Yup, there are major problems with our culture. I suspect that if strict gun control laws were ever passed, it simply lead to more violence and death than what we have currently. People will kill to keep what they see as their rights, and people will kill to own illegal items. The only hope of reducing violence is at a values level, to change the culture.
The desire to change culture is admirable, but remember that human beings have not changed very much in the last 12,500 years--even the most ancient cities had sections where the rich lived in luxury behind walls, the poor lived on the street, street gangs fought over territory, and there was corruption among both politicians and local law enforcement--and we aren't going to change very much in the next 12,500 years, either. Once the first colony is established on Mars it will eventually have human trafficking, armed robbery, and murder.
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I had to laugh at Tillerson's press conference. That was a case of "get out there and proclaim your loyalty and solidarity or you are fired".
No, that won't work because Congress is still forbidden from enacting nationwide gun control legislation, as I have noted before. Individual States have no such restriction, of course, and may enact whatever gun control legislation they want...but...as has also been noted, if the neighboring State does not have similar laws then any gun control law in State A is easily avoided by driving over to State B. Unless State A is going to have inspection checkpoints at every road coming into the State--good luck with that--then people will bring guns into State A. Police in State A also can't go door-to-door looking for guns without a warrant, and a search warrant can be issued only for probable cause. No judge is going to issue a blanket search warrant for every house in a city. Even if they did, you can see the police coming and then you just move your guns to the trunk of your car, which is not named in the warrant, and you park your car on the street--now it is on public property and cannot be considered part of your personal residential property.
All this guy's suggestion will do is make the white supremacists buy even more guns because they will think an armed race war is imminent.
If I own a clothing store and you ask me "do a lot of people buy this style of shirt?" and I tell you "oh, my, yes--that's the last of my stock so I'll need to reorder soon" I am not committing fraud, only lying, and that is a crime only when I am under oath.
Fraud basically boils down to at its simplest "deception for personal gain", so yes, that would be fraud. In this case, misrepresenting the popularity of a shirt is the deception for the purpose of securing a sale (the gain).
'I tell you "oh, my, yes--that's the last of my stock so I'll need to reorder soon"' and I'm not lying = not fraud.
'I tell you "oh, my, yes--that's the last of my stock so I'll need to reorder soon"' and I'm lying = fraud.
@Quickblade I admit that I would probably have to dig into the legal definition of fraud so I can't really disagree with you. My retail example also really isn't quite the same as what they were doing with those condos, either--the amounts of money involved are wildly different.
Democrats have put together 100 co-sponsors in the House and 38 in the Senate on a bill that simply bans modifications that make semi-automatic rifles into automatic ones. This is wholly reasonable, and STILL won't go anywhere. But even the NRA privately knows how dangerous they are. Look:
Damning, deep piece on Breitbart and that Alt-right's attempts to cultivate white nationalism, and the money behind it (money that has been backing Trump since the campaign). Again, this is news to no one who has been paying attention, but it's nice to compile pieces of information in one place in a compelling narrative:
President Trump pushes for the Senate to launch an intel panel probe of 'Fake News Networks' in U.S.
What could go wrong with the government deciding who is "Fake News" and who is not? If an at all legitimate investigation came out of this, which is unlikely to get a real investigation, then Fox News should be shut down because they are nothing but fake news and biased opinion news entertainment. But that is not what Trump is wanting.
Trump wants to silence the people that are reporting the truth about what he is doing. He wants to do this so he can tell his story. "This is the greatest crowd ever!" He wants that to be the only version of events. He wants to lie with impunity basically.
Less than a year and he's making another attempt to destroy democracy. And people are going along with it.
Damning, deep piece on Breitbart and that Alt-right's attempts to cultivate white nationalism, and the money behind it (money that has been backing Trump since the campaign). Again, this is news to no one who has been paying attention, but it's nice to compile pieces of information in one place in a compelling narrative:
Having read the article, the part that disturbs me most is not actually the affiliation with racists. I do find it significant that Yiannopoulos seemed more bothered by the optics of racism than its actual existence, but what most concerns me is the multiple expressions by Yiannopoulos and his friends of not just satisfaction, but glee at the prospect of this or that liberal losing some argument or being upset about something.
I've been a liberal all my life, and I've never felt any of this weird... contempt for the American right. I never took joy in the fact that a Republican somewhere was angry about something. When I see a GOP politician flub a question on TV, I don't laugh at his expense. I found the Tea Party silly in some ways, but I didn't laugh at them. I'm not happy when Trump makes a mistake. I'm not happy when something bad happens on his watch, or when he says something that invites scorn. I didn't vote for Hillary because conservatives would be upset if she won, as I've heard some people say is why they voted for Trump--I voted for her based on her platform. And my goal in this thread has never been to win arguments or beat the "other side."
I confess I don't fully understand it. I don't understand this weird mindset that the important thing is to beat and humiliate the enemy, or shut down their voices, or throw around "clever" insults, or win some petty culture war on social media.
I just think... why? What gives someone the idea that the most important thing in politics is to stick it to "those people?" Out of all the motives for our politics, why would the most important one be spite?
