The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[Technocracy Timmy]

The fine upstanding contributions on us election atlas dot org must be maintained. Thank you for granting enough of your time to speak to me sensei.

You have nearly 4000 posts on this site lmao

And every single one of those posts have brought great pleasure to my life. My grandma has been struggling with lung cancer that has gotten progressively worse. I recently showed her over one hundred of Technocracy Timmy's Atlas posts and she started suddenly getting better. Just the other day I showed my grandma one of Timmy's selfies and she did a backflip for the first time in 20 years. Timmy's Atlas posts have healing properties and it disturbs me to see so many neanderthals flinging poop at such an upstanding gentleman. 

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

First of all, it was borderline harassment, and it was titled "an official statement", which you are in no capacity to make on Atlas.

More importantly, you announced your intentions to donate to a political campaign, in your name, based on the actions of another person. It was very likely that said person would read the post, considering the thread had his username in it, and that he made nearly 3,000 posts on Atlas in the past 365 days. Landslide Lyndon is the only person who is in complete control over his own Atlas activity, meaning that he would have been in a situation where he could decide how much to donate to a campaign in someone else's name, down to $0.25 precision, i.e. straw donations. Of course, if you never actually make the donations, it would've been just another one of your ridiculous threads.

Also, it would've cost you $686 by the Iowa caucuses. We would've demanded receipts. Even if those receipts didn't implicate you in illegal campaign donations (and it's not like the FEC or any other authorities would even pursue you over being an idiot), be glad the mods saved you the money.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

This is a complicated problem that does not have one cause nor one simple solution. Parents sometimes have some responsibility, but not always. I think that our classrooms are reflecting the current zeitgeist in our country very well. A lot of students think respect is something that they only have to give to certain people, and can you blame them? That's how a lot of the so-called "adults" act in society nowadays. Many students feel neglected. Not just by their parents, but by society in general, by previous teachers, and by their peers, and act out in order to get some kind of attention. Students also face enormous stress with the omnipresence of high-stakes tests and assessments which they may feel incapable of doing well on. Others have been taught from a young age through many mediums that they can't succeed and have come to internalize it; if they can't do well, why even try?

And then, there's the reality that for those of us teaching middle and high school, we get very little time per student. The best we can often hope for is to move the needle, and sometimes even a small amount of progress from a student can be undone if they have a bad experience either at home, in another classroom, with one of their peers, etc. Smaller class sizes would help each student get more attention, but the reality is that issues outside of the classroom need to be addressed as well, and parenting is still only part of the equation. Not to mention, holding parents accountable sounds great, but how do we actually achieve that? Giving students recognition for good performance and behavior (note the distinction between recognition and a "reward") is usually what schools try to do, but for students who aren't doing well, they and their parents often either don't care, or see improvement as impossible.

I think that it would take a change in our entire society and values to truly improve our education system, and while things have changed in the past 5-10 years, it hasn't been for the better.

[MATTROSE94]

This post is indicitive of two major problems with trumpists... you don't understand that not everything is black and white and simplified (unless it suits you), and you don't understand that many Republican or Trump criticisms are not partisan (liberal / conservative "teams") in nature (unless it suits you). Let me expand on some of your claims in a nuanced, reality-based way...

We hate that the guy on the $20 bill waged a holocaust-like internment and genocide of indigineous Americans and we don't want to celerate that.

We love the police but we hate that minorities, especially black people, are treated differently sometimes, especially in life or death situations. There is nothing in the law or police handbook that says cops should treat minorities any different than white people.

We hate when people "must" respect the pledge of allegiance (and national anthem) in ALL contexts, EXACTLY the way that we are told we "must", even when we may have good reason to invoke our First Amendment rights to act differently while still not being unnecessarily disrespecful.

We hate that our gun laws are causing mass death and are going way above a beyond our Second Amendment rights to allow mentally ill people to purchase AR-15 military assault rifles at gun shows without background checks and then use them to murder our children.

We hate it when religion is forced into places it shouldn't be in, OR when christianity is given special privledges in a nation that is supposed to ALWAYS treat every religion equally.

