The Sam Spade Memorial Good Post Gallery

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I don't think I've ever been in here, thanks Grumps.

Hey I have almost 40,000 posts and I've never been here, so you're doing fine, Tom. 

[Anti-Bothsidesism]

Look these kids are monstrous sociopaths. That's not in dispute. What's also disgusting is Trump supporters trying to cite this as proof of their political oppression.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The description opening the thread is close to what I hold to. "Last resort" is a tricky concept and not an adequate one to base a theory of war on, but I know what you are trying to get at. What to do about the legality and acceptability of assisted suicide is a question I struggle over, and seems to me a different sort of issue than the others it is sometimes put together with.  But it certainly ought not come to be normalized as just a matter of course procedure, with the danger of it possibly becoming an outright expectation for some.

Being consistently pro-life means not being satisfied with the status quo when it comes to poverty.  A large welfare state is one possible response to that, but it isn't the only one.  There's a pro-life argument to be made in favor of something so libertarian as a non-aggression principle (no initiation of force in pursuit of social goals), but one call also argue from a pro-life perspective that such a thing is not satisfactory to enable people to live as much as may be possible with a more active government.  Or it may be that what is required is some fundamental reordering of the economy in some way other than a greater dependence on government, while ways of strengthening communities, civil society, and families.  If one is honest, it requires real reflection about the social and ethical cost of any proposed political-economic policy to try for an approximation of a truly pro-life approach.

[DC Al Fine]

Thank you for posting an actual good post Nathan. One or two liners don't belong here people!

[Mr. Smith]

Sobering numbers on out-of-wedlock births.

Also, is it just me, or is there something a bit laughable about the fact that a majority of Americans say that it's OK to have children out of wedlock, yet very few who will claim that having an affair is acceptable? I'm not saying that it's incoherent, I just think that it's telling that more of us are bothered by a betrayal of our romantic ideals about marriage than we are about the failure of marriage as a structure for sustaining stable families.

A stable, committed relationship doesn't require marriage. Indeed, the former without the latter is increasingly common. While this trend might be unfortunate in some respect, calling it "morally unacceptable" strikes me as a bit of a stretch.

I completely disagree. Marriage isn't just a word or an arbitrary contrivance; it is the legal, social, and spiritual structure on which families are built. Our personal feelings about a relationship's stability and commitment level are insufficient.

This is a very bizarre statement. Why should someone surrender their relationship to past foundations of family structure if that relationship is healthy and good? It's obvious/clear that out of wedlock birth is a disturbing trend but we can't generalize here and start arguing that it's immoral; there are plenty of people who deliberately/intentionally avoid marriage and who have fine families.

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Gambling being immoral is stupid. If you don't let people too irresponsible to not screw themselves do it, any ethical problems vanish.

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Why the f**k should anything else matter in a relationship!?!

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The nuclear family being any more inherently stable then other systems is BS. Marriage doesn't magically grant stability, and its not the job of some collective to decide the stability of an individual relationship

The idea of marriage goes beyond love. Marriage is an institution, that means your relationship is strong, and you remain committed to each other for life. This is inherently more superior than other relationships. However do I think that children being born out of wedlock is inherently unacceptable, no, as any sort of sex may result to such an arrangement, and for that, I would have to say pre-marital sex is also unacceptable. However, having babies, should be done within the realm of marriage, and marriage extends more beyond one's relationships, and the "idea", that marriage is all about one's love for each other, which causes the high divorce rates in western countries, which causes pain to the children, who many a time are a victim of divorce.

[Antonio the Sixth]

This is something that has grown increasingly bothersome to me as it became even more common among many (not all) Liberals, Democrats, and/or anti-Trump voters during the 2016 elections. Even today, those same attitudes have persisted or are hidden behind a thin veil of political calculation. I am speaking, of course, of classism.

So many have come to associate the White Working Class with non-college educated Whites, which is simply not accurate. They are not interchangeable categories; many of the college educated are working class, just as many middle, upper middle, and upper class individuals don't have degrees. These same people have frequently criticized, degraded, and mocked those Whites without a college education and within the working class. They're "bigots, racists, rubes, hicks, rednecks, White trash, xenophobes, sexists, and irredemible," according to these liberals.

Why is it that the individuals who have a seemingly firm grasp of the institutional nature of racism and the negative effects of inequality suddenly forget all of that when working and lower class Whites are being discussed? Does socioeconomic inequality not apply to Whites, in their minds? Does the existence of White privilege suddenly erase inequalities within the White race, from which these lower class Whites suffer? Can a poor White person not suffer within such a ruthless, unjust system that focuses almost exclusively on diversity within such a hierarchical, exploitative system, rather than attempts to actually restructure it? A poor White person faces the challenges of underfunded schools, intergenerational poverty, crime, prejudice, and sometimes discrimination as well. Access to universities and the networks often required to enter a good career are frequently denied to them as well.

Problems of inequality do not end when you're White, they simply take a different form. Historically, many Whites faced enormous discrimination by other, more privileged Whites in American society. Perhaps the best example are the Scots-Irish; they were never denied being White, like the Irish and Italians, but they were perceived as nothing better than rabble. They were seen as undesirable, unable to be educated, producing too many children, and socially backwards, thus they were frequently excluded from or even targeted by more elite Whites (see: the Whiskey Rebellion). Their descendants today primarily inhabit Appalachia, which is still often derided by their "moral superiors" on the Coasts.

