Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[csyphrett]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

So, yeah, clearly, someone flipping burgers deserves the same pay as a trained medical professional....

Nobody said that. What was said is that companies could pay more but don't because their executives are too busy taking everything like the hostess people expecting the unions to bail them out of their fourth bankruptcy while they are plating their bathrooms with gold like Jim Bakker used to do.

 

Both of these videos are years old, but it's what people were talking about and still applies now.

 

 

 

[wcw43921]

The Doonesbury strip for February 18th--

 

[Cygnia]

Which got blocked from Gannett owned papers this past Sunday

[L. Marcus]

Whoah! When did Doonesbury get all political?

[Ternaugh]

10 minutes ago, L. Marcus said:

Whoah! When did Doonesbury get all political?

 About a half-century ago.

[Lord Liaden]

4 hours ago, wcw43921 said:

The Doonesbury strip for February 18th--

 

 

I fear this conversation isn't exaggerated by much. 😟

[TrickstaPriest]

Yeah.  And judging by young men's opinions, they are beginning to successfully brainwash the next generations.

 

It was always about power 😕

[Hermit]

6 hours ago, wcw43921 said:

The Doonesbury strip for February 18th--

 

 

See, I actually LOVE when it gets pointed out that the Civil War had a fair sized group of Southerners stay as Unionists.. THOSE are the guys we should have statues of up more often in our parks etc.

[Cygnia]

Republican House Rep. on Gaza: “We Should Kill Them All”

Quote

In a stunning admission, a House Republican was caught on camera this week saying that he thinks the U.S. and Israel should kill all Palestinians in Gaza.

Tennessee Rep. Andy Ogles made the comments in response to pro-Palestine activists who confronted him in a hallway about the U.S.’s continued support for Israel’s genocidal assault in Gaza, which has killed 30,000 Palestinians so far, including 12,300 children.

“I’ve seen the footage of shredded children’s bodies,” an activist told Ogles after the lawmaker repeated unsubstantiated claims about violence against children by Hamas forces. “That’s my taxpayer dollars going to bomb those kids.”

“I think we should kill them all,” Ogles responded. “If that makes you feel better.”

 

[BoloOfEarth]

Sometimes I think the Republican Party should make "Cruelty is the Point" their motto.

[Cygnia]

 

[Asperion]

22 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

Sometimes I think the Republican Party should make "Cruelty is the Point" their motto.

 

I don't think they operate on a cruelty principle. Rather its more of a "me only " principle where everything must come from me and have me at the center. Everything else will be destroyed. 

[L. Marcus]

To my mind, the cruelty is a by-product of the conservative or reactionary mind-set: the need for a clear social hierarchy. Kissing upwards and kicking downwards, if you will.

[Cygnia]

4 minutes ago, L. Marcus said:

To my mind, the cruelty is a by-product of the conservative or reactionary mind-set: the need for a clear social hierarchy. Kissing upwards and kicking downwards, if you will.

"Rules for thee but never me"

[L. Marcus]

The further up the tree, the more privileges, yes.

[Lord Liaden]

The extreme Right has deliberately created targets for their followers to hate. Cruelty toward those targets follows logically. The repeated examples of people voting against their own best interest by hurting someone else, suggests that it's part of that approach's emotional appeal.

[unclevlad]

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos in test tubes are children under state law. 

 

From the NYT:

 

Quote

“Even before birth, all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory,” Chief Justice Tom Parker wrote in a concurring opinion.

 

This is part of the equation as well for some conservatives...the religious angle, and the supremacy of what they view as "God's will."  

[DShomshak]

A week ago, I'd never even heard of Zyn, but apparently it's become a Big Thing in some subcultures. A bit of cultural/political analysuis from Vox, about nicotine pouches and attempts to puff up fragile masculine egos. I post it here because, if true, it's nuts.

 

Mascuzynity: How a nicotine pouch explains the new ethos of young conservative men (msn.com)

 

So glad that when I was growing up, I was told in no uncertain terms that I could never have any sort of social status or acceptance, and I believed it. It removed a lot of pressure and left me free in many ways.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos in test tubes are children under state law. 

 

From the NYT:

 

 

This is part of the equation as well for some conservatives...the religious angle, and the supremacy of what they view as "God's will."  

 

And I guess childless couples aren't a big enough demographic for them to be afraid of losing it.

 

For people desperate to feel special, there's no more effective pitch than telling them, "You're doing what God wants."

[Cancer]

On 2/21/2024 at 12:19 PM, Ternaugh said:

 About a half-century ago.

 

53 years.  Not quite as far back as the 1960s.

[unclevlad]

5 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

And I guess childless couples aren't a big enough demographic for them to be afraid of losing it.

 

For people desperate to feel special, there's no more effective pitch than telling them, "You're doing what God wants."

 

No, I don't think that's the take...because the line about "God's will" and "an affront to God" was written by the Alabama Supreme Court's Chief Justice.  Therefore this isn't political, in the sense of worrying about losing votes.  It's purely ideological.  IF you accept the notion that life begins at the moment of conception, and that conception occurs when sperm and egg are combined, and last, that the fact that it occurs in a wholly unnatural manner...a procedure in a lab...is not relevant...then life has begun.  The motivation doesn't matter.  The intervention needed to achieve this, doesn't matter.  It's a highly literal, very rigid interpretation.

 

And there's also this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/us/politics/alabama-ivf-treatment-law.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Xk0.GZqq.8PtvcsEey9yi&smid=url-share

 

There doesn't appear to be much backing from even the conservative politicians or the anti-abortion side.

[Cygnia]

GOP congresswoman who used IVF wants to ban IVF

Quote

It's been a really rough week for Republicans who hate reproductive rights, and Republican Rep. Michelle Steel of California is no exception.

"As someone who struggled to get pregnant, I believe all life is a gift. IVF allowed me, as it has so many others, to start my family," she tweeted Thursday. "I believe there is nothing more pro-life than helping families have children, and I do not support federal restrictions on IVF."

Great! Just one teeny tiny little problem with that, as Inside Elections editor Jacob Rubashkin noted: Steel actually does support federal restrictions. Steel is one of the co-sponsors of the Life at Conception Act, a House bill that "declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual comes into being."

 

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

No, I don't think that's the take...because the line about "God's will" and "an affront to God" was written by the Alabama Supreme Court's Chief Justice.  Therefore this isn't political, in the sense of worrying about losing votes.  It's purely ideological.  IF you accept the notion that life begins at the moment of conception, and that conception occurs when sperm and egg are combined, and last, that the fact that it occurs in a wholly unnatural manner...a procedure in a lab...is not relevant...then life has begun.  The motivation doesn't matter.  The intervention needed to achieve this, doesn't matter.  It's a highly literal, very rigid interpretation.

 

And there's also this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/23/us/politics/alabama-ivf-treatment-law.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Xk0.GZqq.8PtvcsEey9yi&smid=url-share

 

There doesn't appear to be much backing from even the conservative politicians or the anti-abortion side.

 

Your take is very reasonable. I do want to point out that recent events have highlighted that the branches of American government are not as impermeable as many of us once assumed. There is an alliance at work at the state and federal level, and whether any faction of it is motivated by dogma or just opportunism, it's all headed in the same general direction.

 

Rep. Steele is only one example of the, "It's an exception when it affects me" clause of extremism.

Edited February 24 by Lord Liaden

[unclevlad]

3 hours ago, Cygnia said:

GOP congresswoman who used IVF wants to ban IVF

 

 

As the story notes, it's the direct result of the push to assert that life begins at the moment of conception...that is, when fertilization occurs.  They'll try to segregate natural vs. in vitro fertilization, but that won't be easy for them.  And they won't want to back down on the assertion, as, if not then, then...when?  And that opens the door back for abortions.

 

Politically, this also just brings the issues right back, front and center...and this is a very, very bad weak policy point for the Republicans.  "See?  Here they go again, here's Republican policy at work.  IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT?"  It's much easier to push this point when it's still fresh.

[Cygnia]

The Americans Who Need Chaos

 

Quote

If the need for chaos helps explain the mess we’re in, it might also offer the Trumpist opposition a clearer plan for wooing some (but certainly not all) voters back to normalcy. The need for chaos is rooted in people’s feelings about status, power, and control. For example, independents with culturally conservative instincts might feel that progressive ideas—what some call “woke” politics—weaken their social status, or that COVID policies trampled on their ability to control their daily life. Democrats could emphasize the ways in which their policies and priorities build status, power, and control. Under Biden, pay has increased so much for low-income Americans that it’s wiped out almost half of the past 40 years’ rise in income inequality; that’s a revitalization of economic status. Energy production is at an all-time high, and the U.S. has never been so energy independent; that’s both national and physical power. A right-leaning Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade; now Democrats across the country are fighting to protect abortion rights to restore women’s control over their own bodies. The antidote to a new American nihilism is a full-throated defense of American agency.