Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'm glad you convinced yourself, but you asked why we have to respect people's religious beliefs. The answer is because very bad things happen when you don't.

Also, as a non-believer, I really don't want to live in a world where we don't let people chose their own religious beliefs. You shouldn't either, as we're the first people who wouldn't be tolerated.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It's not just our government. It's also our media, like Maher.

There's nothing reflexive about it. He repeatedly says bigoted things.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

This is not a fact. And note that fresh off suggesting that religion is just another variety of nonsense, now you've decided that religion is somehow intrinsically different -- that instead of talking about terrorism, whatever that might mean, more generally, you're going to talking about religious-inspired terrorism. You can't have it both ways.

When I said, I'm not interested in Bill Maher, maybe I somehow left you the impression that maybe I'm interested in Bill Maher. But I'm not.

I would like to better understanding this "huge graph of terrorism" that you envisage. What is in the denominator? What violence isn't?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Judge not lest ye be judged. That's not nonsense. And that bit where Jesus took the five loaves of barley bread and the two smoked fish, and he multiplied them? That was pretty cool.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

A moment ago it was religious terrorism, but now we've moved on to spectacular attacks. Just so long as we can define a category that Islamic extremists are leading in, we're all set.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Criticizing a group of people out of ignorance based on stereotypes and "racial characteristics" is my definition of racism. Maher fits.

Interestingly, if someone wants to defend Maher by arguing he's not racist their best bet is to argue that many Muslims aren't a darker shade than Richard Spencer and lack the physical characteristics of your average Arabic, Turkish or Persian Middle Easterner, but that never occurs to them (or him - non ME Muslims may be a majority in the world, but he has no idea they exist). However, every time I watch Maher he reminds me that his bigotry is based on racial characterizations; if you watch, you'll find he mentions "immutable characteristics" not infrequently in his tirades.

Re: Maga
 

Well then, why aren't you supporting her, too!!

(Thank the Good Lord there is someone to talk to here about something not involving Sebby! Come back, Slave!)

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Me, yesterday:

And none of his criticisms of Islam as a silly religion make him a "racist." Your comment above on that issue is just... dumb. First, he assails all religions as silly. And Islam is, yes, silly. The Koran is fictional nonsense. Like the Old and New Testament, the Book of Mormon, etc. Objectively, they are all silly. They are not sacred things we may not insult. If anything, to progress as a species, we ought to denigrate them more, to marginalize their influence as much as possible. Second, Islam and "brown people" are not synonyms. Islam's adherents are of a variety of backgrounds. Arguing Maher hates brown people, which he absolutely does not, based on his dislike of Islam makes no sense.

I watch him religulously, and I have not heard him use the term "immutable characteristics" at all, let alone in regard to physical appearances. When he generalizes Muslims, its based on cultural characteristics, usually critiquing the patriarchal elements. In that, he's confusing Islam with certain backward elements of Middle Eastern culture generally.

Re: Maga
 

I'm not not supporting her. But at this point, it's time to move on. And we need to focus on future leadership* of the Party.

TM

*Yates-Schiff 2020!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

There's yer problem.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

That was just too easy. I had to use it.

And I loved the movie.

Re: Maga
 

I am really impressed by a lot of the Democratic bench right now, there's not enough talk about it. I see a ton of people, Yates and Shiff definitely among them but many others too, distinguishing themselves right now.

My favorite one to cite to really piss of the right is Maxine Walters. She is getting deep under their skin. Suggest her to your Trump friends some time and watch them go into meltdown mode.

Re: Maga
 

Oh, don't be like that.

I would like to understand how a polarized society grows less polarized. I'm not seeing it.

Re: Maga
 

I'm sorry, but I'm sick of this shit.

I am a reasonable person. I disagree with a lot of what conservatives believe. I have had many discussions with countless Republicans who all seem sane in disagreement. None of them believe in anything Trump stands for (except deep and wide tax cuts). But the fact that so many of them voted for him knowing how hateful, stupid, and small-minded he is in order to line their pockets makes me wonder what the point of such discussions is. Those are the reasonable Republicans. I'm open to discussing how to interact with them.

The lunatics who are full-on Trumpeteers are completely and irretrievably insufferable. There is no connection to reality. They don't give a fuck about anyone who isn't them or who closely resembles them. Their arguments are based on fantasy and they are completely ignorant. These are the people who are polarizing this country. Thirty five percent of this country is incurably racist and ignorant. They make up the Republican base and you can talk until you're blue in the face, but they are not worth reaching out to.

If you want this country to grow less polarized, Democrats need to win big in 2018 and 2020, redraw districts so that these gerrymandered Republican districts are gone and destroy all types of voter suppression (de jure and de facto) so Republicans can run reasonable people.

That way the 60-65% of this country that is interested in having a functioning government and who want to invest in its future can have an actual debate about how that gets done. The remainder can pound all the fucking sand.

