@BillyYank Yes, there is. Yet both points are in my eyes evidence against the religion in question, and indeed the claim that Christianity is not fundamentally opposed to the equality of sexes and sexual orientations. At least, until they revise or renounce this silly story book
Also, people like Sanders and Cruz don't have the charisma to appeal to anyone outside of their own rabid base. One looks like an old disheveled cook and the other like a used car salesman. Neither do very well in the categories that shouldn't matter... but do matter. People would have looked far more critically into Sanders's sordid past if he was the nominee as well. As "crooked" as many people thought Hillary was, she never honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Stories like that, and the fact that Sanders was a single dad on unemployment benefits who decided that, instead of getting a job, he would run for office as a member of a socialist third party in Illinois knowing full well that he had a 0% chance of winning an election. The same point stands for any of Ted Cruz's numerous controversial statements and showmanship during his time in the Senate and as the solicitor general of Texas. These stories matter in the general election, even if they get overlooked in the primaries where the opposition doesn't want to agitate their opponent's base. The other party doesn't have to operate under such constraints in the general.
Well.. Who would have thought that a guy who bragged about being able to grab women by the kitty, who had cheated on his wives and been divorced a few times, had bragged about being able to shoot someone and not lose a vote, who asked Russians to hack his opponents, etc would be beloved by the Christian Conservatives. This was an odd election. People overlooked all that AND MUCH MORE on Trump. They would have probably overlooked that stuff on Sanders too - all he had to do was make promises to the Rust belt - that was all Trump did. But Sanders wasn't blowing smoke, well at least as clearly as Trump was.
Christian Conservatives voted for Trump because the Christ they claim to worship is simply a nice front for their never-ending crusade to have control over the sex lives of every woman in America and to obliterate all (and then roll back even further) any hard-fought rights the gay community has won over the years. The VP is a virulent anti-gay crusader who cut funding in his state for AIDS prevention to fund "conversation therapy", which is simply a euphemism for "electrocuting the gay out people".
Its a good thing to know that Democrats are so different from the Republicans, are so tolerant and would never hate or generalize a single group because of the actions of some them! Oh wait...
Voting for a candidate does not mean one agrees with all of their positions, much less the positions of their running mate.
The last thing we need to do is divide people up into "good" and "bad" camps. Most of my family are Christian conservatives--evangelicals, in fact, and missionaries--and I have yet to hear them express any distaste for gays or for women's rights. They're some of the sweetest people I know, and having known them for all my life, I know that that isn't just a mask. Their religion is indeed based on love, not hate.
We cannot generalize evangelicals as anti-gay or anti-woman any more than we can generalize Muslims as anti-American. Hateful people are the most vocal members of these groups, but not the most numerous.
I wonder if Christian conservatives are very nice to each other (and those they consider in their social circles). Do they live in their bubble where they are incredibly nice to each other but intolerant to others outside their bubble?
"Don't believe in god? Screw you you're going to hell" "Muslim? False prophet go to hell!" etc etc etc etc
I wonder if Christian conservatives are very nice to each other (and those they consider in their social circles). Do they live in their bubble where they are incredibly nice to each other but intolerant to others outside their bubble?
I've heard this exact same comment, except you could replace "Christian conservatives" with liberals in major cities and on campus. I can tell you from experience, this is what I've noticed from liberal groups on campus. Very nice and supportive to each other, but incredibly tolerant toward people outside of their bubble. I imagine the same is true for people in Christian conservative groups (no firsthand experience), though they would actually be exposed to other ideas through the media and popular entertainment, so the bubble effect is probably less severe.
Also, people like Sanders and Cruz don't have the charisma to appeal to anyone outside of their own rabid base. One looks like an old disheveled cook and the other like a used car salesman. Neither do very well in the categories that shouldn't matter... but do matter. People would have looked far more critically into Sanders's sordid past if he was the nominee as well. As "crooked" as many people thought Hillary was, she never honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Stories like that, and the fact that Sanders was a single dad on unemployment benefits who decided that, instead of getting a job, he would run for office as a member of a socialist third party in Illinois knowing full well that he had a 0% chance of winning an election. The same point stands for any of Ted Cruz's numerous controversial statements and showmanship during his time in the Senate and as the solicitor general of Texas. These stories matter in the general election, even if they get overlooked in the primaries where the opposition doesn't want to agitate their opponent's base. The other party doesn't have to operate under such constraints in the general.
Well.. Who would have thought that a guy who bragged about being able to grab women by the kitty, who had cheated on his wives and been divorced a few times, had bragged about being able to shoot someone and not lose a vote, who asked Russians to hack his opponents, etc would be beloved by the Christian Conservatives. This was an odd election. People overlooked all that AND MUCH MORE on Trump. They would have probably overlooked that stuff on Sanders too - all he had to do was make promises to the Rust belt - that was all Trump did. But Sanders wasn't blowing smoke, well at least as clearly as Trump was.
Christian Conservatives voted for Trump because the Christ they claim to worship is simply a nice front for their never-ending crusade to have control over the sex lives of every woman in America and to obliterate all (and then roll back even further) any hard-fought rights the gay community has won over the years. The VP is a virulent anti-gay crusader who cut funding in his state for AIDS prevention to fund "conversation therapy", which is simply a euphemism for "electrocuting the gay out people".