None of this is meant to excuse the prejudice and discrimination often exhibited among this class, but emphasizing their bigotry at the expense of ignoring the far more dangerous and subtler bigotry espoused by the upper middle and upper classes is shameful. Don't forget that, during the primaries, Trump supporters were wealthier than most Americans and other Republican voters. Trump's base wasn't America's White poor, but it's White middle and upper middle class. Trump still won college educated White voters. If the Democrats have hemorrhaged White working class voters, it's not due entirely or perhaps even primarily to bigotry, but rather the lack of concern for their plight and policies designed to address them. Shouting "you're idiots and voted against your interests" at them when they were met with a party whose official and unofficial representatives often ridicule them is an absurd approach if you want their support.

The Democratic Party can choose to be the party of the affluent, morally "noble" Whites who pat themselves on the back for being better educated (privileged) and protectors of minorities while espousing classism, or it can actually represent the working class of all backgrounds. It can't be both.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Remember that in Atlas, elections are only fair when liberal candidates win.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

A diplomat of an oppressive regime that has slaughtered thousands of innocent people. Remember the FF yelled "remember Aleppo!"

You inbred imbecile, can you see the f**king salute he gives with his left hand. IT'S ISIS SALUTE, YOU HORRIBLE EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING. SO NOT ONLY DO YOU CELEBRATE THE MURDER OF A CIVILIAN, YOU CELEBRATE ISIS, BECAUSE YOU'RE EITHER TOO DAMN STUPID OR LAZY TO READ UP ON ANYTHING.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

Fresh- do you live near Almost Heaven.

I`ve got a good friend up there.

fRESH - I LIED TO PRIVE THAT REPUBLICANS CRY OUTRAGE WHEN A DEMOCRAT LIES TO THEM. bush lied about yukka in Nevada.

Bush lies when he says hes a conservative.
 Republican voters cant name a liberal that has spent more money than bush. CONSERVATIVES STAND FOR SMALL GOVERNMENT, FISCAL SPENDING.

They supporty him despite his politics. So i tested to see if they are only angry when a democrat lies to them. and they are.

Hence a supporter of bush that believes in small government, fiscal spending and less control of your liberties is A HYPOCRITE.

sO FRESH - are you for big government, high spending and control of your liberites then hence you r right to vote bush.

IF NOT YOU ARE A HYPOCRITE.

[Anti-Bothsidesism]

Thank you for posting an actual good post Nathan. One or two liners don't belong here people!

Why do you hate freedom?

[Intell]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here is a 'holiday special' post (because this issue matters a great deal to me and I can't not respond to it)


People who are severely mentally or physically disabled are a burden. A huge burden. As are the elderly and most children for that matter (I'll leave that there for reasons that should be obvious) A massive part of my old job was acting in a medical-legal capacity with children who were severely disabled. I have first hand experience of the family difficulties and the support difficulties surrounding this. I have allocated funding, medical treatment, respite care and long term residential care. I've communicated with those who can communicate. I've appointed legal advocates for them. I have went to court for them.

It's taxing and ludicrously expensive. You can love someone to the point you'd do anything for them, but they are still a burden. Saying someone is a 'burden' or a 'strain' says nothing and implies nothing with respect to how you actually view that person. Pretending otherwise, or feigning obliviousness is in fact, a backhanded insult. If you couch a 'burden' in neutral 'loving' terms, that leads to people not taking your requirements and your needs for help and assistance seriously. Because 'didn't you say they weren't a burden?' We're already seeing this (in the UK at least) when it comes to residential provision. I'm sorry Nathan, but saying that caring for someone who can't care for themselves is a 'privilege and honor' is nothing but wank. It's not. It's a duty. It's a burden. And if you're doing it or thinking about it as some form of self reflection of penance then you'd last 5 minutes either caring for a loved one or for others in a voluntary or professional capacity.

That's point one. Point two, and on a different line of thought entirely, is that those who have an debilitating or inhibitive disability that is hereditary and that they would not wish upon their childrenas much they are able to deal with it in themselves, tend to be the most supportive of ways and means to mitigate this. Which pro-life fetishists tend not to have much time for because that involves both the act of termination and the use of embryology (founded as it is on the destructive study of embryos in the first instance, and the selective manner of implantation) as factors. The alternative is not having biological children; surrogacy or adoption. And while all of these are wonderful and noble things to do, it is a slap in the face to someone who can use these means in order to have their own biological children.

Post something that deserves to be here. Not your disgusting opinions, which you posted on that thread, which were backed up in this not bad but still morally awful post.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here is a 'holiday special' post (because this issue matters a great deal to me and I can't not respond to it)


People who are severely mentally or physically disabled are a burden. A huge burden. As are the elderly and most children for that matter (I'll leave that there for reasons that should be obvious) A massive part of my old job was acting in a medical-legal capacity with children who were severely disabled. I have first hand experience of the family difficulties and the support difficulties surrounding this. I have allocated funding, medical treatment, respite care and long term residential care. I've communicated with those who can communicate. I've appointed legal advocates for them. I have went to court for them.