These guys are your classic vocal minority. I realize that, and it's worth repeating. Personally, I only know three people who hold this mindset, two conservatives and one liberal. But even if you do live in an echo chamber of some sort, even if you have never actually spoken with somebody on "the other side," even if all your friends have the same views and you've never considered the possibility you might be wrong...
...how do you get from righteous indignation to spite?
How do you go from "These ideas are bad for the country" to "I want these people to be unhappy?"
Perhaps the spite came first... It may be that the desire to prove yourself, preferably through crushing others, antedates the ideas that some people subscribe to and the allegiances they ostensibly hold.
Having read the article, the part that disturbs me most is not actually the affiliation with racists. I do find it significant that Yiannopoulos seemed more bothered by the optics of racism than its actual existence, but what most concerns me is the multiple expressions by Yiannopoulos and his friends of not just satisfaction, but glee at the prospect of this or that liberal losing some argument or being upset about something.
I've been a liberal all my life, and I've never felt any of this weird... contempt for the American right. I never took joy in the fact that a Republican somewhere was angry about something. When I see a GOP politician flub a question on TV, I don't laugh at his expense. I found the Tea Party silly in some ways, but I didn't laugh at them. I'm not happy when Trump makes a mistake. I'm not happy when something bad happens on his watch, or when he says something that invites scorn. I didn't vote for Hillary because conservatives would be upset if she won, as I've heard some people say is why they voted for Trump--I voted for her based on her platform. And my goal in this thread has never been to win arguments or beat the "other side."
I confess I don't fully understand it. I don't understand this weird mindset that the important thing is to beat and humiliate the enemy, or shut down their voices, or throw around "clever" insults, or win some petty culture war on social media.
I just think... why? What gives someone the idea that the most important thing in politics is to stick it to "those people?" Out of all the motives for our politics, why would the most important one be spite?
These guys are your classic vocal minority. I realize that, and it's worth repeating. Personally, I only know three people who hold this mindset, two conservatives and one liberal. But even if you do live in an echo chamber of some sort, even if you have never actually spoken with somebody on "the other side," even if all your friends have the same views and you've never considered the possibility you might be wrong...
...how do you get from righteous indignation to spite?
How do you go from "These ideas are bad for the country" to "I want these people to be unhappy?"
What you are describing is simply the latest manifestation of a trend which has been growing for quite some time now--a hyper-aggressive, hyper-competitive, extreme zero-sum-game mode of thought. I first noticed it when I saw the phrase "second place is the first loser". That phrase has always irked me because my philosophy has for a long time been that second place is the best. If you are in first place, the next time the competition is held you have nowhere to go but down and someone will eventually beat you; however, in order to stay in second place you have to remain competitive enough to get there and being in second reminds you that although you are very good you aren't "the best", a mindset which sets you up for disaster by becoming complacent.
Anyway, under the mode of thought being employed by these people it isn't enough that I win because you must also lose. This is coupled with the fact that "winning" or "losing" is also an indicator of you and your value as a person--I won because I am "better" and thus *deserved* to win, which also means that you are "worse" and/or that you somehow *deserved* to lose. Finally, you must be made to feel like the loser you are--if you aren't a loser, then why didn't you win?
Now that I think about it, I saw this mentality before "second place is the first loser". I remember stories from the 1990s of parents and coaches at little league baseball games not only yelling at the kids for underperforming, but excoriating them in front of everyone, as if yelling and berating them would somehow make them play better.
Like I said, this mentality made itself mainstream and seeped into politics. Coupled with the anonymity of the Internet--I can flame you and there really isn't much anyone can do about it other than ban that profile, but at least I got my shots in and put you in your place, you loser--it produced a broader environment where discussions of political or social ideas or events took on the mentality of a "second place is the first loser"-type sporting event. I can only win the discussion if you also lose. The other side must be demonized, hence the use of terms like "Republicrap", "Republitard", "Demoncrat", "libtard", or "convservonazi" which fill the comment sections of news stories.
@jjstraka34 has mentioned AM talk radio before. Those radio talk shows aren't the cause of this but merely another symptom of this kind of mentality. It isn't just the far-right talk show hosts, either, because on the other side The Young Turks don't mind getting in your face and telling you how you are wrong.
It is this mentality which is destroying everything. I am certain you have heard the phrase "it isn't personal, it's just business" before. There was a corollary for that in "it isn't personal, it's just politics" but once politics latched onto this hyper-aggressive competitiveness it *became* personal. An event which happens thousands of kilometers away from your location in a place you have never heard of--a local county clerk refuses to approve a marriage license for a homosexual couple--suddenly becomes a personal affront, as if the event were about you. This will cause people who have nothing to do with the event to get into each other's faces and tell each other how they are *wrong*. Not just "incorrect", mind you, but *wrong*--the connotations of the words are different.
