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

[Badger]

I wouldn't necessarily think that the "better economics -> better racial relations" argument would apply at all to year-to-year changes - or even to those who are already fully grown and developed. I think if there is an argument to be made there, it relates more to a sustained economic effort that eliminates negative racial, ethnic or other types of sentiment from forming and hardening in those who come of age after the fact. In effect, it would take multiple generations.

For instance (in the context of this argument), the Civil Rights Era wouldn't have blossomed in the way it did because a bunch of 40, 50 and 60-somethings at the time benefited from the New Deal over 20-30 years and likewise suddenly changed their minds: it would have happened because those being raised and coming of age in the 1940s and 1950s had far more opportunity and were less likely to blame others for their malaise.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Ok, is being Anti-Israel anti-semetic or did BDS talk about the Elders of Zion?  If the latter then yeah they'd be anti-semetic.

Here's the way I see it:

It's perfectly reasonable to think that Israel's settlements policy in the West Bank (occupied territories, as many would call it) is bad. It's reasonable to think that the Likud government's hardliners, prominently Netanyahu, and the ultra-hardline parties they coalition with, makes it harder to reach a resolution in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Those are reasonable takes, and I hold both of those positions.

Where BDS goes over the line is the idea that Israel should *uniquely* be punished, at a national level, for its "sins." Artists are pressured into not performing there. Academics are dissuaded from lecturing there. Universities are pressured into divesting from Israeli holdings (inspired by the SA apartheid campaigns of the 1980s). What's curious is that Israel is the ONLY country on earth BDS holds to this standard, and not a peep out of them about actual genocides, like Darfur or the Rohingya in Burma or the violent massacres of LGBT in Chechnya. Just Israel, for... building apartments in disputed territory?

That's not to say Israel should steam ahead with the settlement program. They shouldn't, in my view. But it's not hard to wonder if there's something, ahem, fundamental about Israel that makes it singled out by BDS when parties that are considerably worse get a shrug

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The national view of antifa is very different from the actual interactions I have had with antifa members in real life, and it makes it hard to give an answer. The anarcho-communist antifa members who smash stores, throw rocks at cops, and bring weapons to rightist protests are a group that I have always called - until this year - the "Black bloc." This was the term used on the local news, by politicians, and by most people I talked to in person, never "antifa."

In contrast "antifa" was basically a group that would hang out at bars to watch Sounders games, talk about politics, do some political volunteering projects (i.e. petitioning, planting trees, etc.) when there wasn't anything interesting going on. The only times I heard about them actually protesting was when they went to a Planned Parenthood that had a group of hecklers outside, and they tried to help people using the facility get in and out without facing their wrath or having to be on camera. Other than that, there just wasn't much of an antifa presence in any kind of public discussion.

That really changed this year when the black-bloc protesters seem to have adopted the antifa label, while other groups that were formerly antifa don't seem to use the label themselves much anymore. That's not to say there's absolutely no overlap between the groups, but my gut reaction is that antifa is the good side of the left-wing protest groups while black-bloc are the bad side. Should the terms continue to become increasingly synonymous, however, that probably won't be my gut reaction much longer.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Fun fact: Turns out Ramirez-Rosa told Biss' campaign that he'd always opposed BDS shortly before his selection.

Rosa has opposed and continues to oppose BDS at a state and municipal level (voted against a resolution on the city council). He believes there is room for a nuanced debate nationally, Biss does not. Only the former issue came up, for obvious reasons, in the selection process for Lieutenant Governor of Illinois.


In other news, Biss is announcing State Rep. Litesa Wallace (D-Rockford) as his new Lt. Gov. candidate today. Rep. Brad Schneider, who de-endorsed Biss over the Rosa pick, has declined to re-endorse.

There's room for nuanced national debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  There is not any such room for "nuanced" debate over supporting anti-Semitic hate groups like BDS nor should there be.  They must be condemned in the strongest possible terms for the same reasons that it's vital for politicians to unambiguously condemn white supremacists.    

...but BDS isn't a hate group? You can't repeat something over and over and expect people who disagree with you to suddenly take your stance on the issue. I'm not passionate about this issue and I'm actually more sympathetic to the pro-Israel side (I can understand why Sunrise and such have the opinions that they do since they and their family actually a personal connection to Israel) than a lot of others on the hard-left, but boycott, divestment, and sanctions is a legitimate tactic of protest against nation-states one deems to be oppressive. You can disagree with their labeling of Israel as such, but neither BDS nor DSA are "hate groups".