We hate the electoral college because it's a system that we don't like that ALSO is not build into our constitution or declaration of independance or any major American legal / historical framework. It is perfectly patriotic and valid to challenge it and want an alternative system.

We hate our president because he's an immoral corrupt liar who doesn't take his job seriously, screws up constantly when he does attempt to take it seriously, doesn't belive in non-fascist democracy or American values, and is likely a bought and paid for Russian puppet (traitor).

We hate Supreme Court justices that want to move backwards on abortion and LGBTQ rights, despite the majority of the American population (over 50%) wanting to keep movng forwards. We hate Kavanaugh because he isn't the right man for the job, regardless of his politics.

We hate big gulp sodas because they're terrible for our health and our children's health. They should be legal to buy (obviously) but they shouldn't be readily available for children inside of schools.

We hate men with beards and penises who used to be women 20 years ago being forced to pee in women's bathrooms alongside women and little girls, regardless of what makes the trans man OR the women in that bathroom comfortable.

We... don't hate Rudolph to my knowledge. At least, I haven't seen any compelling reasons to hate Rudolph as of yet. I'm pretty damn skeptical to the whole idea, but will aa always remain open-minded.

[Horus]

Israel apologists are such jokes. She never singled out Jewish people; she referred to political influences that push for allegiance to a foreign state. The Zionist lobby has a plethora of non-Jewish members; just as there are plenty of Jewish people who dislike Israel and the Zionist lobby’s influence on American politics.

People are intentionally reading into Omar’s remarks something that isn’t even there. This is exactly her point: you can’t even criticize Israel in this country, let alone challenge it politically, due to the corrupting influence the Zionist lobby’s money has had on American culture and institutions. She should never have apologized for her previous statements and damn sure shouldn’t back down to the well financed pressure she’ll receive for these truthful statements.

Israel is a racist, Jewish supremacist, colonial, ethnostate akin to Apartheid South Africa that contributes to and benefits from an international coordination of political pressure, financial “investments” (bribery), and organized violence against Arab citizens and neighbors. The only reason Israel hasn’t been justly internationally condemned repeatedly is because of the pressure exerted on the American political system, which has shown itself to be remarkably receptive to such pressures. They’re currently being accused of war crimes by the UN due to their recent horrific actions against civilians in Gaza. Of course, thanks to the Zionist lobby’s capture of the American political class, any resolutions against Israel that pass through the Security Council will be immediately shot down.

[GeorgiaModerate]

They hate the guy on our $20 bill, they hate the police, they hate borders, they hate the pledge of allegiance, they hate our gun laws, they hate the national anthem, they hate religion (unless it's something muslim or controversial) they hate our electoral college, they hate our President, they hate many of our Supreme Court justices, they hate big gulp sodas, normal bathrooms, even freaking Rudolph the red nosed reindeer.

The list goes on and on. The only thing the left likes about America is the right they have in America to speak about what they hate about America.

I unapologetically love America. So does Trump. Unlike Obama, he can say it without adding a "but". There are no buts. If you don't like it, leave. Please. Leave.

It's really not worth my time to respond to this lunacy, but let me just debunk/explain a few of the incomprehensible talking points you've used here.

1). the guy on our $20 bill was an absolute sociopath who dueled to the death and massacred Native people. secondly, it's odd how you would love a racist Democrat 🤔

2). This is just a strawman, not really much to debate here. I could just as easily say Republicans hate all teachers because they critizice them so often. with that said, criticizing police brutality and cops acting like action heroes who think they're above the law does not = hating police. the number of Democrats/leftists who actually hate police is almost certainly smaller than the number of Republicans who actually hate minorities solely for existing.

3). Again, a strawman that has no basis in reality. the bipartisan 2013 immigration bill would have secured the border and nearly all Democrats in Congress supported it, but of course those on the fringes of the GOP killed it because muh amnesty or something. so to recap on borders; we had a chance to secure the border, Republicans killed it. sit down and shut up.