I always go back to my Babylon 5 analogy because it fits perfectly. Whether it is the Drazi fighting over green or purple or the Vorlons and Shadows themselves, when two groups who have different views keep escalating their conflict and allowing to spill over into every aspect of life, eventually the conflict itself takes on a life of its own and forces us into equivalence classes--we are no longer simply people with differing views but different people altogether who have absolutely nothing in common. Since your side is wrong, which means that you and your side are inherently wrong by your very nature, how can I have anything in common with you since I and my side are right?
Damning, deep piece on Breitbart and that Alt-right's attempts to cultivate white nationalism, and the money behind it (money that has been backing Trump since the campaign). Again, this is news to no one who has been paying attention, but it's nice to compile pieces of information in one place in a compelling narrative:
Having read the article, the part that disturbs me most is not actually the affiliation with racists. I do find it significant that Yiannopoulos seemed more bothered by the optics of racism than its actual existence, but what most concerns me is the multiple expressions by Yiannopoulos and his friends of not just satisfaction, but glee at the prospect of this or that liberal losing some argument or being upset about something.
I've been a liberal all my life, and I've never felt any of this weird... contempt for the American right. I never took joy in the fact that a Republican somewhere was angry about something. When I see a GOP politician flub a question on TV, I don't laugh at his expense. I found the Tea Party silly in some ways, but I didn't laugh at them. I'm not happy when Trump makes a mistake. I'm not happy when something bad happens on his watch, or when he says something that invites scorn. I didn't vote for Hillary because conservatives would be upset if she won, as I've heard some people say is why they voted for Trump--I voted for her based on her platform. And my goal in this thread has never been to win arguments or beat the "other side."
I confess I don't fully understand it. I don't understand this weird mindset that the important thing is to beat and humiliate the enemy, or shut down their voices, or throw around "clever" insults, or win some petty culture war on social media.
I just think... why? What gives someone the idea that the most important thing in politics is to stick it to "those people?" Out of all the motives for our politics, why would the most important one be spite?
These guys are your classic vocal minority. I realize that, and it's worth repeating. Personally, I only know three people who hold this mindset, two conservatives and one liberal. But even if you do live in an echo chamber of some sort, even if you have never actually spoken with somebody on "the other side," even if all your friends have the same views and you've never considered the possibility you might be wrong...
...how do you get from righteous indignation to spite?
How do you go from "These ideas are bad for the country" to "I want these people to be unhappy?"
There seem to be no actual policies on the right, exemplified by their health care "plans". They were making them up as they went along. There was no real interest in improving the health care of anyone in the country. It was 100% about erasing a liberal policy milestone, and stripping who they PERCEIVED to be liberals of something they didn't deserve. There was nothing else behind it. Every medical group and medical advocacy group in the country saw through them. Point being, liberals believe in government, and, in doing so, are interested in enacting policies that try improve things. They believe these things can work. Obamacare has been most effective in the red states that took the Medicaid money. No one wishes they hadn't. We wish ALL of them had. I DO harbor contempt for the election of Trump, but I don't presume to punish them by saying they don't deserve healthcare.
There are no policies on the right because they don't believe in government other than as a mechanism to funnel money to the upper 1/10 of 1%. So the entire exercise of Republican governance becomes an exercise in spite. They'll remove protections for trans citizens and ban them from the military for no discernible reason. They'll attempt to defund Planned Parenthood where massive amounts of women receive low-cost cancer screenings, simply because a very small percentage of what they do is provide a legal procedure (abortion). There is no possible way most people can support Trump on policy because he doesn't have any policy. He hasn't done a thing he said he was going to do, either because it was a lie to get elected, or because he and the Congress are too incompetent to get it done. So there is nothing to cheer or point to on that front. The only thing that you can point to is that Trump makes liberals sad, and as long as he does that, that is going to be enough, because that is what is holding his coalition together. The only driving force behind any decision seems to be animated by "We'll do the opposite of what Obama did" and "Make sure it makes liberals cry".
Talking about lack of policies I see it's being strongly trailed that Trump is about to de-certify the Iran nuclear agreement. So it appears the US wishes for an international agreement designed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons (and with strong inspections to ensure that the agreement is being kept) to be ended and replaced with ... nothing?
The only reason I've seen given for this is that Iran is acting against US interests by destabilising other countries in the Middle East. That may well be true from the US perspective (from the Iranian perspective of course they could claim exactly the opposite), but I really don't see what that's got to do with this deal. Can anyone explain how isolating Iran, encouraging them to develop nuclear weapons and then intervening militarily is going to help stabilise things - or be good for the US?
Is it really possible that Trump is doing this purely because Obama helped broker the deal originally or is there perhaps some personal financial interest of Trump's at stake here? I really hope though that someone can point out a different angle on this, showing how breaking the deal can end positively, as at the moment this just looks depressing to me.
"U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy decided to resign from Congress Thursday — one day after the beleaguered Congressman said he would serve out his term, and just two days after the Post-Gazette reported claims that he mistreated staff and urged a woman to have an abortion despite his anti-abortion politics."
Talking about lack of policies I see it's being strongly trailed that Trump is about to de-certify the Iran nuclear agreement. So it appears the US wishes for an international agreement designed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons (and with strong inspections to ensure that the agreement is being kept) to be ended and replaced with ... nothing?