Since you are more nuanced on this than many who share your ideological orientation (to your credit!) I'll ask: why Israel? Why a liberal democracy where Arab Israelis have full political rights? Why is the same standard not applied to other countries? I used examples earlier of the pogroms against LGBT in Chechnya (an extreme version of general Russian persecution against queer people), the Rohingya attacks in Burma, An *actual* genocide in Darfur. It's absurd to compare these places to Israel and that's the point - there is no comparison. Like the earnest question every time a terror attack in the West happens, "Why aren't we talking about this instead?" If there's genuine concern for human rights, focus the energy on boycotting the Middle East's one stable democracy on thuggish regimes engaged in ethnic and religious cleansing. There's the real outrage.

<insert position that I don't really care about re: settlements, gaza blockade, etc etc that you're conveniently ignoring>

Like I'll be real honest - the emotions and feelings I have about either side of Israel/Palestine could fit in a thimble with room for cream and a little bit of simple syrup. But pretending that Israel is morally blameless and just perfect is at odds with the facts.

And like, the fact that you're saying "well, they're not Al-Shabab" isn't really filling me with confidence.

 I was personally opposed to DSA endorsing BDS just because I know a lot of people's berserk button is primed on the issue, and whatever good we'd do in supporting it is vastly outweighed by the s*** we'd catch because of it, but I really admire CRR for sticking by DSA's position on the issue. And let's be clear, CRR's personal position on the issue is NOT full endorsement of BDS, but he was willing to stand up to the berserk critics anyway.

But it's perfectly possible to be against settlements (at minimum I think they should be halted) or think Likud is terrible (I wanted Boogie or whatever his name was to win in '15) or oppose the Gaza Blockade (I thought it was ill-advised at best). You can hold those positions, all of which are within the progressive mainstream, while NOT supporting BDS. collectively punishing all Israeli people over policy disagreements is absurd. Not to mention the modern desire to conflate all  expressions of Jewishness with Zionism (see: Chicago "Dyke March"), and the historically illiterate contention that Zionism is a form of white supremacy or fascism

Israel is not perfect. Israel has, typically when egged on by Likudniks (or worse) made resolution more difficult. But most counties are not morally pure in any way, and BDS has a singular focus on just the one country, with logically spurious reasoning.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Are you referring to the Electoral College Calculator, and if so, when you speak of congressional districts, do you mean the NE/ME ones on there?

If so, make sure the "Display Results by Congressional District on Map" is checked and then edit the percentages/party for each CD in the box right above it, then click "Update Map and EV Totals":



As far as editing the code that can be extracted for forum posting by clicking the "Show Map Link", there are three numbers in the code for each state: party, electoral votes and shade.

So, in the instance of AL, it will appear by default as "&AL=2;9;6" - 2 indicates Republican (1 is Dem, 3 is "green", 4 is "yellow", etc), 9 indicates it has 9 electoral votes and 6 indicates the 60% shade of the first number you chose.

So if I wanted to make AL have 27 electoral votes and vote for the "green candidate" with >50% of the vote, I'd change those numbers to "&AL=3;27;5", as shown below:

With the exception of the ME/NE CD splits, however, there's no way to my knowledge to make CDs show up on the Electoral College Calculator. You can always use a program like MSPaint, Photoshop, GIMP, etc to color in congressional districts from other maps yourself if that is an issue.

[TheLeftwardTide]

The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy.

[Badger]

The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy.

Yeah, that's a damn good post indeed.

[The Govanah Jake]

The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy.

Yeah, that's a damn good post indeed.

This.

[NOVA Green]

The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy.

Yeah, that's a damn good post indeed.

This.

Agreed and QFT.

[JA]

The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy.

Yeah, that's a damn good post indeed.

This.

Agreed and QFT.

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

The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy.

Yeah, that's a damn good post indeed.

This.

Agreed and QFT.

I'd hardly call a comically ridiculous strawman a "good post".

[NOVA Green]

The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy.

Yeah, that's a damn good post indeed.

This.

Agreed and QFT.

