? Ask any Texas Republican. They know for a fact she walked over their corpses. Even Putin as US President would be better than her, despite him being ineligible because he is not a native born American. Obama got elected and you know he was born in Kenya and was less eligible to be President than Putin. Ask a Texas Republican and they will tell you that rock-solid and true fact.

www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-benghazi-hillary-cli
nton-obama-rhodes-edit-0629-jm-20160628-story.html

The flash cards were for Trump. Don't you remember that he reversed himself on tariffs for the EU? Happened this week, Signym. Trump was turned 180 degrees by Juncker.

www.spiegel.de/international/world/how-the-jean-claude-juncker-won-ove
r-donald-trump-a-1220466.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, July 29, 2018 6:35 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Democrats agreed more strongly than Republicans did that climate change is a concerning reality. And among climate skeptics there were more Republicans than Democrats. Nevertheless, most Republicans were in basic agreement with most Democrats and independents on this issue.

This raises a question: If Democrats and Republicans agree about climate change, why do they disagree about climate policy?

Republican opposition to climate policy has occurred, in part, because climate policy has been a Democratic issue. As part of our research, we interviewed several retired members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, who stressed this point. Bob Inglis, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina, spoke of his opposition in his first several years in Congress: “All I knew was that Al Gore was for it, and therefore I was against it.”

This implies that if the tables were turned — if Republican politicians proposed a climate policy — Republican voters might support it. In our research, that is exactly what we have found.

Our studies suggest that climate policy gridlock is largely about exaggerating disagreement for the sake of disagreement. Our studies revealed a consistent, if somewhat surprising, pattern: Political disagreement was substantially smaller when it came to Republican-backed policies.

In particular, there was very little distance between Republicans and Democrats when evaluating a Republican-proposed carbon tax. This suggests that a carbon tax such as the one proposed by prominent Republicans including James Baker III and Mr. Shultz may hold more promise for bipartisan agreement than we have seen with Democratic policies in the past.

More at www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/republicans-climate-change.h
tml

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, July 29, 2018 7:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Democrats agreed more strongly than Republicans did that climate change is a concerning reality. And among climate skeptics there were more Republicans than Democrats. Nevertheless, most Republicans were in basic agreement with most Democrats and independents on this issue.

This raises a question: If Democrats and Republicans agree about climate change, why do they disagree about climate policy?

Republican opposition to climate policy has occurred, in part, because climate policy has been a Democratic issue. As part of our research, we interviewed several retired members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, who stressed this point. Bob Inglis, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina, spoke of his opposition in his first several years in Congress: “All I knew was that Al Gore was for it, and therefore I was against it.”

This implies that if the tables were turned — if Republican politicians proposed a climate policy — Republican voters might support it. In our research, that is exactly what we have found.

Our studies suggest that climate policy gridlock is largely about exaggerating disagreement for the sake of disagreement. Our studies revealed a consistent, if somewhat surprising, pattern: Political disagreement was substantially smaller when it came to Republican-backed policies.

In particular, there was very little distance between Republicans and Democrats when evaluating a Republican-proposed carbon tax. This suggests that a carbon tax such as the one proposed by prominent Republicans including James Baker III and Mr. Shultz may hold more promise for bipartisan agreement than we have seen with Democratic policies in the past.

More at www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/republicans-climate-change.h
tml

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

I agree 100% with the article.

The problem, Second, is that when you read the article, you believed this was only a problem with Republicans.

That's not what the article implies.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, July 29, 2018 10:05 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I agree 100% with the article.

The problem, Second, is that when you read the article, you believed this was only a problem with Republicans.

That's not what the article implies.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

You ignored the fact that Trump told the world there is no such thing as Climate Change. The Trump voters went along, as did the GOP. But Trump is wrong and he will stay wrong as long as it will get him votes from coal miners. And the rest of the Republicans will follow Trump's leadership, right or wrong. Nobody on the Democratic side has that power to make Democrats act as if there is no such thing as Climate Change.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, July 29, 2018 10:34 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by second:
Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

I agree 100% with the article.

The problem, Second, is that when you read the article, you believed this was only a problem with Republicans.

That's not what the article implies.

Do Right, Be Right. :)
You ignored the fact that Trump told the world there is no such thing as Climate Change. The Trump voters went along, as did the GOP.

I didn't ignore it. Republicans didn't believe (in general) that there is no climate change because Trump said there is no climate change. That's a GOP narrative that spans decades, and to blame this squarely on Trump is disingenuous.

Quote:
But Trump is wrong and he will stay wrong as long as it will get him votes from coal miners.

Okay. What's your point here? This is rule number 1 in "Getting Elected 101". How many non-good things do Democrats do to get votes from Union employees themselves?

Quote:
And the rest of the Republicans will follow Trump's leadership, right or wrong.

Yup. That's generally what most people on either side do when their "leaders" tell them what to think.

Quote:
Nobody on the Democratic side has that power to make Democrats act as if there is no such thing as Climate Change.

Why limit yourself to the single issue of climate change here, unless you're trying to only point out an example that works in favor of your "side"?

Why don't we talk about The Patriarchy, or Systemic Oppression, or the Gender Wage Gap? We could point out a lot of myths that the Democrats create and instill as the Truth in the minds of their ideologues that garner votes.

This isn't exactly new, and it's certainly not a one-sided deal here Second.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, July 29, 2018 8:43 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Signym, you have lost your fucking mind as has the typical Texas Trump voter. The exception is the Rich Trump voters. They voted for Trump to get a $1.5 trillion tax cut. That is a completely sane and healthy reason. Selfish, yet sane. As for the reasoning of the non-Rich Trump voters, they have very silly thoughts flying around in their numb skulls:

Signym, I should have testified that Texas Republicans in Harris County would vote for Putin rather than Hillary. Did you know Hillary killed four Americans at Benghazi with her bare hands and bathed in their blood? Ask any Texas Republican. They know for a fact she walked over their corpses. Even Putin as US President would be better than her, despite him being ineligible because he is not a native born American. Obama got elected and you know he was born in Kenya and was less eligible to be President than Putin. Ask a Texas Republican and they will tell you that rock-solid and true fact.

SECOND, your answer make zero sense, and if anyone has lost their mind, it's you.

Step by step ...

Quote:
Signym, you have lost your fucking mind as has the typical Texas Trump voter.

SECOND, I think you know as much about the "typical Texas Trump voter" as you do about me, which is to say ... nothing at all. Despite the fact that I've revealed quite a bit about myself, and posted my reasons for voting for Trump over and over and over ... none of it sinks in. You insist on replying to some cardboard cutout that exists only in your head ("Russian troll"/"deplorable Trump supporter"); therefore, you will excuse me for not trusting your opinion of "Texas voters" any more than I trust your view of me.

Quote:
The exception is the Rich Trump voters. They voted for Trump to get a $1.5 trillion tax cut. That is a completely sane and healthy reason. Selfish, yet sane. As for the reasoning of the non-Rich Trump voters, they have very silly thoughts flying around in their numb skulls

I'm not rich. I DID get a tax cut, tho! AND YET... that is NOT the reason I voted for Trump. I wonder... do you even recall what my reasoning is? Or are you still arguing with the voices in your head instead of what I actually posted?

Quote:
Signym, I should have testified that Texas Republicans in Harris County would vote for Putin rather than Hillary. Did you know Hillary killed four Americans at Benghazi with her bare hands and bathed in their blood? Ask any Texas Republican. They know for a fact she walked over their corpses. Even Putin as US President would be better than her, despite him being ineligible because he is not a native born American. Obama got elected and you know he was born in Kenya and was less eligible to be President than Putin. Ask a Texas Republican and they will tell you that rock-solid and true fact.

Again, I doubt you know anything about Texas Republicans. I think you have this idee fixe about "the enemy" and nothing ... not even real life or real people... will get in your way.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Monday, July 30, 2018 2:32 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

SECOND, your answer make zero sense, and if anyone has lost their mind, it's you.

