The Lief Reservoir of Simple Truths and Smart One-Liners

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The idea that 'having an understanding of science' should automatically imply certain policy positions and value judgments is completely stupid and painfully self-congratulatory.

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Ok, the way that poster said it was NOT in a joking fashion. If you read the original post, it would be quite clear. It was said in a very angry and vicious tone.

I've known d32123 on the Internet for a few years. He used to be a generally pleasant pacifist Trotskyist; I'm not entirely sure if he underwent a personality change or just decided to troll Atlas for fun. I would be very surprised if he actually supports the genocide of anyone, though.

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k.....what phrase or title should someone describe themselves if they are for gay marriage (before most Dems), for legal weed (before most Dems), thinks prostitution and gambling should be legal but also think free trade is good, believes that private charity works better than govt handouts, and generally thinks lower taxes are better than higher taxes?


(and for the love of Og, don't pick apart the things above and explain why they are wrong, immoral or stupid)

If you're referring to yourself, then definitely nothing including the phrase "socially liberal."

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Post-identity politics?


Billionaire Trump is not supported by billionaires
(he has the middle class and working poor)

Hispanic Cruz/Rubio are not supported by Hispanics

Female Hillary is not supported by females

Jewish Bernie is not supported by Jews / Old Bernie is not supported by old people

African-American Carson is not supported by African-Americans

I wouldn't say post-identity, I think it's more that the identities of candidates don't necessarily line up with the identities of their supporters. There's still clear appeals to identities, just not the ones you'd think.

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Clinton would perhaps be worse than a generic D. Its kind of shocking that she's having to fend off Bernie Sanders in the first place.

I think that shows Sanders's strength more than Clinton's weakness. He appeals to a certain percentage of the Democratic primary electorate who would never have Clinton as their first choice no matter how good of a politician she is.

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I don't think you need to bring Bernie Sanders into the discussion to doubt that someone whose favorable rating is between 5 and 10 points lower than the incumbent president is likely to be a weak general election nominee.

Clinton would perhaps be worse than a generic D. Its kind of shocking that she's having to fend off Bernie Sanders in the first place.

I think that shows Sanders's strength more than Clinton's weakness. He appeals to a certain percentage of the Democratic primary electorate who would never have Clinton as their first choice no matter how good of a politician she is.

Clinton's favorable rating among Sanders supporters is consistently above 80%. Moreover, if you compare polling averages since the beginning of the campaign, it's likely that a substantial share of voters who currently support Sanders - possibly an outright majority - had Clinton as their first choice at some point. There's no indication that there's widespread dislike of Clinton among any substantial group that votes in Democratic primaries.

What I meant was that those people wouln't have supported her over Sanders even if she was some brilliantly amazing campaigner. They would have supported her if it was just her, O'Malley, Webb, and Chafee, though (although O'Malley would get some support).

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It looks to me like all major "lanes"/factions of the GOP are still represented by the Final Four... except for libertarianism, which really only became a lane with Ron Paul in '08/'12.

Why is this?

Is it a failure of Rand Paul, or a failure of libertarianism to find support in the GOP? (Or both?)

It's because "Libertarianism" is actually about racism, corporate dominance, and religious zealotry. And those are all quite well covered by the current candidates.

Another post that's in here and in the deluge.

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Anyway, this forum's obsession with "alpha males" is disgusting.

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There's no real meaningful distinction between social and economic issues.

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Similarly to how most conservative voters don't think of being conservative the way 'movement conservatives' think they do, most Americans don't think of freedom the way the Libertarian Party wishes they did.

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Are they in a union? If Not, This is why a union is a fundamental right that everyone has to have and needs to be in.

I just want you to acknowledge how fringe it is to believe that you should have to be in a union just for being employed.

Using the word "fringe" as an insult is one of the worst things one can do in political disussion.

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Are they in a union? If Not, This is why a union is a fundamental right that everyone has to have and needs to be in.

I just want you to acknowledge how fringe it is to believe that you should have to be in a union just for being employed.

Using the word "fringe" as an insult is one of the worst things one can do in political disussion.

Not an insult so much as a request to not sit at the fringe and call someone right of center like Charlie Baker a right-winger because he's not on the far left (which has happened here on several occasions).

No one called anyone a right-winger in that post.

Supporting gay marriage is a fringe position in Saudi Arabia. Opposing universal health care is a fringe position in Sweden. There's nothing inherently wrong with having a position that's unpopular in your country.

As for Baker, he could be considered a right-winger depending on the context. It's all relative.

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Active dislike for children is one of those animuses that should be critically examined a lot more than it is.

You beat me to it.

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Nathan is on a roll in the "Do you want kids" thread.