I'd hardly call a comically ridiculous strawman a "good post".

Perhaps you are right regarding the standards of what qualifies as a "good post" on this thread...

I had to reread the OPs post within context multiple times to determine that the post was not sarcastic in nature, reflect upon many of the Bernie supporting communities in the '16 Dem Primary in rural and small-town areas.

So, I carefully parsed the OPs post

"The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy."


The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists)

It is true that MNCs overwhelmingly focus their major facilities investments within larger Metro areas throughout the US, rather than investing in facilities located in smaller cities/towns. There are obviously many different reasons for what are essentially business based decisions depending upon the particular industry/sector, workforce profile, infrastructure, etc....

Larger corporations do tend to skew more socially liberal at a Senior Management level, especially MNCs that have a large international employee base, global brand, as well as the top brass generally don't consider investing in communities where they need to drive 2-3 hours from the airport to their facility to conduct business.

Is there a "war being waged"? Certainly not in terms of deliberate and systematic attempt to oppress small town and rural areas. There is certainly a Class War going on in the US where Big Businesses that are publicly traded are ultimately beholden to Wall Street and the push for margins and extremely positive P&Ls are directly tied to the job performances (and bonuses) for the CEOs/CFOs etc....

Ultimately, when you live in smaller communities outside of the larger Metro areas, in many cases employment is heavily based upon a small handful of larger employers. For decades we have seen patterns from the Auto Sector that started closing down Union plants in the Midwest and opening up new Non-Union plants in the South initially. Meanwhile, you have this phenomenon called BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), subcontracting certain manufactured goods to external suppliers that pay much less with much worse benefits than existing "In-House" employees.

Suddenly MFN gets signed into law by Bush Sr only a few brief years after the massacre at Tiananmen Square which was a sleeping giant when it came to mass exportation of US jobs overseas.

Side show Bill Clinton signs NAFTA into law, despite the opposition of a large majority of Democratic US Senators and Reps....

I can talk about what I saw in a large manufacturing and R&D facility working for a Fortune 50 Company.... In roughly a five year period we went from 9,000 employees in the plant to 4,000. When they cut our hours briefly in the early '00s we were told by Management that we were eligible for NAFTA $$$ since the US Gvt had deemed job losses at the plant to directly a result of the MNCs shifting manufacturing operations overseases. Five years later, the facility was down to about 2,500 employees.


"
that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction"

Ok---- here's where I suspect you might be viewing the Strawman side of the argument. Do we really know these are the reasons as to why these same MNCs have been stiffing American workers?

It is true that tax breaks, which essentially is a transfer of wealth from taxpayers in various counties and municipalities directly into the pockets of the MNCs as part of a "race to the bottom" or effectively a "lowest bidder" style of contract award pits smaller cities and towns against each other to race to somehow capture the jobs that might materialize, as part of both a mixture of desperation combined with a naive belief that the benefits will outweigh the costs.

I could go through an entire list just in Oregon of communities that have given huge concessions to obtain major facilities/plants based upon the "X number of jobs generated", and ultimately the number of direct jobs that these companies provide is significantly lower than what they claimed in order to obtain these various concessions. In many cases, such as the Semiconductor Plant in West Eugene that taxpayers are still footing the bill for, the facility opened employed people for a few brief years, and then was mothballed.

The original plant was heavily opposed prior to development because of all of the Corp tax breaks from City and County Gvt, as well as being located on ecologically sensitive wetlands.

Now the article below was from '15, and the plant is still an industrial wasteland, and according to someone I know who used to work there on the Facilities side, the cracks in the concrete subflooring is so severe, that essentially the building would need to be torn down to even make it possibly habitable as a Factory/Office Space.

http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2015/11/mystery_solved_communications.html

Now the whole Mosque comment is a bit silly, but if we look at the comments about drug addiction, these are very real consequences of massive collapse of "company towns" in rural and small-town/city communities in the US.

Here in Oregon Meth abuse and addiction skyrocketed after the Bush Sr and Bush Jr recessions, when Timber Mills laid off huge numbers of workers. After the Great Recession, we started to observe a new phenomenon in the form of prescriptions from Doctors for synthetic Opioids....

More Americans die now from drug ODs than car accidents and suicides, and as a Middle Aged individual that actually lives and works in these tight knit smaller communities, I have seen first hand the impacts of the aftermath for family, friends, former co-workers, etc....

"Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy"

Ok--- the third sentence basically wraps the argument around as a final conclusion that directly references the Original Thread Topic (OTT?)

I believe it is likely true that a large majority of Atlas posters come from significantly higher than average MHI family backgrounds.... Now, one can be an underemployed and overeducated individual and post on Atlas, and be "like wait what.... I'm working $9 Hr while going to school, barely able to pay my rent and eat right, etc...)

Although I don't in any way shape or form presume to speak for the OP and their post, my interpretation is that the author/poster was attempting to present the perspective of many Bernie Sanders Dem Primary voters (Which contrary to the Media hype) tends to skew heavily Middle-Aged voters in Blue Collar occupations.

The Obama economic recovery largely bypassed smaller cities and towns, and although it's easier to get a job than it has been in awhile in many of our communities, they still pay crap wages. Wall Street gets a huge bailout from Bush Jr, while struggling homeowners get the shaft in a place where the sun don't shine.

HRC attempted to run on the Obama legacy, and actually I really like and respect Obama and his works....

Still, it's hard to make an argument to families and communities still struggling and rebuilding from the Great Recession that the same-old Centrist "New Way" Bill Clinton Dem Model of "jobs and prosperity for all" is the right solution, while almost ten years after the Great Recession we (Working Class Folks) are still picking up the pieces caused by a human made natural disaster of epic proportions.

[kcguy]

The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy.

Yeah, that's a damn good post indeed.

This.

Agreed and QFT.

I'd hardly call a comically ridiculous strawman a "good post".

Perhaps you are right regarding the standards of what qualifies as a "good post" on this thread...

I had to reread the OPs post within context multiple times to determine that the post was not sarcastic in nature, reflect upon many of the Bernie supporting communities in the '16 Dem Primary in rural and small-town areas.

So, I carefully parsed the OPs post

"The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists) that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction.

Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy."


The war against improving the standard of living outside the cosmopolitan major urban areas, waged by socially liberal laissez-faire capitalists (or corporatists)

It is true that MNCs overwhelmingly focus their major facilities investments within larger Metro areas throughout the US, rather than investing in facilities located in smaller cities/towns. There are obviously many different reasons for what are essentially business based decisions depending upon the particular industry/sector, workforce profile, infrastructure, etc....

Larger corporations do tend to skew more socially liberal at a Senior Management level, especially MNCs that have a large international employee base, global brand, as well as the top brass generally don't consider investing in communities where they need to drive 2-3 hours from the airport to their facility to conduct business.

Is there a "war being waged"? Certainly not in terms of deliberate and systematic attempt to oppress small town and rural areas. There is certainly a Class War going on in the US where Big Businesses that are publicly traded are ultimately beholden to Wall Street and the push for margins and extremely positive P&Ls are directly tied to the job performances (and bonuses) for the CEOs/CFOs etc....

Ultimately, when you live in smaller communities outside of the larger Metro areas, in many cases employment is heavily based upon a small handful of larger employers. For decades we have seen patterns from the Auto Sector that started closing down Union plants in the Midwest and opening up new Non-Union plants in the South initially. Meanwhile, you have this phenomenon called BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), subcontracting certain manufactured goods to external suppliers that pay much less with much worse benefits than existing "In-House" employees.

Suddenly MFN gets signed into law by Bush Sr only a few brief years after the massacre at Tiananmen Square which was a sleeping giant when it came to mass exportation of US jobs overseas.

Side show Bill Clinton signs NAFTA into law, despite the opposition of a large majority of Democratic US Senators and Reps....

I can talk about what I saw in a large manufacturing and R&D facility working for a Fortune 50 Company.... In roughly a five year period we went from 9,000 employees in the plant to 4,000. When they cut our hours briefly in the early '00s we were told by Management that we were eligible for NAFTA $$$ since the US Gvt had deemed job losses at the plant to directly a result of the MNCs shifting manufacturing operations overseases. Five years later, the facility was down to about 2,500 employees.


"
that views Everytown, USA as a blighted uncultured wasteland because they don't have a mosque or tax breaks for tech start ups or a tesla charging station or whatever - thus deserving to fall into ruin and drug addiction"

Ok---- here's where I suspect you might be viewing the Strawman side of the argument. Do we really know these are the reasons as to why these same MNCs have been stiffing American workers?