Step by step ... Again, I doubt you know anything about Texas Republicans. I think you have this idee fixe about "the enemy" and nothing ... not even real life or real people... will get in your way.

In 2008, Barack Obama held up change as a beacon, attaching to it another word, a word that channeled everything his young and diverse coalition saw in his rise and their newfound political power: hope. An America that would elect a black man president was an America in which a future was being written that would read thrillingly different from our past.

In 2016, Donald Trump wielded that same sense of change as a threat; he was the revanchist voice of those who yearned to make America the way it was before, to make it great again. That was the impulse that connected the wall to keep Mexicans out, the ban to keep Muslims away, the birtherism meant to prove Obama couldn’t possibly be a legitimate president. An America that would elect Donald Trump president was an America in which a future was being written that could read thrillingly similar to our past.

This is the core cleavage of our politics, and it reflects the fundamental reality of our era: America is changing, and fast. According to the Census Bureau, 2013 marked the first year that a majority of US infants under the age of 1 were nonwhite. The announcement, made during the second term of the nation’s first African-American president, was not a surprise. Demographers had been predicting such a tipping point for years, and they foresaw more to come.

Obama found that leadership in this era requires delivering for diverse coalitions, and taking sides in charged cultural battles, and thus becoming part of the very conflict you’re trying to calm. The cycle of unity giving way to conflict, of hope about the future activating fear about the present, is likely to continue. And as long as much of the country feels threatened by the changes they see, there will be a continuing, and perhaps growing, market for politicians like Trump.

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/30/17505406/trump-obama-race-po
litics-immigration

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, July 30, 2018 3:34 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

I wonder... do you even recall what my reasoning is?

Signym, your reasoning has zero importance beyond your skull. Now for someone whose reasoning is important:

Trump's Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh is, to put it bluntly, an anti-worker radical, opposed to every effort to protect working families from fraud and mistreatment.

The most spectacular example is his opinion that Sea World owed no liability for a killer whale attack that killed one of its workers, because she should have known the risks. He has declared the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which helps control the financial fraud against working families that played a major role in the 2008 crisis, unconstitutional. He’s taken an extremely expansive view of the rights of business to suppress union organizing.

This is all, by the way, the opposite of populism. The public strongly supports worker protections. The ongoing campaign to take them away is an act of conservative elites, people who have made their careers by carrying water for business interests, and is being implemented in effect by stealth under the noses of voters who thought Trump was on their side.

And this betrayal matters much more for workers than, say, Trump’s trade bluster. There’s growing evidence that wage stagnation in America – the very stagnation that angers Trump voters — isn’t being driven by impersonal forces like technological change; to an important extent it’s the result of political changes that have weakened workers’ bargaining power. If Trump manages to install Kavanaugh, he’ll help institutionalize these anti-worker policies for decades to come.

More at www.nytimes.com/2018/07/30/opinion/trumps-supreme-betrayal.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, July 30, 2018 3:47 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Signym, your reasoning has zero importance beyond your skull. Now for someone whose reasoning is important:

And yours is even LESS important, because all YOU do is spin fever-dreams based on nothing.

Quote:
Trump's Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh is, to put it bluntly, an anti-worker radical, opposed to every effort to protect working families from fraud and mistreatment.

And you think that Hillary's pro-"free trade" stance would be any better??? At least the Supreme Court is within OUR reach, as opposed to the trade tribunals you voted for, and the anti-worker "free trade" that you constantly push.

What a tool. Do you really expect us to believe that you're "pro-worker"? My god, you're stupider than a Texas Republican.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Monday, July 30, 2018 4:59 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

What a tool. Do you really expect us to believe that you're "pro-worker"? My god, you're stupider than a Texas Republican.

Facts count. Beliefs? Opinions? Those are like assholes, almost everyone has them and most stink.

Here are some ugly facts about Americans, particularly so-called "Democrats", facts explaining how American politics got so wacko.

An actual test by political scientist Ryan Enos of what seeing more diversity in our everyday surroundings does to our political opinions:

I sent Spanish speakers to randomly selected train stations in towns around Boston to simply catch the train and ride like any other passenger. I focused on stations in white suburbs. The intent was to create the impression, by subtle manipulation, that the Latino population in these segregated towns was increasing.

Before and after sending these Spanish speakers to the train platforms, I surveyed passengers on the platforms about their attitudes about immigration. After being exposed to the Spanish speakers on their metro lines for just three days, attitudes on these questions moved sharply rightward: The mostly liberal Democratic passengers had come to endorse immigration policies — including deportation of children of undocumented immigrants — similar to those endorsed by Trump in his campaign.

Experimental exposure to reminders that America is diversifying pushes whites toward more conservative policy opinions and more support of the Republican Party. What happens when it is not an experiment?

Enos goes on to note that his findings match what we saw in 2016: The biggest gains Donald Trump made over Mitt Romney’s performance “were in the places where the Latino population had grown most quickly. ... For example, Luzerne County, adjacent to Scranton, Pennsylvania, had experienced an almost 600 percent growth in its Latino population between 2000 and 2014, and, after decades of voting Democrat in presidential elections, gave Trump 12 percentage points more votes than it had given to Romney in 2012.”

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/30/17505406/trump-obama-race-po
litics-immigration

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, July 31, 2018 1:19 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

Do you have a topical reply?

THUGGER admits it's not about RUSSIA !!! and is, in fact, a witch hunt. "Trump better be innocent of any wrong doing, anywhere, anytime."

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Tuesday, July 31, 2018 2:04 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, you have spent your entire posting time here grabbing anything that came into reach ... opinions, speculation, lies, distortions, irrelevancies, cartoons, and maybe even a few facts here and there ... grabbing them with both hands as fast as you possibly can and and furiously flinging them against a wall just to see what sticks.

Now, at THIS point I have no idea what sort of mental malfunction or ethical lapse causes you to do that, but as a result you don't care whether you're posting truth or fiction; you don't care about Americans or American workers or anything to do with America. Because you don't care whether you post truth or not, almost everything you post is just so much shit, and it sure isn't worth wading thru.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Tuesday, July 31, 2018 7:48 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, you have spent your entire posting time here grabbing anything that came into reach ... opinions, speculation, lies, distortions, irrelevancies, cartoons, and maybe even a few facts here and there ... grabbing them with both hands as fast as you possibly can and and furiously flinging them against a wall just to see what sticks.

Now, at THIS point I have no idea what sort of mental malfunction or ethical lapse causes you to do that, but as a result you don't care whether you're posting truth or fiction; you don't care about Americans or American workers or anything to do with America. Because you don't care whether you post truth or not, almost everything you post is just so much shit, and it sure isn't worth wading thru.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Signym, why not accuse me of being from Satan? Why not go all the way to crazy town? I know you want to. Signym, I understand how your little mind works because I have seen it before. Back 50 years ago, I use to see the same stubborn rejection of all evidence about the theory of evolution. The Kingdom Hall I went to was very certain that Evolution was False. Any data that made it into the newspapers was from Satan. Years have passed and my mother's religion got less strident and more subtle, but it still teaches that Evolution is False and God Created All Life.
www.jw.org/en/publications/books/origin-of-life-5-questions/evolution-
or-creation-student-dilemma/

Now for a Fact that Signym will either outright reject or twist into meaninglessness:

In their forthcoming book, political scientists J. Sides, M. Tesler, and L. Vavreck analyze reams of data and show that racial resentment activated economic anxiety, rather than the other way around:

Before Obama’s presidency, how Americans felt about black people did not much affect their perceptions of the economy. But when the exact same people were re-interviewed in July 2012, racial resentment was a powerful predictor of economic perceptions: the greater someone’s level of racial resentment, the worse they believed the economy was doing.

