The Good Post Gallery

[Simfan34]

A number of posters in this thread have been punked. They have so filtered objective reality through their political biases that they could not notice an obvious satire.

The article is on to something, however. Since Watergate, every Republican candidate running on a conservative platform [Reagan, Bush I 1998, and Bush II 2000] has won, and, every Republican candidate running as a moderate, or running on a moderate record has lost, with the sole exception of Bush II in 2004 whom had the good fortune of Osama Bin Laden endorsing his opponent just before the election. If Romney pursues a moderate strategy, he will suffer the fate as every other moderate. If that is the case, some folks in the Republican party had better step forward and speak up for conservatism.

Bush ran in 2000 on "compassionate conservatism," which was a far more watered-down version of conservatism than Romney has been forced to pursue thanks to Gingrich and Santorum. The campaign originally wanted to emulate that rhetoric, but Gingrich/Santorum forced them into a corner. We both want the same thing, but I warned you months ago about the implications of Gingrich/Santorum specifically with regards to female voters. Don't pull the "Romney's not conservative enough" card because he is running to the right of  every presidential contender since Reagan (with the possible exception of Bush in 2004)

Shocker, I know.

[Simfan34]

Look, the ad is disgusting because of the way it objectifies women as innately sexual creatures.  For the "party of women", the party that supposedly sees women more than pump and dump, the ad shows how low democrats will go to get votes.  I can't imagine that any of the feminist pioneers are happy about any of this.

You really don't understand what feminism is do you? Its about empowerment. The whole part of you missing the joke aside, the idea that yes women would like to have sex and enjoy is a thing. People that support women's rights also support the rights of women to be ok with being sexual. Even in innuendos. If she was dancing around in a bikini, that would be objectification. This, is a woman being a woman. Deal with it and welcome to the 21st century.

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I don't think you know many young people. I've never run into a person between the ages of 18 and 30 (aka, those hipster kids these days) who demands to be serviced by the government. I've met some who are pissed that their degrees are worthless thanks to the economy tanking 4 years ago. I've met some who are pissed that they're being forced to play by a different set of rules than those who already made it. And I've met some who are happy to run off to wall street, to live in a bubble far from the difficult things in the world like working hard, where they get to drink those martinis, live a perpetual nightlife, and do all those horrible things that you seem to hate, all after declaring their unyielding fealty to the GOP.

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Ah, you confuse cultural trends to being in a ideological cult. In the 80s you'd of been complaining about those punks with their neon hair. In the 60s, those hippies and their bellbottoms. Maybe you just hate young people? (which is even funnier if you're younger than me) Did a wild pack of young people kill your entire family or something? Get a life and relax. People grow up and get off your lawn and get their own. And then new young folks show up with new trends that you hate. That's life.

Wrong - feminism in part sprang up because women were being objectified as sexual objects.  Up until the movement, it's been a common belief throughout most of history that women were cheaters and desperately wanted sex and that's why they needed to be controlled.  The moment they saw another man, they would throw themselves at them...etc.  Have you ever heard the phrase "She wanted it" in defense of a sexual harrassment claim.  The feminism movement was about breaking that stereotype by being successful, career driven, individuals who take strength in their innate abilities, not their gender role.  Lena Dunham is an idiot being an idiot, not a modern female pioneer of the 21st century.

Wrong again, I am 28 and actually I do know plenty of young people demanding to be serviced by the government, from healthcare to a living wage to everything in between.  One such example, a person on unemployment I knew said that he took two months off for himself while collecting because he deserved it.  Also, I would ask what those degrees are prior to making judments about their worth.  Not all degrees are created equally - Medieval Studies as opposed to an engineering degree.  Those individuals are not being forced to play by "a different set of rules" than those who made it.  They need to do their time and stop demanding instant gratification.  It didn't come that way for most wealthy people (other than the ones who have wealth by birth).  And about running off to Wall Street, you don't think that having that level of mastery of finance is hard work?  I don't understand it and I'm a pretty intelligent individual.  Most of those people start very low on the totem pole in that world, some never achieve anything through it and lots go belly up.  You seem to take the film version of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and all the TV shows to be truth about what it actually is.

I don't hate young people at all, but I dislike the decadence of this generation's youth.  80s youth culture doesn't bother me at all, especially the punk movement.  The punk movement was never about decadence and me, me, me all the time. 

[Simfan34]

Instead of one minute silence, we should all Take Five.

Link mine.

[Simfan34]

I just generally dislike Maher.

[Simfan34]

Congratulations, Mayor Simfan.

I've been following events in Detroit since 2003.

[Simfan34]

High turnout is not a good thing if a bunch of ignorant and uninformed people are voting.  I'd rather there be just 30% turnout if the 30% are very informed and engaged on the issues.

[Simfan34]

Oh, look. The 'ironic' Uncle Tom cheers on the open racist.

But this too:

High turnout is not a good thing if a bunch of ignorant and uninformed people are voting.  I'd rather there be just 30% turnout if the 30% are very informed and engaged on the issues.

I guess you don't quite get the point of democracy...

(obligatory "democracy is the worst form of government except all the others")

The solution, of course, is not to discourage turnout but to make sure there is both high turnout and an educated electorate.

[Simfan34]

"Uneducated" people voting is a legitimate and big problem, and it's one of the reasons that we have a republican system rather than a purely democratic system. The "Founders" were terrified of an uneducated, selfish mob voting to continuously give themselves things with no restraint; Jefferson in particular advocated for a yeoman society to, among other reasons, allow farmers time to educate themselves politically during the winter/non-growing seasons. He thought Hamilton's industrialization goals would breed a diminished civic intelligence and conciousness due to physical and mental overtaxation.

I don't generally care for Jefferson (I like Hamilton much more), but he was right in that regard. There are at least three solutions to this problem: A) remove the "right" to vote by fundamentally changing our system, B) restrict the "right" to vote either at the bottom (who can vote) or at the top (what they can vote on), or C) have a more educated electorate through various methods. All could work under the proper auspices and specifications, and they all could easily fail under others.

[Simfan34]

That's right, five death points for remembering.

Can the mods come and justify this? Because the way opebo puts it, it sounds really irrational. I'm sure there's a logical explanation for this.

[Simfan34]

Al is horrible, until you agree with him.

[Simfan34]

I think he means this:

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

[Simfan34]

It is. It's 1964 inverted.

[Simfan34]

It is. It's 1964 inverted.

Yeah, sort of.  I mean "blue" as it normally is used (i.e. Democrat).  In other words, they would be red on the Atlas. Your earlier map is more what I was thinking.  However,  Republicans need to be strong everywhere, including the South, to succeed.

Not really. Even with this map, Dems lose 313-225. Looks like something from 1920, to be honest.

Maybe this in a lucky year? Oh dear, I've just reversed the colours; thanks to the map I still see it correctly!

[Simfan34]

I know I've said that I believe posts in the Gallery should be longer and well-thought, but I think this is a legitimate exception because of its sharp truth:

Since shale gas is largely replacing coal in electricity generation, it has been the cause of a net reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. I have little patience with idiotic pseudo-environmentalists who think we can all get to the Rock Candy Mountain of no fossil fuels just by wishing it were so.

[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).