The only reason I've seen given for this is that Iran is acting against US interests by destabilising other countries in the Middle East. That may well be true from the US perspective (from the Iranian perspective of course they could claim exactly the opposite), but I really don't see what that's got to do with this deal. Can anyone explain how isolating Iran, encouraging them to develop nuclear weapons and then intervening militarily is going to help stabilise things - or be good for the US?
Is it really possible that Trump is doing this purely because Obama helped broker the deal originally or is there perhaps some personal financial interest of Trump's at stake here? I really hope though that someone can point out a different angle on this, showing how breaking the deal can end positively, as at the moment this just looks depressing to me.
President Donald Trump hosted his top military brass and their spouses for dinner at the White House on Thursday night. The group posed for a photo. Then this exchange with reporters happened:
Trump: "You guys know what this represents? Maybe it's the calm before the storm."
Perhaps he's planning on attacking Iran after decertifying the nuke deal. Unlike N. Korea which definitely already has Nukes it seems like Iran doesn't - so Trump can go ahead and attack them. Seems like it's incentive for them to actually get nukes to protect themselves from irrational Americans they have been warning their people about. Well now we actually have one of those as President.
@Grond0 The problem with the Iran deal is that it is not a treaty, only a political commitment which is technically not legally binding. Neither side really has to follow through on what they said they were going to do but it is noteworthy that Iran has more to gain than we do by adhering to the agreement--they will receive anywhere from $30 billion to $100 billion when currently-frozen assets are released.
On the one hand, Iran is a country with a history of doing things like outlawing certain haircut styles for men and so you cannot seriously negotiate with people like that. Also, I doubt Iran is really complying with the agreement--they are still working on uranium enrichment with an eye towards weapon development, only we don't know where they are doing it yet. On the other hand, perhaps they really are complying because they want the money more than they want enriched uranium. I am not an analyst in a cube in a windowless building somewhere so I don't have firsthand information about the situation in Iran.
The United States is supposed to be a pillar of stability in the world order; one of its most important roles is to maintain the peace, what we call the Pax Americana, which has been in place since 1945. Folks have said that maybe it's good that Trump is "unpredictable," but I don't see how these statements do anything more than cause confusion and alarm.
If we were in an actual war with an actual nation--instead of just being indirectly involved in scattered regional skirmishes, as we are now--then I would support putting our enemies in a state of confusion, if not alarm. But vague mentions of a coming storm don't do that.
I don't know what's going on in the head of my president. And I don't like not being able to know the intentions or motives of the most powerful man in the world, especially when he's supposed to represent my interests. It's bad enough that we don't know what's going through the minds of people like Kim Jong-un, much less our own president.
@Mathsorcerer there are detailed rules within the Iran agreement about verification - there's no need for the sort of guesswork carried out by analysts on the progress of N. Korea to nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency carries out inspections and says that Iran are complying. US defence staff also say Iran are complying, so for the President to consider saying that they are not is pretty extraordinary.
Within the US I dare say a lot of people will shrug their shoulders and say that's just politics. Viewed from other countries though the effect will be very different. The US has signed up to an international agreement and if Trump goes ahead with his proposal would be in non-compliance with that agreement (and that agreement is not just with Iran, but also Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia). Is that likely to increase the chances of reaching a peaceful settlement on the nuclear issue with N. Korea - or indeed of successfully concluding any other international agreement the US might wish to enter into in the future?
More importantly, the Iran deal is not a bilateral agreement, but a multilateral agreement where the US took point in the negotiations. The other countries have already indicated that they're not going to follow the US in withdrawing from the agreement, leaving the US isolated on the issue.
@Mathsorcerer there are detailed rules within the Iran agreement about verification - there's no need for the sort of guesswork carried out by analysts on the progress of N. Korea to nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency carries out inspections and says that Iran are complying. US defence staff also say Iran are complying, so for the President to consider saying that they are not is pretty extraordinary.
Within the US I dare say a lot of people will shrug their shoulders and say that's just politics. Viewed from other countries though the effect will be very different. The US has signed up to an international agreement and if Trump goes ahead with his proposal would be in non-compliance with that agreement (and that agreement is not just with Iran, but also Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia). Is that likely to increase the chances of reaching a peaceful settlement on the nuclear issue with N. Korea - or indeed of successfully concluding any other international agreement the US might wish to enter into in the future?
It's only extraordinary if you ignore who he has been for the entirety of his life. He views this all as a game where he can extort a "better deal". But beyond that, he wants to scrap it for one reason. It was Obama's deal. If Obama did it, he will try to destroy. That is his modus operandi. If we do this, then #1 the United States cannot be trusted by any other country in the world to keep our word (since Iran is keeping theirs) and #2 he will either be responsible for Iran getting a nuclear weapon, or bring us into war with them. Those are the only two outcomes. And honestly, why the hell SHOULDN'T they develop a nuclear weapon if we don't live up to our end of the bargain?? After all, we are the only ones who have ever used them.