This is unnerving data, as we tend to imagine the economy as a rare subject on which objective facts, rather than group conflicts, drive opinions. Sadly, no. Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck analyzed polling on economic sentiment and found that “Republicans in the highest income quintile, those making more than $100,000 per year, were actually slightly less satisfied than Democrats in the lowest income quintile, those making less than $20,000 per year.”

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/30/17505406/trump-obama-race-po
litics-immigration

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, July 31, 2018 7:53 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

In his 2012 campaign, Obama won merely 39 percent of the white vote — a smaller share than loser Michael Dukakis had commanded in 1988. White voters who felt they were losing a historical hold on power were reacting against Obama. For the bulk of American history, you couldn’t win the presidency without winning a majority of the white vote — usually an overwhelming majority. The election of an African-American president leading a multiracial coalition made the transition stark and threatening. There’s a reason why, when the Russians wanted to sow division in the American election, they focused their social media trolling on America’s racial divisions.

This is the crucial context for Trump’s rise, and it’s why Trump is not an invader in the Republican Party. In a field of Republicans who were trying to change the party to appeal to a rising Hispanic electorate, Trump was alone in speaking to Republican voters who didn’t want the party to remake itself, who wanted to be told that a Mexico wall could be built and things could go back to the way they were. Trump met the party where it was rather than trying to change it. He was hunting where the ducks were.

Generations of scholars have taken African-American and Hispanic and Asian identity seriously but assumed there was no such thing as white identity. The conventional wisdom was that “because of their numerical majority and political dominance, whites do not, by and large, possess their own sense of racial identification, and they do not feel consciously compelled to protect some sense of group interest.”

Political scientist Ashley Jardina proved in a series of experiments that this was wrong. White political identity is “conditional.” It emerges in some periods and is absent in others. The periods it emerges in are periods like this one.

“When the dominant status of whites relative to racial and ethnic minorities is secure and unchallenged, white identity likely remains dormant,” Jardina writes. “When whites perceive their group’s dominant status is threatened or their group is unfairly disadvantaged, however, their racial identity may become salient and politically relevant.”

You’ll notice the language Jardina uses is careful and probabilistic. “Racial identity may become salient,” not will become salient. Jardina took pains to emphasize that none of this is inevitable. “There are a lot of incentives for elites across the political spectrum to try and stoke identity in the first place,” Jardina said. “Donald Trump has done a great job on this.” Then she added, a bit ruefully, “My dissertation reads sort of like a playbook [for Trump’s campaign].”

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/30/17505406/trump-obama-race-po
litics-immigration

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, July 31, 2018 8:12 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The Trump administration is considering a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans through a change that would not need approval from Congress, officials said, a move that would follow a package of tax cuts last year that also benefited the super-rich.

The Treasury Department is studying whether to allow investment income, known as capital gains, to be adjusted for inflation in a way that shields more of it from taxation. Most capital gains are paid by wealthier Americans, who disproportionately hold large portfolios of investments.

But the use of executive power on such a significant change to the tax law would be highly unusual and could be vulnerable to a legal challenge.

More at www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-tax-cut-superrich-bill
ions-us-president-wealthy-washington-a8470736.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, July 31, 2018 10:30 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
SECOND, you have spent your entire posting time here grabbing anything that came into reach ... opinions, speculation, lies, distortions, irrelevancies, cartoons, and maybe even a few facts here and there ... grabbing them with both hands as fast as you possibly can and and furiously flinging them against a wall just to see what sticks.

Now, at THIS point I have no idea what sort of mental malfunction or ethical lapse causes you to do that, but as a result you don't care whether you're posting truth or fiction; you don't care about Americans or American workers or anything to do with America. Because you don't care whether you post truth or not, almost everything you post is just so much shit, and it sure isn't worth wading thru.- SIGNY

Signym, why not accuse me of being from Satan? - SECOND

Because that would be baseless and stupid, and UNLIKE YOU I actually try to post my own view of the world as consistent with reality as I can be.

You, OTOH, are are the lookout for ANYthing negative about Trump, and you splatter the board with SECONDHAND opinion, speculation, and accusation about things as diverse as Trump's haircolor, hand size, appetite for burgers, "RUSSIAN!!!" connections etc, all the while pretending to "care" about American women, American workers, American security etc when your own posts* demonstrate that you don't give a rat's ass about anybody but yourself. I don't know why you have such a hard-on for Trump but it has completely warped your mind.

*BTW, I think the reason why you rarely post your own opinions is because every time you do, you get in trouble. That deep deep hatred and disdain that you feel for anyone who isn't as "rich" and "successful" as you just comes oozing out. You've expanded your circle of hate from Texas Republicans to include all Republicans, anyone who voted for Trump, anyone who criticizes your warped POV, to anyone who isn't in the top 1%. If you want, I can find those quotes of yours, but I have one all set up - in red- below.

Quote:
Now for a Fact that Signym will either outright reject or twist into meaninglessness:

In their forthcoming book, political scientists J. Sides, M. Tesler, and L. Vavreck analyze reams of data and show that racial resentment activated economic anxiety, rather than the other way around:

It is a book, not a "fact". Just like Piketty's book Capital is a book, not a "fact". The mere fact that someone wrote a book doesn't mean that we should automatically accept its contents, right?

Quote:
This is unnerving data, as we tend to imagine the economy as a rare subject on which objective facts, rather than group conflicts, drive opinions.

Seriously??? In the field of economics as currently practiced, objective facts are rarely to be found.

Quote:
“Republicans in the highest income quintile, those making more than $100,000 per year, were actually slightly less satisfied than Democrats in the lowest income quintile, those making less than $20,000 per year.”

So, the authors assume that Republicans=racists, Democrats=non-racists, and THEN go on to link economic dissatisfaction with (presumed) racism?

Do the authors go on to ask WHY the respondents were dissatisfied? Were they dissatisfied with their PERSONAL situation, or were they dissatisfied with Obama's policy direction? It's like those questions that I get from the DNC about whether I agree or not with their policies. It's possible that I agree with the general direction but that I think they don't go far enough. Now, does that mean I agree, or disagree? How does that fit into the "strongly satisfied to strongly dissatisfied" or "strongly agree to strongly disagree" format? And what conclusions can I possibly draw from polls which ask such equivocal questions?

It's a stupid article about a stupid book, as far as I can tell. Just like most of your stupid secondhand posts which seek to MAKE A POINT instead of analyzing events.

You've made such a mission of posting such stupid, biased, baseless articles that at this point you discredit anything that you post.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 6:42 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

It's a stupid article about a stupid book, as far as I can tell. Just like most of your stupid secondhand posts which seek to MAKE A POINT instead of analyzing events.

You've made such a mission of posting such stupid, biased, baseless articles that at this point you discredit anything that you post.

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

One chart that shows how much worse income inequality is in America than Europe

The income share of the poorest half of Americans is declining while the richest have grabbed more. In Europe, it’s not happening. Different political choices equals different results.
www.vox.com/2018/7/29/17627134/income-inequality-chart

Here is another article that fails to analyze to Signym's satisfaction. Signym has very high expectations that nobody can satisfy. If the article had done what Signym wants, it would say that GOP policy was the cause. But then Signym would accuse all the different writers of all the different sources of being biased against the GOP sponsored policies going back 40 years. Signym would point out that when even one Democrat votes for a GOP policy the entire policy must be the Democrats' fault as much as the GOP's. Signym has a knack to make every issue as clear as mud.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 6:54 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Patriotic Millionaires is a group of about 200 wealthy Americans who advocate for less income inequality and against the concentration of wealth. It’s a bipartisan group, but it’s opposed to a central Republican idea: that benefits for the wealthy will eventually “trickle down” to the rest. That’s the thinking behind the 2017 tax cut bill, which reduced the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent and disproportionately benefits businesses and the wealthy.

The group first came together in 2010 to oppose the extension of Bush-era tax cuts for millionaires. Since then, it’s expanded its focus beyond taxes to also include issues such as the minimum wage and campaign finance reform.

