The Good Post Gallery

[Oldiesfreak1854]

An entity has no soul. It is merely a product of the people in it. Therefore, it would stand to reason that regardless of the stance the Democrats took 150 years ago is irrelevant. One can as well easily observe the direction the Democrats took in transforming from a party of agrarians, Catholics, and Southerners, to a party of Northern liberals. Ironically, it would be a Catholic who assisted in this transformation. No conservative should believe in collective sin. That's for the affirmative action folks. Fact is, all the supporters of slavery are long, long dead. Many segregationists are dead or out of office.

Yeah, but it still matters.  Would you want to support Dems because of that, no matter how long ago it was?

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

An entity has no soul. It is merely a product of the people in it. Therefore, it would stand to reason that regardless of the stance the Democrats took 150 years ago is irrelevant. One can as well easily observe the direction the Democrats took in transforming from a party of agrarians, Catholics, and Southerners, to a party of Northern liberals. Ironically, it would be a Catholic who assisted in this transformation. No conservative should believe in collective sin. That's for the affirmative action folks. Fact is, all the supporters of slavery are long, long dead. Many segregationists are dead or out of office.

Yeah, but it still matters.  Would you want to support Dems because of that, no matter how long ago it was?

You're missing the point. People who support Democrats don't support them because of what happened 150 years ago. Most people who oppose Democrats don't oppose them for what happened 150 years ago. They either support or oppose the Democrats because of their positions today. Whereas we look at the present, you dwell on the past. You would oppose a perfectly good candidate with whom you agree on the issues, is qualified for the position, etc., because he or she associates with the same political party as people who did bad things a century and a half ago, despite the fact that this candidate has no relation to any of those bad people other than the D next to their name.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

An entity has no soul. It is merely a product of the people in it. Therefore, it would stand to reason that regardless of the stance the Democrats took 150 years ago is irrelevant. One can as well easily observe the direction the Democrats took in transforming from a party of agrarians, Catholics, and Southerners, to a party of Northern liberals. Ironically, it would be a Catholic who assisted in this transformation. No conservative should believe in collective sin. That's for the affirmative action folks. Fact is, all the supporters of slavery are long, long dead. Many segregationists are dead or out of office.

Yeah, but it still matters.  Would you want to support Dems because of that, no matter how long ago it was?

You're missing the point. People who support Democrats don't support them because of what happened 150 years ago. Most people who oppose Democrats don't oppose them for what happened 150 years ago. They either support or oppose the Democrats because of their positions today. Whereas we look at the present, you dwell on the past. You would oppose a perfectly good candidate with whom you agree on the issues, is qualified for the position, etc., because he or she associates with the same political party as people who did bad things a century and a half ago, despite the fact that this candidate has no relation to any of those bad people other than the D next to their name.

I oppose Democrats both because of their history of racism and ther far-left policies today.  If I thought there was  a Dem running for office that was better than the GOP candidate, then I would vote for him/her (e.g. LeRoy Collins 1968, Edwin Edwards 1991).  But Bill Fitzgerald in 1978 (against Milliken) does not fit that bill for me, at least for now.

[Vazdul (Formerly Chairman of the Communist Party of Ontario)]

An entity has no soul. It is merely a product of the people in it. Therefore, it would stand to reason that regardless of the stance the Democrats took 150 years ago is irrelevant. One can as well easily observe the direction the Democrats took in transforming from a party of agrarians, Catholics, and Southerners, to a party of Northern liberals. Ironically, it would be a Catholic who assisted in this transformation. No conservative should believe in collective sin. That's for the affirmative action folks. Fact is, all the supporters of slavery are long, long dead. Many segregationists are dead or out of office.

Yeah, but it still matters.  Would you want to support Dems because of that, no matter how long ago it was?