It's taxing and ludicrously expensive. You can love someone to the point you'd do anything for them, but they are still a burden. Saying someone is a 'burden' or a 'strain' says nothing and implies nothing with respect to how you actually view that person. Pretending otherwise, or feigning obliviousness is in fact, a backhanded insult. If you couch a 'burden' in neutral 'loving' terms, that leads to people not taking your requirements and your needs for help and assistance seriously. Because 'didn't you say they weren't a burden?' We're already seeing this (in the UK at least) when it comes to residential provision. I'm sorry Nathan, but saying that caring for someone who can't care for themselves is a 'privilege and honor' is nothing but wank. It's not. It's a duty. It's a burden. And if you're doing it or thinking about it as some form of self reflection of penance then you'd last 5 minutes either caring for a loved one or for others in a voluntary or professional capacity.

That's point one. Point two, and on a different line of thought entirely, is that those who have an debilitating or inhibitive disability that is hereditary and that they would not wish upon their childrenas much they are able to deal with it in themselves, tend to be the most supportive of ways and means to mitigate this. Which pro-life fetishists tend not to have much time for because that involves both the act of termination and the use of embryology (founded as it is on the destructive study of embryos in the first instance, and the selective manner of implantation) as factors. The alternative is not having biological children; surrogacy or adoption. And while all of these are wonderful and noble things to do, it is a slap in the face to someone who can use these means in order to have their own biological children.

Post something that deserves to be here. Not your disgusting opinions, which you posted on that thread, which were backed up in this not bad but still morally awful post.

That was literally from a month ago.

[Intell]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here is a 'holiday special' post (because this issue matters a great deal to me and I can't not respond to it)


People who are severely mentally or physically disabled are a burden. A huge burden. As are the elderly and most children for that matter (I'll leave that there for reasons that should be obvious) A massive part of my old job was acting in a medical-legal capacity with children who were severely disabled. I have first hand experience of the family difficulties and the support difficulties surrounding this. I have allocated funding, medical treatment, respite care and long term residential care. I've communicated with those who can communicate. I've appointed legal advocates for them. I have went to court for them.

It's taxing and ludicrously expensive. You can love someone to the point you'd do anything for them, but they are still a burden. Saying someone is a 'burden' or a 'strain' says nothing and implies nothing with respect to how you actually view that person. Pretending otherwise, or feigning obliviousness is in fact, a backhanded insult. If you couch a 'burden' in neutral 'loving' terms, that leads to people not taking your requirements and your needs for help and assistance seriously. Because 'didn't you say they weren't a burden?' We're already seeing this (in the UK at least) when it comes to residential provision. I'm sorry Nathan, but saying that caring for someone who can't care for themselves is a 'privilege and honor' is nothing but wank. It's not. It's a duty. It's a burden. And if you're doing it or thinking about it as some form of self reflection of penance then you'd last 5 minutes either caring for a loved one or for others in a voluntary or professional capacity.

That's point one. Point two, and on a different line of thought entirely, is that those who have an debilitating or inhibitive disability that is hereditary and that they would not wish upon their childrenas much they are able to deal with it in themselves, tend to be the most supportive of ways and means to mitigate this. Which pro-life fetishists tend not to have much time for because that involves both the act of termination and the use of embryology (founded as it is on the destructive study of embryos in the first instance, and the selective manner of implantation) as factors. The alternative is not having biological children; surrogacy or adoption. And while all of these are wonderful and noble things to do, it is a slap in the face to someone who can use these means in order to have their own biological children.

Post something that deserves to be here. Not your disgusting opinions, which you posted on that thread, which were backed up in this not bad but still morally awful post.

That was literally from a month ago.

Oh, still doesn't make it any less morally awful.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here is a 'holiday special' post (because this issue matters a great deal to me and I can't not respond to it)


People who are severely mentally or physically disabled are a burden. A huge burden. As are the elderly and most children for that matter (I'll leave that there for reasons that should be obvious) A massive part of my old job was acting in a medical-legal capacity with children who were severely disabled. I have first hand experience of the family difficulties and the support difficulties surrounding this. I have allocated funding, medical treatment, respite care and long term residential care. I've communicated with those who can communicate. I've appointed legal advocates for them. I have went to court for them.

It's taxing and ludicrously expensive. You can love someone to the point you'd do anything for them, but they are still a burden. Saying someone is a 'burden' or a 'strain' says nothing and implies nothing with respect to how you actually view that person. Pretending otherwise, or feigning obliviousness is in fact, a backhanded insult. If you couch a 'burden' in neutral 'loving' terms, that leads to people not taking your requirements and your needs for help and assistance seriously. Because 'didn't you say they weren't a burden?' We're already seeing this (in the UK at least) when it comes to residential provision. I'm sorry Nathan, but saying that caring for someone who can't care for themselves is a 'privilege and honor' is nothing but wank. It's not. It's a duty. It's a burden. And if you're doing it or thinking about it as some form of self reflection of penance then you'd last 5 minutes either caring for a loved one or for others in a voluntary or professional capacity.

That's point one. Point two, and on a different line of thought entirely, is that those who have an debilitating or inhibitive disability that is hereditary and that they would not wish upon their childrenas much they are able to deal with it in themselves, tend to be the most supportive of ways and means to mitigate this. Which pro-life fetishists tend not to have much time for because that involves both the act of termination and the use of embryology (founded as it is on the destructive study of embryos in the first instance, and the selective manner of implantation) as factors. The alternative is not having biological children; surrogacy or adoption. And while all of these are wonderful and noble things to do, it is a slap in the face to someone who can use these means in order to have their own biological children.