Its a good thing to know that Democrats are so different from the Republicans, are so tolerant and would hate or generalize a single group because of the actions of some them! Oh wait...
Anyone who claims to follow "Biblical principles" and voted for a man who sexually assaulted at least a dozen women (that we know of) and has been married 3 times has revealed themselves to be a hypocrite of the highest order. The funny thing is, Hillary actually KEPT her marriage together after Bill's infidelity, which, if they had any honest beliefs, they would think was admirable. And Christian Conservatives went OVERWHELMINGLY for Trump. And nothing I said about Pence us hyperbolic in the least. He's one of the most hardcore social conservatives in elected office in the country.
There is definitely a lot of hypocrisy for Christian conservatives to have voted for a candidate as boorish as Trump. I also doubt that any woman not find his actions deplorable.
However, if anything this should crush the idea that this was an election that was based on personality and not issues. At the end of the day, people looked at Trump and recognized he was a terrible person, but then looked at Clinton and recognized that she would enact policies contrary to their interests.
I know at least one Catholic conservative who said that he despised Trump, but made an interesting point: whether or not Trump is president, he has the same ability to be a misogynistic lout. However, Clinton's ability to force nuns to pay for what they consider abortifacient relies entirely on her being the Commander in Chief.
Politics is about trade-offs, and some can be very unsavory.
There is definitely a lot of hypocrisy for Christian conservatives to have voted for a candidate as boorish as Trump. I also doubt that any woman not find his actions deplorable.
However, if anything this should crush the idea that this was an election that was based on personality and not issues. At the end of the day, people looked at Trump and recognized he was a terrible person, but then looked at Clinton and recognized that she would enact policies contrary to their interests.
I know at least one Catholic conservative who said that he despised Trump, but made an interesting point: whether or not Trump is president, he has the same ability to be a misogynistic lout. However, Clinton's ability to force nuns to pay for what they consider abortifacient relies entirely on her being the Commander in Chief.
Politics is about trade-offs, and some can be very unsavory.
I've actually changed my mind about the whole hypothetical "forcing people to bake a cake for a gay wedding" issue. They shouldn't have to. And I view it as a perfect chance to boycott that particular business out of existence for doing so if that's their decision. As for the nuns and Catholic organizations, they are absolutely free to not pay for birth control. At the exact moment they start paying federal taxes. Until then, tough luck.
now two separate sets of citizens who want nearly nothing to do with one another, and it's divided along urban/rural lines more than ever.
I continually will not understand this notion that rural states and the Rust Belt essentially need to be awarded Electoral power "on a curve" because the poor, white-working class will get ignored if we don't. Talk about entitlement. How is it that people who live in the major metro areas of this country aren't being punished by having the value of their vote diminished??
You've just said why -- because the nation is divided on urban / rural lines. So if we complete disenfranchise the rural vote what happen next? My prediction: Amon Bundy on steroids.
The reason is the tyranny of the majority. In a country as large as ours you need to have some sort of way to account for differences in regional interests centralizing the vote -- and I give you full credit for consistency. Most people who take your position are unwilling to call for the dissolution of the Senate (which makes the vote of someone from Wyoming count approximately a gillion times more than a voter in NYC) but that system has prevented us from facing regional separation movements ala Scottland and Catalonia.
And last (because this is getting too long), again, people are giving the DNC far, far too much credit and acting like they are actually competent enough to rig a primary for someone. They were absolutely in the bag for Clinton. It also had no effect on the end result. I supported Bernie Sanders. But Bernie Sanders needed to be in that race AT LEAST 9 months earlier, and the fact that he wasn't is all the proof you need that even he didn't think he had a chance until it was way too late to do anything to actually secure the nomination. The Democratic primary was over in mid-March when she creamed him in Ohio, far before the incidents described in the emails ever even took place. Certain left-leaning online news sources (TYT in particular) kept pushing the meme that he had a chance, when mathematically he would have had to gather 60-70% of the remaining votes in certain States to even catch up, much less pass Clinton.
Sanders was on the trail those 9 months but you only heard about if you listened to Pacifica radio. He was having town hall meetings asking activists if he should run. No he did not start when Clinton did -- right after the Obama victory -- and thank Helm he didn't. Part of the 'rigging' was the hostility of the corporate media -- they spent more time aiming a camera at an empty podium waiting for Trump to speak than they did on Sanders. And the coverage of Sanders? I don't know how many times I read "Sanders gave his stump speech in X" (oh really? I guess the only thing we need to know about the speech is that he used his mouth to form words?)
And on the votes he did get 70 percent in WA. He would have done the same in NY and CA if the primaries had been open. And again, the pattern of wins is important. Yes he lost Ohio but he took WI and MI -- the states that decided the race -- and he did it by taking the two groups that did not turn out for Clinton: the working class and the young.
And again, every poll showed him with greater support. The Ralston article would have been forgotten if the DNC hadn't spread it, the CNN debaters somehow had the DNCs oppo research and we *know* that Clinton got the questions before hand. And Media coverage matters -- historically, take a look at Ross Perot's numbers before and after he forced himself onto the TV screens.
The laundered money mattered, the Superdelegates mattered, the paid Reddit / Facebook trolls mattered and the dirty trick just before the CA primary mattered. One of the many, many reasons the young and the left didn't turn out for Clinton is that they are sick and tired of this sort of campaign. Young people are starving for substance -- they wanted a discussion of single payer and they received celebrity endorsements.