Again, I am not addressing the value or validity of the agreement; instead, I am addressing the fact that it is a *voluntary* agreement--it is *not* legally binding, so if the Trump Administration decides that it wants to walk away from it there is nothing anyone can do about it and there are zero penalties for doing so. Obama probably thought "it isn't ideal but if it keeps Iran from enriching uranium towards nuclear weapons then it is probably a good deal", which is an accurate assessment of the situation; he probably also thought that his successor would see value in an agreement, even if it is non-binding, which maintains a non-violent status quo. It does sometimes appear as if Trump's course of action is dictated by "Obama did x, so I am going to do 'not x'".
@semiticgod The reason you cannot divine Trump's thought process is because you don't think like he thinks. This is a man who is used to being The Big Boss--when you are CEO and/or Chairman of the Board of a corporation all you have to do is say "jump" and people being jumping--and he is used to surrounding himself only with sycophants. Coupled with the fact that he treats his Cabinet and staff the way he has treated teams at work--he likes to pit the teams against each other in an effort to boost creativity and/or productivity--what you will get is a series of seemingly-illogical decisions. The fact that Representatives, Senators, and high-ranking officeholders in various Executive agencies would *dare* to defy him is infuriating to him--*he's* the boss, so who do they think they are?
You have to imagine that you have had access to buckets of money your entire life, enough money to shield yourself from lawsuits or negative consequences which would normally apply to "average" people. You have to imagine that you hire people who spend half their time trying to curry your favor, favor which you dispose only if they do exactly what you say, even if what you are saying now contradicts what you said a week ago--the number one trait you desire in your employees is *obedience*, not trustworthiness or honesty or dedication. At that point, you can begin to find his mindset.
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Governor Rosello floated the idea to Elon Musk of allowing Puerto Rico to become a test example to showcase the scalability and effectiveness of a large-scale solar-based electric grid. I really like that idea even if you would have to keep traditional generating plants as the fallback position.
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California officially made itself a "sanctuary" State, setting up limitations upon how much assistance local law enforcement agencies will give to Federal immigration officials.
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The people who live anywhere from New Orleans, LA east over to Pensacola, FL need to get all their supplies and make preparations now or plan to take about 4 or 5 days' worth of vacation farther inland--tropical storm Nate is about 48 hours out. Forecasters don't expect it to get past Cat1.
@CamDawg Agreed. I was merely trying to make certain that people understood that the Iran deal was not a treaty, which is legally binding. Many of us have agreements in our lives to which we adhere even if they aren't ideal, such as going to see your great aunt at Christmas even though her house smells weird and she puts a sloppy lipstick kiss on your cheek like she has since you were 5.
"In a blow to Obamacare's controversial contraceptive mandate, employers may now have more leeway to withhold birth control coverage on religious grounds, according to new rules issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services on Friday.
The rules would let a broad range of employers -- including nonprofits, private firms and publicly traded companies -- stop offering free contraceptives through their health insurance plans if they have a "sincerely held religious or moral objection," senior agency officials said on a call about the implementation and enforcement of the new rules."
Why only contraceptives? Why not allow employers to deny cancer treatment if they have "sincerely held religious or moral objections"? Why only attack women's rights? What if your moral belief is that immigrants and different races should not get any treatment? There are characters in the trump administraton that feel that way.
This is totally ridiculous that in 2017 our government is doing this, hundreds of years after the Constitution and first amendment. The country was founded with the idea of separation of church and state. And what are moral beliefs? Everybody has different ones.
One would assume that those rules would not hold up to legal scrutiny - but they might - since Congress is rubber stamping whatever Judges the Heritage Foundation is giving to Trump to put forward.
"In a blow to Obamacare's controversial contraceptive mandate, employers may now have more leeway to withhold birth control coverage on religious grounds, according to new rules issued by the US Department of Health and Human Services on Friday.
The rules would let a broad range of employers -- including nonprofits, private firms and publicly traded companies -- stop offering free contraceptives through their health insurance plans if they have a "sincerely held religious or moral objection," senior agency officials said on a call about the implementation and enforcement of the new rules."
Why only contraceptives? Why not allow employers to deny cancer treatment if they have "sincerely held religious or moral objections"? Why only attack women's rights? What if your moral belief is that immigrants and different races should not get any treatment? There are characters in the trump administraton that feel that way.
This is totally ridiculous that in 2017 our government is doing this, hundreds of years after the Constitution and first amendment. The country was founded with the idea of separation of church and state. And what are moral beliefs? Everybody has different ones.
One would assume that those rules would not hold up to legal scrutiny - but they might - since Congress is rubber stamping whatever Judges the Heritage Foundation is giving to Trump to put forward.
