The Good Post Gallery

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

Context:

Trying to piece together an objective truth from an unreliable narrator is a fool's errand. All we have from his universe is what he chooses to present. And that adds a critical level of depth to the narrative because you can determine things about the narrator as well. Omniscient storytelling is so much less interesting.

[morgieb]

Folks-

Sorry for being an attention hog- Wendy don't care about my politics so no one else at 1:30 in the morning would give my drivel any attention but you guys...

I don't know if this board and all of you have helped me reach this conclusion or not...maybe I'm returning to my 1964 self when I cast my first ballot for LBJ, a man all of us believed could continue to make our nation fairer and freer...or perhaps I'm getting soft in my old age. Or maybe it is simply a realization that I do not have that many votes left to cast so I better make them count...

I don't believe the Democrats have all the answers and not all of them have the right intentions- but I see largely a group of people who are committed to making America what the founders intended it to be... not the strict ideas of old men centuries ago, but a belief that America must constantly evolve and change and accept new people and ideas. I don't believe conservatives have ill will towards our country just as I never believed the Democrats did... but I see a fundamental difference in the way each party sees the weakest among us. Those of us who have had success need to raise them up...I benefited from the government doing that for me. I was a screw up when the Navy taught me the skills that led me to be very successful in my life- government did that for me... so why should I not want it to do the same for others?

I believe 2016 will be the last election I cast a ballot for...what do I want that vote to stand for? Where do I want to see my country go? From my party, I see folks committed to going backwards- back to the days when the old boys club ran the show and women and blacks were let in the room only to fetch drinks. I see folks committed to obstruction- whose hypocrisy knows no bounds, who will allow a Republican President any power in the name of national security but a Democratic President they see as a tyrant when he seeks the same powers. I see a party whose members jump at the chance to stand against the tides of history- maybe it's only because I've seen the civil rights movement that I can tell you that immigrants and gays will have their equal rights... and I don't want my last vote to delay the march towards equality that I fought for as a much younger man

My first vote was based on idealism... every vote since has been based on realism- the here and now of my personal finances, our pressing national security issues, you name it...I want to base my last vote on idealism and a belief in what we as Americans can achieve together. Therefore, I am going to the Supervisor's office tomorrow to switch my registration to the Democratic Party

[Simfan34]

Why do young people oppose him so much?

As a young NJ resident I'd say that most people my age are not particularly informed when it comes to politics (no surprise there) and have trouble separating Chris Christie (R) from the Republican Party in general. They aren't really aware that that are notable differences between, say, Christie and Kelly Ayotte. The term moderate doesn't mean much to them; it's the R and the D that really matters. And they see the Republican Party as Bad, for a few reasons, but overwhelmingly imo because (1) the Reps generally oppose gay marriage, which has unfortunately become for many THE sole issue on which many of my generation judge candidates (and for that matter the only one they know anything about), and (2) because the Reps are often overtly religious, which doesn't play well to a demographic that is largely secular, doesn't really take religion seriously, and often treats it as something distasteful/an object of derision. There's also just the general, thoughtless liberalism that comes with being a college student/recent college graduate and getting most of your news from the Daily Show, Colbert, Slate, Salon, Gawker, etc.

To the comments above, I'd say that yes, gay marriage is a big aspect of the disapproval, but not because young people necessarily are aware of Christie's position on the issue (most of my friends aren't even aware of his veto), but just because he is a Republican, which to their mind means automatically anti gay marriage.

The irony is that many young people who have a kneejerk disapproval of Christie would support him if they actually were aware of his policies, stand on issues, etc. (and, maybe as or more important, the stance of the Jersey Democrats on the same issues).

[they don't love you like i love you]

What I want to know is what in God's name Benghazi has to do with Hagel or anything related to him. It's so transparently just the new excuse for whatever the Republicans don't feel like doing, at least in the bailiwick of foreign/defense policy. I can't recall a similar excuse that became so unbelievably irritating and craven so quickly at any time in recent history, though of course such things are inevitably subjective.

[Badger]

I've accordingly deleted my related posts as dreck.

While that's a good start - only 8196 more to go.

