talking points that piss you off

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

4. "Pro-choice people are bad Catholics, but pro-death penalty pro-war and anti-poor people are good Catholics"

i'm not aware of anyone who uses that as a talking point.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

4. "Pro-choice people are bad Catholics, but pro-death penalty pro-war and anti-poor people are good Catholics"

i'm not aware of anyone who uses that as a talking point.

Everyone heard about Kerry being denied communion.

[tpfkaw]

4. "Pro-choice people are bad Catholics, but pro-death penalty pro-war and anti-poor people are good Catholics"

i'm not aware of anyone who uses that as a talking point.

Everyone heard about Kerry being denied communion.

And Kerry is pro-death penalty, pro-war, and "anti-poor" by your standards as well as being pro-choice.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

4. "Pro-choice people are bad Catholics, but pro-death penalty pro-war and anti-poor people are good Catholics"

i'm not aware of anyone who uses that as a talking point.

Everyone heard about Kerry being denied communion.

I thought a talking point was something someone actually said. It involves rhetoric and argumentation to make a point.  If you put words in someone's mouth to characterize their position, that's not the same thing - even if you put quotation marks around it.

[Napoleon]

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That's a simple fact. You can die of an overdosis of alcohol, but not from smoking pot.
Why does that irritate you?

It's not that it's factually inaccurate; it's just a very poor argument. In fact, to me, it's a perfectly good argument for banning alcohol.

Because that was such a success.

Irrelevant.

The effects a policy will have is irrelevant to you?

[TJ in Oregon]

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That's a simple fact. You can die of an overdosis of alcohol, but not from smoking pot.
Why does that irritate you?

It's not that it's factually inaccurate; it's just a very poor argument. In fact, to me, it's a perfectly good argument for banning alcohol.

Because that was such a success.

Irrelevant.

The effects a policy will have is irrelevant to you?

This argument is basically the same problem as the scenario where two students turn in work with the same answer, get different grades, and then the one who got a lower grade complains to the teacher. The teacher could then give that student a better grade. Or the teacher could lower the other student's grade to match.

If we say

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then logically either alcohol should be outlawed or pot should be legalized but you cannot determine which should be done from the statement.

Of course in American politics ideological purity is the stuff of internet forums and advocacy groups not the government in practice. Our laws are not logically consistent, they never have been, and I doubt they ever will be. That's because they are constructed from a patchwork of different people and groups with different motives at different times throughout history. Pragmatism rules the day. In my scenario above, the teacher would simply ignore the student, which makes for a bad teacher but a functional government.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

Pragmatism is wasting billions of dollars to turn a benign drug into a gateway drug apparently.

[morgieb]

"I'm not homophobic, I just oppose gay rights"

[k-onmmunist]

Here we go:

1. "We should keep the monarchy, they bring in tourist money!"
2. "It's Scotland's oil"
3. "Everyone on welfare is a scrounger!"
4. "Immigrants are taking all our jobs/leeching off our welfare!"
5. "It's political correctness gone mad!"/"I'm not racist but..."
6. "Thatcher got some things right/We got some things wrong in the 80s" (Specifically from Labour ministers, usually)
7. "Gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage!"
8. Every single argument radical feminists use against transwomen.
9. "The Human Rights Act is evul!"
10. "The BBC/media is controlled by the left wing/liberals!"

[Antonio the Sixth]

8. Every single argument radical feminists use against transwomen.

Why would feminists be against transgenderism ?

[k-onmmunist]

8. Every single argument radical feminists use against transwomen.

Why would feminists be against transgenderism ?

Not all feminists, just the radical "kill all men" fringe - the arguments being that transwomen are somehow "appropriating" the female gender, they're not real women, they can never understand because they don't have uteruses, they're mentally ill etc.

There's been a spate of controversies recently due to some radfem events having "womyn-born-womyn only" policies to exclude transgenders specifically.

[morgieb]

One for our Aussie viewers - "this government is illegitimate" - Tony Abbott.

[Antonio the Sixth]

8. Every single argument radical feminists use against transwomen.

Why would feminists be against transgenderism ?

Not all feminists, just the radical "kill all men" fringe - the arguments being that transwomen are somehow "appropriating" the female gender, they're not real women, they can never understand because they don't have uteruses, they're mentally ill etc.

There's been a spate of controversies recently due to some radfem events having "womyn-born-womyn only" policies to exclude transgenders specifically.

I'd say those aren't real feminist. If you believe in an essentialist conception of female identity you're eventually a defender of the patriarchal order.

[k-onmmunist]

8. Every single argument radical feminists use against transwomen.

Why would feminists be against transgenderism ?

Not all feminists, just the radical "kill all men" fringe - the arguments being that transwomen are somehow "appropriating" the female gender, they're not real women, they can never understand because they don't have uteruses, they're mentally ill etc.

There's been a spate of controversies recently due to some radfem events having "womyn-born-womyn only" policies to exclude transgenders specifically.

I'd say those aren't real feminist. If you believe in an essentialist conception of female identity you're eventually a defender of the patriarchal order.

Indeed... they're little different than religious fundamentalists/extreme conservatives who claim much the same thing...

[Gustaf]

7. "The American people are cutting back so government should too" [ugh]

This one is a bit weird since it is standard for private and public debt to move in opposite directions (indeed, certain economic theory pretty much makes this true by definition).

[politicus]

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That's a simple fact. You can die of an overdosis of alcohol, but not from smoking pot.
Why does that irritate you?

It's not that it's factually inaccurate; it's just a very poor argument. In fact, to me, it's a perfectly good argument for banning alcohol.

OK. I see your point, but its a premise for that statement that alcohol is so ingrained in our culture, that it is impossible to forbid it. As a consequence it becomes pointless to ban a substance, that is less dangerous.
Its not totally logical, but it does make sense. 

[bore]

I realize this is a bit late but the whole "America is a republic not a democracy" is really, really irritating because the terms aren't actually mutually exclusive.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Republicans are the "party of the rich" and Democrats the "party of the little guy"; also, that Republicans are racist.  Those are my two biggest turnoffs.

[morgieb]

"states rights".

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

"Welfare queens" and anything opposing gay rights/women's rights/civil rights/all that stuff.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

More of the most annoying talking points for me:

"Under Clinton we had budget surpluses and the strongest economy in a generation."-- This is true, but it was because Clinton compromised with Republicans in Congress after the 1994 election by cutting taxes and spending as well as signing the welfare reform bill.

"The segregationist Democrats all became Republicans."-- The only segregationist Democrat in Congress to ever switch to the Republican Party was Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, and he later had a change of heart on racial issues.

"The 'Southern Strategy' was an attempt to appeal to white Southerners by pandering to racism."-- According to former Nixon advisor  Pat Buchanan, arguably the author of the "Southern Strategy", it was an attempt to convince Southern moderates who supported civil rights to vote Republican as a protest against the segregationist Democrats.  See this link: http://www.wnd.com/2002/12/16477/

"You cannot legislate morality."-- Virtually all laws legislate some form of morality.  And besides, banning abortion/gay marriage doesn't necessarily "legislate morality."  After all, it's not making it illegal to have extramarital sex or for homosexual couples to live together and love each other.  I support allowing birth control and adoption as alternatives to abortion, and I support civil unions for homosexual couples as long as they receive equal benefits to heterosexual, married couples.

"A woman's right to choose"-- Everybody has the right to choose to do anything, even something illegal; having the "right to choose" to do something doesn't make it morally acceptable or mean that it should be legal.

"Reagan's economic policies unfairly benefited the rich at the expense of the poor."--  Actually, during Reagan's presidency, not only did the middle class expand, but federal spending for the poor (as a whole) actually increased.  The expansion of poverty, in my opinion, was more likely the result of the increase of drug abuse in the 1980s. 

"Rush Limbaugh is a racist."-- The man who finds sound bytes to play on Rush Limbaugh's show, Bo Snerdley, is black, and the minister who performed Limbaugh's most recent wedding is also black.  I am not a huge fan of Rush Limbaugh, but this charge is ridiculous.

"Bush stole the 2000 election."-- There is no way to prove this charge either way, but every legal method of recounting the votes in Florida in 2000 would have given the election to Bush.  On Election Night 2000, all of the major news networks and the AP called Florida for Al Gore before all of the polls in the Republican-leaning panhandle were closed.  This depressed turnout among likely Bush voters nationally because they were convinced that the election was over and their candidate had lost.  Likewise, the call was made based on exit poll results rather than raw vote totals.  At the time of the early call for Gore in Florida, Bush was actually leading in the returns being reported to the networks.  As proof, check out some videos on YouTube by searching "election night 2000".

[hopper]

Even though I don't like Obama's performance in office. The talking point that gets me that some people make about him:

1.) He is a socialist
2.) He is a Muslim(he's actually a christian.)
3,) People think he is far left. In my opinion he is a Moderate Liberal.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Even though I don't like Obama's performance in office. The talking point that gets me that some people make about him:

1.) He is a socialist
2.) He is a Muslim(he's actually a christian.)
3,) People think he is far left. In my opinion he is a Moderate Liberal.

I would mostly agree with you.  I am a conservative and a Republican and am no fan of President Obama, but I don't necessarily think he is a socialist.  I do, in fact, believe that he is a Christian, and I also believe that he was born in the United States.  At this point, those questions are irrelevant.  I would rather keep the debate on policy terms and stop with the conspiracy theories (on both sides.)

[Maxwell]

"strong defense"
"Obama is a socialist"
Republicans are the "party of the rich" and Democrats the "party of the little guy"
"Gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage!"

[BritishDixie]

Liberals are "nice people", conservatives are "nasty people"

The rich have a "fair share" that they must pay for welfare

South Africa is a better country now than in 1994

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