Because the abortion debate has never been just about abortion. They want the birth control too. It's about punishing women for having sex out of wedlock. Always has been, always will be. And you are entirely correct. There is no way you can say you can have a moral objection to paying for contraceptives through insurance and also not let someone come in and say that THEIR religion is against paying for insurance that provides cancer treatment or even surgeries. As soon as you let religious exemptions into this debate, the slope becomes so slippery that it becomes absurd. Honestly, someone SHOULD claim a religious exemption to something like back surgery or treating gout in a lawsuit JUST to show how absurd this argument over birth control is. There is no reason (according to this logic) that I can't just invent a religion this afternoon that claims all sorts of medical practices are against my "sincerely held beliefs".
We're in a time-warp and it's 1952. No, what is risky is pretending that people aren't going to have sex REGARDLESS of what your antiquated views on contraceptives are. Being pro-active enough to get birth control is, in fact, RESPONSIBLE sexual behavior.
The fact is, liberals are constantly warning that they aren't going to stop at trying to put restrictions on abortions because, eventually, they always get to contraceptives. And we're laughed at and told "oh, come on now, you're being ridiculous." Actually no, we aren't. Furthermore, there isn't anything in the world that prevents more abortions than contraceptives. You can't possibly hold the position that you want to reduce abortions AND be against birth control and contraceptives unless your actual position is that you think women should serve as brood mares.
And you know what?? I'd be perfectly willing to have reasonable discussions with anti-abortion proponents if they didn't give full support to a party that is not only for this crap, but also is always looking to cut ANY social spending they can aimed at poor children (you know, once they are actually born and living in this world). But if they are in favor of limiting access to THE main thing that will assuredly prevent more abortions, then what is there to discuss??
And I'll again point out, birth control pills ARE NOT used exclusively for preventing pregnancy. There are a host of medical issues doctors will treat by prescribing women birth control pills that have absolutely nothing to do with having sex (not like that should matter, but it's a point that is entirely lost in this debate). The most common of which is simply using them to even out an irregular menstrual cycle.
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Or maybe this is the only thing that would work
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I had to laugh at Tillerson's press conference. That was a case of "get out there and proclaim your loyalty and solidarity or you are fired".
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Over 140 people were arrested in the latest St. Louis protest for forming a human blockade across the I-64 highway. I get it--the protesters are upset; however, their right to protest does not outweigh the rights of the drivers on the road to travel freely because those people had nothing to do with that shooting whatsoever. Protest outside police headquarters and at city hall, where that problem originated.
************* No, that won't work because Congress is still forbidden from enacting nationwide gun control legislation, as I have noted before. Individual States have no such restriction, of course, and may enact whatever gun control legislation they want...but...as has also been noted, if the neighboring State does not have similar laws then any gun control law in State A is easily avoided by driving over to State B. Unless State A is going to have inspection checkpoints at every road coming into the State--good luck with that--then people will bring guns into State A. Police in State A also can't go door-to-door looking for guns without a warrant, and a search warrant can be issued only for probable cause. No judge is going to issue a blanket search warrant for every house in a city. Even if they did, you can see the police coming and then you just move your guns to the trunk of your car, which is not named in the warrant, and you park your car on the street--now it is on public property and cannot be considered part of your personal residential property.
All this guy's suggestion will do is make the white supremacists buy even more guns because they will think an armed race war is imminent.
'I tell you "oh, my, yes--that's the last of my stock so I'll need to reorder soon"' and I'm not lying = not fraud.
'I tell you "oh, my, yes--that's the last of my stock so I'll need to reorder soon"' and I'm lying = fraud.
So all these far right people that seem to be one bad day away from another Las Vegas now have their own bump stocks.
What could go wrong with the government deciding who is "Fake News" and who is not? If an at all legitimate investigation came out of this, which is unlikely to get a real investigation, then Fox News should be shut down because they are nothing but fake news and biased opinion news entertainment. But that is not what Trump is wanting.
Trump wants to silence the people that are reporting the truth about what he is doing. He wants to do this so he can tell his story. "This is the greatest crowd ever!" He wants that to be the only version of events. He wants to lie with impunity basically.
Less than a year and he's making another attempt to destroy democracy. And people are going along with it.
I've been a liberal all my life, and I've never felt any of this weird... contempt for the American right. I never took joy in the fact that a Republican somewhere was angry about something. When I see a GOP politician flub a question on TV, I don't laugh at his expense. I found the Tea Party silly in some ways, but I didn't laugh at them. I'm not happy when Trump makes a mistake. I'm not happy when something bad happens on his watch, or when he says something that invites scorn. I didn't vote for Hillary because conservatives would be upset if she won, as I've heard some people say is why they voted for Trump--I voted for her based on her platform. And my goal in this thread has never been to win arguments or beat the "other side."
I confess I don't fully understand it. I don't understand this weird mindset that the important thing is to beat and humiliate the enemy, or shut down their voices, or throw around "clever" insults, or win some petty culture war on social media.
I just think... why? What gives someone the idea that the most important thing in politics is to stick it to "those people?" Out of all the motives for our politics, why would the most important one be spite?
These guys are your classic vocal minority. I realize that, and it's worth repeating. Personally, I only know three people who hold this mindset, two conservatives and one liberal. But even if you do live in an echo chamber of some sort, even if you have never actually spoken with somebody on "the other side," even if all your friends have the same views and you've never considered the possibility you might be wrong...