The candidates it backs have to be running against an incumbent who voted for the Republican tax cuts, and they’ve got to be able to talk about taxes in a way that doesn’t put voters to sleep.

“It’s like situational narcolepsy; the minute you start talking about the tax code, you’ve lost your audience,” said Erica Payne, a progressive strategist and president of the Patriotic Millionaires, the group making the endorsements. “We’re looking for people who recognize the grand-scale theft that just happened and are looking to be aggressive fighters against that.”

The group is bipartisan and would therefore theoretically be willing to back a Republican who voted against the tax bill — there are 12 such Republicans. I also asked if they were willing to back a democratic socialist candidate, to which Payne, the group’s president, replied that they will consider endorsing any candidate who is running against one of the lawmakers who voted to support the bill. “This tax bill is such a complete abomination that anybody who voted for it should be hurled from office,” she said.

www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/31/17634016/patriotic-millionai
res-2018-tax-cuts

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 7:45 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

So, let's see SECOND ...

The share of elite income rose sharply under Calvin Coolidge, R (1823-1929)
Fell drastically under Herbert Hoover, R (1929-1933) at the start of the Great Depression
Rose under FDR, D (1933-1938)
And fell unevenly to a minimum (1938-1979) through the following Presidents
FDR, D (1933-1945)
Truman, D (1945-1853)
Eisenhower, R (1953-1961)
JFK, D (1961-1963)
Johnson, D (1963, 1969)
Nixon, R (1969-1974)
Ford, R (1975-1977)

After that, it began to rise sharply (1979) under
Carter, D ( 1977-1981)

Stabilized (1986-1994) under
Reagan. R (1981-1989)
HW Bush (1989-1993)

Rose SHARPLY (1994-2001) under
Bill Clinton, D (1993-2001)

Fell again (2001-2002) under
GWB, R
Before rising to an all-time high (about 2007) under
GWB, R
And crashing (2008), still under
GWB, R (2001-2009)

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 8:06 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Nice graph, Signym. But it wouldn't be U-shaped (it would bent down into an L-shaped) if the Feds had kept taxing the hell out of capital gains. Or taxed at the same rate as wages. But Trump wants to lower the capital gains tax even more by a clever accounting trick involving indexing for inflation, without a vote by Congress. It is a trick that can lower the tax to 0%, if you play it right. If you are really clever, you could even have capital gains, but declare that because of inflation you actually lost money, and the Feds would refund previously paid taxes to you. The Democrats say “everyone knows this must be done by legislation.”

www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-who-wins-and-loses-if-capital-gains-ar
e-indexed-to-inflation-2018-07-31

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 8:14 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, I challenge you to find a pattern that correlates with "Democrat" and "Republican" Presidents. Instead of your constant biased screeching, maybe we can talk reality for a change, like... what CAUSED the GINI index to rise steadily since about 1980?

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 8:19 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Why can’t Trump back down on tariffs? Because his other populist promises are broken, he has to keep this one.

Trump’s presidency is floated on jobs and economic growth, and trade wars can be bad for both. So why not just drop the mercantilism and let the good times roll? The GOP’s senators generally have a better grasp of facts than the occupant of the White House, but the president often has a better grasp of politics. And the political truth is that Trump probably needs his tariffs, needs his trade war, to have any chance of re-election — precisely because it’s the only remaining economic issue where he’s stuck to his campaign promises and hasn’t just deferred to traditional Republican priorities.

Because Trump’s infrastructure plan never materialized and his tax cut was a great whopping favor to corporate interests and his Obamacare replacement effort was a misbegotten flop — the swing voters he needs to hold the Midwest are now drifting away. Because Trump naturally alienates women and can’t make a gesture of outreach to blacks or Hispanics without stepping on it with bigotry the next day, tariffs are his only path back to the White House. He can’t let Trump voters in Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio go Democratic or stay home.

Free-trade Republican Senators have every right to reject the Trumpian tariffs. But their whingeing would be easier to take if they hadn’t discouraged Trump from every other attempt to make good on his populist pledges. He knows better than they do how he got elected; if protectionism is the only promise he can keep, it’s no surprise he’s keeping it.

So the fact that Trump’s tariffs are generally unpopular, even in Midwestern states, doesn’t matter politically nearly as much as their potential appeal to the blue-collar swing voters that he needs if he’s going to be re-elected. And the tariff’s cost, for now, can be swallowed up by general economic growth or dealt with via cynical payoffs to farmers. If the general economic growth itself goes away, well, then Trump isn’t getting re-elected anyway.

www.nytimes.com/2018/07/28/opinion/sunday/trump-tariffs.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 8:26 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

So, SECOND, as predicted ... when you fail with one argument you just grab a different handful of shit to fling at the wall?

That's why you discredit everything you post. It's crystal clear that you don't even care if you can demonstrate [with evidence] the underpinnings of the pointless screeching that you bring here, you just want to screech.

Some day, when I have a lot more time than I do now, I should list all of the arguments that you've abandoned, just in this thread alone. There must be a couple dozen by now, especially if I count the ones that you burp up over and over and over ...

In the meantime, I've developed a theory for why you behave the way that you do ... It goes like this: You made it big. You're the first one in your (nonwhite) family to become filthy stinking rich. YOU know it's not fair, and you feel like a class and race traitor. But you can's stop it. The rewards of being filthy stinking rich are just to great to give up, plus you've got the process down-pat. So you're desperate for someone else... ANYone else .... to rein in your behavior and take away some of that wealth that you feel, in your deepest self, is truly ill-gotten. The hate that you project on everyone else is merely a reflection of the hate that you feel for yourself.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 8:45 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, I challenge you to find a pattern that correlated with "Democrat" and "Republican" Presidents.

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

I challenge you to find a time when the GOP didn't have a strong hand in guiding the Federal Government, except in the years immediately after GOP President Hoover did what he could to destroy America.

For awhile there the GOP was a minority party because the voters remembered very clearly what problems Hoover refused to solve. The GOP still had enough power to delay Roosevelt for two years from declaring war against Germany. After Pearl Harbor, the GOP spread rumors that Roosevelt let it happen on purpose so that he could declare war against the wishes of the peace-loving GOP.

If Democrats and Roosevelt wanted something, the GOP was opposed. Voters tend to forget that and start assuming that both political parties are lazy and worthless. The GOP encourages that assumption, which allows them to regain 100% control for about 50% of the time. The rest of the time the GOP has 40 to 60% control of the Federal Government. The GOP is never powerless, unlike in Parliamentary governments, where the opposition's power can be reduced to O% until the next election. I guess if didn't occur to James Madison when he was writing the Constitution that the opposition might deliberately sabotage Congress so that they could get back into power quicker. I guess Madison assumed the electorate would always be limited to only 10% of the population, the smarter, richer ones, who could understand when the opposition is engaged in sabotage. www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring07/elections.cfm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Harbor_advance-knowledge_conspirac
y_theory#Ten_official_U.S._inquiries

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 9:10 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr

Van Jones prezents u good perspectiv on conservativ voterz:

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.7532020.com

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 9:17 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, SECOND, as predicted ... when you fail with one argument you just grab a different handful of shit to fling at the wall?

That's why you discredit everything you post. It's crystal clear that you don't even care if you can demonstrate [with evidence] the underpinnings of the pointless screeching that you bring here, you just want to screech.

Some day, when I have a lot more time than I do now, I should list all of the arguments that you've abandoned, just in this thread alone. There must be a couple dozen by now, especially if I count the ones that you burp up over and over and over ...