It is true that tax breaks, which essentially is a transfer of wealth from taxpayers in various counties and municipalities directly into the pockets of the MNCs as part of a "race to the bottom" or effectively a "lowest bidder" style of contract award pits smaller cities and towns against each other to race to somehow capture the jobs that might materialize, as part of both a mixture of desperation combined with a naive belief that the benefits will outweigh the costs.

I could go through an entire list just in Oregon of communities that have given huge concessions to obtain major facilities/plants based upon the "X number of jobs generated", and ultimately the number of direct jobs that these companies provide is significantly lower than what they claimed in order to obtain these various concessions. In many cases, such as the Semiconductor Plant in West Eugene that taxpayers are still footing the bill for, the facility opened employed people for a few brief years, and then was mothballed.

The original plant was heavily opposed prior to development because of all of the Corp tax breaks from City and County Gvt, as well as being located on ecologically sensitive wetlands.

Now the article below was from '15, and the plant is still an industrial wasteland, and according to someone I know who used to work there on the Facilities side, the cracks in the concrete subflooring is so severe, that essentially the building would need to be torn down to even make it possibly habitable as a Factory/Office Space.

http://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/index.ssf/2015/11/mystery_solved_communications.html

Now the whole Mosque comment is a bit silly, but if we look at the comments about drug addiction, these are very real consequences of massive collapse of "company towns" in rural and small-town/city communities in the US.

Here in Oregon Meth abuse and addiction skyrocketed after the Bush Sr and Bush Jr recessions, when Timber Mills laid off huge numbers of workers. After the Great Recession, we started to observe a new phenomenon in the form of prescriptions from Doctors for synthetic Opioids....

More Americans die now from drug ODs than car accidents and suicides, and as a Middle Aged individual that actually lives and works in these tight knit smaller communities, I have seen first hand the impacts of the aftermath for family, friends, former co-workers, etc....

"Bernie derangement syndrome is real on this board because the wealthier members resent being called the villains of society, and this board skews wealthy"

Ok--- the third sentence basically wraps the argument around as a final conclusion that directly references the Original Thread Topic (OTT?)

I believe it is likely true that a large majority of Atlas posters come from significantly higher than average MHI family backgrounds.... Now, one can be an underemployed and overeducated individual and post on Atlas, and be "like wait what.... I'm working $9 Hr while going to school, barely able to pay my rent and eat right, etc...)

Although I don't in any way shape or form presume to speak for the OP and their post, my interpretation is that the author/poster was attempting to present the perspective of many Bernie Sanders Dem Primary voters (Which contrary to the Media hype) tends to skew heavily Middle-Aged voters in Blue Collar occupations.

The Obama economic recovery largely bypassed smaller cities and towns, and although it's easier to get a job than it has been in awhile in many of our communities, they still pay crap wages. Wall Street gets a huge bailout from Bush Jr, while struggling homeowners get the shaft in a place where the sun don't shine.

HRC attempted to run on the Obama legacy, and actually I really like and respect Obama and his works....

Still, it's hard to make an argument to families and communities still struggling and rebuilding from the Great Recession that the same-old Centrist "New Way" Bill Clinton Dem Model of "jobs and prosperity for all" is the right solution, while almost ten years after the Great Recession we (Working Class Folks) are still picking up the pieces caused by a human made natural disaster of epic proportions.

The original post made no sense to me.  I think there were a lot of assumptions in it that have been circulated within a certain segment of the population, but I'm not part of that segment.  I know more about German overhang seats or British C-D-E social classes than I do about the political implications of mosques or tesla charging stations or whatever point the author was trying to make.  (Which is odd, because I have a lot of friends who were avid Bernie supporters, despite living the land of charging stations and the occasional mosque.)

Thank you, NOVA Green, for your clear and thorough explanation of the original post.  It was nice to see an actual high-quality post in the High-Quality Post thread.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Right. Moore is a more evil person but they would have the exact same policy impact in the Senate, with Moore just worsening the GOP's brand overall.