4). I personally would not pledge allegiance to any country, but to say that the average Democrat shares this view point is yet again another strawman that's devoid of any factual basis. what most Democrats and progressives believe is that no one, particularly children, should be forced to say the pledge of allegiance. the United States is not a personality cult like North Korea - you don't have to tirelessly take an oath saying how much you love this country.

5). This is possibly my favorite part of your rant thus far. there are countless laws that Republicans "hate". look at how Republicans argue against our current abortion or immigration laws, and notice that they claim these laws are leading to death or disaster or whatever scare words they use. Democrats share the same view, and for good reason, on lax gun laws.


6). Every NFL player who kneeled has explicitly said they were not protesting the national anthem or America itself, but only police brutality and institutional racism - two very serious issues that must be addressed. you'll note that right-wingers had no problem with Tim Tebow kneeling during the national anthem in prayer... I wonder why.


7). The absolute base of the Democratic Party (women of color) are extremely religious, more so than most white Republicans. further more, the vast majority of elected Democrats are Christians or belong to some branch of Christianity. calling other religions weird and showing your Islamaphobia here is also a cute little side note. if you truly love this country, you would believe in freedom of - and freedom from - religion.


. They believe the electoral college is unfair  and/or outdated, and so did Donald Trump when he falsely claimed that Romney had won the PV and lost the EC in 2012 - what exactly does this have to do with the left's alleged hatred of America, again?


9). Again, are you under the impression that we live in North Korea? the fact that we have the right to hate our President is part of why America is a good country. also, Republicans hated Obama just as much as Democrats hated Trump so I'm unsure where you're even going with this one. most Democrats hate Trump because they believe his policies are wrong and are harming this country - that's the definition of patriotism.

10). Republicans also hate many of our Supreme Court justices. similarly to your last point, this one also makes no sense considering the exact same is true of Republicans.


11). Wanting to tax unhealthy things isn't something I agree with, but it's also far from being un-American or unpatriotic. people support this because they want Americans to be healthier, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that even though I disagree with this specific policy.

12). trans people have a right to use the bathroom of their choice, and the scare tactic/BS conspiracy theory that predators will use this and claim to be trans so they can assault women or little girls or something is totally invented by the right - like the idea of their being widespread voter fraud or a crisis on our Southern border. you're more likely to be raped by Roy Moore or Dennis Hastert than a sicko pretending to be trans so he can molest children.


13). A tiny, tiny, group of leftists (morons, to be more accurate) said that about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. again, this is an extremely fringe view so bringing it up as an example of why liberals hate America is like me saying Republicans hate America because they want to make it illegal to criticize the President.

And finally, I'll respond to your last statement here.

No prominent Democrats or liberals hate this country, they hate the injustices and issues that exist in this country and want to fix them. wanting to make this country better does not in any way imply it's not already great - unlike a certain slogan used by our current President. and I'd add that you have a history of racist and anti-Semitic comments, so I would find it really hard to say you love this country unconditionally when you seem to hate anyone who isn't exactly like you. America is not defined by race or religion or ethnicity or sexuality or any of those things, it's defined by a shared goal and a shared belief in our ideals. blindly accepting everything that goes on in this country in the name of patriotism is in fact the opposite of patriotism. true patriotism is not being afraid to criticize your country when she goes wrong, and working to make it a better place for all it's inhabitants. I love this country, I love the wide diversity of people you can find here - people of all different backgrounds, races, and creeds all coming together is fundamentally what America is about. our country has many flaws, but these can be overcome. I believe America is an exceptional country, and her people are among the best in the World. I do not like Donald Trump. I do not like the Republicans and what they want to do to this country - but I do love this country. I love it's people, I love it's ideals. I believe that our best days are ahead of us, and America will be even greater once our long national nightmare is over. I don't hate this country just because I hate the current Government, and I hope Republicans won't either once it becomes majority-minority, or once candidates they don't like win elections. we can disagree on policy, but we can all agree that this country is all we have, and we should make the best of it. we should embrace and love our fellow Americans, and we should put our differences aside and embrace the common goal of making sure this country lives up to what the founders intended.

