Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

Thanks, my Commonwealth brother.

 

The reigning English monarch is the official head of state of many Commonwealth countries (former colonies of the British Empire), and the Governor General theoretically acts as her/his representative. In practice both the monarch and the GG are largely ceremonial offices. The Canadian GG is nominated by the Prime Minister, for whom the monarch automatically gives "royal assent."

 

It's an interesting situation, in that legally the English monarch has much broader powers than that; but by long-standing tradition practically never exercises them, deferring to the elected governments, although Queen Elizabeth reportedly sometimes exerts subtle influence behind the scenes. The Queen also stays out of the politics of other Commonwealth countries. It illustrates that sometimes traditions, and public respect for them, can be as powerful as laws.

[unclevlad]

One more week.  Got to get through one more week, then the sheer HELL of thiis year's political ad campaigns will be over.  Given that the congressional races are considered so much more significant this year, compared to most, it sure feels like it's been both busier and nastier than most off-year elections.

[Ternaugh]

I got rid of cable TV some years back, and don't generally watch live programming (outside of the Employee Dining Room at work), so the only video ads that I've seen this cycle were when I was served an ad in front of a Youtube video on a computer without an ad blocker*, and a few that ran during lunch at work. I don't listen to radio in the car (I'm currently working through a flash drive with about 20,000 mp3 files on it), so I missed out on those, as well. The one email address that gets political stuff generally tends to throw it into the spam folder automatically**, so I don't usually see that, either. I've got a bunch of mailers that generally get thrown in the trash without reading.

 

 

 

*There's something surreal about being fed a "vote Republican" ad in front of the Peter Gabriel song, "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)"

 

**I made a mistake programming a rule for my email client, and it's now decided that all emails must be spam unless the sender is in the whitelist. I tend to eyeball the headers in the spam folder, and then move back stuff that I really want. It's actually worked well for me.

[Pattern Ghost]

9 hours ago, unclevlad said:

One more week.  Got to get through one more week, then the sheer HELL of thiis year's political ad campaigns will be over. 

 

Yeah, but those stupid lawn signs will plague us for another six months, at least.

[Sociotard]

5,000 troops to be deployed to the border.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-29/trump-is-said-to-plan-ordering-about-5-000-troops-to-border

 

Evidently, Posse Comitatus does not apply because they will be doing logistical support, such as medical tents and trucks, rather than actually apprehending immigrants. 

 

Even so, I can't stop remembering when the Right was abuzz with the conspiracy theories regarding Jade Helm 15. That was just an exercise, but there was so much fearmongering that it was going to be a coup. Shouldn't this be worse? Its in the same location,

 

[Old Man]

 

Of course not!  The Fatherland™ is threatened by an invasion of several thousand penniless, unarmed, starving brown people on foot!  TO ARMS, PATRIOTS!  TO ARMS!

[Hermit]

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2018/10/29/jeff-sessions-boston-bible-verse/

 

 

[Hermit]

I am actually for strong borders. I am not convinced having a bad economy in your own nation automatically entitles you to cross a border into another country. But the caravan are asylum seekers, while many of them are no doubt just wanting better standards of living but were not in immediate danger, there ARE others that didn't want their kids getting murdered in cold blood by drug cartels or the like.  And at least those coming to seek a better job are sympathetic, unlike the corporations that eagerly snatch them up so they can pay them bare minimum and treat them as poorly as they like because otherwise said worker risks getting his butt (and the butts of his family) deported on THEIR terms.

 

And unfortunately, in my opinion, we often make it very HARD for folks to do things legally.

 

It should not take 10 plus years to earn your US citizenship.

The courts and officials in charge of citizenship should not be as woefully understaffed and underfunded as they are. We need more funding to expand and stream line the process.

We should go after those exploiting illegal immigrants more than we do the illegal immigrants themselves.

 

My lord, sometimes I want to kick Congress in its collective keister. There are things they could do to HELP those trying to do it by the laws. THAT I think, about 90% of most Americans of either political bent could agree with.

But that would require them actually doing something.

 

Nevermind our President who clearly is okay with immigrants as long as they're blonde.

 

 

 

 

 

[Starlord]

48 minutes ago, Hermit said:

My lord, sometimes I want to kick Congress in its collective keister. There are things they could do to HELP those trying to do it by the laws. THAT I think, about 90% of most Americans of either political bent could agree with.

 

Interestingly, I think if you ask many Trump voters, they will tell you they voted for Trump because the government gets nothing done and they thought he was a maverick outsider who would kick Congress in its collective keister.

[Lord Liaden]

Trump does get things done. It's just that a lot of what he gets done is destructive to civilized society.

[Hermit]

39 minutes ago, Starlord said:

 

Interestingly, I think if you ask many Trump voters, they will tell you they voted for Trump because the government gets nothing done and they thought he was a maverick outsider who would kick Congress in its collective keister.

 

I'll defer to Lord Liaden's point regarding that save to say yeah, like the time he 'drained the swamp' by means of inserting even more poisonous reptiles into the marsh

[archer]

Shots fired into Volusia County (FL) Republican Party satellite office, police say

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-ne-volusia-county-republican-hq-shots-20181029-story.html

 

Four shots fired through the front glass into the building earlier this week.

 

Last month it was arson at a Republican office in Wyoming https://www.dailycaller.com/2018/09/06/wyoming-gop-office-fire/

 

Could we try to have a vote without bombs and bullets? (I feel like Rodney King, "Can't we all get along?")

[Old Man]

20 minutes ago, archer said:

Shots fired into Volusia County (FL) Republican Party satellite office, police say

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-ne-volusia-county-republican-hq-shots-20181029-story.html

 

Four shots fired through the front glass into the building earlier this week.