Trump stated this morning that he isn't going to receive his Daily Intelligence briefing, and that he will "get it when he thinks he needs it" because alot of it is repetitive. I'm sure this will work out swimmingly. "Bin Laden determined to strike in US" from August of 2001 springs immediately to mind. At which point W. told his terrorism advisers that they had "covered their ass" and then probably went back to a photo-op of him clearing brush at his ranch.
I wonder if Christian conservatives are very nice to each other (and those they consider in their social circles). Do they live in their bubble where they are incredibly nice to each other but intolerant to others outside their bubble?
I've heard this exact same comment, except you could replace "Christian conservatives" with liberals in major cities and on campus. I can tell you from experience, this is what I've noticed from liberal groups on campus. Very nice and supportive to each other, but incredibly tolerant toward people outside of their bubble. I imagine the same is true for people in Christian conservative groups (no firsthand experience), though they would actually be exposed to other ideas through the media and popular entertainment, so the bubble effect is probably less severe.
@booinyoureyes I'm sure you can construct a similar comment about any group.
I find it odd that many of the same people decrying "fake news" as being a main cause of the election result are uncritically taking a story from anonymous leaks to the Washington Post about the CIA and Russia. Not just that the Russian government wanted Trump to win (indisputable that they would want the candidate who DIDN'T want to shoot down their planes over Syria), not just that they wanted to swing the election in his favor (quite possible) but that Trump was somehow involved (laughable). People need to take a deep breath. I know losing an election is no fun, but let's try to react like adults when we hear these sort of stories in the news.
I'll say the same thing to Bernie Sanders supporters who thought Bernie Sanders would have outperformed Clinton that I said to my Ted Cruz supporting friend who thought Ted Cruz would have significantly outperformed Romney: you need to come to terms that your views vary significantly from the median voter, and that matters. I recognize that my collection of positions on issues are not mainstream. Politics is about dealing with the reality you have, not what you wish it would be.
That position would be more convincing if it weren't at odds with the evidence. The polls -- not the fever dreams of the activists -- said Sanders was stronger by 10 points. Yes, you can *say* that polls that early don't mean anything but those polls accurately predicted the elections so that point is kinda moot right? Because they *did* actually predict the election.
Sure Bernie was rumpled, old and he called himself a socialist. But the *results* were clear. The exit polls told us that he took the youth in all demographic groups and the exit polls tell us that the youth stayed home in November. So I would return your statement to you: "politics is about dealing with the reality you have, not what you wish it would be." And you can only say that Sanders didn't have a chance if you ignore the evidence. Perhaps no one you know would have voted for him but chances are you don't spend much time with 18-24 year olds and/or midwestern factory workers. Am I right?
I find it odd that many of the same people decrying "fake news" as being a main cause of the election result are uncritically taking a story from anonymous leaks to the Washington Post about the CIA and Russia. Not just that the Russian government wanted Trump to win (indisputable that they would want the candidate who DIDN'T want to shoot down their planes over Syria), not just that they wanted to swing the election in his favor (quite possible) but that Trump was somehow involved (laughable). People need to take a deep breath. I know losing an election is no fun, but let's try to react like adults when we hear these sort of stories in the news.
I'll say the same thing to Bernie Sanders supporters who thought Bernie Sanders would have outperformed Clinton that I said to my Ted Cruz supporting friend who thought Ted Cruz would have significantly outperformed Romney: you need to come to terms that your views vary significantly from the median voter, and that matters. I recognize that my collection of positions on issues are not mainstream. Politics is about dealing with the reality you have, not what you wish it would be.
That position would be more convincing if it weren't at odds with the evidence. The polls -- not the fever dreams of the activists -- said Sanders was stronger by 10 points. Yes, you can *say* that polls that early don't mean anything but those polls accurately predicted the elections so that point is kinda moot right? Because they *did* actually predict the election.
Sure Bernie was rumpled, old and he called himself a socialist. But the *results* were clear. The exit polls told us that he took the youth in all demographic groups and the exit polls tell us that the youth stayed home in November. So I would return your statement to you: "politics is about dealing with the reality you have, not what you wish it would be." And you can only say that Sanders didn't have a chance if you ignore the evidence. Perhaps no one you know would have voted for him but chances are you don't spend much time with 18-24 year olds and/or midwestern factory workers. Am I right?
Take a look at the results before claiming he didn't have a chance.
Don't get me wrong, and let me be clear: I supported Bernie 100% in the primaries. He's the closest thing we will ever come to someone of nearly unimpeachable integrity getting close to this office. I'd listened to his weekly spot on the Thom Hartmann program for years. He's been consistent and he's been right. That doesn't mean he would have won. I've used the phrase before, but the "communist Jew" playbook on the right was ready to roll, and the oppo-research and attacks would have made Dukakis and Willie Horton look like a Disney Princess story. They would have destroyed him to the point where his numbers were not all that different than Hillary's (at least nationally). Whether he would have won is an open question. I like to think so, I have serious doubts.
It was her policies. Full stop. I've lived in both MI and WI and Clinton economics has devastated those states. They are no longer catching the dogs in Detroit. Think about that a moment.
I think you're exaggerating.
First, blaming any Clinton for Detroit is like blaming Reagan for Mount Saint Helens. No president could have stopped what was happening there. And "they're no longer catching the dogs" is almost a hilarious footnote to the devastation of the area.