In the meantime, I've developed a theory for why you behave the way that you do ... It goes like this: You made it big. You're the first one in your (nonwhite) family to become filthy stinking rich. YOU know it's not fair, and you feel like a class and race traitor. But you can's stop it. The rewards of being filthy stinking rich are just to great to give up, plus you've got the process down-pat. So you're desperate for someone else... ANYone else .... to rein in your behavior and take away some of that wealth that you feel, in your deepest self, is truly ill-gotten. The hate that you project on everyone else is merely a reflection of the hate that you feel for yourself.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

Signym, I called you a lying sack of shit many times. Other people have called you a Russian troll. That could be true, but more likely you are just a crazy American. Do you really think anybody who holds you as contemptible will argue with you to change your mind? This is not a debating class where points are rewarded toward a final grade. And I am waiting for you and 1kiki to follow through on your threats to sue me. Trump made threats many times, then forgot 'em. Did you learn it from him?

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-22-times-trump-has-threatened
-to-sue-someone-during-this-campaign/
www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/times-donald-trump-made-ridiculous-thr
eats-sue.html/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 9:46 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.

You seem to be doing a one-man gish-gallop. Is that something you learned from Trump? The kind of incoherent, inaccurate ranting you claim he does? And gosh, you easily post three or four posts for every one that Signy posts. Does Signy threaten your sense of control for you to fall apart like that?

"The Gish gallop is a technique used during debating that focuses on overwhelming one's opponent with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments" ,,, or relevance.

THUGGER admits it's not about RUSSIA !!! and is, in fact, a witch hunt. "Trump better be innocent of any wrong doing, anywhere, anytime."

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 10:46 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Signym, I called you a lying sack of shit many times.

Yes, and you are wrong. I don't lie.

Quote:
Other people have called you a Russian troll. That could be true, but...

... they are also wrong. I'm not Russian, and I'm less of a troll than they are.

Quote:
... more likely you are just a crazy American. Do you really think anybody who holds you as contemptible

They don't think I'M "contemptible" because they ... like you ... have a cardboard cutout in their heads that they're arguing with; after all this time they STILL don't respond accurately to my posts and clearly don't know what I think or why.

Quote:
... will argue with you to change your mind?

THEIR problem ... and it's THEIR problem, not mine ... is lack of listening. Because they want to ARGUE, not converse. I'm more than ready to discuss; I believe I have listened enough where I could respond tho their points, if they would bother to support/ discuss them.

I find it revealing that so many people here simply cannot provide a sustained, logical, evidence-based rationale for why they feel/think the way they do. I've had my mind changed on quite a few things because of discussions with other people. If you-all could give me some sound reasons WHY you feel the way that you do, I'd certainly take it into consideration. But I'm not about to have my mind changed by being browbeaten and bullied, You guys are going to have to do some intellectual WORK to accomplish that!.

Quote:
This is not a debating class where points are rewarded toward a final grade.

It is, however, a DISCUSSION BOARD. One where people, unfortunately, feel compelled to get in tribal fights and fling poo with both hands.

Quote:
And I am waiting for you and 1kiki to follow through on your threats to sue me. Trump made threats many times, then forgot 'em. Did you learn it from him?

You will not know the hour nor the day.

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 1:30 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:
And I am waiting for you and 1kiki to follow through on your threats to sue me. Trump made threats many times, then forgot 'em. Did you learn it from him?
You will not know the hour nor the day.

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

My Mother, a Jehovah's Witness, would say the same to me about Armageddon, that it would arrive completely unexpected, and unless I changed my wicked ways before then I would not be saved. After telling me that for about 61 of my 66 years, she died. I look forward to Judgment Day and learning which side won. Democrats? Or Republicans?

In a recent interview, Steve Bannon declared that “The Republican college-educated woman is done. They’re gone. They were going anyway at some point in time. Trump triggers them.”

The Washington Post’s Philip Bump decided to check this out, and it turns out that Bannon is right:

College-educated white women support Democrats by a net of nearly 50 points. And it shows no signs of bouncing back and forth. The more they see and hear of Trump, the more they hate him. Thanks to Trump, college-educated white women would apparently be pretty happy to see the Republican Party annihilated and replaced with something else.

Trump has had the same effect, but a bit smaller, on every other demographic group too, wiping out most of the Republican Party’s gains made during the Obama era.

More at www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/08/quote-of-the-day-college-educat
ed-republican-women-are-extinct/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 1:38 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
“The Republican college-educated woman is done. They’re gone. They were going anyway at some point in time. Trump triggers them.”

I know six. Not all "republicans" but all Trump-voters. Four are trained in the sciences, one a regional manager, and one a professional translator. Curiously, only two are "white", and four are nonwhite immigrants. Go figure! One is devoutly Christian, one is socially Christian, one is lapsed Buddhist, and the remainder seem fairly agnostic.

But this is southern California, and their issue is ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, among other things.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Wednesday, August 1, 2018 8:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Van Jones prezents u good perspectiv on conservativ voterz:

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.7532020.com

I don't have time to watch the whole thing right now, but I will finish this video after work.

5 minutes in and Van Jones seems to get it.

I've seen several things by Van since election night that has changed my initial opinion of him since his "White Lash" comment when Trump won. I've got a lot of respect for him. He is not a static character like most other 24 hour commentators, and he seems to have grown quite a bit since then.

It's a pity that there aren't more people on the News like Van that are self aware and are aware of the state of their own party. Instead of doubling down on all the things that got Trump elected in the first place like almost everybody else has done since then, Van Jones is taking a moment to step back and ask himself "what are we doing wrong?"

Thanks for sharing the video J0. I hope that everybody here takes 15 minutes out of their lives to watch it.

I'll have more to say when I finish it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Thursday, August 2, 2018 6:29 AM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
Signym, I called you a lying sack of shit many times.
Yes, and you are wrong. I don't lie.

You subscribed to the biggest, longest lie ever told on this forum, so I guess bonus lying points for denying it.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Quote:
... more likely you are just a crazy American. Do you really think anybody who holds you as contemptible
They don't think I'M "contemptible" because they ... like you ... have a cardboard cutout in their heads that they're arguing with; after all this time they STILL don't respond accurately to my posts and clearly don't know what I think or why.

Thanks for the thumbnail description of why Libel won't fly in a forum setting. We don't know who you are, you are some "cardboard cutout" as you say. In fact, when "you" first started posting legal threats I thought your husband had taken over your account. It's occurred to me a few times when you lose your sh*t that maybe someone else is at the keyboard.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:THEIR problem ... and it's THEIR problem, not mine ... is lack of listening. Because they want to ARGUE, not converse. I'm more than ready to discuss; I believe I have listened enough where I could respond tho their points, if they would bother to support/ discuss them.

^ Ok, that's just drop dead funny. Years of data show you have no interest in "discussing." If anything, the failure rate of "discussing" anything with you just increases the probability that you are only here to agitate. I'm at 99.8% fwiw.

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
I find it revealing that so many people here simply cannot provide a sustained, logical, evidence-based rationale for why they feel/think the way they do. I've had my mind changed on quite a few things because of discussions with other people. If you-all could give me some sound reasons WHY you feel the way that you do, I'd certainly take it into consideration. But I'm not about to have my mind changed by being browbeaten and bullied, You guys are going to have to do some intellectual WORK to accomplish that!.

It should be very telling why no one wants to discuss with you! Why don't you get it?

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM: It is, however, a DISCUSSION BOARD. One where people, unfortunately, feel compelled to get in tribal fights and fling poo with both hands.

You are right! I love discussing various topics with the honest people on this board.

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Thursday, August 2, 2018 7:16 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

The Federal government does not have cures for chronic problems because Democracies are not capable of sustained, disciplined efforts over decades. What kind of problems? Maybe Poverty. Maybe a shortage of good jobs at high pay and an overabundance of bad jobs at poor pay?

I’ve got a newspaper’s example of another problem that Democracies can’t solve:

In the late 1970s, a small group of philosophers, economists and political scientists began to debate, largely among themselves, whether a human solution to global warming was even possible. They did not trouble themselves about the details of warming, taking the worst-case scenario as a given. They asked instead whether humankind, when presented with this particular existential crisis, was willing to prevent it. We worry about the future. But how much, exactly?