Ouch! Sulfer mine material there.....

[Badger]

Folks-

Sorry for being an attention hog- Wendy don't care about my politics so no one else at 1:30 in the morning would give my drivel any attention but you guys...

I don't know if this board and all of you have helped me reach this conclusion or not...maybe I'm returning to my 1964 self when I cast my first ballot for LBJ, a man all of us believed could continue to make our nation fairer and freer...or perhaps I'm getting soft in my old age. Or maybe it is simply a realization that I do not have that many votes left to cast so I better make them count...

I don't believe the Democrats have all the answers and not all of them have the right intentions- but I see largely a group of people who are committed to making America what the founders intended it to be... not the strict ideas of old men centuries ago, but a belief that America must constantly evolve and change and accept new people and ideas. I don't believe conservatives have ill will towards our country just as I never believed the Democrats did... but I see a fundamental difference in the way each party sees the weakest among us. Those of us who have had success need to raise them up...I benefited from the government doing that for me. I was a screw up when the Navy taught me the skills that led me to be very successful in my life- government did that for me... so why should I not want it to do the same for others?

I believe 2016 will be the last election I cast a ballot for...what do I want that vote to stand for? Where do I want to see my country go? From my party, I see folks committed to going backwards- back to the days when the old boys club ran the show and women and blacks were let in the room only to fetch drinks. I see folks committed to obstruction- whose hypocrisy knows no bounds, who will allow a Republican President any power in the name of national security but a Democratic President they see as a tyrant when he seeks the same powers. I see a party whose members jump at the chance to stand against the tides of history- maybe it's only because I've seen the civil rights movement that I can tell you that immigrants and gays will have their equal rights... and I don't want my last vote to delay the march towards equality that I fought for as a much younger man

My first vote was based on idealism... every vote since has been based on realism- the here and now of my personal finances, our pressing national security issues, you name it...I want to base my last vote on idealism and a belief in what we as Americans can achieve together. Therefore, I am going to the Supervisor's office tomorrow to switch my registration to the Democratic Party

May you cast many more ballots to come, regardless of party.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

It's not particularly hard to find the 'roots' of Nazi antisemitism and you won't find it in either the Bible or On the Origin of Species. The ideology you're looking for is German nationalism and the term you're looking for specifically - though certainly not exclusively - is 'Völkisch'. Given how that term is pronounced I suppose that most native English speakers will probably find it difficult to take at all seriously as something extremely sinister and highly dangerous, but language can be deceptive and it certainly was. You should then be aware of the ubiquity of scientific racism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and of the popularity of related things, such as eugenics (c.f. the movement for 'National Efficiency' in Britain, which was pretty much the guiding political principle of one H.H. Asquith - a prick, but not even close to being a Nazi). You can then look at the (very, very successful) attempts of many 19th century arseholes to transform popular anti-Jewish sentiment (which was always previously based on good old fashioned religious bigotry... or, perhaps more accurately, was always expressed in its language) into the new fangled craze known as 'antisemitism', a new product that it made it possible to hate Jewish people while also being a thoroughly and respectably modern member of the new industrial society. You can easily see, I'm sure, how all of this combined at the wackier end of the German nationalist political spectrum (and that was always a pretty fycking crazy political spectrum as political spectrums go) to produce something as excessively and insanely vile as the Nazi variety of antisemitism. You think these people were at all interested in theology, even popular theology? Don't be daft. Actual scientific theory (at a theoretical level) as opposed to popular science? Utterly absurd.

[World politics is up Schmitt creek]