I don't at all think that 'shaming' people for not wanting children or for not going out of their way to spend time with children is a good thing or something society should be doing, although I have no clear understanding of where this 'shaming' currently is coming from (other than the baleful, all-blameworthy Dear Old Mom And Dad) since in my area the hip-'n'-trendy thing is to be 'childfree'.

'Shaming' people for supercilious dislike of children that they refuse to see anything wrong with, which I've--again, in my area--seen reach such baffling extremes as hip, sexy, with-it Millennials (and sometimes older people too) getting affronted at the idea that they have to share public spaces with children and young families, is, however, another story.

I default to suspicion of fashionable, 'forward-thinking', 'cutting-edge' cultural trends in general, in which I'd include the idea that interacting with children is and should be an optional part of life. Some aspects of my academic work seek to re-litigate the thirteenth century; many aspects seek to re-litigate the nineteenth; my artistic and literary tastes are increasingly 'party like it's 1945'. Philip Larkin's body of work is not something that I'm seeking to re-litigate or think anybody else should.

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Destroy masculinity.

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The right is a big supporter of huge military spending. What is more violent than war?

This doesn't work anymore now that the Democratic party has been all too happy to embrace a giant military involved in perpetual war.

Not to mention that WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Somalia, Syria, etc etc were all started by Democratic presidents.

Democrats have no right to chide anyone about war.

Hitler was a Democratic President?

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abandoning the base of minority voters, which are growing and may take vengence on the Democrats if ignored, just to pursue "white working class" voters (which, over-simplfies Trump's appeal to white voters), who are disappearing rapidly and already have salty impressions of the Democratic party, is a bad strategy short-term and a worse strategy long-term. I have no idea what anyone means anymore by "identity politics" - Harris is an incredibly accomplished person! Is it just nominating anyone who isn't a white male anymore is "identity politics"! That's ridicolous!

But by all means, let's nominate Jim Justice in 2020 because we should just become the Republicans in everything but name just because muh WWC.

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The right is a big supporter of huge military spending. What is more violent than war?

This doesn't work anymore now that the Democratic party has been all too happy to embrace a giant military involved in perpetual war.

Not to mention that WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia, Somalia, Syria, etc etc were all started by Democratic presidents.

Democrats have no right to chide anyone about war.

Hitler was a Democratic President?

THe implication is fairly obvious.  But I'll explain it for you anyway:

U.S. involvement in those wars was initiated by Democratic presidents.

Moral or not, it is still the reality.

But I mean... what kind of question is that?  Did you forget to put your thinking cap on?

I was being somewhat pedantic, but I think ssying that the US "started" WWII is pretty ridiculous.

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This is where Trump's devil may care attitude about coalition building and lack of attention to detail could bite him.  Given who voted for him and where, climate change is the single most dangerous issue for him to move to the center on.  If he flip flops on CO2 regulation, he could narrowly lose both the Midwest and Texas in 2020.

so you're saying two birds, one stone?

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Maine is a very idiosyncratic place (perhaps the most that way on the Fruited Plain), that elects folks who have next to nothing in common with each other. In other words, as Maine goes, so goes next to nothing.

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A lot of college kids are brainwashed to hate Republicans.

Brainwashing =/= thinking things you don't like.

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The conservative case for climate action is that conservatives have to live on this planet too.

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Hamon voters needs to stop wasting their vote if we want to win this thing over the three undesirables. They are absolutely blowing this for us. How can they be so short-sighted.

Didn't you vote for Jill Stein?

Can you blame him when a fraud like Hillary was on the ticket for Dems? Never understood how someone so radically left with -8 odd Eco score can support a centrist like HRC, but anyways...

Let's look at the Hillary alternative candidates:

-Donald Trump
-The social darwinists of the Libertarian Party.
-Some crazy lady who paid a friendly visit to Putin and thinks wi-fi causes brain damage and her running mate who thinks Jews shot down MH17, that Bernie Sanders is a white supremacist, and that Assad's shame elections are paragons of democracy to be celebrated.
-A Mormon who is basically a normal Republican.
-A bunch of assorted fringe right crazies and various Trot or fringe left crazies.

Please tell me which of these was a better option than Hillary.

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The problem with talk of "extremism" is that it fundamentally assumes that the problem with "extremists" is their extreme level of departure from the status quo. The kinds of people who think like this are a problem.

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You’re not supposed to post orgasm-inducing images on atlas.

This site needs to be purged of gross, weird teenagers

Atlas needs to be full of hot, well-adjusted teenagers.

He doesn't want the well-adjusted part, actually.

Kamala is a woman, and I'm pretty sure she's like 18-19.

Edit: just realized "he" refers to Roy Moore. The rest of my post stands.