The answer, as any economist could tell you, is very little. Economics, the science of assigning value to human behavior, prices the future at a discount; the farther out you project, the cheaper the consequences. This makes the climate problem the perfect economic disaster. The Yale economist William D. Nordhaus, a member of Jimmy Carter’s Council of Economic Advisers, argued in the 1970s that the most appropriate remedy was a global carbon tax. But that required an international agreement, which Nordhaus didn’t think was likely. Michael Glantz, a political scientist who was at the National Center for Atmospheric Research at the time, argued in 1979 that democratic societies are constitutionally incapable of dealing with the climate problem. The competition for resources means that no single crisis can ever command the public interest for long, yet climate change requires sustained, disciplined efforts over decades. And the German physicist-philosopher Klaus Meyer-Abich argued that any global agreement would inevitably favor the most minimal action. Adaptation, Meyer-Abich concluded, “seems to be the most rational political option.” It is the option that we have pursued, consciously or not, ever since.

These theories share a common principle: that human beings, whether in global organizations, democracies, industries, political parties or as individuals, are incapable of sacrificing present convenience to forestall a penalty imposed on future generations. When I asked John Sununu about his part in this history — whether he considered himself personally responsible for killing the best chance at an effective global-warming treaty — his response echoed Meyer-Abich. “It couldn’t have happened,” he told me, “because, frankly, the leaders in the world at that time were at a stage where they were all looking how to seem like they were supporting the policy without having to make hard commitments that would cost their nations serious resources.” He added, “Frankly, that’s about where we are today.”

More at www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-
earth.html

Why do I think Democracies fail to solve chronic problems? Because a majority needs to agree and continue to agree for years and years on how to solve a “Problem”. Let’s not describe the “Problem”. Imagine your worst problem is the “Problem”.

Here is the key to unlock the secret to failure in Democracies. The majority do not suffer from your “Problem” and don’t care to solve it for you and don’t want to pay for your government solution. Corporations and dictatorships never have this kind of trouble from too many people who don’t care. Instead, they fail because of the bad judgment of the CEO and the dictator.

The ones that Do Care often cannot agree on what to do. The result is the Don’t Care people win in a Democracy. Maybe the Don’t Care have a temporary setback, but eventually, if the problem can’t be solved quickly, the Don’t Care people get their way in a Democracy because Don’t Care is the true majority. The result? Chronic problems not solved.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 2, 2018 9:27 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Ambiguity is a political opportunity for disadvantaged, regular folks who feel that no one else is championing their interests. Trump’s ambiguity helps us understand his campaign’s appeal to such diverse constituents as stockbrokers, evangelicals, Obama swing voters, and white nationalists. Each of these groups came to view the ambiguous candidate as their best bet and hoped that by joining in, they could influence the agenda to serve their needs.

But here’s the rub. While ambiguity can be effective for building a movement or a base of supporters, it is far less effective for governing. Ambiguous ideas and symbols can cast a broad net, but decisive actions, such as enacting policies, rarely do. This is the paradox of ambiguity for movements and leaders who trade in it: When they shift from talk to action, from protest to governance, they cannot as readily accommodate the same diversity of meanings. They become more defined.

In the Trump phenomenon, the definition of Trumpism seems pretty clearly underway. Trump voters have expressed concern about his positions on affordable health care, international trade, and other basic areas of policy affecting their daily lives and ways of making a living.

What’s most apparent is that the people who supported the Trump campaign should not be dismissed as delusional fools who were beguiled by vague promises. Such a judgment underestimates people. Rather we should look at these supporters as opportunists, cunningly taking advantage of ambiguity’s interpretive spaces as a chance to insert their own voice and vision, even if imperfectly. Seen through such a lens, movements and campaigns — and the people who support them — look very different from how they’re usually portrayed.

And this leads us to an inevitable conclusion: When another politician follows Trump’s example of ambiguity, people are likely to take notice. They will believe they are being presented with better opportunities to be heard and represented. They’ll try their luck with whoever or whatever seems to give them an opening. And the candidate who tells the biggest and best story, even when mostly lies, can probably win.

More at https://attentiontotheunseen.com/2018/08/01/why-political-ambiguity-ap
peals-to-the-masses/#more-2545

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, August 2, 2018 10:28 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Signym, I called you a lying sack of shit many times. - SECOND
Yes, and you are wrong. I don't lie.-SIGNY
You subscribed to the biggest, longest lie ever told on this forum, so I guess bonus lying points for denying it.- GSTRING

What "lie" is that??? I'll bet you can even describe that "lie" that I'm supposed to be guilty of, your thinking is so fuzzy!!

Quote:
... more likely you are just a crazy American. Do you really think anybody who holds you as contemptible - SECOND

They don't think I'M "contemptible" because they ... like you ... have a cardboard cutout in their heads that they're arguing with; after all this time they STILL don't respond accurately to my posts and clearly don't know what I think or why. - SIGNY

Thanks for the thumbnail description of why Libel won't fly in a forum setting.- GSTRING

Bullshit. Maybe you should do some research and ... yanno... talk to a lawyer before you opine so erroneously.

Quote:
We don't know who you are, you are some "cardboard cutout" as you say.- GSTRING

But that hasn't stopped you from calling me a "Russian troll" time and time again, has it? Don't you realize that you just ADMITTED to libel? What a tool.

Quote:
In fact, when "you" first started posting legal threats I thought your husband had taken over your account.- GSTRING

Good grief. My husband has NEVER "taken over" my account. He has never posted here, under my avatar or any other. Apparently, you're willing to be just as screwed up with this as you are with everything else. But thanks for defaming hubby as well! That just adds to the fun!

Quote:
It's occurred to me a few times when you lose your sh*t that maybe someone else is at the keyboard.

You're wrong.

Quote:
THEIR problem ... and it's THEIR problem, not mine ... is lack of listening. Because they want to ARGUE, not converse. I'm more than ready to discuss; I believe I have listened enough where I could respond tho their points, if they would bother to support/ discuss them. - SIGNY

Ok, that's just drop dead funny. Years of data show you have no interest in "discussing." If anything, the failure rate of "discussing" anything with you just increases the probability that you are only here to agitate. I'm at 99.8% fwiw. -GSTRING

Oh, you mean 99,8% trolling?

Quote:
I find it revealing that so many people here simply cannot provide a sustained, logical, evidence-based rationale for why they feel/think the way they do. I've had my mind changed on quite a few things because of discussions with other people. If you-all could give me some sound reasons WHY you feel the way that you do, I'd certainly take it into consideration. But I'm not about to have my mind changed by being browbeaten and bullied, You guys are going to have to do some intellectual WORK to accomplish that!.- SIGNY

It should be very telling why no one wants to discuss with you! Why don't you get it? - GSTRING

YOU (collectively)- GSTRING, THUGR, SECOND, WISHY, REAVERFAN, and JO ... don't want to discuss anything. What you want is to shout into an echo-chamber and get instant agreement and support back for your opinions.

Quote:
It is, however, a DISCUSSION BOARD. One where people, unfortunately, feel compelled to get in tribal fights and fling poo with both hands.- SIGNY

You are right! I love discussing various topics with the honest people on this board.- GSTRING

Bullshit. You spend at least 90% of your posts trolling and attacking other people, when you don't get the mutual stroking that you expect. It's actually DIFFICULT to find a clearly-stated opinion under your ID, and near-impossible to find any evidence attached to one.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Thursday, August 2, 2018 11:01 AM

JO753

rezident owtsidr

Quote:
Originally posted by 1kiki:
"The Gish gallop is a technique used during debating that focuses on overwhelming one's opponent with as many arguments as possible, without regard for accuracy or strength of the arguments" or relevance.

xanks! I'v encountered it many timez, but didnt no there wuz a name for it.

Gish gallop!