You're missing the point. People who support Democrats don't support them because of what happened 150 years ago. Most people who oppose Democrats don't oppose them for what happened 150 years ago. They either support or oppose the Democrats because of their positions today. Whereas we look at the present, you dwell on the past. You would oppose a perfectly good candidate with whom you agree on the issues, is qualified for the position, etc., because he or she associates with the same political party as people who did bad things a century and a half ago, despite the fact that this candidate has no relation to any of those bad people other than the D next to their name.

I oppose Democrats both because of their history of racism and ther far-left policies today.  If I thought there was  a Dem running for office that was better than the GOP candidate, then I would vote for him/her (e.g. LeRoy Collins 1968, Edwin Edwards 1991).  But Bill Fitzgerald in 1978 (against Milliken) does not fit that bill for me, at least for now.

I can respect the bolded part. But your decision making still factors in the Democrats' history of racism, even when the candidate in question, and most current members of the party at large, have no such history. If there was a race you'd rate the Democrat with a slight edge over the Republican in terms of ideology and qualifications, you might still vote for the Republican because of things the Democratic party did 150 years ago that the Democrat in this race had no part in, and would have opposed if he/she were living during that time. You shouldn't take such things into account- you should analyze the candidates and vote for the one you think is best regardless of party affiliation.

[Northeast Rep Snowball]

An entity has no soul. It is merely a product of the people in it. Therefore, it would stand to reason that regardless of the stance the Democrats took 150 years ago is irrelevant. One can as well easily observe the direction the Democrats took in transforming from a party of agrarians, Catholics, and Southerners, to a party of Northern liberals. Ironically, it would be a Catholic who assisted in this transformation. No conservative should believe in collective sin. That's for the affirmative action folks. Fact is, all the supporters of slavery are long, long dead. Many segregationists are dead or out of office.

Yeah, but it still matters.  Would you want to support Dems because of that, no matter how long ago it was?

You're missing the point. People who support Democrats don't support them because of what happened 150 years ago. Most people who oppose Democrats don't oppose them for what happened 150 years ago. They either support or oppose the Democrats because of their positions today. Whereas we look at the present, you dwell on the past. You would oppose a perfectly good candidate with whom you agree on the issues, is qualified for the position, etc., because he or she associates with the same political party as people who did bad things a century and a half ago, despite the fact that this candidate has no relation to any of those bad people other than the D next to their name.

I oppose Democrats both because of their history of racism and ther far-left policies today.  If I thought there was  a Dem running for office that was better than the GOP candidate, then I would vote for him/her (e.g. LeRoy Collins 1968, Edwin Edwards 1991).  But Bill Fitzgerald in 1978 (against Milliken) does not fit that bill for me, at least for now.

I can respect the bolded part. But your decision making still factors in the Democrats' history of racism, even when the candidate in question, and most current members of the party at large, have no such history. If there was a race you'd rate the Democrat with a slight edge over the Republican in terms of ideology and qualifications, you might still vote for the Republican because of things the Democratic party did 150 years ago that the Democrat in this race had no part in, and would have opposed if he/she were living during that time. You shouldn't take such things into account- you should analyze the candidates and vote for the one you think is best regardless of party affiliation.

[minionofmidas]

No arguing in the Good Post Gallery. Take it to the Deluge where this discussion belongs.

[Mechaman]

About damn time somebody brought this up:

Not in the context of his time, at least (which, of course, is really the only way the term "moderate" would theoretically make any sense).

Keep in mind, the entire political "spectrum" was different back then (1960s/early 1970s). Different issues, different people, different historical context. There was a huge organized labor movement/presence in the United States, the civil rights and anti-Vietnam and anti-Cold War movements were big too, as was the New Left. The feminist movement (at least, of the time) was still in its early stages, though, and this was even more the case for the gay rights movement, so issues like abortion and gay marriage weren't really on the majority of American's radar screens.