That's not entirely true though. Politicians do more than just vote on stuff. They sponsor bills and amendments that may never even exist without them. They interact with other politicians and can influence them by making deals or even campaigning for them or fundraising for them. They make public speeches than can influence people in their state and people who look up to them. They have relationships with PACs, donors, and companies that can influence goodness knows what. They hire staff. That impacts those people for sure. They provide constituent services and can theoretically choose how that takes place and if they're discriminating against certain constituents... like that story of the rep who forced Muslims to answer degrading questionnaire when they came to the office for help. Even if they don't discriminate, some people may feel more comfortable going to one politician for help over another. For example, I've asked Gillibrand for help with a personal matter and written to her on a few political issues, but I've never interacted with Schumer or my House rep at all.

It's tempting to say that it doesn't matter who's elected because of the vote similarities, but it really misses a lot of nuance about what politicians actually do. It's why I was an enthusiastic Mark Begich supporter despite disagreeing with him on several issues and despite a lot of progressives crusading against him. His presence there was a massive boon to Alaska natives that most people will never know about because his tenure was partially about being their advocate in Washington. I mean, that's not to say that Luther Strange would be this amazing guy by comparison to Roy Moore. Each has their own unique shortcomings, but they aren't the same person.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

It's neat how this is a reverse of the usual "But that's why Trump won" argument.

"If you wern't being such thin-skinned snowflakes, we would never have kneeled during the anthem!"

Also:

Arab Muslims were responsible for 9/11.  And many Arab Muslims in America, at a minimum, have a degree of sympathy for Islamic Jihadists.

WTF? What you said was basically what many Americans believed about Japanese-Americans before the government forced them into internment camps.

https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/articles/opinion-polls.aspx

26% of younger American Muslims believe suicide bombings are justified.  (Pew Research)

19% of American Muslims believe violence is justified in attempts to establish Sharia Law.  (Pew  Research)

20% of American Muslims believe violence is justified to advance the cause of Islam.  (Pew Research)

33% of American Muslims believe Sharia Law should be superior to the Constitution.  (CSP Poll)

49% of Muslim-Americans say they are "Muslim first", 26% American first.  (Pew Research)

21% of Muslim-Americans say there is a fair to great amount of support for Islamic extremism in their community.  (Pew Research)

This is from polls conducted by public research firms, not information from conversations with Trump Rally attendees.  

FB, here's a pro tip. Don't take your stats for me website specifically drawn up to explain why Muslims are in fact the exception rule for peaceful religions and why they should be kept out. They just might be a Teensy bit slanted.

Go ahead and Google Pew research views American Muslims. Just in the last 2 months you'll find some of the following

If memory serves, 84% of American Muslims believe it is wrong to kill civilians to advance a political government goal. That compares to only approximately 67% of non Muslim Americans. In other words good old Americans like you and me, FB, are willing to accept collateral damage from drone strikes and bombing raids at a much higher rate than Muslim Americans are willing to tolerate suicide bombers.

A majority of American Muslims believe that the teachings of the Koran must be reinterpreted 4 modern day circumstances. Kind of ironic that you're willing to both impose the worst versions of a littlest interpretation of the Bible on secular society, just as you're willing to and turf with the worst verses of the Quran strictly against Muslim Americans to a degree that even they do not.

The percentage of American Muslims who believe that more than one version or teaching of Islam is acceptable as a post only the traditional interpretation of Islam is comprable to the same percentage of American Christians who believe the same, in the low 60 percentile range. Again, rather ironic considering you are in the minority there as well.

Finally, 92%-- let that number sink in-- 92% of American Muslims say they are proud to be American. Given all the shenanigans going on with the various sports teams protests, I wouldn't be surprised that number was lower among the non-muslim American population.

Again, choose your statistics source from a more legit vendor. It might actually change your views

[Anti-Bothsidesism]

Why would I vote it an HP when (a) I've never been there and (b) the AfD winning with 27% of the vote doesn't mean the state is bad. Trump won a higher percentage share of the vote in California, Massachusetts, New York, and even your beloved Hennepin County, MN than the AfD won in Saxony. Not to mention 64% of AfD voters were protest voters; I'd wager the vast majority of protest voters were from Eastern Germany and of working-class background. They don't necessarily agree with the party's platform; they basically are (rightfully) pissed off at all the other parties and the current state of things where they live.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

JerryArkansas has become one of the nastiest and most ignorant posters on this site, and that is no small feat over the past several months.

His political views are not as inherently toxic as those of many others here, but anyone who defends his brand of aggressive belligerence has some things to learn about how people get along with one another.

Of course it has become fashionable to bash politeness in certain political circles - whether politeness is dismissed as a form of political correctness, or privilege, or bourgeois values, or whatever - but how many of you would want to invite someone who behaves like Jerry to a party?

It's as if we've forgotten the idea that it's possible to be both highly political, even radical, while also being charming and charismatic. Never mind any notions that we have things to learn from each other.

You can't build a functioning community without norms governing acceptable behavior that allow people to feel comfortable most of the time. Almost everyone gets cranky or loses their temper, but it's quite another thing for it to be a constant din. Particularly when that begins to mix with an illiberal enthusiasm for street brawling and political violence.

The most that we can hope is that bitter and vicious posters like Jerry, Hagrid, or Alice are only using this site for drunken venting and nothing more. Maybe they're all pleasant and tolerant people in their personal lives. God knows, no adult could function from day-to-day treating people as they do here.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Yes and no.

In broad terms of what he says he fits the definition of fascism I learned in school perfectly. He talks about new national greatness (Make America Great Again), hyper-nationalist (America First), populist ("drain the swamp"). He also fits other parts of classical fascist regimes: scapegoating and fearmongering minorities, alliance with amoral big businesses, anti-intellectualism, racism, shallow religiosity. Trump walks like a fascist, looks like a fascist, and quacks like a fascist.

But... he's an insane, stupid, incompetent liar. So maybe he's just an aspirational fascist. Or maybe really he's just an incoherent mess, and his various insanities and personal evil look more like fascism than anything else.

And in terms of results, he's a terrible fascist. Fascism, while it may (or may not) only have a minority or plurality of the populace in a fascist state supporting it, typically tries to control the state, instill unity through fear, propaganda, and an authoritarian government, and then get aggressive. Trump isn't doing that.

Instead, Trump is tearing us apart. He's weakening our international position, pushing our government into mostly-dysfunctional shambles, and does everything possible to set us at each others' throats.

Judged by his actions instead of his words, Trump doesn't look like a fascist, but like someone bent on destroying the US.

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

There's also another way of looking at it if you broaden "SJW Politics" to basically encompass any policies against racism, sexism or other social justice issues like some do.  Which is that, quite frankly, that sort of stuff has been an integral part of "the left" (using that term in an incredibly broad context) for over a hundred years at least, and this idea that you need to stop talking about those issues in order to bring white folk back into your group is both misguided (since people who care about anti-racism and similar issues are a significant number of people, not to mention that candidates have managed to string the two together in the past) and also quite frankly wrong; since there are some things that a party should stand for even if they are unpopular just because they are the right things to do.  Its also rather insulting to white people in a way...

[Lord Admirale]

Behold the privileged white dude, heroically deciding what other people's identities are allowed to be.

Oh yeah, definitely me the privileged one who drives a one year old Lexus instead of a decade old economy model car and lives in a spacious luxury apartment instead of what's basically a small concrete box that doesn't even have air conditioning in a squalid inner city slum, yep that's me.

I mean I'm so privileged I have so much money I can easily afford to fly out to my girlfriend at least once a month instead of having to save up each time to go visit her, and it's not like I'm making these posts while downing some rum because I'm so upset that she probably can't afford to make it here in October and I don't know if I can help her out and am in f ucking tears. Super-privileged me. Those snowflakes at those private college that cost five figures a semester in tuition could never have it this good.

I don't usually like BTRD's posts, but damn.

[JA]

Behold the privileged white dude, heroically deciding what other people's identities are allowed to be.

Oh yeah, definitely me the privileged one who drives a one year old Lexus instead of a decade old economy model car and lives in a spacious luxury apartment instead of what's basically a small concrete box that doesn't even have air conditioning in a squalid inner city slum, yep that's me.

I mean I'm so privileged I have so much money I can easily afford to fly out to my girlfriend at least once a month instead of having to save up each time to go visit her, and it's not like I'm making these posts while downing some rum because I'm so upset that she probably can't afford to make it here in October and I don't know if I can help her out and am in f ucking tears. Super-privileged me. Those snowflakes at those private college that cost five figures a semester in tuition could never have it this good.