Post something that deserves to be here. Not your disgusting opinions, which you posted on that thread, which were backed up in this not bad but still morally awful post.

That was literally from a month ago.

Oh, still doesn't make it any less morally awful.

You're annoyed at me for some unrelated reason, aren't you?

[Intell]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here is a 'holiday special' post (because this issue matters a great deal to me and I can't not respond to it)


People who are severely mentally or physically disabled are a burden. A huge burden. As are the elderly and most children for that matter (I'll leave that there for reasons that should be obvious) A massive part of my old job was acting in a medical-legal capacity with children who were severely disabled. I have first hand experience of the family difficulties and the support difficulties surrounding this. I have allocated funding, medical treatment, respite care and long term residential care. I've communicated with those who can communicate. I've appointed legal advocates for them. I have went to court for them.

It's taxing and ludicrously expensive. You can love someone to the point you'd do anything for them, but they are still a burden. Saying someone is a 'burden' or a 'strain' says nothing and implies nothing with respect to how you actually view that person. Pretending otherwise, or feigning obliviousness is in fact, a backhanded insult. If you couch a 'burden' in neutral 'loving' terms, that leads to people not taking your requirements and your needs for help and assistance seriously. Because 'didn't you say they weren't a burden?' We're already seeing this (in the UK at least) when it comes to residential provision. I'm sorry Nathan, but saying that caring for someone who can't care for themselves is a 'privilege and honor' is nothing but wank. It's not. It's a duty. It's a burden. And if you're doing it or thinking about it as some form of self reflection of penance then you'd last 5 minutes either caring for a loved one or for others in a voluntary or professional capacity.

That's point one. Point two, and on a different line of thought entirely, is that those who have an debilitating or inhibitive disability that is hereditary and that they would not wish upon their childrenas much they are able to deal with it in themselves, tend to be the most supportive of ways and means to mitigate this. Which pro-life fetishists tend not to have much time for because that involves both the act of termination and the use of embryology (founded as it is on the destructive study of embryos in the first instance, and the selective manner of implantation) as factors. The alternative is not having biological children; surrogacy or adoption. And while all of these are wonderful and noble things to do, it is a slap in the face to someone who can use these means in order to have their own biological children.

Post something that deserves to be here. Not your disgusting opinions, which you posted on that thread, which were backed up in this not bad but still morally awful post.

That was literally from a month ago.

Oh, still doesn't make it any less morally awful.

You're annoyed at me for some unrelated reason, aren't you?

No, that post, and what was written on the thread to which the post came from, and what the fact that it was posted on a good post severely frustrated me, to a point of how I thought the post in itself, and the fact that it was posted here was and is horrendous.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

Merry Christmas everyone!

Here is a 'holiday special' post (because this issue matters a great deal to me and I can't not respond to it)


People who are severely mentally or physically disabled are a burden. A huge burden. As are the elderly and most children for that matter (I'll leave that there for reasons that should be obvious) A massive part of my old job was acting in a medical-legal capacity with children who were severely disabled. I have first hand experience of the family difficulties and the support difficulties surrounding this. I have allocated funding, medical treatment, respite care and long term residential care. I've communicated with those who can communicate. I've appointed legal advocates for them. I have went to court for them.

It's taxing and ludicrously expensive. You can love someone to the point you'd do anything for them, but they are still a burden. Saying someone is a 'burden' or a 'strain' says nothing and implies nothing with respect to how you actually view that person. Pretending otherwise, or feigning obliviousness is in fact, a backhanded insult. If you couch a 'burden' in neutral 'loving' terms, that leads to people not taking your requirements and your needs for help and assistance seriously. Because 'didn't you say they weren't a burden?' We're already seeing this (in the UK at least) when it comes to residential provision. I'm sorry Nathan, but saying that caring for someone who can't care for themselves is a 'privilege and honor' is nothing but wank. It's not. It's a duty. It's a burden. And if you're doing it or thinking about it as some form of self reflection of penance then you'd last 5 minutes either caring for a loved one or for others in a voluntary or professional capacity.

That's point one. Point two, and on a different line of thought entirely, is that those who have an debilitating or inhibitive disability that is hereditary and that they would not wish upon their childrenas much they are able to deal with it in themselves, tend to be the most supportive of ways and means to mitigate this. Which pro-life fetishists tend not to have much time for because that involves both the act of termination and the use of embryology (founded as it is on the destructive study of embryos in the first instance, and the selective manner of implantation) as factors. The alternative is not having biological children; surrogacy or adoption. And while all of these are wonderful and noble things to do, it is a slap in the face to someone who can use these means in order to have their own biological children.

Post something that deserves to be here. Not your disgusting opinions, which you posted on that thread, which were backed up in this not bad but still morally awful post.

That was literally from a month ago.

Oh, still doesn't make it any less morally awful.

You're annoyed at me for some unrelated reason, aren't you?

No, that post, and what was written on the thread to which the post came from, and what the fact that it was posted on a good post severely frustrated me, to a point of how I thought the post in itself, and the fact that it was posted here was and is horrendous.

