massey

The makeup of political parties is not uniform, particularly in our system.
 
You can have a 45 year old white union worker in Ohio, a 70 year old black guy in Alabama, a 28 year old gay fashion designer in San Francisco, and a 60 year old Jewish grandmother in NYC, all Democrats.  There's a strong possibility that none of them like each other.  Republicans have the same type of divisions.  The survivalist in Montana, the church mom in Kansas, the executive in Manhattan, all Republicans but very little alike.
 
I think what has happened over the past 20+ years is that Bill Clinton, always one to choose political expediency over, well... everything else, moved to the right on economic and military issues.  NAFTA.  "The era of big government is over!"  Sex scandal?  Let's invade Bosnia.  The Democratic Party has gradually moved away from supporting that 45 year old Ohio union guy.  When was the last time the national Democrats really pushed for any legislation designed to help blue collar workers?  You can say Obamacare, but that was really targeted at lower incomes.
 
It used to be that the Dems were the party of ivory tower intellectuals, black people, the poor, and the blue collar working man.  Since Clinton (and arguably, it was happening before), they shifted their focus.  They've been much more concerned with gay rights (and now transgender rights,but that's a real small percentage of voters) than they have with representing Joe Sixpack.  The Democratic Party is a lot more likely to appeal to college educated Millennials than it is lower-middle class workers.  "Raising the minimum wage" doesn't appeal to you if you already earn $15 an hour.
 
So what has happened is this group of people, former Democrats, are now looking for a place where they belong.  Because of the Republican Party's support of "traditional values", these guys have found a home.  Joe Sixpack doesn't really like welfare moms, and isn't necessarily wild about abortion or gay marriage.  The Republicans aren't doing too much to help him economically, but at least they have the same social beliefs that he has.  The Dems weren't doing anything monetarily for him either, and he really doesn't feel at home with social justice warrior types.  So this group has shifted over to the Republican Party.
 
Now the Republicans are just as diverse a group as the Democrats.  From rich bankers to conservative Christians, they have lots of different beliefs.  And in the post-Reagan years, they had a good balance going, but it was usually led by the pro-business group.  But since Obama took office, there have been fractures in the party.  Establishment Republicans were happy, because income tax rates have stayed low, and business profits have been high.  Tea Party Republicans were angry, because the deficit is growing.  But Establishment Republicans have never really cared about the deficit that much (big businesses often run big debts).  It was just a cost of doing business.  And the new Joe Sixpack Republican was suddenly VERY concerned about immigration.  Most Republicans didn't care too much about that, historically, because they like cheap labor.  A bank executive isn't worried about Pablo from Mexico taking his job.  But Joe Sixpack the truck driver is very worried about it.
 
This tension has created the RINO accusation (Republican In Name Only).  The accusation that you weren't conservative enough on whatever issue the accuser cared about.  There are now a very large group of Joe Sixpack Republicans who don't really care about cutting taxes on big businesses or on the rich.  Now Donald Trump comes along, and he's screaming a bunch of very populist ideas.  He's proposed a lot of un-Republican economic strategies.  He's not appealing to the Wall Street Republican group.  He's appealing to Joe Sixpack.  Isolationism, building a wall, imposing tariffs on foreign goods, these are old school Democrat policies.  He's not a traditional Republican.  He's a populist.  It just so happens that changes in the Democratic party in the past 20 years have sent all the people who populism appeals to over to the Republicans.
 
There's an economic dividing line in American society.  In the last few years, I've gone from "struggling to get by" and crossed over into "I suddenly have a decent amount of extra money at the end of each month".  I crossed the dividing line about a year ago.  I'm by no means rich, but unless I do something really stupid, I will be very comfortable in a few years.  I'm now much more concerned with what the higher tax rates are.  I used to be a moderate Republican (raised socially conservative, and conservative in my personal life, and I always wanted to have lots of money), but I'm certainly not a populist.  And now I'm finding that Hillary Clinton may be closer to my beliefs than anybody else.  She's pro-business, won't raise my taxes, and she's a ball-buster in foreign policy.  It's a very weird feeling, having the parties switch positions underneath your feet.  I still don't really like Hillary, at all.  But Trump is Huey Long.

Why is Donald Trump's latest book so long?
 
Because it has 4 Chapter 11s.
 
 
Thanks, I'll be here all week. Try the veal.

Ultimate Cap is also a prick.  I like Movie Cap much better.

I'm pretty sure that MCU Cap has Ultimate Cap's strength levels and the best of 616 Cap's personality and worldview.

Ultimate Cap is also a prick.  I like Movie Cap much better.

Of course, I haven't seen the movie yet, but it seems a lot easier to just pull yourself up into the helicopter and fight Bucky for the controls.

Nuff said
 

Well, I don't plan on voting for President.  Cant vote Trump, cant vote Clinton.  Nothing to do but hunker down and hope I survive till 2020.

This election cycle has me questioning my faith in my countrymen.  
 
