Re: Or Maybe Just Proof God has a Sense of Humor
 

A real conservative, an old school one, the extinct variety, understood that he who ignores the law of unintended consequences is not truly evolving. He's usually setting up the next Really Big Problem.

Progressives are great in terms of tolerance. I'm a progressive in that regard. I don't think one can have a brain and not be a progressive on social tolerance issues.

But progressives aren't terribly different in terms of restrictive policies than "fake conservatives." Both groups think they know how to do things best and want to direct people regarding what to do, how to live. You'll hear progressives pushing restrictive policies or policies aimed at social engineering say variations of the following: "We know what's best for everyone." This was also said by every religion since man walked upright. It's the arrogance of someone about to interfere with things, about to pass laws, to increase red tape. It's that officious Tracey Flick mindset that characterizes the dumb and loathsome side of progressivism.

The problem with the most strident progressives and "conservatives" is their actual intelligence is inverse to their self-perceived intelligence. They pass big policies, start big wars, make a fucking mess of things down the road, all in the name of "Trust us, we know what's best for everyone." Then when it fails catastrophically later they disown it and blame the other side.

In a perfect world, progressives and conservatives would adhere to the simplest of rules: 1. Leave things alone unless intervention is needed; and, 2. Thou shalt not predict the future (from Warren Buffet, or maybe it was Ben Graham).

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Double post. Deleted.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Have you ever actually played a sport? If you take the first pitch, what is that tired pitcher going to be on the next pitch? That’s right; more tired. You guys swinging gave him 3 pitch innings.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

"Over the past two decades, Republicans have grown increasingly doubtful about climate change, even as Democrats have grown increasingly convinced that it’s happening and is caused by humans." NYT. I'm sure there are conservative skeptics and fossil-fuel industry employees, but neither category explains the way conservatives have reacted to the mainstream (not just progressives, but the conventional understanding that climate change is a big problem and one that requires government action.

Sorry, that's nuts. You're not mischaracterizing libertarian views, but very few voters are libertarian.

Because they call themselves "conservatives."

No. You brought up polarization. I am describing polarization. If you buy my explanation but you are a conservative, you can blame the mainstream for driving conservatives away. Happy to talk about blame at some other point, but that's a separate conversation from what I was saying.

Bull. Shit. Conservatives do not embrace the urgent need to do something about climate change. Republican climate policy for the last three years has been to deny climate change, muzzle climate scientists, undo what Obama did, and de-regulate. There is *no* bipartisan consensus, in large part because conservatives are allergic to the idea of bipartisan consensus. Just for example, the Trump Administration just said it's going to roll back California's authority to promulgate higher tailpipe emissions standards, which we have had for fifty years, and opened an antitrust investigation of auto companies for agreeing to those standards. Did you see Republican politicians disagreeing with that?

All you have to look at is the conservative reaction to Greta Thunberg, which has been deranged. She pointedly avoids specific policy prescriptions -- she just keeps saying there is a huge problem. Conservatives cannot stand it.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

This exchange would be more useful if you knew something about baseball. Thanks for trying to answer my question.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

This is the dumbest shit I've ever read. You want 200 Ks, but you're upset because people are swinging and making contact? Wtf? If they make contact such that you can't strike them out, you didn't strike them out. Imagine Pedro or Johnson or Ryan or Verlander or Clem[...er, nevermind on that last one] reacting like this. What a joke.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The wall is a moronic policy.
Putting kids in cages is definitely asshole policy.
Trade war is a dumb policy, but there are argument for disciplining China.
Police state shit is 100% asshole.

But these aren't the only policies of conservatives.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I am confused by this entire conversation. If you see a guy going for a strikeout goal, you know he's coming with a fastball. Fuck your stupid goal. I want a hit. Why shouldn't I take advantage of your stupidity? This "play the right way" bullshit, which amounts to "give me a strike so I can reach my goal" is ridiculous. This huge "book" of unwritten rules is stupid. If you can strike me out, I will shake your hand. If you can only do it if I give you the first pitch for free, you can't fucking do it, so shut up.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Thank you.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Whole lotta meh.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The writer seemed to be suggesting that they weren’t swinging at good pitches, thus the weakly balls, and using “contact swings”. Didn’t see it but can imagine preferring a ball in play to deny a strikeout.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I know this is your brand and all, but you absolutely can. We’re living in an era where Godwin’s law has been suspended, so I’ll go right to the extreme: if you aren’t paying attention and/or don’t care about Nazis, you’re an asshole.