TM

Re: Maga
 

That solution would work for me, but I don't think it's realistic, for a couple of reasons. One is that Trump won 47% of the vote. I don't think there was enough vote suppression turnout to turn 35% of the country into 47% of the voters. Rather, I think a larger percentage of the country is Republican, and polarization drives Republicans who might have been more reasonable or willing to split tickets a generation ago to vote for, e.g., Trump. Also, Republicans are more likely to choose to vote. Two, there are so many checks in our system of checks and balances that it's hard to get real change if a substantial portion of the country opposes it.

Are our children doomed to live in a country this polarized? What de-escalates things?

Re: Maga
 

You mean short of war, which has been the traditional way to let off the steam?

Breaking mass hysteria is very hard. I think it may require that a bunch of the possessed be so thoroughly humiliated and discredited (as has been happening with some of the Fox assault squad, but not enough) that they crawl back under their rock. The example of this would be racists after the civil rights movement (in many cases the very people crawling out from under rocks today).

It does not happen by being all sweet and nice to morons and assholes. That is how it gets worse.

Note: a key to this happening is the reasonable Republicans and moderates, and there are many, growing just as frustrated with the idiocy of the wingers as others are, and you can see this happening in places. But Bill Kristol, for example, is not hosting be-kind-to-racists-teas. He is abusing them. He is ridiculing them. He is ripping them new orifices. And pissing them off by suggesting a smart angry black woman for President - I have no regrets!

Re: Maga
 

There is some distance between "being all sweet and nice to morons and assholes" and promoting Maxine Waters. The enemy of your enemy does not need to be your friend.

Re: Maga
 

You don't like Maxine?

I like Maxine. Sort of a Bernie Sanders for people who think. And she has fewer ethical lapses than he does.

Re: Maga
 

My recollection is that she has said and done some truly loopy things. To be honest, I don't recall what. Hey -- if you like Maxine, promote her because you like her, not because it pisses off other people.

Re: Maga
 

I don't know that we're that far off. When I choose to accept that 35% of this country is completely irredeemable, that necessarily means we are to live with that kind of polarization. The trick is to get the other 15-20% of reasonable Republicans to engage beyond voting for even the current piece of shit in office in an effort to reduce their fucking taxes. The first step would be to undo the steps Republicans have taken to ensure that they are overrepresented at all levels of government (eg., gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc.).

If we are able to achieve this, we can go back to the time when that 35% can be told to fuck off.

But if that never happens, I'm not going to sit here wondering how to engage with those assholes because we're polarized. Fuck them anyway. We should be thinking about how to get more people to vote. That seems way easier than continually extending an olive branch to a group of people that despises anyone that doesn't live in their immediate vicinity and who doesn't look just like them.

We could spend $300 billion on restoring the coal industry's 200,000 jobs, subsidizing them, and forcing the country to use coal the way we do corn products and those assholes will regard those who live in cities and who benefit from infrastructure or mass transit investment with nothing but complete hate.

TM

Re: Maga
 

I know a lot of Rs who are quite dispirited and willing to compromise. The problem is the primary process. It's fucked up everything because moderates don't pay attention, and the crazies vote "pure" (read: batshit) candidates into the general.

I don't see anything changing much until the old, angry, xenophobic sector of the GOP dies off. There are some young Trump nuts out there, but not enough to win national elections. The Trump coalition relies on a lot of aging boomers. When they go, it goes. I think that process will take another ten years or so.

Re: Maga
 

Your impediment to getting that 15% is high right now.

Many of those moderate Republicans don't like hearing things like, "But our taxes are still so low compared to Europe!" from the left.

The Ds also have stale ideas. They're much better on trade, and the stock market tends to do better under D administrations (even if that's probably because of what Rs did before Ds got control). But in terms of management policy, it's same old/same old: Govt apparatuses employed at huge admin cost to interfere in almost everything. (Credit Obama, who at least kept govt small, like a solid moderate R.)

Things like universal income are good ideas. Student debt forgiveness for millennials is a good idea.

Things like "moar taxes for more govt administration" and "moar taxes for education" (read: again, mostly administration) are bad ideas. When a person like me hears that, it translates to: "How about I just take ten grand into the backyard and burn it on the grill?"

But if the Ds argued, boldly, "Universal income would eliminate a lot of the wasteful govt administration we have by eradicating the middlemen and giving the cash directly to those who need it, who will then spend it in the economy and create growth!" I'm hearing, "That's a good long term investment that will help everyone. Sign me up."

You'd be surprised how many Rs would support that sort of thinking. But yes, I suspect most are concentrated on the coasts.

Re: Maga
 

I think the true Trump supporters are more like 20-25% of the population. Or were. Trump's success in winning over other Republicans and Republican-like independents surprised me last year -- I didn't think he'd do it, but he did. Either they really hated Hillary, or it turns out that their tribal loyalties overrode common sense.

Either way, part of the reason those people are overrepresented is that they are likely to vote, and another part is that the Constitution and statutes give them more say (two Senators/state, state control over election laws, loss of voting rights for felons, etc.). I definitely think that Democrats should focus on trying to fix this, but that's a tall order.