Second, it has been 16 years since a Clinton was in office - if those states are still devastated after eight years of Bush and eight of Obama, it suggests that maybe "Clinton economics" isn't the primary culprit.
(I could add: Third, blaming or praising any elected politician for the economic situation when they're in office is all but pointless, since they had functionally nothing to do with it, but that's no fun.)
"Free" trade = unemployment. Clinton = "free" trade.
Putting aside that every significant candidate is pro-free-trade, including Trump (he just wants a "better deal" and to cheat to the US's benefit more than the US already does), what is your preferred alternative? Can you point to any real-world examples of it and its effects? Serious question, I'm not trying to rag on you here. But the days of heavy protectionism and tariffs aren't coming back to a service-based economy, and I'm not sure what paradigm shift you're aiming for.
She came awfully close to winning then, and led in the polls for the entire election. Decidedly unlike Bob Dole, in both respects.
Besides, the primary requirement every Republican needed to win the election in 1996 was "Not having Bill Clinton as the president".
Clinton has been out of office for years but the DLC democrats have been in power since that time. You clearly subscribe to the Washington consensus: that the decline of factory jobs was an inevitable result of natural economic trends. I'm with people like Naomi Klein and Thomas Pikety in believing that this is the result of political actions PNTR, NAFTA and the like. If this is going to happen anyway why do politicians spend so much time and energy trying to make it happen?
Yes, I'm calling it Clinton economic because Clinton and the DLC foisted this Republican viewpoint on the Democrats. The "Washington Consensus" is the proper name.
Yes, I am proposing returning to protectionist policies because the trend lines of decline of the working class correlates perfectly with the trend lines of the abandonment of policies that protect American workers. I'd restore the tax rates of the 1960s, pass a Markora law for the US, restore the infrastructure and implement the taxes on wall street transaction. Essentially I'd do the inverse and converse of what Clinton was proposing.
As to success given that no country has done what I propose? I'd look to non state examples like the Mondragon project. To failures of Clintonism I'd point to the near collapse of the US economy, the Argentina crisis, Greece and, yes, Detroit.
Clinton only led the polls by the margin of error. Which is / was embarrassing when she was facing an opponent who started his campaign by calling Mexican rapists and ended it by bragging about sexually assaulting women.
Sanders would have an excellent chance at the presidency if he were to run in 2020. But a lot can happen in 4 years.
There is a serious question of age at that point. He will be 78 years old. Two-terms seems out of the question considering the stress of the job (assuming, that, unlike Trump, you actually plan on doing it). Many people seem to forget (or don't know) that Reagan was almost certainly suffering from the early stages of dementia for most of his second-term (if not all the way back to his first debate with Mondale). If he promised to serve one-term, it would be refreshing and a good idea, but two-terms would mean he would be leaving office at 86 or 87 years old. I'm not sure anyone pushing 90 should be running the country, simply based on what happens to the human body as we age.
Anyone who claims to follow "Biblical principles" and voted for a man who sexually assaulted at least a dozen women (that we know of) and has been married 3 times has revealed themselves to be a hypocrite of the highest order.
Not when the alternative is someone who has done things far worse, such as authorizing a mass invasion of another country that has resulted in innumerable deaths, which even she herself now casually admits was a "mistake." Not to mention Hillary has her own history of mistreating sex assault victims.
Both of these candidates have histories of abhorrent behavior and decisions. Calling people hypocrites for choosing one over the other is, in itself, hypocritical.
There were plenty of people who thought there was no difference in 2000 between Gore and Bush. I myself had just written my High School senior research paper on music censorship and had a visceral hatred of Tipper Gore. I realized very quickly how wrong I was about that. Democrat's significant flaws are drop in the bucket when compared to Republican governance. We have 8 years of the Bush administration as all the proof we'd ever need.
And guess who was in the Senate at that time, co-authorizing a number of Bush's biggest mistakes, including his massive war efforts.
If you're worried about "another Bush" getting into office, you have as much reason to fear Clinton as Trump.
I maintain that a Bernie Sanders presidency is a huge pipe dream, but then again I said the same thing about Trump. Neither are fit for any office imho.
Also, people like Sanders and Cruz don't have the charisma to appeal to anyone outside of their own rabid base. One looks like an old disheveled cook and the other like a used car salesman. Neither do very well in the categories that shouldn't matter... but do matter. People would have looked far more critically into Sanders's sordid past if he was the nominee as well. As "crooked" as many people thought Hillary was, she never honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Stories like that, and the fact that Sanders was a single dad on unemployment benefits who decided that, instead of getting a job, he would run for office as a member of a socialist third party in Illinois knowing full well that he had a 0% chance of winning an election. The same point stands for any of Ted Cruz's numerous controversial statements and showmanship during his time in the Senate and as the solicitor general of Texas. These stories matter in the general election, even if they get overlooked in the primaries where the opposition doesn't want to agitate their opponent's base. The other party doesn't have to operate under such constraints in the general.
Well.. Who would have thought that a guy who bragged about being able to grab women by the kitty, who had cheated on his wives and been divorced a few times, had bragged about being able to shoot someone and not lose a vote, who asked Russians to hack his opponents, etc would be beloved by the Christian Conservatives. This was an odd election. People overlooked all that AND MUCH MORE on Trump. They would have probably overlooked that stuff on Sanders too - all he had to do was make promises to the Rust belt - that was all Trump did. But Sanders wasn't blowing smoke, well at least as clearly as Trump was.