[YE]

I feel that I should mention a modified version of a classic saying:

"A Co-sponsor is always a Supporter, but a Supporter is not always a Co-sponsor".

Guys, if you remember Obamacare, or any other law thats been passed, the bill always gets more support than just the co-sponsors. In fact, the number of Co-Sponsors at this point is pretty much pointless. The bill already has more than 100.

For instance, before this bill was released, there was a group called the "Medicare-for-All Caucus". These were people who, well, supported Medicare, for all. The group only has 78 members. This bill of a Medicare-for-all system has more than 100. In fact, some members of the M4A caucus arent even co-sponsors, but almost 100% guaranteed to vote for it.
(Florida has 5 members in the M4A caucus, there are only 3 co-sponsoring the piece, the two being Rep. Soto and Castor)

Nevertheless, this is a rather strong showing for M4A, and it seems that the pressure will be on to support the bill.

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

Naso certainly does a lot of complaining about the United States for someone who purports to love them unconditionally. In fact, I'm not sure that I could name any poster who is more negative about this country. He doesn't like most of the people here, how they live, or what they believe. Why doesn't he leave?

Naso complains about persons who are incapable of stating unqualified love for America.  People who can't say "I love America!" and leave it at that.  People who cannot unequivocally state that America is a GOOD Nation. 

Can YOU say "America is a GOOD Nation!" unequivocally?  Without any add-ons?  Just leaving it at that?

Nothing could be easier than calling the United States a "good nation" when you define everything that you dislike about it as un-American.

Since you're asking, I can easily write a response mirroring his screed, but with an emphasis on a different set of virtues:

You hate the guy who wrote Civil Disobedience, if you've even heard of him, you don't value this country's natural beauty, you abhor our major cities, you have only contempt for American pluralism, you despise our environmental laws, you have no appreciation for this country's art or literature, you hate our Congress, and you hold plastic pop culture and a highly personalized sense of cheap nostalgia above all of our higher national ideals.

Naso's perverse vision is not unapologetically "loving America." He doesn't get to define what the United States is from his La-Z-Boys and then tell the rest of us that we're un-American for having different values. Even if his posts often read more like some kind of public decree. All that's missing is a leaden seal.

*Yes, I realize that most Democrats are sad and pathetic enough to apologize for anything, and that many on the left are too preoccupied with guilt and suffering to recognize goodness, but there's a world outside these increasingly dolorous alternatives.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Ag, nations aren't inherently good or bad - they're collections of people creating a certain mythology out of a perception of historical myths and perceived cultural norms.

In that respect, it is vital, hugely vital, to be cognizant of the darker and less salubrious side of a nation's history - so as to prevent from eulogising a set of myths that are, at best, partially true. But at the same time, you can't condemn a nation on what it did in the past; unless you want to assign people with some sort of collective guilt base on what is, after all, a socially constructed identity.

[Politician]

It wont matter because by then OH would have become a titanium R state. Anyone would beat Brown by 15 points

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Omar isn't the problem, she's a symptom. She's being used as a stalking horse to test out these radical opinions with the voting body. They don't have to get a majority or anything close in support, they just have to get enough people strongly in support to cow the moderates into submission. But because she's a Somali Muslim, if it backfires "She's just one crazy lady, doesn't represent the party/left".

But if it works, make no mistake, in a few years there'll be a charismatic white man saying the same things and much worse. And as we're seeing in the UK, that's when things get dangerous for a lot of people.

Israel isn't in danger from this campaign. Israel will last exactly as long as human life on Earth. It's the rest of us who have to fear.

[Sestak]

There's an obvious answer to this question and a more esoteric one. The polls unanimous result in favor of the Bernie comparison tells you what you need to know about the obvious answer, so let's turn to the latter.

There's a contradictory diaspora of internet weirdos that defined Trump's image from the inception of his campaign. This doesn't describe most of his eventual supporters, but that's irrelevant, as the bog standard Republicans who made him president continue to share the cringe-worthy Pepe memes and Ben Garrison cartoons that originated from those dark and twisted places.

Sanders draws support from odd corners of the internet, but his appeal never had the same strange quality to it. However weird any group of his supporters is, their reasons for supporting Sanders remain straightforward. There wasn't the same quasi-religious quality that you would catch from Trump supporters when the talked about violence on the Southern Border, which itself resembled tones in which Ron Paul's followers once discuss the gold standard.

I submit that there is something more Trump-like than Bernie-like about how Yang has begun to vacuum support from every odd corner of the internet, often for reasons that defy easy analysis. I submit the following as suggestive:

My support for Yang is simply the long list of people in my life who are either f**ked up or dead because of the changing employment landscape here in America. It comprises most of my family, living and deceased. While I mistakenly placed all blame on immigration and Mexican drug cartels for these deaths, I am growing to suspect automation is the biggest factor, by far.
I suspect the Alt Right is going to wake up to this as well, and cast off the race hucksters, unite with neo-luddites, NEETS, and Incels types… to form a sleeper coalition for Yang and UBI. This is the supplemental population that combines with both black America and the lost Bernie tribes. We will see. In this lifetime, at least.

There's also something to how Yang's support remains highly concentrated among young men. If we set aside the received wisdom behind the Bernie-Bro stereotype, this difference is more striking. Sanders supporters skew young, but his platform does not hold special appeal to young men. Most of his supporters are women!

That doesn't describe Yang. The sex ratio among Yang's supporters, so far as we can say anything about them, looks a lot like the sex ratio among Trump's under-40 supporters. Young women, you will recall, voted overwhelmingly against Trump in both the primaries and the general.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Averroes used to annoy me but the man is simply killing it on the 2020 board. He is playing chess while the rest of us are playing checkers (except for SirWoodbury who is picking his nose).

But then if Beto ends up being nominated, or Sanders, that narrative goes poof.

Not at all. Republicans have been eager to connect every Democratic candidate with the intersectional left, or whatever you prefer to call it. That approach will be the same regardless of the nominee's race, background, or platform.

This is why the conversation around reparations is so worrying. It's analagous to the sort of conservative purity politics in which Mitt Romney got tangled during the 2012 primaries that he couldn't de-emphasize during the general.

The trailing candidates will have every incentive to roast the frontrunners for insufficient wokeness throughout the primaries, whether it's Sanders, Biden, Beto or anyone else. All that Republicans need to do is amplify these attacks, and, more importantly, whatever accommodations these spats cow the eventual Democratic nominee into making.

White identity politics will be the GOP's chief appeal to swing voters in 2020. Democrats must manage a coalition that spans numerous groups, including native-born whites. Republicans don't need to concern themselves with that. They understand that their electoral odds depend on maximizing the salience of how the political interests of white people differ from those everyone else.

[Atlas Force]

I don't know enough about 1930s American race relations to know whether or not that's an accurate description of the New Deal, but I do know that it's definitely not the most incontrovertible example of a racist FDR policy she could have chosen.

People, especially on the left, don't care much about racism against Asians these days because they're a "privileged" group. Just look at how Harvard is justifying its anti-Asian policies by claiming Asians have "bad personalities" and getting leftist professors to stick up for them.

I would respond more to racism against Asians if

1. Any Asian I ever knew in my life actually raised a complaint on the issue, which they haven't (my high school was 25% Asian for the record)
2. There was something more systemic in the nature of racism against Asians than not being admitted to Ivy League schools (note: working in an academic setting where Asians are disproportionately represented, racism against Chinese people is quite real, but I find it manifesting itself more on a personal level than a systemic level)
3. If it wasn't wielded as a cudgel in bad faith by conservatives who don't care about racism at all. I've heard much more complaining from white people about Harvard admissions than I ever have from Asians, and usually it's with the context that too many Blacks and Hispanics are admitted.

[Big Abraham]

It's a false dichotomy.

That's not how they saw it. 

Who is they? The scientists who developed the bombs? They were certainly not ok with it. The military? Not hugely - both Eisenhower, Nimitz and LeMay considered the Japanese effectively defeated already (and LeMay was not a man who was dovish in that regards). It's honestly shocking how many people - to this day - will naively repeat the Truman admin's justifications and their mysterious numbers as gospel.

The Japanese were a defeated power by 1945. Their military was dismembered, they had no raw resources and their cabinet was clearly trying to find ways to raise white flags without losing face. If I'm honest, a lot of the discourse relies on this weird racial trope that the Japanese are a naturally fanatical people (and if this notion that the Japanese would have all gone willingly to their deaths for the sake of Nippon is true, then why would the bombs even matter to begin with? It makes no sense).

The real reason the bombs were dropped had less to do with Japan, and more with what Truman (correctly) sensed would occur after WW2: a protracted showdown between the superpowers, and ensuring that the US could dictate terms of surrender. Why did the government explicitly rule out targeting a military base or giving a warning first (both actions which could have "demonstrated power" without leading to as many civilian deaths)? It was a show of strength - the US wanted to say that it had no qualms against using them in the future.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Neil Abercrombie is irrelevant, he lost a primary to David Ige, who almost lost a primary to Colleen Hanabusa. Most of the Hawaii politicians are irrelevant and seem to be hated by their own state

Hawaiian politics can be summed up by taking a look at one of the most ancient and respected texts of human history: the Bible, which is the essence of Christianity, looked up to by billions of followers worldwide.

The most important figure in the Bible, of course, is God. Neil Abercrombie can be compared to God for his omnipotent, unmatched strength, his eternal presence in Hawaiian politics, and his status as the expression of all that is good.

In the Bible, God is locked in an eternal battle with his nemesis Satan, the manifestation of evil. The Satan of Hawaii, of course, is David Ige. Ige tempted the people of Hawaii, much like Satan tempted Jesus. He made them turn away from Abercrombie, their God, and led them toward a path of unhappiness and destruction. Sadly, 2/3 of Hawaiians betrayed the man that did nothing but good for them, and gave in to heresy.

Abercrombie noticed the plight of the people, and sent Colleen Hanabusa (Jesus Christ) to rid them of their sins and bring in a new era. However, once again Satan worked his wicked magic and tempted them one final time. God Abercrombie has nothing but love for Hawaiians, though, so he will protect them from another Great Flood (the threat of climate change). In 2022, Satan's reign will finally be over and a kingdom of peace under heaven will be instituted.

[TJ in Oregon]

Yeah, that’s pretty much what I expected out of this situation over which #NeverTrump folks whipped themselves into hysteria and conspiracy theories. Entire media outlets and a large swath of the Democratic Party and electorate were willing to fan the flames of Russophobia and try to launch another Cold War on the basis of rumors that they wanted to be true.

Yes, certain high level figures in Trump’s circle are in serious legal trouble, but if any campaign was as thoroughly investigated as Trump’s, I wouldn’t be surprised to see similar levels of illegal activity. That doesn’t excuse it, but rather should highlight how corrupt the American political system really is.

Now, can CNN and MSNBC try focusing on real journalism again and can the Democratic Party try running on real issues in 2020? I’m glad this nonsense is finally over.

[GeorgiaModerate]

What many of us have wanted from the beginning is simply to know the truth. What Trump has wanted from the beginning is to keep us from knowing the truth. We’ve known for a while that Russia sponsored a sophisticated operation to interfere in the 2016 election. Trump didn’t even want us to know that much. The American people deserve to know what the scope of the Russian operation was, what could have been done differently to prevent it, and whether any Americans were complicit in it. The simple fact is that Trump has been opposed to letting the American people learn any of this. Whatever his reasons may be , he has been against the very idea of an impartial investigation. That is why a special prosecutor was necessary.

If the Mueller report concludes that Trump’s campaign was not actively involved in coordinating efforts with the Russian agents, then I will accept that conclusion.

But that doesn’t by itself mean that Trump is guilty of no wrongdoing. “No collusion!” is a shifting goalpost that Republicans have set up for themselves. But Trump can still be guilty of obstruction of justice even if there was no collusion. Why do none of the blue avatars here get this? If he took deliberate steps to sandbag an ongoing investigation, even if it was just because the investigation wounded his ego, then that is obstruction.

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

Jesus Christ. Democrats you literally have a wealth of issues to attack him on. His odious economic policies, his trade war, his tax cuts for the rich, his f***ing wall, his obsession with keeping the minimum wage low.

Why do you need to attack him on Russia when you can literally attack him on any of these?

(Having said this, I also agree with the previous post quoted here.)

[Joe Republic]

Why do Republicans hate children so much after they're born? Why are they trying to take away their healthcare and let them die from pre-existing conditions?

They take the contempt they have for women and the contempt they have for a woman’s personal autonomy and twist it into a fake, disingenuous “love” for the fetus.  They see abortion as a direct attack on male autonomy and their “entitlement” to have “their” woman/women subservient to them.

That is all of it.  This is proven by the way they deal with children once they are born.  They don’t give a f**k about fetuses or babies.  They’d rip the fetus out with a slotted spoon if it is what suited them, so long as it was the MAN making the choice.

What they really want is pro-choice for men.  Force the woman to have the child and then choose whether to stay or take off.

[Joe Republic]

The crisis is a humanitarian one, not a security one. If we had appropriate refugee policies, these people could be vetted and placed somewhere safe. Instead, they're forced to request asylum or try to get in illegally as they have no other options for a safe place to turn to.

Can you imagine if Germans hadn't been allowed in to the US during the political unrest in the 1820s-1840s? If the Irish had been kept it during the potato famine in the late 1840s? The Chinese Exclusion Act was disgusting and kept out immigrants of a certain culture while European immigrants continued to flow in all the way up to 1917.

Our country is doing well economically and there are more jobs than can be worked by the current residents. This issue will continue to get worse as Boomers are hitting retirement age. There is no logical reason to restrict these refugees. Obviously vetting is required, but beyond that, there is no reason to keep out people who have risked their lives to come here. Pretending this is a security risk or an "invasion" is a willful act of ignorance and hatred.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Just one more point on this: It wouldn't happen regardless. And everyone who knows how Washington works, gets that. Democrats need to win back the senate and pass a law to increase the number of justices. Taking back control of the senate is far from guaranteed. They would also need to do away with the filibuster, since Republicans would block such a measure. And would ending the filibuster even get to 50 or 51 votes, when there are 50-52 Democratic senators? Doubtful, to put it mildly. And secondly, where would this end? The next Republican president adds even more seats and once we have a 50 member Supreme Court? This whole thing of packing the court was never anything other than a talking point to fire up the base (that would later be disappointed).

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Use of the socialist label is Republicans' fault. Once everything outside of a narrow set of policies (conveniently championed by those slinging the label in the first place) is "socialist", it becomes incredibly easy for people outside of those policies to pick up the label. Now you have (popular) candidates openly campaigning under a label that implies the end of capitalism. The GOP's response has been only to retreat further into Boomerism rather than attempting to defuse society's growing tensions.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I don't think I can self-identify as a Socialist/Marxist anymore. This has been a long time coming and is a result of numerous complex factors, but I can finally accept and publicly acknowledge this important change. Now, where to go from here...

Social democratic?

I can’t say that, at this time, I identify with any specific ideological orientation. However, I do still hold most of my practical political views (for example, I’m still a Sanders supporter).

I don't think I can self-identify as a Socialist/Marxist anymore. This has been a long time coming and is a result of numerous complex factors, but I can finally accept and publicly acknowledge this important change. Now, where to go from here...

What issues caused this split?

The simple answer is that I’ve always had my reservations about some of the essential philosophical underpinnings of Marxism. Marx’s critiques of capitalism were largely correct and he has been a positive force in world history for elaborating his criticisms of that socioeconomic system; however, he failed to articulate a fully developed alternative, many of his predictions failed to materialize as capitalism evolved in unexpected ways, and there are flaws with his historical materialism, such as its lack of falsifiability (for an allegedly scientific theory). In addition, his criticisms of the division of labor and specialization wherein he promised a Socialist future where such divisions are abolished, seems rather unrealistic. It has also proven unrealistic that the proletariat class could ever prioritize the interests of their class on a universal level; cultural identity, whether ethnic or national, has proven too strong in nearly every historical instance that this has been tested.

Again, I find Marx incredibly insightful and a necessary voice of criticism for a deeply flawed socioeconomic system (capitalism), but that his theories aren’t entirely accurate or reliable outside of a late 19th century Western European context. I don’t know where, exactly, my beliefs are going from here. I still very much align with Social Democrats (such as Sanders) on most common political issues (especially economics), I still prize egalitarianism, and I still loathe capitalism. But, I can’t accept the Marxist perspective anymore.

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Let's not just continue to adhere to the silly "we're the good guys, they're the bad guys" mentality that you seem to have in the NATO/Russia debate.

At any rate Karpatsky, I do also want to say that I appreciate your time in responding to my posts; our relations may not always be the most cordial, but I always appreciate having an interesting discussion.

Since dead0 and Kalwejt have already responded to your post, I want to focus on this in particular because I think it is at the core of the issue, and if it can't be overcome there is little value to be had in further discussion. "Good guys-bad guys" is clearly an oversimplification. Like Kalwejt, I am not an unquestioning supporter of US foreign policy. I do not hold that US foreign policy makers always make good decisions, nor even that they never make unethical decisions. However, broadly speaking, and especially clearly when talking about NATO and Russia, it is true. Whether it is truly 'benevolent' or not is irrelevant and not really answerable (there are both internationalists and primalists in the US foreign policy establishment) - empirically, US influence advances human rights, rule of law, democracy, and anti-corruption.

Russian influence, by contrast, advances corruption, patronage, repression, and hyper-capitalist oligarchy.  Again, whether it is 'malevolent' is an irrelevant and ideological question - Russian foreign policy makers tend to be nationalists or Eurasianists, neither of which consider any of these things particularly important. This is not at all to claim that there is no corruption, patronage, repression, hypercapitalism, or oligarchy in the United States or its allies, but it is not at all comparable to the situation in Russia and its allies. In saying this, I am not relying on anything which could be called 'western propaganda' by any stretch. I have lived for years in Ukraine. I had the misfortune to live for a few years in Russia. I have met democrats and nationalists from both countries. I have relatives and friends who have participated in events like Euromaidan, and who have fought and died in the Donbass. I have heard at length the financial consequences for ordinary people of the war in Ukraine and of sanctions in Russia. I have been to grocery stores with no milk and thirty-dollar apples. I have met and listened to talks by American, Russian, and Ukrainian policymakers. I have nearly been run over by sports cars and limousines with blue sirens on top of them. I have paid bribes to policemen. I have seen protesters beaten and arrested. And I have for years on end listened to people like you in America or on the internet tell me that they know better what is right for these people.

I am not saying this to tell you you should just shut up and listen to me, but to put in perspective on what grounds I believe what you seem to see as naivety. To be honest, I do simply ignore most people who have the views you do, because to draw a moral equivalence between these two systems requires deep ignorance and misinformation about empirical reality. I understand that this is a difficult thing to discern from afar, because on top of the US media being extremely uninterested in foreign policy in general, the Russian government has gone to great lengths to spread misinformation, and it is clear from the tropes you use to discuss these issues that you are a victim of these efforts. This is neither surprising nor your fault - these efforts have unfortunately been quite successful in left-wing circles because of the preexistence of rightful criticism of US policy in other areas. I myself was banned from /r/LSC, on which I used to be an active participant, for pushing back on disinformation lines regarding a Ukrainian political event which I had been to. I'm not going to tell you for obvious reasons that you should go spend a few years in Russia and Ukraine, although that would be an extremely effective way to rid you of your current opinion. Instead, I would just ask you to take a step back from your ideological sources and shortcuts, even if you think they are reliable in other cases, and take a new view at what is happening and what outcome you actually think is best.