 

Last month it was arson at a Republican office in Wyoming https://www.dailycaller.com/2018/09/06/wyoming-gop-office-fire/

 

Obviously these are false flag operations funded by some shadowy billionaire who wants to turn public opinion against the Democrats. 

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

This is the sort of thing I was afraid of. After a while it doesn't matter who initiated a chaotic situation -- the chaos infects all sides and becomes self-escalating.

[Old Man]

Does it?  I hate to argue against the "all sides do it" lie again, but even if these are politically motivated attacks, the worst case scenario is that one side vandalizes unoccupied offices while the other commits premeditated mass murder.  The MAGAbomber even sent more bombs after the news reported the first ones were intercepted.

[megaplayboy]

3 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Does it?  I hate to argue against the "all sides do it" lie again, but even if these are politically motivated attacks, the worst case scenario is that one side vandalizes unoccupied offices while the other commits premeditated mass murder.  The MAGAbomber even sent more bombs after the news reported the first ones were intercepted.

The problem with the "both sides do it/are equally bad" is two or threefold.  First, it's extraordinarily unlikely that misconduct/inflammatory acts and statements are actually evenly balanced between sides.  It's far more likely that one side does it more frequently, AND to a greater degree.  Second, it's arguably more effective to single out which side is worse, to point it out publicly and frequently, and then let the people punish said party as appropriate.  If you equate both sides all the time, you essentially make effective censure impossible, because it's effectively a "wash".  Lastly, identifying these differences is important, in order for voters to make an informed decision, and to identify the ways in which extremist sentiments get "mainstreamed".  The synagogue shooter was motivated by Trump and the right wing media's rabble rousing about the immigrant "caravan" and this iffy proposition that George Soros and other Jewish people were "conspiring" to bring the caravan to the US, to "destroy" American culture.  Were these ideas only out there on the outer fringes of extremist discourse?  No, they were embodied in Republican campaign ads, Trump tweets and rally speeches, and in various Fox News and Breitbart segments.  To paraphrase Andrew Gillum from his last debate, it's not that I think Republicans who do and say these things are anti-Semitic, it's that anti-Semites seem to think they're anti-Semitic.  

[Sociotard]

20 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Does it?  I hate to argue against the "all sides do it" lie again, but even if these are politically motivated attacks, the worst case scenario is that one side vandalizes unoccupied offices while the other commits premeditated mass murder.  The MAGAbomber even sent more bombs after the news reported the first ones were intercepted.

All sides DO do it. Remember the congressional baseball practice that got shot up last year?

 

Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.

[megaplayboy]

14 minutes ago, Sociotard said:

All sides DO do it. Remember the congressional baseball practice that got shot up last year?

 

Romans 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one.

I don't recall Bernie Sanders' rhetoric towards the Republican congressional caucus being particularly inflammatory, however. Trump talks about the press being "the enemy of the people", calls Democrats "evil", and Fox News says that "we are under attack".  This is the kind of rhetoric used to justify going to war with another country, typically.

[Lord Liaden]

Guys, I never said the most recent examples of action by apparent partisans choosing each side are equivalent. I'm not pretending to spread blame equally. But IMHO this vandalism would have been far less likely to have occurred without that provocation. Intensifying rhetoric inevitably provokes action, which provokes a response, which provokes a steeper response. That's the infecting chaos, and it shows no sign of getting anything but worse before it gets better.

[Ternaugh]

As strange as this may sound, it may just be an idiot with a gun taking a pot shot. When I was a kid growing up in Volusia County (about 23 miles by car from our town to Daytona Beach), we had a neighbor put a .22 rifle shot through one of our front windows for "reasons"*, and I remember that the TV repair shop around the corner had several bullet holes in the plate glass windows in front for several years**.

 

 

 

*He claimed that he was shooing a bird off his lawn with his rifle (as you would), and the gun went off.

 

**Every once in a while, they'd replace a window. It wouldn't take long for a new bullet hole to appear. Oh, did I mention that this was around the block from the police and fire station?

[megaplayboy]

26 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Guys, I never said the most recent examples of action by apparent partisans choosing each side are equivalent. I'm not pretending to spread blame equally. But IMHO this vandalism would have been far less likely to have occurred without that provocation. Intensifying rhetoric inevitably provokes action, which provokes a response, which provokes a steeper response. That's the infecting chaos, and it shows no sign of getting anything but worse before it gets better.

IME if the worst offender scales down their rhetoric and action, the lesser offender will tend to follow suit.  The reverse is usually not true, however.  

[Sociotard]

No one ever thinks they are the lesser offender. See Trump's kid tweeting " maybe we aughta play by their rules"

[megaplayboy]

35 minutes ago, Sociotard said:

No one ever thinks they are the lesser offender. See Trump's kid tweeting " maybe we aughta play by their rules"

It's not actually that difficult to objectively determine who is, frankly.

[unclevlad]

I agree with Lord Liaden.  The degree of violence by each side is much less important than the fact that both sides of the spectrum appear to be doing it.

 

The other aspect is, I believe things are escalating, in terms of both frequency and intensity.  Racially motivated bombings...an unfortunate, long history.  Pulse and the attack in Pittsburgh iarerooted in, if you will, routine (extreme) bigotry.  Random sociopathy...Las Vegas, Unabomber, etc....  But political?  I don't recall for sure, but the shooting at the Congressional baseball practice wasn't partisan, was it?  General disgust with Congress, I think.  

 

And it's naive to deny the possibility that the overall increasingly inflammatory, partisan rhetoric is disconnected.  

 

[megaplayboy]

My point is that, instead of saying "both sides do it " and having little net effect on civil discourse,  it's better to make clear distinctions where such distinctions exist, in order to "name and shame" offenders into either shaping up, or shipping out, via electoral defeat.