...how do you get from righteous indignation to spite?
How do you go from "These ideas are bad for the country" to "I want these people to be unhappy?"
Anyway, under the mode of thought being employed by these people it isn't enough that I win because you must also lose. This is coupled with the fact that "winning" or "losing" is also an indicator of you and your value as a person--I won because I am "better" and thus *deserved* to win, which also means that you are "worse" and/or that you somehow *deserved* to lose. Finally, you must be made to feel like the loser you are--if you aren't a loser, then why didn't you win?
Now that I think about it, I saw this mentality before "second place is the first loser". I remember stories from the 1990s of parents and coaches at little league baseball games not only yelling at the kids for underperforming, but excoriating them in front of everyone, as if yelling and berating them would somehow make them play better.
Like I said, this mentality made itself mainstream and seeped into politics. Coupled with the anonymity of the Internet--I can flame you and there really isn't much anyone can do about it other than ban that profile, but at least I got my shots in and put you in your place, you loser--it produced a broader environment where discussions of political or social ideas or events took on the mentality of a "second place is the first loser"-type sporting event. I can only win the discussion if you also lose. The other side must be demonized, hence the use of terms like "Republicrap", "Republitard", "Demoncrat", "libtard", or "convservonazi" which fill the comment sections of news stories.
@jjstraka34 has mentioned AM talk radio before. Those radio talk shows aren't the cause of this but merely another symptom of this kind of mentality. It isn't just the far-right talk show hosts, either, because on the other side The Young Turks don't mind getting in your face and telling you how you are wrong.
It is this mentality which is destroying everything. I am certain you have heard the phrase "it isn't personal, it's just business" before. There was a corollary for that in "it isn't personal, it's just politics" but once politics latched onto this hyper-aggressive competitiveness it *became* personal. An event which happens thousands of kilometers away from your location in a place you have never heard of--a local county clerk refuses to approve a marriage license for a homosexual couple--suddenly becomes a personal affront, as if the event were about you. This will cause people who have nothing to do with the event to get into each other's faces and tell each other how they are *wrong*. Not just "incorrect", mind you, but *wrong*--the connotations of the words are different.
I always go back to my Babylon 5 analogy because it fits perfectly. Whether it is the Drazi fighting over green or purple or the Vorlons and Shadows themselves, when two groups who have different views keep escalating their conflict and allowing to spill over into every aspect of life, eventually the conflict itself takes on a life of its own and forces us into equivalence classes--we are no longer simply people with differing views but different people altogether who have absolutely nothing in common. Since your side is wrong, which means that you and your side are inherently wrong by your very nature, how can I have anything in common with you since I and my side are right?
There are no policies on the right because they don't believe in government other than as a mechanism to funnel money to the upper 1/10 of 1%. So the entire exercise of Republican governance becomes an exercise in spite. They'll remove protections for trans citizens and ban them from the military for no discernible reason. They'll attempt to defund Planned Parenthood where massive amounts of women receive low-cost cancer screenings, simply because a very small percentage of what they do is provide a legal procedure (abortion). There is no possible way most people can support Trump on policy because he doesn't have any policy. He hasn't done a thing he said he was going to do, either because it was a lie to get elected, or because he and the Congress are too incompetent to get it done. So there is nothing to cheer or point to on that front. The only thing that you can point to is that Trump makes liberals sad, and as long as he does that, that is going to be enough, because that is what is holding his coalition together. The only driving force behind any decision seems to be animated by "We'll do the opposite of what Obama did" and "Make sure it makes liberals cry".
The only reason I've seen given for this is that Iran is acting against US interests by destabilising other countries in the Middle East. That may well be true from the US perspective (from the Iranian perspective of course they could claim exactly the opposite), but I really don't see what that's got to do with this deal. Can anyone explain how isolating Iran, encouraging them to develop nuclear weapons and then intervening militarily is going to help stabilise things - or be good for the US?
Is it really possible that Trump is doing this purely because Obama helped broker the deal originally or is there perhaps some personal financial interest of Trump's at stake here? I really hope though that someone can point out a different angle on this, showing how breaking the deal can end positively, as at the moment this just looks depressing to me.
Classic.
http://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-nation/2017/10/05/Tim-Murphy-resigns-congressman-pennsylvania-abortion-texts-congress-paul-ryan/stories/201710050206
Trump: "You guys know what this represents? Maybe it's the calm before the storm."
Reporter: "What's the storm?"
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/06/politics/trump-storm-coming/index.html
Trump, of course, wouldn't answer.
Perhaps he's planning on attacking Iran after decertifying the nuke deal. Unlike N. Korea which definitely already has Nukes it seems like Iran doesn't - so Trump can go ahead and attack them. Seems like it's incentive for them to actually get nukes to protect themselves from irrational Americans they have been warning their people about. Well now we actually have one of those as President.