Christian Conservatives voted for Trump because the Christ they claim to worship is simply a nice front for their never-ending crusade to have control over the sex lives of every woman in America and to obliterate all (and then roll back even further) any hard-fought rights the gay community has won over the years. The VP is a virulent anti-gay crusader who cut funding in his state for AIDS prevention to fund "conversation therapy", which is simply a euphemism for "electrocuting the gay out people".
Its a good thing to know that Democrats are so different from the Republicans, are so tolerant and would hate or generalize a single group because of the actions of some them! Oh wait...
Anyone who claims to follow "Biblical principles" and voted for a man who sexually assaulted at least a dozen women (that we know of) and has been married 3 times has revealed themselves to be a hypocrite of the highest order. The funny thing is, Hillary actually KEPT her marriage together after Bill's infidelity, which, if they had any honest beliefs, they would think was admirable. And Christian Conservatives went OVERWHELMINGLY for Trump. And nothing I said about Pence us hyperbolic in the least. He's one of the most hardcore social conservatives in elected office in the country.
@jjstraka34 Does it not make one a hypocrite to claim to follow "liberal principles" and yet vote for someone who was one of the strongest opponents of gay marriage for years, who supports a racial war based on lies and called Iraq a "business opportunity," who covered up the sexual assaults of her husband on girls for years (need I go on)?
What circle you fill out on a piece of paper does not make you a hypocrite, especially, as you have pointed out several times, when your vote doesn't even count because of the electoral college.
I find it really hard to believe that the intelligent liberal that you have displayed yourself to be on this thread could actually believe that all people of one general religious group are only one type of person and could lump them all into one distasteful mold. For the reason of your displayed intelligence and morale commitment to your beliefs, I directly call out your statements to you as intentionally provocative.
If I am wrong, and you really do have polar opposite conflicting beliefs, then I invite you to put aside your blinded cognitive bias for a few hours and do some personal research into the myriad of self-sacrificing religious lives that you so vehemently judge, many of whom are LGBT or female, Christian conservative, Trump-supporters.
Otherwise, please stop trying to subtly start a flame war. Everyone here has so far responded appropriately and intelligently, as most of us just wish to converse for the sake of becoming more enlightened and intelligently enriched.
As a site moderator; I must insist that people stop stereotyping religious conservatives, and ANY group of people for that matter, in such an offensive way. Remember that the site rules are very clear that we are to "Be excellent to EVERYONE!" This includes all groups, be they conservative, liberal, atheist, religious, gay, straight, or anyone else. Lumping any group into an offensive stereotype is not "excellent"!
Now, being a religious conservative myself, I also feel the need to inform all of you that these stereotypes are far from accurate in a great many ways (as are almost all stereotypes). I happen to be good friends with SEVERAL gay people on this forum, and I certainly do NOT go around claiming that everyone who disagrees with me and with my beliefs will "go to Hell". In fact, as a religious man, I believe it is my DUTY to be nice to EVERYONE regardless of who they are or what they believe. I do not need to agree with someone's lifestyle to be nice to them and to treat them with the respect they are due simply by being a person and a human. I can even LIKE them without agreeing with them.
The moderators and admins have given this thread and the people who participate in it a HUGE amount of leeway for about a month now. I do not think this will last very much longer, so if people continue to break the rules then they had best be prepared for the warnings that will follow.
Also, people like Sanders and Cruz don't have the charisma to appeal to anyone outside of their own rabid base. One looks like an old disheveled cook and the other like a used car salesman. Neither do very well in the categories that shouldn't matter... but do matter. People would have looked far more critically into Sanders's sordid past if he was the nominee as well. As "crooked" as many people thought Hillary was, she never honeymooned in the Soviet Union. Stories like that, and the fact that Sanders was a single dad on unemployment benefits who decided that, instead of getting a job, he would run for office as a member of a socialist third party in Illinois knowing full well that he had a 0% chance of winning an election. The same point stands for any of Ted Cruz's numerous controversial statements and showmanship during his time in the Senate and as the solicitor general of Texas. These stories matter in the general election, even if they get overlooked in the primaries where the opposition doesn't want to agitate their opponent's base. The other party doesn't have to operate under such constraints in the general.
Well.. Who would have thought that a guy who bragged about being able to grab women by the kitty, who had cheated on his wives and been divorced a few times, had bragged about being able to shoot someone and not lose a vote, who asked Russians to hack his opponents, etc would be beloved by the Christian Conservatives. This was an odd election. People overlooked all that AND MUCH MORE on Trump. They would have probably overlooked that stuff on Sanders too - all he had to do was make promises to the Rust belt - that was all Trump did. But Sanders wasn't blowing smoke, well at least as clearly as Trump was.
Christian Conservatives voted for Trump because the Christ they claim to worship is simply a nice front for their never-ending crusade to have control over the sex lives of every woman in America and to obliterate all (and then roll back even further) any hard-fought rights the gay community has won over the years. The VP is a virulent anti-gay crusader who cut funding in his state for AIDS prevention to fund "conversation therapy", which is simply a euphemism for "electrocuting the gay out people".
Its a good thing to know that Democrats are so different from the Republicans, are so tolerant and would hate or generalize a single group because of the actions of some them! Oh wait...