At ground level, I'm with you. But come up into the clouds with me for a moment. From up here, how do we think the polarization will get reversed? I see how the process feeds on itself, but I don't see what changes things.

Re: Maga
 

If they weren't willing to vote for Hillary over Trump, they weren't really willing to compromise. And they weren't.

Re: Maga
 

You are absolutely dreaming. People on the right are not, by and large, motivated by pragmatic arguments about what would work better. They are motivated by disagreement with and resentment of the left, of "coastal elites" and colored people. They don't mind wasteful government administration if the waste is going to people like them. If Democrats used your lines and threaten to win elections with them, so-called moderate Republicans would find new reasons to be skeptical.

Re: Maga
 

Only because we've known what works for a very long time and we've refused to adopt it.

We need to spend far less on defense and far more on the social safety net (lots of options on how to do that) while moving back toward the levels of progressive taxation we had in the '90s.

Unfortunately, no one is really running on that.

Or maybe it's like what the president does has little to do with what the stock market does.

Yes, small.

Your notion of where spending goes is fascinating. You know there are actual numbers on how much it costs to administer things like Medicaid and SNAP and the like, right? And that's it's really super cheap??

Re: Maga
 

It doesn't really work if it can't get adopted.

Re: Maga
 

Bingo.

Best discussion I've heard of the subject came from John Tester, the Dem. Senator from Montana. He said the area he could connect with Republicans on was generally the environment. He could talk hunting, fishing, hiking, farming, ranching, logging with them, and all the environmental management issues that went into it, and in his state that was where he could reach them, and then they'd be willing to at least listen on some other things.

We have relatively few bridge issues like this left -- the old pro-environment Republicans of days of yesteryear (Teddy Roosevelt!) have been isolated and beaten down in the Republican party in most places, for example. The Republicans have figured out that the true National Defense vote is very, very small compared to the Patriotic Xenophobic vote, and have opted for the latter - Hillary did wonderfully with National Defense Republicans, but there just isn't much of a vote there. Trade was a bridge, but the Trump anti-trade group seems to have beaten that out of the Rs, too. And don't get me started on civil rights, but the days when the Rs gave Lyndon Johnson the votes to put him over the top on the Civil Rights Act... wellllll.... it's a nice memory.

Frankly, all these folks who used to be reasonable have to give up on the Rs before there is much hope. And most of them aren't going to, they'll stick with them as they get nastier and nastier, and then they'll blame it on the dems. Fuck 'em.

Re: Maga
 

Re: Maga
 

As someone who regularly votes for both parties (and I know you all say you do, but not really). I voted for W twice and Obama twice. I think a lot of regular D and regular R voters would say, "wow, you must be very rare!" But I'm not. For the math to work on those elections I have to be common with a decent part of this 15% you mention.

Re: Maga
 

the congress is one issue, and how to get some sanity in it a real question. T is right, it has to happen at the state level. The recent Supremes case might help, but it still seems monumental.

but the voters aren't so divided. Hil handily won, even with the Bernie 3rd party drain, and the fact she was a horrible candidate. I have not spoken to any Trump voters that are not of the insane variety, but there might be a decent percent of the others that simply didn't see Trump as a worse choice- that is the ones who saw him as a good choice are lost, but the ones who saw him as a "less bad" choice might be salvagable.

Re: Maga
 

Not so much, because the turnout for different groups goes up and down.

Bless you for being willing to vote for both parties -- if voters won't do that, then things go to hell, as we are discovering.

Re: Maga
 

bless me to who? allah or baby Jesus?

Re: Maga
 

“This is the difference between being a liberal and a conservative. I do not support a livable wage," Karen Handel said during a debate with Democrat Jon Ossoff.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...a-livable-wage

Whether you're in the clouds, on the ground, or somewhere in between, you tell me how you talk to someone like that.

TM

Re: Maga
 

Exactly.

TM

Re: Maga
 

If you're gonna put "coastal elites" in quotation marks, I'd suggest you do the same for "colored people." You know, just to be safe. ;-)

TM

Re: Maga
 

What you call Allah I think of as Jesus's dad, although I'm a little confused lately about how to think of Jesus's divinity/non-divinity.

Re: Maga
 

It's hard to get those words out without leaving tooth marks on your ankle.

Re: Maga
 

Look, I know this is a point of pride for people. But I've gotta tell you, I don't give a shit if anyone thinks I'm "tribal" for never voting for Republicans.* There hasn't been one Republican candidate I would vote for based on their actual positions. So, if the implication is, I vote one way without thinking out of some sense of obligation, you've got it wrong. At best, the Republican Party consistently ignores the issues I care about and at worst, is on the exact opposite side.

And admitting you voted for W. twice to show how open-minded you are when it comes to your vote really doesn't impress me. He was a horrible President from day 1.

TM

*I did vote for Bloomberg (but wouldn't say he's much of a Republican).

Re: Maga
 

wasn't saying it to brag or to chastise- I was just making the point that you can't look at one election result and say the country is divided by a factor of the % trump got.