As for Nixon...while he was a big part of the 50s/60s/70s Republican establishment (obviously), he wasn't known for being a "moderate", and certainly not a "liberal." This is the man, let's be clear, that was often compared by actual liberals and leftists (not the same thing, but that's another discussion...) to Joe McCarthy; who brought down Alger Hiss and smeared the reputation of Helen Douglas with Red (or pink, whichever) accusations; who escalated the war in Vietnam even more than Lyndon Johnson and expanded it to Cambodia; who initiated the draconian "War on Drugs" that continues to this day; and was infamous for his taped White House rants that revealed anti-Semitism, anti-intellectualism, and other forms of bigotry. "Moderate" this man certainly was not.

So in conclusion, please stop calling Nixon a "moderate" or "liberal Republican."

Thanks.

[Mechaman]

I must say, in hindsight, CharimanSanchez owned the Nixon thread.  Though, I do stick by the OP, which pretty much reminded the forum liberals on here about how much of a horrible goddamned human being Richard "Tricky Dick" Babykiller Milhous Nixon really was.

So, killing Cambodians, being anti Semitic, anti-drug, and anti-intellectual is a solely rightwing thing?
Where do I begin?

*Johnson started the war in Vietnam, and while he was not as bad as Nixon, he still holds much of the blame. Johnson was a leftwing President on the modern scale of looking at things, and was certainly at least center-left at the time. You cannot deny that.

*Nixon started the war on drugs, which has been continued by every one of the post Nixon Presidents, liberal and conservative. To be fair, we never really had a very liberal President since Nixon. Obama at best is center-left.

*The nation was generally more leftwing at the time than people remember. Civil Rights, and Labor, as you mentioned, were huge. So Nixon is, as you stated, much more rightwing than the average Democrat or liberal Republican of the time. Compared to the generally mainstream Goldwater-Reagan wing, and the even more extreme Schmitz-Ashbrook-John Bircher wing, he was very moderate. Only barely to the right of Rockefeller.

*Nixon was Lee Atwater before Lee Atwater. He was brutal. No denying it. But do you seriously not believe Lyndon Johnson, the Kennedy clan, and other prominent opponents are just as guilty. It's politics. Of course he smeared his rivals. Everyone does. How does smearing your rivals in a election make you less of a liberal/moderate Republican.

*Just because Nixon was a very bigoted person (ever hear the tape of him speaking about All in the Family with Haldeman?) does not make him any more rightwing. Ever hear of Jesse Jackson? Or is he conservative too?

Nixon was, at the time, and certainly by modern standards, a moderate Republican who would be considered “center right” using simplistic, President Forever 2008 standards. Being a moderate Republican does not automatically make you a great person, as made obvious by Nixon, and as many believe today.

[Kitteh]

That entire Nixon thread belongs in here.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Nixon did NOT escalate the Vietnam War.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

On Newt Gingrich

I guess he realized he can't exactly make the argument of the sanctity of marriage.

[courts]

It has effectively no factual basis whatsoever.  Basically the entirety of the Taliban's leadership were in Pakistani refugee camps throughout the Soviet War in Afghanistan, where they were taught by a low-ranking vet of the war, Mullah Omar, who lost his eye in the mid-80s and left.  The people that actually were in Afghanistan (Dostum, Massoud, Hekmatyar, Rabbani, etc) were not the roots of the Taliban at all, and their power struggle with each other is what gave the Taliban their opening (with Pakistani financial backing) to win over the people as an alternative to chaos.  Even then, Hekmatyar even tried to ally with Massoud(!) against the Taliban.  None of the senior Mujahideen commanders ever ended up in the Taliban government, and, again, most of the Taliban's senior leadership (excepting Omar) were too young to fight the Soviets in the first place and were kicking their heels in refugee camps.

I keep hearing people trot out this myth that the Mujahideen evolved into the Taliban, and it's not really based in fact at all.

Didn't a large amount of Mujahedeen foot soldiers with combat experience and donated weaponry later join the Taliban though?

Much of Hekmatyar's forces defected to the Taliban after he lost Kabul in 1996, but mostly because by that point Taliban victory was a fait accompli.  The original 1994 Taliban was pretty much all refugees in Pakistan (funded by the Pakistanis after Hekmatyar proved to be a very poor puppet).

Idiocy is bipartisan.

And that includes me, I suppose. Mikado, I will admit I actually believed that theory until just now because of my lack of information on that subject. Thank you for informing me. I assume the Mujaheddin was composed of people like Massoud et al?  

It was more a collection of 70+ different militias without a formal hierarchy who, after the fall of Kabul in 1991, promptly started shooting each other for three years until they lost all credibility and the Taliban swept in.  Massoud was a Tajik, he wouldn't have been able to hold the show together, but Rabbani was the figurehead he was backing.  Massoud/Rabbani vs. Hekmatyar with the (ethnically Mongol, religiously Shia) Hazaras getting shot at by everybody and shooting at everybody.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Not sure if trolling or serious

I believe it is a false distinction.

[Lief 🗽]

Came here to post that! Great post.

[patrick1]

Great post Gully. The culture of fear in this country is bad.  The guns are supposed to make these people feel safe but the ones with an armory seem to most frightened of all.

Do the people mocking this idea believe that no one should be able to carry a gun onto school grounds? 

Yes. Absolutely.

So this is an argument for pacifism then?  That's a fine view to have, but it's far from obviously the right one.

Why would anyone need a gun (or at least a loaded one. I could accept unloaded ones used for demonstrations, etc) in a school?

If you are so paranoid about mass shooters tearing about kids that you think is the best solution is to arm people, especially teachers then the shooters have already won. You are creating the world they live in. Congratulations.

Perhaps, but I'm not sure the shooters have won anything either way, and I wouldn't call it paranoid when these things actually do happen. 
And when it does, it's understandable that people want to feel that their children are protected. 

Yes. And the best way for this to happen? Stop talking about guns. Stop having guns. Stop dreaming guns. Stop identifying guns as some sort of part of one's identity. Stop with this whole ridiculous macho fantasy about white boy saving the day from Crazed Psycho (TM) by slugging him with perfect aim and precision during what would be probably the most intense seconds of your life. I'm not American, but if I were, I would want protection from gun nuts far more than the likes of Crazed Psycho (no offense to him, I don't know him personally). Why? Because it is the guns discourse which is so poisonous and absurd and has absolutely nothing to do with the prospects of security and everything about the fear and paranoid which seep into every conversation about guns by gun nuts. Want proof? Gun sales going through the roof after Sandy Hook and the threats to take the toys away is proof enough. It is also shows that this nothing, nothing to do with the practical uses of guns, which legislation can always protect, but about perverse masculinity and fear. And neither of those things would make me feel secure [/rant over].

[SPC]

Antonio makes some good points in his initial post. One of the truly irritating things I found when I was doing work for Ron Paul in Northeast Iowa was the Founding Fathers fetish of most of his supporters showed. I have no issue with admiring a politician of old, being a strict constructionist of the U.S. Constitution or defending the rights of states as I myself am both a strict constructionist and believer in localism. However, simply invoking John Randolph of Roanoke or the 10th Amendment is hardly a decent argument for or against a policy.

The reason why most constitutionalists and state's rights advocates are annoying to debate with is because many do not feel that they need to justify their policy planks with facts or reason outside of, "The 10th Amendment and Article IV of the Constitution says so." I support a strict interpretation of the Constitution because it limits the power of the feds, not because George Mason and a document supported such things. State's rights should make sense to limited government conservatives because it breaks down the government into fifty squabbling groups as opposed to one, unified oppressive government. The founders did not support this and the fact that they overrode the articles to create a Constitution is proof of that.

The author of this thread really made some great points as have many of the posters in this thread. Constitutionalists should support state's rights because it is what makes sense in terms of their governmental theories not because a document or some dude from the 17th Century said they should. These things can stand as ONE reason for supporting state's rights but NOT the ONLY reason, which happens far too often. The Founding Fathers fetish is another example of intellectual laziness but it is one that can be cured by a hard look at why one really supports certain policies and philosophies of governance.    

[Vosem]

It's dominated by tourism. Having visited Moab, I would be surprised if it weren't a pretty Democratic town, but the rest of the county, which consists of rural Mormons, votes basically unanimously Republican, so it evens out with a slight Republican tilt.

This sounds reasonable... but it's actually far more complex.

Moab voting districts, pop. 8677, 2008 vote Obama 1884, McCain 1762.
Remainder of county, pop. pop. 548, 2008 vote Obama 183, McCain 109. That looks like the total opposite of what you claimed... until you look at it in greater detail. There are just three precincts not in and around Moab, and two of them that cover the entire northern 60% of the county have about 100 inhabitants. They indeed vote R, one of them with 80% for McCain. The biggest non-Moab precinct is Castle Valley in the southeast of the county, and that's its most democratic (and no doubt totally touristy) precinct at 65% Obama.
But of the area above described as Moab, only one precinct of eight is wholly within city limits and one is entirely outside. There are two dense central precincts, all the rest extend outward (all the way to the western county line, though no one actually lives out there.) As it happens, the one of the dense central precincts that actually includes a bit of territory outside the city is an outlier at 62% Obama; I suppose this is the area you thought of as the touristy Democratic town. The others come in at 52% (2), 51%, 50% (2 incl. the other central one), and then 46% and 42%. The 46% precinct is actually wholly outside the city and is ribbon development along Route 191, starting on the southern county line, and the 42% is north of it along the route, more than half outside the city by territory. Still these are both actually among the smallest of the six "outer" Moab precincts.
It's a ex-mining-gone-touristy town whose founding, ancestral population happens to be wholly Mormon, and that has limited the D growth compared to what it might have been elsewhere. What you need to understand is not all the hippie leftie voters in other such enclaves are newcomers, the locals get the bug too. Indeed if there weren't a welcoming element to the local culture in the first place, these enclaves wouldn't spring up.

And while I was at it I also looked at San Juan.
As a broad breakup, Blanding precincts (again extending outward) 4307 people, 68% White and 25% Native, 1164 McCain, 254 Obama. (Navajos in offrez border towns tend to vote much more Republican than on the rez if they vote at all, which they don't really tend to do. Same pattern is observable in Farmington, Page, Winslow...)
Monticello and wholly rural offrez precincts, 3820 people, 85% White and just 3% Native, McCain 1052, Obama 292, so actually marginally less lopsided.
Reservation precincts, 6619 people, 92% Native and 5% White, Obama 1776, McCain 370. Now this is a polarized county that evens out to a slight R lean.

[Donerail]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=167382

[Antonio the Sixth]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=167382

Disliking Romney States is indeed very good.

[traininthedistance]

I don't understand why people get their knickers in a knot about gentrification by itself.  Gentrification is the market working, it's not possible to stop.  If people are willing to pay more money to buy a house or rent in a neighborhood, how or why stop them?  We're not going to have some utopia where everyone can afford to live wherever they want. 

The debate we should have is about housing codes, zoning, economic opportunity and the environment.  People should realize that the current geography of bad/good neighborhoods is largely the product of failed government policy.  For years government has actively subsidized the suburbs, leading to an inefficient use of urban space and undervalued neighborhoods like those in North, central and South Brooklyn.  The goal ought to be, every neighborhood is livable, with a mix of uses and space for different kinds of people, not the status quo for every particular neighborhood.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=167382

Disliking Romney States is indeed very good.

I obviously dislike their voting habits, but many of them are nice places with nice people. Alaska is probably the most beautiful state in the country, and Texas is big and diverse (California with oil ).

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I, too, dislike the voting patterns of most of the Romney states, but simply because they make the GOP look bad (and thus should be blue-leaning states.)

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

I, too, dislike the voting patterns of most of the Romney states, but simply because they make the GOP look bad (and thus should be blue-leaning states.)

Is this what you have in mind?

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=167382

Disliking Romney States is indeed very good.

Even Louisiana?  : (

[Simfan34]

I think he means this:

Who wouldn't like this map? Treasonists, that's who.