Anyone who claims to follow "Biblical principles" and voted for a man who sexually assaulted at least a dozen women (that we know of) and has been married 3 times has revealed themselves to be a hypocrite of the highest order. The funny thing is, Hillary actually KEPT her marriage together after Bill's infidelity, which, if they had any honest beliefs, they would think was admirable. And Christian Conservatives went OVERWHELMINGLY for Trump. And nothing I said about Pence us hyperbolic in the least. He's one of the most hardcore social conservatives in elected office in the country.
@jjstraka34 Does it not make one a hypocrite to claim to follow "liberal principles" and yet vote for someone who was one of the strongest opponents of gay marriage for years, who supports a racial war based on lies and called Iraq a "business opportunity," who covered up the sexual assaults of her husband on girls for years (need I go on)?
What circle you fill out on a piece of paper does not make you a hypocrite, especially, as you have pointed out several times, when your vote doesn't even count because of the electoral college.
I find it really hard to believe that the intelligent liberal that you have displayed yourself to be on this thread could actually believe that all people of one general religious group are only one type of person and could lump them all into one distasteful mold. For the reason of your displayed intelligence and morale commitment to your beliefs, I directly call out your statements to you as intentionally provocative.
If I am wrong, and you really do have polar opposite conflicting beliefs, then I invite you to put aside your blinded cognitive bias for a few hours and do some personal research into the myriad of self-sacrificing religious lives that you so vehemently judge, many of whom are LGBT or female, Christian conservative, Trump-supporters.
Otherwise, please stop trying to subtly start a flame war. Everyone here has so far responded appropriately and intelligently, as most of us just wish to converse for the sake of becoming more enlightened and intelligently enriched.
Referring to Christian conservatives points to a certain segment of the Christian population. Evangelical, radically pro-choice, anti-gay to the core. If I had meant to say all Christians, I would have done so. I'm talking about the people who think Kim Davis is a hero. Whose leaders favor laws righting LGBT discrimination into law. Moreover, to a lesser extent, it goes to those who possibly AREN'T that vehement about these issues, but have no problem going along with those policies. I grew up Catholic myself, and each passing year found myself more and more at odds with the nonsense I was hearing. Even after I stopped going to Catholic church, and went to random services over the years (mostly simply to save face in front of a significant other's family), I would hear complete nonsense coming from the pulpit. The pastor at my best friend's sister's wedding used his sermon at her ceremony to attack gay marriage. Bush got re-elected in no small part by putting gay rights up for a vote.
What bothers me most is the sense of aggrivement among a religion that is so far and away in the majority in this country that it's laughable, constantly feeling like the are under some sort of attack. You can't walk two blocks in any major city in this country without running into a church. All of our major holidays revolve around this religion. Anyone who thinks they have a right to dictate whether two consenting adults have a right to get married, because of their personal religious beliefs will continue to be the target of my ire. Because by their tacit approval of this idea, they would deny hospital visiting rights and the end of life decision rights to a partner/spouse, because their book of ancient folklore tells them it's "icky."
I have no qualms with anyone doing what they want, practicing whatever religion they want. What a futile effort that would be. In my view Christianity has no more legitimacy than Scientology or the Heaven's Gate cult, it just has more money and better branding. And I am saying that I don't want to hear about "morality" from a voter who claims to be Christian and voted for Trump. I am perfectly fine not hearing about it from Democratic Clinton voters either. But that's the thing about Democrats, certainly in 2016. We aren't generally trying to write discrimination into law. The worst you could say about us is that we'd like Christian business owners to stop bitching about paying for health insurance that provides birth control.
As to Hillary covering up for Bill, you could just as easily say she was a hurt wife who wasn't all that happy with the women her husband was sleeping with, which would be the most normal emotion imaginable. I will note that every single woman who came forward in the '90s about Bill Clinton was paid VAST sums of money and every single one of them got a book deal. You can't say the same thing about a single one of Trump's accusers, probably because they fear for their lives at this point if they continue to speak out. Not from Trump, but from his supporters. Trump himself would never actually sue them, because he would open himself up to cross-examination. Someone like Gloria Allred would be salivating at the prospect.
In closing, there is a certain provocative nature to many posts on internet forums, which I am no doubt guilty of, though far less here than other places I might visit. But as long as these issues and rights aren't set in stone, I'll continue to call out this segment of the population. And if you'd like an example, I'm talking about the parents of the children in "Jesus Camp", people who watch the 700 Club or send money to John Hagee, or that think Ralph Reed is a swell guy doing the work of the lord. Am I referring to all Christians?? Of course not, but I DO think that anyone who claims to be Christian and pulled the lever for Trump should have no claim to the traditional meaning of the term "values voter". Now you can make the same argument for Democrats, but Democrats don't generally talk about morality in the same way.
And to be perfectly honest, if throwing out the term "hypocritical" (which is the only "attack" on this group I can be accused of) is viewed as being out of bounds, we might as well shut down this entire discussion, because the word hypocrisy has been thrown around both ways more times than I can count. Like it or not, Christian Conservative means a certain thing in the generally accepted demographic make-up of discussions about our elections. When someone says it, they mean a far-right, anti-abortion, anti-gay, moralistic block of voters. Even THOSE VOTERS wouldn't deny that definition. It means a certain thing in the general vernacular of political parlance in this country when talking about politics, and maybe I am simply guilty of spending far too much time and energy thinking about and discussing politics. So I can certainly stop using the phrase it makes anyone feel better. But then the same thing would have to apply every time someone says "far-left liberals". And that would be ridiculous, and I have no interest in asking for that either. But as @semiticgod says below before I edited the end of this, best to just move on the other topics I would guess.