This was from a month ago. I'm not going to bother getting into another ethical debate with you(yes, you specifically. Your method of debating morality is probably the most obtuse and obnoxious I have ever encountered) over something from a month ago, so lets just drop it.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The conclusion of primary season really forced a lot of people (indluding myself) to luck deeply at ourselves and how we had degraded politics to an amusing sport separate from our comfortable realities. Really, it didn't strike me the extent to how awful the whole affair was until the RNC when the GOP dragged out the clearly suffering Benghazi familes on stage. Most people on Atlas, when it was announced that the Republicans were going to dedicate a night for a half-baked conspiracy theory were amused. so was I. But when we got down to it, there was nothing remotely amusing about the spectacle that unfollowed, just a really sad indictment of not only Trump and the people who had allowed him to become nominee (and ultimately president) but of myself. I, like so many others, was guilty of thinking this was all a game, when it so clearly isn't. It's a feeling I've felt before. When I was in my teens, a Call of Duty game attracted some controversy because the first scene involved the protagonist (you) shooting innocent civilians in an airport as part of a false flag operation. Because of all the controversy I was actually genuinely excited to play it (and I don't play those sort of games normally). But when I got to actually play the game, it actually made me feel really horrible. There was no glee, just a really awful sinking in my stomach. It made me feel generally disgusted at myself for not being able to look past the 'controversy' (obviously drummed up for sales) and believing this would be in anyway amusing because of its controversial nature.

The RNC gave me a similar feeling of self-disgust at my inability to look critically at this awful juncture at American politics with a sober eye from my smug perch in a different country.

Although I didn't go full hog with "ironic trumpism" I was certainly no saint and for that I apologise. to myself, mainly, because I let myself down.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This is stupid, and you're engaging in Russiaphobia. The stupidity is astonoshing, do you also seriously have a flag of Ukraine, with it's fascist authoritarian government.

Grow a fycking brain, you dense person.

Ukrainian government is not fascist. And, most definitely, not authoritarian. It is a weak, mildly nationalist, somewhat liberal, not very ideologically-defined democratically elected government, that is unlikely to survive the next election. Few Ukrainians care much about their current (or past) leaders and they are pretty free to replace them. Poroshenko is no autocrat: he is barely capable of enforcing his will within 30 meters of where he happens to be standing. Neither he is a fascist, under any description. His PM is Jewish, his interior minister is Armenian, his Foreign Minister is Russian (the last two weren't even born in Ukraine: Avakov is from Azerbaijan, Klimkin is from Russia itself). Georgians and Lithuanians have played a strong role in the government in recent past. Naturally, many cabinet members speak Russian among themselves. If anything, it is an ex-Soviet internationalist regime The government itself is a weak coalition in parliament, and Poroshenko has not chosen it, nor will he be able to determine what will replace it.  

You can say a lot of nasty things about that government (some of them are corrupt, some are incompetent, many are both). But it is neither fascist, nor a dictatorship in any imaginable meaning of the word. All of you who continue mouthing this nonsense are just a clear illustration of how effective Russian propaganda may be. A real fascist authoritarian regime in Russia (and it is both fascist and authoritarian by any standard) managing to convince a big chunk of the world that a weak democratic neighbour is a nasty authoritarian fascist monster. It is incredible demonstration of the power of calumny.

[Since I'm the mad scientist proclaimed by myself]

This is stupid, and you're engaging in Russiaphobia. The stupidity is astonoshing, do you also seriously have a flag of Ukraine, with it's fascist authoritarian government.

Grow a fycking brain, you dense person.

Ukrainian government is not fascist. And, most definitely, not authoritarian. It is a weak, mildly nationalist, somewhat liberal, not very ideologically-defined democratically elected government, that is unlikely to survive the next election. Few Ukrainians care much about their current (or past) leaders and they are pretty free to replace them. Poroshenko is no autocrat: he is barely capable of enforcing his will within 30 meters of where he happens to be standing. Neither he is a fascist, under any description. His PM is Jewish, his interior minister is Armenian, his Foreign Minister is Russian (the last two weren't even born in Ukraine: Avakov is from Azerbaijan, Klimkin is from Russia itself). Georgians and Lithuanians have played a strong role in the government in recent past. Naturally, many cabinet members speak Russian among themselves. If anything, it is an ex-Soviet internationalist regime The government itself is a weak coalition in parliament, and Poroshenko has not chosen it, nor will he be able to determine what will replace it.  

You can say a lot of nasty things about that government (some of them are corrupt, some are incompetent, many are both). But it is neither fascist, nor a dictatorship in any imaginable meaning of the word. All of you who continue mouthing this nonsense are just a clear illustration of how effective Russian propaganda may be. A real fascist authoritarian regime in Russia (and it is both fascist and authoritarian by any standard) managing to convince a big chunk of the world that a weak democratic neighbour is a nasty authoritarian fascist monster. It is incredible demonstration of the power of calumny.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

The Ukrainian government is pathetic. It's not justifying Putin. It's a statement of fact.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Given what I've heard of his book is essentially "my lazy, good for nothing kin need to stop fornicating and get pulling on their bootstraps," I don't think he's as potent a candidate as DC Conservative worms think he his.