----------------------------
DUZ XaT SEM RiT TQ YQ? - Jubal Early

http://www.7532020.com

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Thursday, August 2, 2018 11:09 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Originally posted by JO753:
Van Jones prezents u good perspectiv on conservativ voterz:

I liked this video immensely. Van Jones did an excellent job expressing the values of the conservative voter.

But I noticed the same trend just recently on NPR: "Suddenly" the liberal media is espousing greater understanding of their fellow American conservatives. The cynic in me thinks .... the liberal MSM is entirely "curated" to produce a desired outcome* ... when [some] liberals and NPR "suddenly" discover "respect" for their fellow American conservatives, I think that SOMEbody in the DNC has looked at the polls and had a butt-puckering moment. Like the thought suddenly occurred to them ...

Maybe pounding on the heads of half of America is just alienating a lot of people and won't get us the votes we need!

I'd like to be wrong, but I think that this newfound fellow-feeling on the part of previously intolerant liberal media will probably disappear right after November 6, 2018, no matter what the outcome of the election.

*That doesn't mean that other media is any less "curated", it's just that liberal media is ALSO curated, and isn't "the truth".

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Friday, August 3, 2018 11:25 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Trump is making Medicare-for-all inevitable. A market-based solution can’t work if Republicans won’t let it.

Medicare-for-all — a government-run insurance program that everyone is either covered by or at least eligible for — is unequivocally the future of progressive health care policy.

That’s in part thanks to the Trump administration, which, having failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act, has undertaken a nearly unprecedented campaign of regulatory malfeasance that aims to prevent it from functioning and minimize the number of people on whom it bestows comprehensive health coverage.

True, there are many unanswered questions about what “Medicare-for-all” really means, how much it would really cost, how you would finance it, and, critically, how you would transition from point A to point B while restructuring the healthcare system. But whether the Democratic Party should pursue it is no longer in doubt.

In America, a workable system needs to be able to survive the regular alternation of parties in power. The lesson of the Trump era is that the Obamacare approach can’t do that. It’ll take a big, dumb program that just keeps trundling along unless Congress actually repeals it — like how Social Security checks keep going out no matter who’s president.

More at www.vox.com/2018/8/3/17641560/medicare-for-all-trump

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, August 3, 2018 11:28 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Oh yeah, SECOND ... one MORE point about that book you seem so enamored of ...

Quote:
“Republicans in the highest income quintile, those making more than $100,000 per year, were actually slightly less satisfied than Democrats in the lowest income quintile, those making less than $20,000 per year.”

Not only did they fail to as WHY high-income Republicans were slightly less satisfied than low-income Democrats (which the authors then immediately and- apparently without evidence- tag to "racism") they failed to make another fundamental comparison: How did high-income DEMOCRAT satisfaction compare to low-income Democrat satisfaction?

Either the book is completely fucked, or the book review is. In any case, sorry I missed this obvious flaw the first time around.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Friday, August 3, 2018 6:17 PM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Oh yeah, SECOND ... one MORE point about that book you seem so enamored of ...

Quote:
“Republicans in the highest income quintile, those making more than $100,000 per year, were actually slightly less satisfied than Democrats in the lowest income quintile, those making less than $20,000 per year.”
Not only did they fail to as WHY high-income Republicans were slightly less satisfied than low-income Democrats (which the authors then immediately and- apparently without evidence- tag to "racism") they failed to make another fundamental comparison: How did high-income DEMOCRAT satisfaction compare to low-income Democrat satisfaction?

Either the book is completely fucked, or the book review is. In any case, sorry I missed this obvious flaw the first time around.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

The full quote goes something like this:
This is unnerving data, as we tend to imagine the economy as a rare subject on which objective facts, rather than group conflicts, drive opinions. Sadly, no. Sides, Tesler, and Vavreck analyzed polling on economic sentiment and found that “Republicans in the highest income quintile, those making more than $100,000 per year, were actually slightly less satisfied than Democrats in the lowest income quintile, those making less than $20,000 per year.”

This was borne out in the election’s aftermath. Trump’s election led to a remarkable 80-point jump in economic confidence among Republicans, and a 37-point fall among Democrats.

There is even a graph that goes with it, but go here to see it:
www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/30/17505406/trump-obama-race-po
litics-immigration

The graph illustrates that political partisans are not sane about economy. When they are happy with their new Republican President, they think the economy is doing good. When sad, the economy is bad. I will give you hint about reality: the economy does NOT change as your mood changes. It is crazy for Republicans to think the economy changes based on the chemical imbalances inside Republicans’ heads. The Democrats have a little of that craziness, too.

Signym plays the role of Bester and second’s role is Kaylee in the script for Out of Gas:

KAYLEE
Ain't nothing wrong with your grav boot. Grav boot's just fine.
(to Mal)
Hello.
She drops down again, out of view. Mal glances at Bester. Bester's a bit flustered.
BESTER
(to Mal)
She doesn't... that's not what...
(to Kaylee)
No it ain't!
KAYLEE
(reappearing)
Sure it is. Grav boot ain't your trouble. I seen the trouble plain as day when I was down there on my back before. Your reg couple's bad.
BESTER
(clueless)
The... red... what?
KAYLEE
Reg couple. Right here. See?
BESTER No.
KAYLEE This.
(then)
I'm pointin' right at it. She rolls her eyes, sighs, reaches in, breaks off a part of the engine.
BESTER Hey!
KAYLEE Here.

That scene ends with Bester/Signym being fired for incompetence, for not understanding even the simplest things, for not knowing you don't know what you are doing :

BESTER Mal. Whaddya need two mechanics for?
MAL I really don't.

If it was left to Bester, Serenity would never fly again, but Mal fixed Bester. Sadly, there is no Mal here at fireflyfans.net to fix Signym.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, August 3, 2018 8:41 PM

My mood is wonderful compared to where I was 2 years ago, Second.

I said the economy and job outlook in America was terrible back then, and I still say it is now.

I'm going to go ahead and attribute my sanity to the fact that I'm neither a Republican or a Democrat, pat myself on the back, and get ready for my low income part time job that I actually enjoy more than almost every job I've ever had in the past.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, August 3, 2018 8:59 PM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

SECOND, I read the article. It's just more identity politics, as far as I can tell. The relevant part of the article .... which you seem to want me to focus on, is this

Quote:
The best evidence we have suggests this gets the relationship largely backward. In their forthcoming book Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America, political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck analyze reams of data and show that racial resentment activated economic anxiety, rather than the other way around:

Before Obama’s presidency, how Americans felt about black people did not much affect their perceptions of the economy. After Obama, this changed. In December 2007, racial resentment — which captures whether Americans think deficiencies in black culture are the main reason for racial inequality — was not related to whites’ perceptions of whether the economy was getting better or worse, after accounting for partisanship and ideology. But when these exact same people were re-interviewed in July 2012, racial resentment was a powerful predictor of economic perceptions: the greater someone’s level of racial resentment, the worse they believed the economy was doing.

What the authors found was (they said) a CORRELATION. "racial resentment = economic dissatisfaction"

But SOMETHING HAPPENED between 2007 (when people were first interviewed) and 2012, when they were re-interviewed. What was it?? Think hard, I know you can figure it out.

And, as we all know ... correlation is not causation.

There are a whole bunch of factors that might be tied together that lump "racial resentment" in with "economic dissatisfaction". For example, it's possible that poor rural whites or whites in manufacturing jobs ... who might be somewhat more racist than average, were hit PARTICULARLY hard by the Great Collapse.

Now, what the authors needed to do ... and perhaps they did and the article never mentions is ... is what is called a "multivariate analysis" in which the effect of different factors are teased out from each other.

There really wasn't enough detail in the article to be supportive of the points the author was making; it just seemed like so much blah-blah-blah of regurgitated suppositions. Maybe there's a real point in there somewhere but I couldn't find it. It seemed like the intent of the article was to make white people feel guilty for being white, or something.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Saturday, August 4, 2018 1:33 AM

REAVERFAN

Thanks, SECOND, for talking about real things while the Russian trolls deflect.