I thought Romney was such a lousy candidate that for the second time in my life, I voted for a Non Republican for President.  The first time got me Clinton.    Despite the rantings of the Right wing, Obama has not been all that bad, at least he has not managed to get a new gun ban passed...
 
Every election I think "They have to come up with better candidates next time!"  But at least on the Republican side, they seem to get worse...   
 
I personally distrust Hillary.   I do not trust her as far as I could throw her.   But I do not trust Trump as far as I could throw the Entire Republican field from the early part of this campaign.  
 
I weep for the future.   

Does Cap's Marty Stu-ness ruin the film simply because he is a Marty-Stu?
Do they spend at least 43 minutes properly explaining exactly how Thor's hammer works so the cinematic universe will make sense?
Does the black dude playing Black Panther look properly African?
Is Baron Zemo an Asian who doesn't know martial arts?
Do all the characters have the correct height, weight, and breast size as they do in the comics?
 
If the answers are yes, then I will go I guess...but knowing Marvel they'll just give us another great story with fantastic action...bummer.

Apparently Nathan Fillion will be in Guardians of the Galaxy as...Wonder Man.
http://geekandsundry.com/nathan-fillian-joins-guardians-of-the-galaxy-as-wonder-man/
 
or at least just Simon Williams

Dude, what are you smoking?
 
Who in the 80's ever heard of a Japanese Ninja? 
 
That's utter crazy talk and disinformation. 
 
For your future reference: REAL Ninjas are white, American, and wear camouflage pants...
 
The 80's was the golden era of the white boy ninjas!
 
Betsy as a white girl Ninja would have almost been the norm in the eighties.
 
Except, well... girl power and a British accent.
 
Not that normal and eighties go together, mind you. 
 
But still...
 

Why bring Rob Liefeld into this?

Please, please can we finally have a FUNNY, 'spitting-one-liners-like-an-uzi' Spider-Man?!?!?  PLEASE?

The Civil War comic series sucked.  I agree with you there.  It's one of the things that made me stop reading comics.
 
I don't think the rest of your worries are well founded though.    It sounds like your own politics are kind of leaking in as well.  All the critics are saying this is one of the best Marvel movies yet.  The big thing that Captain America has is that he's persuasive.  He's a natural leader and he doesn't give up.  Just look at the trailer where Cap is fighting Iron Man, is clearly outmatched, and says "I could do this all day."  This is a reference to his first movie, before he had powers, when he was fighting a bully.  Putting Iron Man in the "bully" position doesn't seem to me like they're painting Cap as a terrorist.  Kevin Feige even talked about how Iron Man was clearly a bad guy in the comics, and in this one they hope to make it clear that both sides are good guys.
 
Cap also has the Scarlet Witch, who is a walking talking VPP.  So the power level isn't quite as uneven as you portray it.

Hey it takes time for him to find and steal plots from people.

Doesn't this sum up everyone's feelings?

When I watch movies, I see someone wave his hand in the air and 2 seconds later, there is a cab. What "real world" are you referring to?

I wish my first name was Powers.

Well, the military, even a comic book military like SHIELD, would be expected to perform somewhat similarly to a regular military.  Thor being a magic god alien obviously operates a little differently.  I still expect taxi cabs to be the same as in the real world, after all.
 
I think it's perfectly plausible that the Shadow Leader Council People, or whatever they're called, who have been following this Tesseract business the entire time, and know basically exactly what is going on, might order taking out half of Midtown if they think this is something that is going to end the Earth.  And we don't know exactly what they told that pilot, but "alien space dragons are coming through a portal at Stark Tower, Earth's only hope is that you close the portal with that nuke you're carrying" wouldn't be all that far off.

I eagerly await an accurate portrayal of military operational conduct in any comic book movie. It is about as likely as an accurate portrayal of police procedures or court room protocol. I'm not holding my breath though...

Maybe he was Hydra.

Firefighters wear masks, just like criminals and terrorists. 

What I find to be a drag about the whole premise of Civil War and the argument over governing superheroes is that it renounces the very core of superheroes as wish fulfillment. I don't read superhero comics (or play superhero RPGs) in order to explore the question of "What would be the real-world consequences of superpowered individuals on society?" I do it to vicariously live a life of adventure and vigilantism, where having virtuous intentions gets rewarded with victory. Where I get to watch superpowered individuals and organizations do what ordinary citizens and bureaucracies can not, and triumph over evil in dramatic and epic fashion.
 
That is why the modern obsession with examining issues of collateral damage, government corruption, and the thorny issues of ethics and vigilantism has made the superhero genre a whole lot less fun while it desperately attempts to become "relevent" and "though-provoking." Sure, Marvel made a name for themselves using superhero stories as a way to hold up a mirror on a turbulent society in the 60s and 70s, but the more they drag superheroes down that rabbit hole, the further and further away from they get from delivering that fundamental element of wish fulfillment that I value so highly.
 
I'm looking forward to Thanos coming along and, in effect, slapping everyone upside the head with the sobering realization that there is a lot more to worry about in the MCU than whether or not superheroes should be forced to function like civil servants.