I don't usually like BTRD's posts, but damn.

BRTD's post belongs in the thread of ignorant posts. Leave it to you of all people to post it here.

[Lord Admirale]

Behold the privileged white dude, heroically deciding what other people's identities are allowed to be.

Oh yeah, definitely me the privileged one who drives a one year old Lexus instead of a decade old economy model car and lives in a spacious luxury apartment instead of what's basically a small concrete box that doesn't even have air conditioning in a squalid inner city slum, yep that's me.

I mean I'm so privileged I have so much money I can easily afford to fly out to my girlfriend at least once a month instead of having to save up each time to go visit her, and it's not like I'm making these posts while downing some rum because I'm so upset that she probably can't afford to make it here in October and I don't know if I can help her out and am in f ucking tears. Super-privileged me. Those snowflakes at those private college that cost five figures a semester in tuition could never have it this good.

I don't usually like BTRD's posts, but damn.

BRTD's post belongs in the thread of ignorant posts. Leave it to you of all people to post it here.

Wow, you're one great guy. As we know, I am the most ignorant person on this website. Not Krazen and others, but I, Admiral President, am the most ignorant person of all the people on this website.

Leave it to unironic S-?? users to make smug and baseless accusations. That seems to be their purpose on this website.

[JA]

Behold the privileged white dude, heroically deciding what other people's identities are allowed to be.

Oh yeah, definitely me the privileged one who drives a one year old Lexus instead of a decade old economy model car and lives in a spacious luxury apartment instead of what's basically a small concrete box that doesn't even have air conditioning in a squalid inner city slum, yep that's me.

I mean I'm so privileged I have so much money I can easily afford to fly out to my girlfriend at least once a month instead of having to save up each time to go visit her, and it's not like I'm making these posts while downing some rum because I'm so upset that she probably can't afford to make it here in October and I don't know if I can help her out and am in f ucking tears. Super-privileged me. Those snowflakes at those private college that cost five figures a semester in tuition could never have it this good.

I don't usually like BTRD's posts, but damn.

BRTD's post belongs in the thread of ignorant posts. Leave it to you of all people to post it here.

Wow, you're one great guy. As we know, I am the most ignorant person on this website. Not Krazen and others, but I, Admiral President, am the most ignorant person of all the people on this website.

At least you admit it. Kudos!

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

The sexism happening on social media, and just overall meaningless hate is horrific... how the f**k is it a bad thing that the Doctor is female?! It's not, ok, just deal with it
/rant

Maleness is at the core of the Doctor, as is generally understood. Females deserve more leading roles, but the best solution for that is new female characters, not messing with old characters that are historically male. It just robs a character of much-needed consistency.
It'd be like if they wanted to make James Bond a female. Such an effort would be terrible and bad.
The higher ups have made a bad decision re: the new Doctor, no doubt about it.  If Jodie was a good actor (I'll willing to believe that being the case) they should have made her a side character, a companion. And made her important, like how Romana was.

I'm sorry, but this is just a load of crap.  "Maleness" is not a feature that was integral to the Doctor - and many of the other big things have been dropped over time - remember for years the Doctor was always meant to be an old grandfather type person; until they went younger with Tom Baker and didn't ever really go for an actor that appeared older again until Capaldi.  There's also the fact that timelords can regenerate into the opposite sex, it can be done well (Michelle Gomez was the best master ever, imo) and so why not?  In a television programme that's all about gradual evolution; its something worth giving a go.  Attitudes like the one you have, namely vigorously against any kind of change and locking the series in a set hole, led to the series being cancelled in 1989 and not returning for 16 years (in a very different format).  It freshens the series up, which is always a good thing (and last time they did it they got a really good series out of it, so...).   Also, for what its worth, the original producer (who was behind the first few series back in the 60s) said more than a couple of times before she died that she would support there being a female doctor were there an appropriate person to do it; which I think works in this case.

Also, its not like Romana was really used properly on the TV shows - on the audio plays yeah sure, but on television they just stuck her in the same old generic assistant role.  To suggest that actresses should only be considered for that role even though the Doctor isn't, well, a gendered role is a perfect example of sexism; and that doesn't change no matter how much you try to coach it in feminist language.

[Kamala]

BWP, I would like to be  of my . What's up with that?