The first half of the book is terrific as are the 1-2 pages where he talks about why folks in Appalachia tended to have such a fierce dislike of Obama (he's everything they're not: flourishes in meritocratic society, a good father with a loving and stable family, articulate, a minority, intellectual, from a big city, etc, etc), why they resent successful recent immigrants more than almost anyone else (essentially "It's my country and you're doing it better than me; how dare you!"   My words, not his), how fake news has gotten completely out of control (even as early as 2010) due to the complete lack of trust in the media.  However, the second half (aside from the two pages I mentioned) is increasingly terrible (it starts getting bad once he joins the army).  It shifts to boilerplate right-wing "lazy poor people don't work hard, all I had to do in order to pull myself out was be a genius, go to Yale Law School, and pursue a career that paid really well" talking-points.  I also want to note the particularly cringe-worthy moment where he was asked why he wants to work in the field of law he ended up choosing during a job interview and replied "Well, the pay's pretty good, right?" (paraphrasing, I forget the exact words, but it was gross).  And naturally, he allows no room for even the possibility that corporate America just might also be contributing to some of the problems afflicting the white working-class through the positions they lobby for.  I read an editorial in either The New Republic or The Atlantic (I forget which) calling Vance "the false prophet of blue America," and I think that's spot on.  All he really does in the second half of the book is repackage the same old non-sense about mythical hordes of welfare queens, "gee whiz, all it takes is a little hard work, don't ya know ," "government can only make things worse," etc.  The first half is a fascinating and empathetic look at Appalachia, but the book doesn't offer any serious solutions and devolves into a pretty generic ideologically self-serving conservative Coffee Table Book™ in the second half (albeit one that's still far more coherent and better written than most).  I get why Peter Thiel liked the book so much  

I also get why Vance has the perspective he does given his life experiences.  To be fair, it can be incredibly tempting to say "I pulled myself out of the hole so why can't these people," but he should also know better than most that it is nowhere near that simple.  This is a recurring issue in the book, btw: over-simplification of things that are inconvenient for his worldview.  For example, when he argues child services and social workers are generally extremely bad for families and do more harm than good, my thought is "okay, I agree the foster care system in this country is a joke.  That said, say we get rid of child services and you have kids being sexually abused by their parents or kids like you who had at least one parent who 1) was threatening murder-suicide to their >12 year-old while speeding on the highway and 2) was so physically abusive that the child often lived with their grandparents, and 3) harassed their own child for a clean urine sample b/c everyone else in the family was using drugs.  What if the kid isn't smart enough to get into an Ivy League law school or even a college of any sort?  Is the government really wrong to say 'okay, some of these situations may require outside intervention for the child's safety or at least an investigation to determine whether this is the case?'"  For obvious reasons, Vance has no interest in having that discussion.). 

Another example is when he argues people sometimes throw away low-paying jobs through a lack of commitment/aversion to hard work and there are certainly some folks like that.  I've even met one or two.  However, Vance conveniently ignores the fact that if you want to attract a higher quality employee, you as an employer might want to offer better compensation than a minimum wage that's so low that it isn't even a livable wage.  You simply are not gonna get the same applicant pool if you pay someone minimum wage with crappy benefits as you would if you paid them even $15 an hour (still not great) and/or offered really good healthcare benefits.  And again, minimum wage in most (if not all) states is not a livable wage.  It certainly isn't in Ohio; I can tell you that much.  I realize that it's not always possible to pay employees more (especially in lower-level positions or for more menial work), but if that's the case then there is a piece of this that is also the employer making a trade-off whether they realize it or not.  It may or may not be fair, but it is a reality and ignoring it the way Vance does strikes me as willful over-simplification.  These are just two small examples; I could probably find much better ones if hadn't returned the book to the library a few weeks ago. 

As for Vance running for office, the more I think about it, the more I think it sounds like he's suffering delusions of grandeur (or at least that the book's reception went to his head, assuming he actually does run for office).  No one knows who he is and he'd be a terrible fit.  Here's how folks will see him: "Hey guys, so I left Ohio to go to an Ivy League law school and went to go work for some Silicon Valley rich dude (Peter Thiel).  I wanna run for office, so I moved back to Ohio to run for office.  I wrote a book about poor white people; liberals love it!  Did I mention that I wrote a book?"  He'll get destroyed if he runs in a heavily WWC area and/or one that is part of greater Appalachia. 

I guess I could *maybe* see him winning an open state house seat due to a clown-car primary in a district like HD-52 or HD-54, but those won't be open this cycle and don't he'd come anywhere close to winning a primary against an incumbent.  SD-7 recently opened up, but that vacancy was already filled and I don't see Vance winning a primary there either (certainly not against an incumbent).  Maybe he's just gonna run for city council or something *shrug*  If he runs statewide, he'll be the Jon Huntsman of OH politics this cycle, to the extent that anyone even pays attention to him at all.

[Shameless Lefty Hack]

Given what I've heard of his book is essentially "my lazy, good for nothing kin need to stop fornicating and get pulling on their bootstraps," I don't think he's as potent a candidate as DC Conservative worms think he his.