Someone has to do it. I'm just too tired, most of the time.

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Saturday, August 4, 2018 7:43 AM

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
SECOND, I read the article. It's just more identity politics, as far as I can tell. The relevant part of the article .... which you seem to want me to focus on, is this

Quote:
The best evidence we have suggests this gets the relationship largely backward. In their forthcoming book Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America, political scientists John Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck analyze reams of data and show that racial resentment activated economic anxiety, rather than the other way around:

Before Obama’s presidency, how Americans felt about black people did not much affect their perceptions of the economy. After Obama, this changed. In December 2007, racial resentment — which captures whether Americans think deficiencies in black culture are the main reason for racial inequality — was not related to whites’ perceptions of whether the economy was getting better or worse, after accounting for partisanship and ideology. But when these exact same people were re-interviewed in July 2012, racial resentment was a powerful predictor of economic perceptions: the greater someone’s level of racial resentment, the worse they believed the economy was doing.

What the authors found was (they said) a CORRELATION. "racial resentment = economic dissatisfaction"

But SOMETHING HAPPENED between 2007 (when people were first interviewed) and 2012, when they were re-interviewed. What was it?? Think hard, I know you can figure it out.

And, as we all know ... correlation is not causation.

There are a whole bunch of factors that might be tied together that lump "racial resentment" in with "economic dissatisfaction". For example, it's possible that poor rural whites or whites in manufacturing jobs ... who might be somewhat more racist than average, were hit PARTICULARLY hard by the Great Collapse.

Now, what the authors needed to do ... and perhaps they did and the article never mentions is ... is what is called a "multivariate analysis" in which the effect of different factors are teased out from each other.

There really wasn't enough detail in the article to be supportive of the points the author was making; it just seemed like so much blah-blah-blah of regurgitated suppositions. Maybe there's a real point in there somewhere but I couldn't find it. It seemed like the intent of the article was to make white people feel guilty for being white, or something.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

Signym, you are bullshiting at great length about what you don't comprehend. You definitely are Bester.

Signym, for a reason I quoted from the Firefly script “Out of Gas” about Mal meeting Kaylee for the first time and replacing Bester. Our real world is afflicted with people like semi-competent Bester (or Signym). Even Mal was fooled into believing Bester was a genius mechanic. Bester believed in himself, but he could not get Serenity to fly.

Bester and Kaylee argued about what was wrong with Serenity. If Kaylee’s correct diagnosis and repair had required hours of work, that argument would have gone on indefinitely, with Bester blocking Kaylee, just exactly like arguments do here at fireflyfan.net or in our world. Since it was a TV show, in 30 seconds Kaylee got Serenity running again, but only because Mal helped by stopping Bester from interfering.

There will be Bester vs Kaylee arguments until the end of time and Mal won’t intuitively know who is the better mechanic for his ship. In the same episode, there was a problem even Kaylee couldn’t fix, disappointing Mal. In American politics there might be problems a competent mechanic can’t fix, either. For those problems you need Mal to confront pirates and steal from them the Catalyzer on the port compression coil. Some problems get fixed with crude violence, not refined words. The Civil War is an example, although other countries solved their slavery problem without killing a million. The Revolutionary War is another, although Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (but not Ireland) solved that problem without going to war.

If you ever need to decide between Bester vs Kaylee in a political race, I suggest a simple test on who will be the better mechanic of government. I would suggest Mal pay close attention to who is the bigger liar. Signym, you failed that test years ago. Trump failed it during his multi-bankruptcy Atlantic City phase and he never stopped lying since. Too bad there is no Mal to kick Signym or Trump off his boat.

www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, August 4, 2018 10:51 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
Signym, you are bullshiting at great length about what you don't comprehend. You definitely are Bester.

Uh huh.

The article makes a number of claims

Quote:
This is the core cleavage of our politics, and it reflects the fundamental reality of our era: America is changing, and fast

only if you ASSUME that people's politics are based on their skin color. As if we don't ALL have an interest in meaningful jobs at living wages, safe homes and neighborhoods, a durable economy sustainable into the future, a meritocracy for those who can work and support for those who can't ... this is just identity politics gone wild.

Quote:
I spent months talking with politicians, social psychologists, and political scientists about what happens in moments like this one, moments when a majority feels its dominance beginning to fail.

Well, "a majority" here ... no matter how defined ... doesn't HAVE dominance. YOU YOURSELF SAID that we live in an economy where the lords and lordlings have control. Painting "a majority" as having "dominance" is simply forwarding the myth that we have meaningful control over our collective future ... which we don't, and we WON'T, unless we can get off this identity politics track and pay attention to who's REALLY in control. This article is simply diverting attention from the people who have REAL dominance ... the 0.01%.

Quote:
Schiffhauer published a fascinating paper called “Racial attitudes in response to thoughts of White privilege.” They found that priming white college students to think about the concept of white privilege led them to express more racial resentment in subsequent surveys. The simplest way to activate someone’s identity is to threaten it, to tell them they don’t truly deserve what they have, to make them consider that it might be taken away.

The author ... who says "As we navigate these sensitivities, we can do so with more or less care" spends an ENTIRE ARTICLE winding up those very sensitivities through CONTINUED reference (directly and indirectly) to LOSS OF WHITE PRIVILEGE, which is destined to make many white readers feel threatened and uncomfortable.

The author's dedication to identity politics as a wedge to drive Americans further and further apart is right from YOUR playbook, SECOND. You're CONSTANTLY flogging identity politics here. You WANT people to be squabbling over trivialities.

That way, you can do as you please. You said so yourself.

And that was probably the most honest thing that you ever posted.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Saturday, August 4, 2018 11:17 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

I thought this was a particularly apt description of identity politics

Quote:
At the time of writing there are apparently over 70 different gender options in the West, not to mention numerous sexualities - the traditional LGBT acronym has thus far grown to LGBTQQIP2SAA. Adding race to the mix results in an even greater number of possible permutations or identities. Each subgroup has its own ideology. Precious time is spent fighting against those deemed less oppressed and telling them to ‘check their privilege’ as the ever-changing pecking order of the ‘Oppression Olympics’ plays out. The rules to this sport are as fluid as the identities taking part. One of the latest dilemmas affecting the identity politics movement is the issue of whether men transitioning to women deserve recognition and acceptance or 'whether trans women aren’t women and are apparently “raping” lesbians'.

The ideology of identity politics asserts that the straight white male is at the apex of the privilege pyramid, responsible for the oppression of all other groups. His original sin condemns him to everlasting shame. While it is true that straight white men (as a group) have faced less obstacles than females, non-straight men or ethnic minorities, the majority of straight white men, past and present, also struggle to survive from paycheck to paycheck and are not personally involved in the oppression of any other group. While most of the world’s wealthiest individuals are Caucasian males, millions of white men exist who are both poor and powerless

Yes, this really is a "divide and conquer" strategy by the elite. Now we can ALL squabble amongst ourselves as to who was the greater victim, and who should feel the most guilt. Does a gay male with AIDS, abused as a child by his mother belong on a higher rung of victim-hood than a Hispanic lesbian female with a supportive family?

I hope you can see how this train of thought devolves into meaninglessness.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Saturday, August 4, 2018 3:51 PM

THG

You're dealing with Q SECOND. Nothing but deniers of facts and promoters of conspiracies. Nuts and Russian trolls SECOND, nuts and Russian trolls.

T

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Sunday, August 5, 2018 2:33 AM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
You're dealing with Q SECOND

Oh, good grief.

Do you really think ANYone buys your tripe? I can't decide whether to feel annoyed or flattered, but either way, I'm not Q.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

"The messy American environment, where most people don't agree, is perfect for people like me. I CAN DO AS I PLEASE." - SECOND

America is an oligarchy http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?tid=57876

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Sunday, August 5, 2018 7:08 AM