On the one hand, Iran is a country with a history of doing things like outlawing certain haircut styles for men and so you cannot seriously negotiate with people like that. Also, I doubt Iran is really complying with the agreement--they are still working on uranium enrichment with an eye towards weapon development, only we don't know where they are doing it yet. On the other hand, perhaps they really are complying because they want the money more than they want enriched uranium. I am not an analyst in a cube in a windowless building somewhere so I don't have firsthand information about the situation in Iran.
If we were in an actual war with an actual nation--instead of just being indirectly involved in scattered regional skirmishes, as we are now--then I would support putting our enemies in a state of confusion, if not alarm. But vague mentions of a coming storm don't do that.
I don't know what's going on in the head of my president. And I don't like not being able to know the intentions or motives of the most powerful man in the world, especially when he's supposed to represent my interests. It's bad enough that we don't know what's going through the minds of people like Kim Jong-un, much less our own president.
Within the US I dare say a lot of people will shrug their shoulders and say that's just politics. Viewed from other countries though the effect will be very different. The US has signed up to an international agreement and if Trump goes ahead with his proposal would be in non-compliance with that agreement (and that agreement is not just with Iran, but also Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia). Is that likely to increase the chances of reaching a peaceful settlement on the nuclear issue with N. Korea - or indeed of successfully concluding any other international agreement the US might wish to enter into in the future?
@semiticgod The reason you cannot divine Trump's thought process is because you don't think like he thinks. This is a man who is used to being The Big Boss--when you are CEO and/or Chairman of the Board of a corporation all you have to do is say "jump" and people being jumping--and he is used to surrounding himself only with sycophants. Coupled with the fact that he treats his Cabinet and staff the way he has treated teams at work--he likes to pit the teams against each other in an effort to boost creativity and/or productivity--what you will get is a series of seemingly-illogical decisions. The fact that Representatives, Senators, and high-ranking officeholders in various Executive agencies would *dare* to defy him is infuriating to him--*he's* the boss, so who do they think they are?
You have to imagine that you have had access to buckets of money your entire life, enough money to shield yourself from lawsuits or negative consequences which would normally apply to "average" people. You have to imagine that you hire people who spend half their time trying to curry your favor, favor which you dispose only if they do exactly what you say, even if what you are saying now contradicts what you said a week ago--the number one trait you desire in your employees is *obedience*, not trustworthiness or honesty or dedication. At that point, you can begin to find his mindset.
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Governor Rosello floated the idea to Elon Musk of allowing Puerto Rico to become a test example to showcase the scalability and effectiveness of a large-scale solar-based electric grid. I really like that idea even if you would have to keep traditional generating plants as the fallback position.
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California officially made itself a "sanctuary" State, setting up limitations upon how much assistance local law enforcement agencies will give to Federal immigration officials.
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The people who live anywhere from New Orleans, LA east over to Pensacola, FL need to get all their supplies and make preparations now or plan to take about 4 or 5 days' worth of vacation farther inland--tropical storm Nate is about 48 hours out. Forecasters don't expect it to get past Cat1.
The rules would let a broad range of employers -- including nonprofits, private firms and publicly traded companies -- stop offering free contraceptives through their health insurance plans if they have a "sincerely held religious or moral objection," senior agency officials said on a call about the implementation and enforcement of the new rules."
Why only contraceptives? Why not allow employers to deny cancer treatment if they have "sincerely held religious or moral objections"? Why only attack women's rights? What if your moral belief is that immigrants and different races should not get any treatment? There are characters in the trump administraton that feel that way.
This is totally ridiculous that in 2017 our government is doing this, hundreds of years after the Constitution and first amendment. The country was founded with the idea of separation of church and state. And what are moral beliefs? Everybody has different ones.
One would assume that those rules would not hold up to legal scrutiny - but they might - since Congress is rubber stamping whatever Judges the Heritage Foundation is giving to Trump to put forward.
We're in a time-warp and it's 1952. No, what is risky is pretending that people aren't going to have sex REGARDLESS of what your antiquated views on contraceptives are. Being pro-active enough to get birth control is, in fact, RESPONSIBLE sexual behavior.
The fact is, liberals are constantly warning that they aren't going to stop at trying to put restrictions on abortions because, eventually, they always get to contraceptives. And we're laughed at and told "oh, come on now, you're being ridiculous." Actually no, we aren't. Furthermore, there isn't anything in the world that prevents more abortions than contraceptives. You can't possibly hold the position that you want to reduce abortions AND be against birth control and contraceptives unless your actual position is that you think women should serve as brood mares.
And you know what?? I'd be perfectly willing to have reasonable discussions with anti-abortion proponents if they didn't give full support to a party that is not only for this crap, but also is always looking to cut ANY social spending they can aimed at poor children (you know, once they are actually born and living in this world). But if they are in favor of limiting access to THE main thing that will assuredly prevent more abortions, then what is there to discuss??
And I'll again point out, birth control pills ARE NOT used exclusively for preventing pregnancy. There are a host of medical issues doctors will treat by prescribing women birth control pills that have absolutely nothing to do with having sex (not like that should matter, but it's a point that is entirely lost in this debate). The most common of which is simply using them to even out an irregular menstrual cycle.