The first half of the book is terrific as are the 1-2 pages where he talks about why folks in Appalachia tended to have such a fierce dislike of Obama (he's everything they're not: flourishes in meritocratic society, a good father with a loving and stable family, articulate, a minority, intellectual, from a big city, etc, etc), why they resent successful recent immigrants more than almost anyone else (essentially "It's my country and you're doing it better than me; how dare you!"   My words, not his), how fake news has gotten completely out of control (even as early as 2010) due to the complete lack of trust in the media.  However, the second half (aside from the two pages I mentioned) is increasingly terrible (it starts getting bad once he joins the army).  It shifts to boilerplate right-wing "lazy poor people don't work hard, all I had to do in order to pull myself out was be a genius, go to Yale Law School, and pursue a career that paid really well" talking-points.  I also want to note the particularly cringe-worthy moment where he was asked why he wants to work in the field of law he ended up choosing during a job interview and replied "Well, the pay's pretty good, right?" (paraphrasing, I forget the exact words, but it was gross).  And naturally, he allows no room for even the possibility that corporate America just might also be contributing to some of the problems afflicting the white working-class through the positions they lobby for.  I read an editorial in either The New Republic or The Atlantic (I forget which) calling Vance "the false prophet of blue America," and I think that's spot on.  All he really does in the second half of the book is repackage the same old non-sense about mythical hordes of welfare queens, "gee whiz, all it takes is a little hard work, don't ya know ," "government can only make things worse," etc.  The first half is a fascinating and empathetic look at Appalachia, but the book doesn't offer any serious solutions and devolves into a pretty generic ideologically self-serving conservative Coffee Table Book™ in the second half (albeit one that's still far more coherent and better written than most).  I get why Peter Thiel liked the book so much  

I also get why Vance has the perspective he does given his life experiences.  To be fair, it can be incredibly tempting to say "I pulled myself out of the hole so why can't these people," but he should also know better than most that it is nowhere near that simple.  This is a recurring issue in the book, btw: over-simplification of things that are inconvenient for his worldview.  For example, when he argues child services and social workers are generally extremely bad for families and do more harm than good, my thought is "okay, I agree the foster care system in this country is a joke.  That said, say we get rid of child services and you have kids being sexually abused by their parents or kids like you who had at least one parent who 1) was threatening murder-suicide to their >12 year-old while speeding on the highway and 2) was so physically abusive that the child often lived with their grandparents, and 3) harassed their own child for a clean urine sample b/c everyone else in the family was using drugs.  What if the kid isn't smart enough to get into an Ivy League law school or even a college of any sort?  Is the government really wrong to say 'okay, some of these situations may require outside intervention for the child's safety or at least an investigation to determine whether this is the case?'"  For obvious reasons, Vance has no interest in having that discussion.). 

Another example is when he argues people sometimes throw away low-paying jobs through a lack of commitment/aversion to hard work and there are certainly some folks like that.  I've even met one or two.  However, Vance conveniently ignores the fact that if you want to attract a higher quality employee, you as an employer might want to offer better compensation than a minimum wage that's so low that it isn't even a livable wage.  You simply are not gonna get the same applicant pool if you pay someone minimum wage with crappy benefits as you would if you paid them even $15 an hour (still not great) and/or offered really good healthcare benefits.  And again, minimum wage in most (if not all) states is not a livable wage.  It certainly isn't in Ohio; I can tell you that much.  I realize that it's not always possible to pay employees more (especially in lower-level positions or for more menial work), but if that's the case then there is a piece of this that is also the employer making a trade-off whether they realize it or not.  It may or may not be fair, but it is a reality and ignoring it the way Vance does strikes me as willful over-simplification.  These are just two small examples; I could probably find much better ones if hadn't returned the book to the library a few weeks ago. 

As for Vance running for office, the more I think about it, the more I think it sounds like he's suffering delusions of grandeur (or at least that the book's reception went to his head, assuming he actually does run for office).  No one knows who he is and he'd be a terrible fit.  Here's how folks will see him: "Hey guys, so I left Ohio to go to an Ivy League law school and went to go work for some Silicon Valley rich dude (Peter Thiel).  I wanna run for office, so I moved back to Ohio to run for office.  I wrote a book about poor white people; liberals love it!  Did I mention that I wrote a book?"  He'll get destroyed if he runs in a heavily WWC area and/or one that is part of greater Appalachia. 

I guess I could *maybe* see him winning an open state house seat due to a clown-car primary in a district like HD-52 or HD-54, but those won't be open this cycle and don't he'd come anywhere close to winning a primary against an incumbent.  SD-7 recently opened up, but that vacancy was already filled and I don't see Vance winning a primary there either (certainly not against an incumbent).  Maybe he's just gonna run for city council or something *shrug*  If he runs statewide, he'll be the Jon Huntsman of OH politics this cycle, to the extent that anyone even pays attention to him at all.

Came here to post this - it's a very good explanation.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Working-class people are not doomed to a lifetime of scatological humor and Duck Dynasty by virtue of being working-class. There is no such thing as poor people blood that genetically dooms one to have “lowbrow” taste. The generally poorer than not town where I grew up had a piano teacher whose repertoire was a combination of classical études and jazz standards, and she was always in high demand. In Italy the ~plain people~ loved and admired Verdi even in his lifetime, and I’ve heard that they have public lectures on Dante that are jam-packed with people from all walks of life. My best friend’s family spent most of her childhood in mid-level poverty and they have a tradition of reading Shakespeare out loud on New Year’s Eve. Even if there were “poor people blood”, plenty of our cultural standards and heritage started out as “poor people things” before standing the test of time. Who remembers the writers people were “supposed” to like back when novels were for the lower element?