I strongly recommend that this debate over the merits of evangelical Christianity come to an end. All parties involved have made their viewpoints clear and I foresee little future in this debate.
I visit this thread every day to make sure no one is breaking the site rules. If you want to continue this debate, bear in mind that I will see it.
Perhaps it's best in general if people try not to take the results of this election so personally. The fact that our election process recognizes varied interests of our population should be a thing that is celebrated. Our differences make us stronger, not the other way around.
Edit: Back on topic, here is a recent message from the new president elect:
Comments
*EDIT* added "never" above.
"Don't believe in god? Screw you you're going to hell" "Muslim? False prophet go to hell!" etc etc etc etc
However, if anything this should crush the idea that this was an election that was based on personality and not issues. At the end of the day, people looked at Trump and recognized he was a terrible person, but then looked at Clinton and recognized that she would enact policies contrary to their interests.
I know at least one Catholic conservative who said that he despised Trump, but made an interesting point: whether or not Trump is president, he has the same ability to be a misogynistic lout. However, Clinton's ability to force nuns to pay for what they consider abortifacient relies entirely on her being the Commander in Chief.
Politics is about trade-offs, and some can be very unsavory.
The reason is the tyranny of the majority. In a country as large as ours you need to have some sort of way to account for differences in regional interests centralizing the vote -- and I give you full credit for consistency. Most people who take your position are unwilling to call for the dissolution of the Senate (which makes the vote of someone from Wyoming count approximately a gillion times more than a voter in NYC) but that system has prevented us from facing regional separation movements ala Scottland and Catalonia.
Sanders was on the trail those 9 months but you only heard about if you listened to Pacifica radio. He was having town hall meetings asking activists if he should run. No he did not start when Clinton did -- right after the Obama victory -- and thank Helm he didn't. Part of the 'rigging' was the hostility of the corporate media -- they spent more time aiming a camera at an empty podium waiting for Trump to speak than they did on Sanders. And the coverage of Sanders? I don't know how many times I read "Sanders gave his stump speech in X" (oh really? I guess the only thing we need to know about the speech is that he used his mouth to form words?)
And on the votes he did get 70 percent in WA. He would have done the same in NY and CA if the primaries had been open. And again, the pattern of wins is important. Yes he lost Ohio but he took WI and MI -- the states that decided the race -- and he did it by taking the two groups that did not turn out for Clinton: the working class and the young.
And again, every poll showed him with greater support. The Ralston article would have been forgotten if the DNC hadn't spread it, the CNN debaters somehow had the DNCs oppo research and we *know* that Clinton got the questions before hand. And Media coverage matters -- historically, take a look at Ross Perot's numbers before and after he forced himself onto the TV screens.
The laundered money mattered, the Superdelegates mattered, the paid Reddit / Facebook trolls mattered and the dirty trick just before the CA primary mattered. One of the many, many reasons the young and the left didn't turn out for Clinton is that they are sick and tired of this sort of campaign. Young people are starving for substance -- they wanted a discussion of single payer and they received celebrity endorsements.
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/10/anonymous-leaks-to-the-washpost-about-the-cias-russia-beliefs-are-no-substitute-for-evidence/ That position would be more convincing if it weren't at odds with the evidence. The polls -- not the fever dreams of the activists -- said Sanders was stronger by 10 points. Yes, you can *say* that polls that early don't mean anything but those polls accurately predicted the elections so that point is kinda moot right? Because they *did* actually predict the election.
Sure Bernie was rumpled, old and he called himself a socialist. But the *results* were clear. The exit polls told us that he took the youth in all demographic groups and the exit polls tell us that the youth stayed home in November. So I would return your statement to you: "politics is about dealing with the reality you have, not what you wish it would be." And you can only say that Sanders didn't have a chance if you ignore the evidence. Perhaps no one you know would have voted for him but chances are you don't spend much time with 18-24 year olds and/or midwestern factory workers. Am I right?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/06/20/more-young-people-voted-for-bernie-sanders-than-trump-and-clinton-combined-by-a-lot/
Take a look at the results before claiming he didn't have a chance.
Yes, I'm calling it Clinton economic because Clinton and the DLC foisted this Republican viewpoint on the Democrats. The "Washington Consensus" is the proper name.
Yes, I am proposing returning to protectionist policies because the trend lines of decline of the working class correlates perfectly with the trend lines of the abandonment of policies that protect American workers. I'd restore the tax rates of the 1960s, pass a Markora law for the US, restore the infrastructure and implement the taxes on wall street transaction. Essentially I'd do the inverse and converse of what Clinton was proposing.
As to success given that no country has done what I propose? I'd look to non state examples like the Mondragon project. To failures of Clintonism I'd point to the near collapse of the US economy, the Argentina crisis, Greece and, yes, Detroit.
http://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
Clinton only led the polls by the margin of error. Which is / was embarrassing when she was facing an opponent who started his campaign by calling Mexican rapists and ended it by bragging about sexually assaulting women.
Both of these candidates have histories of abhorrent behavior and decisions. Calling people hypocrites for choosing one over the other is, in itself, hypocritical.