It's not particularly hard to find the 'roots' of Nazi antisemitism and you won't find it in either the Bible or On the Origin of Species. The ideology you're looking for is German nationalism and the term you're looking for specifically - though certainly not exclusively - is 'Völkisch'. Given how that term is pronounced I suppose that most native English speakers will probably find it difficult to take at all seriously as something extremely sinister and highly dangerous, but language can be deceptive and it certainly was. You should then be aware of the ubiquity of scientific racism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and of the popularity of related things, such as eugenics (c.f. the movement for 'National Efficiency' in Britain, which was pretty much the guiding political principle of one H.H. Asquith - a prick, but not even close to being a Nazi). You can then look at the (very, very successful) attempts of many 19th century arseholes to transform popular anti-Jewish sentiment (which was always previously based on good old fashioned religious bigotry... or, perhaps more accurately, was always expressed in its language) into the new fangled craze known as 'antisemitism', a new product that it made it possible to hate Jewish people while also being a thoroughly and respectably modern member of the new industrial society. You can easily see, I'm sure, how all of this combined at the wackier end of the German nationalist political spectrum (and that was always a pretty fycking crazy political spectrum as political spectrums go) to produce something as excessively and insanely vile as the Nazi variety of antisemitism. You think these people were at all interested in theology, even popular theology? Don't be daft. Actual scientific theory (at a theoretical level) as opposed to popular science? Utterly absurd.

Beat me to it.

[opebo]

Why in God's name would you pay someone $15 or $20/hour to flip burgers?

otherwise way too much of their labor is being stolen.

How exactly does burger flipping warrant anything close to $15/hour?

how does sitting on your ass warrant a stock dividend?

[Antonio the Sixth]

Every single person here should be incredibly concerned about the growth of Facebook, it's integration into virtually all aspects of life, and how it provides a means for corporate interests -- or really, anyone with money to spend -- to track every public movement and thought of yours at all times.

[they don't love you like i love you]

This is what makes the Bushie story so intriguing.  When building all the details seem pretty boring and straightforward, but then the twist comes and we're left piecing together all those previous scenes actually meant and our mind is blown at how we missed it the first time.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

[Napoleon]

particularly annoying talking points:

-"family values." the only people that say this are either ones too cowardly to come out and say what we all know they really mean or people that are so clueless that they totally miss what it's actually code for and instead think it sounds nice and fuzzy.

-"iran wants to wipe israel off the map." this has been debunked so many times, not to mention it makes no logical sense. why would iran want to fire a nuke at a country with hundreds of them that is unconditionally supported by the us. use your head.

-"you're a conspiracy theorist." this is never in reference to an actual conspiracy, just a response by idiots whenever you mention things like the fast and furious scandal. anything remotely critical of the government now is a conspiracy theory according to obamabots. it's like what happened to the word 'racist.'

-"lesser of 2 evils"

-"socialized medicine." this is not an argument.

-"the poor/48% pay no taxes." right because sales tax, payroll tax, cigarette taxes, gasoline tax, property tax, etc. don't count. this is so idiotic. to make it worse it's normally paired with something similarly inane and disingenuous like "everyone needs some skin in the game" to justify supporting tax hikes for poor people.

-"i support a strong defense."  because anyone that has a problem with the military budget constantly expanding regardless of our financial situation or need obviously wants a weak defense.

-"clinton reduced the debt." no president has reduced the debt in my lifetime, this isn't hard to google either. what happened was congress stole money from social security (as usual) and that resulted in the deficit going down a bit for awhile. and then they kept borrowing from it but still managed to run massive deficits under bush.

-speaking of which: "obama ended the iraq war." no, by the time he got in most of the people fighting in iraq were armed contractors. that's still the case, we still have a huge heavily armed military base there which isn't going away. the fact that the media reported the iraq war was ending twice should have tipped you off that something was not quite right.

-"reagan reduced spending/never gave amnesty/[insert ridiculous claim]."  

- "reagan conservative." he's totally irrelevant to most people now. a huge chunk of the electorate either wasn't born when he was in office or (in my case) were far too young to remember any of his presidency other than what we learned second-hand. the constant idolizing and insistence that you're a "reagan conservative!" in 2012 is embarrassing as far as I'm concerned. stop talking about how you want to to be an imitation of someone who was dead before I finished high school, and start proposing solutions to problems now. it's not like you see democrats talking about how they're "fdr progressives."

-"saved or created [insert] million jobs." if you want to argue for keynesian economics ok whatever, but please don't insult my intelligence.

-"white privilege." this is such an infuriating oversimplification. there's so much evidence pointing towards poor scotts irish actually having worse education and career prospects than minorities in this country for example. white people are not a monolithic group, there are definitely significant outcome differences for people based on other variables like class or ethnicity still.

[LastVoter]

Defending Inks shouldn't be intractable but it is a warning sign for getting your mental status checked as soon as possible.

[Lief 🗽]

 

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With a couple of exceptions maybe, nobody understands why it was essential for you to take money from your parents while you were employed in Utah. Nobody.

Well come on now, he moved across the country to take up a bare subsistence level job, and you think he wouldn't need money from the parents?  If he hadn't had money from the parents he would have been homeless and probably dead.  On the other hand, it was a bad idea to go anywhere or do anything, so they did facilitate that.

Bush, don't listen to these spoiled, hypocritical rich kids.  I understand your condition. 

Just sit tight at home, try not to worry too much.  Cultivate a good relationship with mom, dad and other old people in the community, and eventually someone will find you a job at, say the City Power and Light, or the telephone company (alas I hear the telephone company may have been destroyed, but something along those lines).  What you need is a community - a support network - to find you employment and keep you in it. 

Is there a prison anywhere near you where you could work?  Or any sort of government or regulated-public-utility that might have simple clerking jobs?  Do NOT, under any circumstances, seek employment with 'private' corporations - you are definitely better off sleeping all day in your parents basement.

[opebo]

The whole political compass/axis thing is a fraud propagated by libertarians.

[Napoleon]

The one that really pisses me off is when politicians claim that they want to run for office to "serve the people." Joe Sestak said some such nonsense a few days ago. He said he wanted to "serve again" and so he obviously has to run for Governor of Pennsylvania, the highest executive office in the commonwealth. If Sestak wanted to serve again he could read books to kindergarteners or help an old lady with yard work. Those are ways to "serve the people." But no, Sestak and other parasites use the word "service" to justify their lusts for power. The talking point that politicians actually want power to "serve" the people is total bullsh**t. Politicians want power to forward personal agendas and vendettas and to fulfill burning, Luciferian ambitions. 

[Antonio the Sixth]

I'm just going to come out and say it without sugarcoating things. 

Cars are killing machines.  No matter how much you like them or find them indispensable, they just are.  They kill people, they kill cities, they kill the climate, they kill the millions of years of stored fossil energy we've been living high on for the past century (and may not be able to rely on much longer).

It is a matter of grave public importance that we make the automobile less popular, and less prevalent, and less necessary.  Our very civilization depends on it.

[opebo]

These deficits are not perpetual, though.  They're only during times of economic distress.  If we planned on running a deficit for the next 100 years solid, then yeah, we'd probably be heading toward a default.

WHAT? We've been running a deficit virtually ever single year over the past half century! Our debt is over 100% of GDP now. Your attitude was fine in 1970-something, but we are way past that point.

I'm not talking about deficits in general.  I'm talking about deficits in excess of 5% of GDP, which is what you were complaining about.  The federal budget never needs to be balanced, but it does need periods where it is outpaced by growth of GDP.

Thank you for bringing up the 1970s.  1950s-70s we ran deficits virtually every year, but our debt declined because our GDP grew to the point where that debt was chump change.

You are correct that 5+% of GDP deficit perpetually will lead to default, because the GDP will never grow 5% perpetually, in fact it rarely does in a single year.  However, the federal government can run deficits infinitely if it keeps it around and below that threshold.  A deficit locked in at 2.5% of the GDP can last for an eternity without ever being balanced.  The nominal number that is the national debt can be $20, $50, $100 trillion dollars, as long as we have a GDP of $21, $51, $101 trillion.  We'll be okay.

Right now, we're about $1 trillion behind on nominal GDP with our nominal debt (15.6 to 16.6).  The debt is expected to grow to $18.4 trillion by the end of 2016.  If we grow our nominal GDP by 18% over the next four years, guess what? We'll be back in the green at 18.45 trillion GDP and thus a shrinking Debt-to-GDP ratio, and we won't have a debt problem.

Think that's impossible?  Our nominal GDP grew by 12% over the last four, during "economic malaise."  18% nominal growth over a four year period can be done, in fact it will be.  Now, after 2016 the debt will start rising at a ridiculous pace again, but we don't need to start slashing entire programs to fix that.  All we have to do is move things around to bring down below growth.

This is why it is not a myth but FACT that booms lower the debt.  The debt was shrinking by the early 90s, not just when the surpluses happened, and parts of the mid-1980s during the Reagan deficits because the Debt-GDP ratio was declining aka the REAL debt.  The surpluses just switched things into turbo drive.

And if we get some minor spending cuts done, such as to the military, it'll make the goal GDP even smaller.

[they don't love you like i love you]

Really the problem is that any standard for evaluating the merits of a policy could also be used as a standard for categorizing other standpoints. So just as we have a political compass that categorizes views according to their attitude to libertarian notions of "freedom" and "government intervention", you could have an egalitarian compass where views get boxed together based on whether they promote equality in different areas, a Catholic compass where being anti-abortion and pro-death penalty would get represented as applying contrary principles, and so on and so forth. What the most natural way is to categorize political views is itself a question of political theory; it doesn't stand outside on purely neutral ground.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Sorta surprised to be posting an opebo post here, but I think it belongs here.

Opebo.. you might check out the median income figures for both countries. That way, the numbers will not be skewed by the "massive" of wealth of the Tories of this world.

I never claimed it was a median nor a per capita income, Torie, so don't try to put up a straw man.  I observed that it is the income of the toiling masses at the bottom of society - who cannot save.

OK, but your definition, as you try to slither away here, puts the percentage of the "toiling masses" at about 10% of the US population maybe, and that is before they get their income tax credit, and food stamps, and the like. Most people don't use the term "masses" when referring to 10% of the whole.

My dear sir, we must always and ever consider the test case of any program or policy to be the most vulnerable!  It does no good to say 'well it isn't the majority who are starving to death'.

[Napoleon]

Yeah, I experienced bullying too, and the only thing worse than taking it was having an adult step in. Kids need to have the balls to do what's right and stand up for each other. Standing by needs to be emphasized to kids as being just as bad as bullying itself. Kids need to be the answer. Teachers aren't around all the time to protect kids. And kids shouldn't feel like they need protection, they should be empowered and defended. I know it's hard for kids who are bullied and there's nothing you can do in a lot of situations, but I just don't think pity is a healthy way to help someone. Nor is being shielded by a larger display of force as their only line of defense. We empower the bullies by acknowledging that they have so much influence over their peers that no one but a person in a position of great power can stop them. I don't think that teaches them or the victims anything other than that bullies won't or don't have to stop if not for authority. It's not right or wrong that forces them to stop, just force. I do see your point, and teachers do definitely need to be more educated on, aware of, and proactive about it.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

This "show" should be turned off. It's a disgrace that a such an immature, hopeless, and thoroughly sheltered individual should have a venue to trouble the world with his pathetic sob story. Stop clogging this forum with your pathetic excuses and recriminations about a life you have squandered. Change or not, we shouldn't care anymore. You got your chances, put up or sh**t up.

[Paul Kemp]

I feel like Update has an interesting meta-story with regard to the reactions of the "audience".  Bushie himself hasn't really changed since the early days, but the audience's reactions have.

While folks here mocked Bushie's nonsense just as much in the early days, the tone has changed, and kind of gotten darker.  There's now an enhanced appreciation for how much he says is untrue, in a way that there wasn't early on.  And more recently, even while people are dispensing advice, they're simultaneously lamenting the fact that he's a lost cause, and that they're surely wasting their breath.  People are far more likely to dig the knife in with Bushie, noting that he's never going to change, and chastising him not just for being lazy and gullible, but for having a kind of parasitic relationship with his parents.

The tone has gotten much sharper ever since he announced that he was moving back in with his parents because his father told him to.  Bushie's also having a harder time directing the conversation where he wants it to go.  Other posters want to let him have it on his screwups well beyond the point at which he wants to redirect things to another topic, in a way that wasn't happening as much in the early seasons.

I'm not saying that these reactions are *undeserved*.  A man can't expect to post the same nonsense for years on end without getting this kind of backlash.  I just think it's interesting.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

They should lock the senators in a single room, and not let them out.

Corrected.