The idea that the Golden Age of Television ended because suddenly Those People could afford TVs and demanded fast, cheap, mindless swill may have some merit but if so it says more about the people making programming decisions than about the viewers. There is such a thing as the culture industry. Programming and publishing decisions are ideological in that they are based in more or less coherent worldviews about what people want or should want. The cancellation of The Bell Telephone Hour and the Rural Purge were the product of similar sets of machinations aimed at appealing to and in a sense creating a proto-yuppie middle class that ate up the sort of middlebrow (the worst kind of brow!), faux-sentimental, mawkish bullsh**t that the suits themselves liked (which these days finds itself joined by middlebrow, faux-edgy, nihilistic bullsh**t like Family Guy and Bill Maher). You know what people who live way out in the sticks where they still don’t get many channels watch? They—many of them—watch PBS.

People talk about education and lifting people out of their material and spiritual circumstances through education but never give any thought to the use of mass media as a pedagogical force, for good or for ill. Jeff Zucker is an engineer of human souls. About one thing C.S. Lewis, whose conservative sensibilities so often make him unappealing as a cultural critic, was right: Deny a man food and he will gobble poison. If people with “good taste ” won’t make any effort to present “the poorly educated” with material that is thoughtful but that also takes their lives seriously, of course they’ll gravitate towards crap. And this crap has its own effects on people’s psyches.

People do actually read, if you give them good public libraries and have well-intentioned teachers allowed to assign interesting material. Read enough and you will get “an education”, even if it’s an unsystematic one. You still probably won’t become a biotech venture capitalist like J.D. Vance or even a grad school prima donna like me, but so [Inks]ing what? A rounded, textured understanding of the world is its own reward.

Also, like, there’s nothing inherently stupid or “backwards” anyway about preferring Petticoat Junction to The Brady Bunch, or The Walking Dead (or Pretty Little Liars or Empire for that matter; it's not only the white male part of the working class that this applies to) to Modern Family. Or even 16 and Pregnant to Tosh.0. For God’s sake.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this and I might have contradicted myself at least once but I felt that a lot of this had to be said.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Outside of the real disdain for environmentalists, and those who really do profit from environmental degradation (petroleum extraction and refining is a dirty business, and everyone involved in it knows it), I really think that the basis for this -- if not hostility, then deep indifference -- of most people to environmental causes is that the natural environments that surround them just aren't especially valuable and aren't worth the cost of cleanup or rehabilitation or vigilant maintenance.

The exceptions are the Pacific Coast and the northeast. These are the most highly urbanized parts of the US (West 90%, Northeast 85%), where land is scarce and valuable, and maintaining clean watersheds for city/suburban use is recognized as a necessity.

That is not the case anywhere else in the US. Locales, urban or rural, that are severely polluted can be abandoned at little cost except to those who are too poor to move away. Many are hidden in isolated places that escape public scrutiny anyhow, or can be circumvented along the highway.

And I take little stock in those who argue that people living in exurbs or isolated homesteads care more about nature than those holed-up in cities. No, far from it: these are merely the early investors for the sites of future suburban expansion.

I also have a notion that the settler mentality still exists in this country, where people think that all plants native to North America that don't look pretty in a backyard are "weeds" (an outrageous conceit in a country that has more diverse plant species than any other except China) and all animals that don't look good stuffed and mounted as a trophy are vermin, but it's not developed yet.

[Antonio the Sixth]

I wanted to be an elected official as a young man.  Today, the idea really turns me off.  The money needed to run for even a minor local office is just silly.  And unless you become a total whore for money, you've got to be a multi-millionaire with the ability to significantly self-fund in order to be viable for such a race.

I understand that feeling, but I don't really mind it. Hopefully my seat is sufficiently safe so that I don't have to behold to too many lobbyists.

"hopefully"

The fact that you have sought out a safe seat and are planning full speed ahead as if being a politician is somehow a career like being in nursing, law enforcement, political consulting, film-making, accounting, trucking, writing, teaching, or practicing law is nauseating.

A democratic government requires a civilian legislature. That means civilians, from other paths of life, giving their time and energy up to legislate on behalf of the public that elected them. Nobody should be sitting around in 2017 thinking "gee whiz, running for Congress in 2024 sounds like a lot of work!" Those are precisely the people we need to keep out of office.

Brian Mast is a good example. He didn't go to war to get his legs blown off in order to make his career in politics thrive. He was a professional soldier who served his country, returned home, embarked on a civilian career, and moved to the Treasure Coast. After being invited by Michelle Obama to the 2011 State of the Union address, he became increasingly active in politics locally and saw a void opening when Paddy Murphy left to run for Senate. He won his primary over a fairly strong challenger and rode the Trump wave to Washington over a much overhyped Republican-turned-Democrat. This whole career transition, from army to private sector to politics, happened over the course of just a few years.

If you want to run for Congress, run now. Don't wait and plan to make it a career. It isn't doing yourself any good and it isn't doing the country any good. I can't empathize enough how strongly I feel on this subject. I don't know the percentage of our incoming freshman Congressional class with prior political experience. But I do know, that regardless of how many, it will be too many. We have way to many four term former State Reps/Senators getting into Congress as if it is a right of passage.