If you're worried about "another Bush" getting into office, you have as much reason to fear Clinton as Trump.
Does it not make one a hypocrite to claim to follow "liberal principles" and yet vote for someone who was one of the strongest opponents of gay marriage for years, who supports a racial war based on lies and called Iraq a "business opportunity," who covered up the sexual assaults of her husband on girls for years (need I go on)?
What circle you fill out on a piece of paper does not make you a hypocrite, especially, as you have pointed out several times, when your vote doesn't even count because of the electoral college.
I find it really hard to believe that the intelligent liberal that you have displayed yourself to be on this thread could actually believe that all people of one general religious group are only one type of person and could lump them all into one distasteful mold. For the reason of your displayed intelligence and morale commitment to your beliefs, I directly call out your statements to you as intentionally provocative.
If I am wrong, and you really do have polar opposite conflicting beliefs, then I invite you to put aside your blinded cognitive bias for a few hours and do some personal research into the myriad of self-sacrificing religious lives that you so vehemently judge, many of whom are LGBT or female, Christian conservative, Trump-supporters.
Otherwise, please stop trying to subtly start a flame war. Everyone here has so far responded appropriately and intelligently, as most of us just wish to converse for the sake of becoming more enlightened and intelligently enriched.
Now, being a religious conservative myself, I also feel the need to inform all of you that these stereotypes are far from accurate in a great many ways (as are almost all stereotypes). I happen to be good friends with SEVERAL gay people on this forum, and I certainly do NOT go around claiming that everyone who disagrees with me and with my beliefs will "go to Hell". In fact, as a religious man, I believe it is my DUTY to be nice to EVERYONE regardless of who they are or what they believe. I do not need to agree with someone's lifestyle to be nice to them and to treat them with the respect they are due simply by being a person and a human. I can even LIKE them without agreeing with them.
The moderators and admins have given this thread and the people who participate in it a HUGE amount of leeway for about a month now. I do not think this will last very much longer, so if people continue to break the rules then they had best be prepared for the warnings that will follow.
What bothers me most is the sense of aggrivement among a religion that is so far and away in the majority in this country that it's laughable, constantly feeling like the are under some sort of attack. You can't walk two blocks in any major city in this country without running into a church. All of our major holidays revolve around this religion. Anyone who thinks they have a right to dictate whether two consenting adults have a right to get married, because of their personal religious beliefs will continue to be the target of my ire. Because by their tacit approval of this idea, they would deny hospital visiting rights and the end of life decision rights to a partner/spouse, because their book of ancient folklore tells them it's "icky."
I have no qualms with anyone doing what they want, practicing whatever religion they want. What a futile effort that would be. In my view Christianity has no more legitimacy than Scientology or the Heaven's Gate cult, it just has more money and better branding. And I am saying that I don't want to hear about "morality" from a voter who claims to be Christian and voted for Trump. I am perfectly fine not hearing about it from Democratic Clinton voters either. But that's the thing about Democrats, certainly in 2016. We aren't generally trying to write discrimination into law. The worst you could say about us is that we'd like Christian business owners to stop bitching about paying for health insurance that provides birth control.
As to Hillary covering up for Bill, you could just as easily say she was a hurt wife who wasn't all that happy with the women her husband was sleeping with, which would be the most normal emotion imaginable. I will note that every single woman who came forward in the '90s about Bill Clinton was paid VAST sums of money and every single one of them got a book deal. You can't say the same thing about a single one of Trump's accusers, probably because they fear for their lives at this point if they continue to speak out. Not from Trump, but from his supporters. Trump himself would never actually sue them, because he would open himself up to cross-examination. Someone like Gloria Allred would be salivating at the prospect.
In closing, there is a certain provocative nature to many posts on internet forums, which I am no doubt guilty of, though far less here than other places I might visit. But as long as these issues and rights aren't set in stone, I'll continue to call out this segment of the population. And if you'd like an example, I'm talking about the parents of the children in "Jesus Camp", people who watch the 700 Club or send money to John Hagee, or that think Ralph Reed is a swell guy doing the work of the lord. Am I referring to all Christians?? Of course not, but I DO think that anyone who claims to be Christian and pulled the lever for Trump should have no claim to the traditional meaning of the term "values voter". Now you can make the same argument for Democrats, but Democrats don't generally talk about morality in the same way.
And to be perfectly honest, if throwing out the term "hypocritical" (which is the only "attack" on this group I can be accused of) is viewed as being out of bounds, we might as well shut down this entire discussion, because the word hypocrisy has been thrown around both ways more times than I can count. Like it or not, Christian Conservative means a certain thing in the generally accepted demographic make-up of discussions about our elections. When someone says it, they mean a far-right, anti-abortion, anti-gay, moralistic block of voters. Even THOSE VOTERS wouldn't deny that definition. It means a certain thing in the general vernacular of political parlance in this country when talking about politics, and maybe I am simply guilty of spending far too much time and energy thinking about and discussing politics. So I can certainly stop using the phrase it makes anyone feel better. But then the same thing would have to apply every time someone says "far-left liberals". And that would be ridiculous, and I have no interest in asking for that either. But as @semiticgod says below before I edited the end of this, best to just move on the other topics I would guess.
I visit this thread every day to make sure no one is breaking the site rules. If you want to continue this debate, bear in mind that I will see it.
Edit: Back on topic, here is a recent message from the new president elect: