Executive Election:
[   ] Clinton1996/Siren
[1] ZuWo/Cathcon
[   ] Drj101/Write-in: __________

Legislative Election:
[   ] Odysseus
[   ] Inks.LWC
[   ] HoosierPoliticalJunkie
[   ] MilesC56
[   ] a Person
[   ] LumineVonReuental
[   ] Oldiesfreak1854
[3] Shua
[   ] Gass3268
[   ] TNF
[1] Write-In: Oakvale
[2] Write-In: Bakon King

When I first saw that gif in opebo's signature, I thought that it was taken from a video in which a cabbage-faced woman sings about existentialism or something. But this... I'm not going to lie, that was actually extremely disturbing.

"Sub-pej-nuhs", but the "b" is silent.

Ah, the problem is "which 50 percent"?

Each individual sentence is 50% serious and 50% tongue-in-cheek.

Yes. Specifically, articles, proper nouns, and sentences in which "y" appears as a vowel tend to be serious, whereas pronouns and words appearing in the past perfect tense tend to be tongue-in-cheek.

Did you intentionally make it look like the kitty's head was facing in the direction of the bird?

Freedom Fighter. I understand why some would be irked by his overly-partisan rhetoric, but I like to think that his posts are 50% serious and 50% tongue-in-cheek. When you look at it that way, he is unfailingly hilarious.

Crap, I forgot to mention the (mostly rail-based) public transit in Nathanland.

Yeah, I was going to mention the transportation system, too, but I couldn't find a way to fit it in the paragraph without making the transition seem awkward. Basically, the public transportation system is well-funded and extensive, and personal automobile ownership is discouraged (except for people who live in the country and work in town, in which case owning an automobile is most practical).

Also, to Andrewland: Our people very much like being mostly self-sufficient, rather than serving as soulless cogs in the great big capitalist machine, thank you very much!

I understand that we're describing what would happen if our ideals were enacted by the government, not our perfect society, so I'm going to try to come as close as we could come without causing the collapse of civilization :

The Alexandrian economy most resembles that of a foraging economy of any of those in the modern world. Regulations on the production of food are so strict that they effectively prohibit its industrial production, so fruits, vegetables, and grains are grown either on family farms/gardens, or in collectively owned and managed urban community gardens. The raising of animals for the purpose of consumption is prohibited outright, although hunting is both legal and somewhat encouraged. While this means that the majority of people don't have to purchase food, some still seek what we would refer to as part-time employment in exchange for currency. Common sources of employment include jobs in the trades and collectively-owned factories, although the need for such jobs is not as great as it is in other countries, as some consumer goods are produced at home. Education is compulsory for children between the ages of five and sixteen, and, due to the nature of the Alexandrian economy, focuses entirely on teaching children the basics of a good citizen, rather than the basics of an employable one.

Family is the most important unit in society, and most people live in large homes shared with members of their extended family, including aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Kinship is matrilineal, with husbands adopting their wife's last name and often moving in with their wife's family. Gender stereotypes are well-defined but usually not held to be oppressive, both because they emphasize the positive attributes of each gender (thus serving as an ideal for each person to live up to) and because slight deviation is expected and tolerated. Homosexual relationships are treated like heterosexual ones, and gays are viewed as a sort of third gender.

Government authority is devolved to the local and municipal level whenever possible. The national government involves itself with what issues the localities cannot regulate, including managing national resources and dealing with foreign nations. However, it serves a mostly ceremonial purpose, establishing and managing national parks, collecting documents for preservation in the national cultural registry, the consecration of public holidays, etc.

While I may have evolved on some issues, I think that the underlying worldview is the same. When I joined a couple of years ago (I just checked; two years to the day today, incidentally), I viewed the world as too nuanced for me to take a decisive stance on practically any issue, and so ended up taking the Moderate Hero position most of the time. If you can't make up your mind, why not just go with the conventional wisdom? At least you'll appear "reasonable". Nowadays, I realize that the conventional wisdom can indeed be just as wrong as the unconventional wisdom, but the nuanced view of the world remains, and thus, the inability to make up my mind.

I have become more and more comfortable with the idea that many of society's problems would be solved if we had just never given up foraging for farming, which is a pretty radical change, I suppose.

[real Americans]

Another -- some states tax different items. Some states tax food, and some don't. Some tax prescription medicines, and some don't. Some tax religious materials and some don't. 

It is quite interesting. The freeloaders using EBT are exempt from paying sales  taxes that real Americans have to pay in some situations.

Inhumane piece of s**t.

The bold is the best part. People on this forum joke about conservatives accusing people that they don't like of not being "real Americans", but he actually said it.

[exercise]

Still, it's a fun exercise.

Now we'll never find out Bushie's WalkScore.

I live in the country, so... 0? It would take well over an hour to walk to the nearest gas station, and to get to the nearest town would take several hours on foot.

Technically speaking, hasn't Bush, Sr. already outlived everyone on that list?

Thankyou absurd fundamentalist Christians, without you we'd have no qualms about massacring babies!

Well there was that whole Roman Empire infanticide thing. It wasn't banned until Christianity became the state religion.

Is that true? It was my belief that the Romans considered human sacrifice a barbaric practice that distinguished the civilized people (themselves) from the uncivilized people (the Gauls and the Carthaginians; their enemies, coincidentally). There's also the fact that the Republic outlawed human sacrifice decades before Jesus was even born...

You're right about child sacrifice, but I am talking about exposure. Basically fathers had the right to leave newborns to die if they didn't want the kid. The baby (usually a girl) would be left outside of the city walls. One of the initial charitable practices of the early church was to go find those babies and adopt them.

Oh, I see. That is different from ritual human sacrifice. I have read that the authority that Roman fathers had over their families was so complete that it would seem inconceivable to most people today, although I also recall reading that that authority was significantly restricted at some point.

Thankyou absurd fundamentalist Christians, without you we'd have no qualms about massacring babies!

Well there was that whole Roman Empire infanticide thing. It wasn't banned until Christianity became the state religion.

Is that true? It was my belief that the Romans considered human sacrifice a barbaric practice that distinguished the civilized people (themselves) from the uncivilized people (the Gauls and the Carthaginians; their enemies, coincidentally). There's also the fact that the Republic outlawed human sacrifice decades before Jesus was even born...

The Waffle House in town is a dirty place that only truckers eat at. I don't know if that's characteristic of Waffle Houses nationwide. Every IHOP that I've ever visited seemed mediocre, though still on a level of quality higher than Waffle House; I've never been to Perkins. Settling on the local diner was probably a wise choice.

All that I know about his mayorship (and all that most people who will end up voting in this poll know about his mayorship, I would wager) are the handful of initiatives that the national media have decided to report, which is obviously not enough information to judge his performance on.

Yes (normal).

Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville. I was hoping to compare what de Tocqueville had to write about early 19th-century American government and society with contemporary perceptions, but it unfortunately hasn't been as insightful as I had hoped. Before that, I read 1491, which argues that pre-Colombian American societies were far more developed than most believe.

My actual first name is Robert, but that isn't the name that I go by. I don't go by a variation of "Robert", either.

1. Mr. X
2. HagridoftheDeep
3. Napoleon
4. Poirot

MOPolitico
Independent
Missouri

Hubris. I can't think of a second one.

He uses italics too much.

It's not possible to bring back dinosaurs. Their DNA would have degraded past the point of being viable millions of years ago already.

Wow. How sad is it that Darwinists are willing to sacrifice bringing back the dinosaurs just to make their precious "theory" look more credible?


...that was a joke, by the way...