This is also true farther from the extreme.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Mainly I was fucking with Ty. As I said I can’t imagine why the Red Sox would care enough to screw up their at bats. That said, and I haven’t had any interest in baseball for a year or two, but IIRC the Red Sox take pitches cuz it helps them get hits?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Don’t you really keep having your standards exceeded or are you prone to hyperbole?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

If ty and bank were in 3rd grade together:

Ty “I know you are but what am I?”
Hank: POW
Ty: “teacher Hank hit me!”

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Like some other major league teams, the Sox used to try to take a lot of pitches to wear out pitchers. But the league-wide trend of going to relievers sooner more often means that this doesn't work so well anymore.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I'm sure that one's up there with your Moth stuff.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

So, you all have Dombrowski, I know your team understands baseball. A relief pitcher wasn’t coming in. Everyone knows that. Are you a Penske sock?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

No. I handed off replying to you to a clerk.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Not any more.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Really? What happened?

Holy shit. Maybe we can get him back?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

It’s also out the window bcs first pitches tend to be fastball strikes.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Newsflash: Deadspin is written by losers.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

And . . . 200 strikeouts. That's cute. The good pitchers have that by the beginning of August.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

The writer is a loser idiot who never watched a game where deGrom, Verlander, Cole or some other great pitched.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

But that’s why it mattered to him. Remember when Galarraga got cheated of a perfect game on the final out? I remember thinking Verlander could have laughed it off, he will/had made history. To the lesser guys it means more. That was Galarraga best day, the only one. Like when GGG finally wins an argument, don’t you smile inside a little?

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

If you went to Cosplay Star Wars they’d give you a Stormtrooper outfit.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Ahh got it. Like wat Yankee fans say every day bout da Mets.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Well, keep going. Find something conservatives get excited about today that isn't about being an asshole. Go ahead, show me I'm wrong and that these folks aren't just assholes, plain and simple.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

"The RNC says they’ll be handing out hamburgers and soda with plastic straws at Senator Elizabeth Warren’s New Hampshire rally today to 'push back on climate messaging.'"

link

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

That shit's pretty dumb, and lame. But it's also just embarrassing, and not really indicative of where the adults are: https://grist.org/article/on-climate...ike-democrats/

"Some 77 percent of younger Republicans said that climate change is a serious threat, one percentage point more than Democrats in the same age range. Meanwhile, the survey revealed a deep chasm in opinion among older folks: 51 percent of Republicans over age 39 agreed the problem was a serious threat compared with 95 percent of Democrats."

I know it's your thing to call conservatives reactionary. You've a fixation with this that I think stems from a personal belief that you're enlightened, and those who don't think like you are not enlightened. That's true to an extent. On climate change, the GOP deniers are unenlightened. They are not skeptics with serious science behind them.

But that's one issue. And this is one dumb event where the RNC is doing something really fucking stupid. It does not speak for all Republicans.

And as to this reactionary line you keep pushing, you're as reactionary as any Republican. Trump does something and you respond, Pavlovian, utterly predictable. You see progressives moving us forward and conservatives throwing hand grenades at every noble progressive policy. In reality, it's more of a ping pong game. Both sides (oh, there.. I used the dread term once more) are slapping the ball back and forth at each other. Both are interested in doing that because that benefits them politically.

There are only a few instances in which the progressives wear the white hat. GGG listed a few. The wall, kids in cages, climate. In most instances, neither side can claim to be on the side of the angels. Both are wearing grey hats.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

So name something current conservatives push that isn't in the kids in cages, wall to nowhere, etc. category.

Tax policy? The last tax bill was a clusterfuck to benefit the 1% and little more, even people in my tax bracket are discovering that many of them pay more under it if their income is mostly from salaries or they in a blue state or both.

Big Government/Small Government - conservatives are pushing big government in all kinds of spheres, including military and policy powers, incarceration policies, marijuana, abortion, immigration.

What? Give us a case where you think conservatives aren't just assholes.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Rolling back federal regs and limiting, via conservative judges, application of laws that create too much red tape. That's a mouthful, so I'll explain.

I had to cover HR for a 1900 person organization a few years back. You'd think this would be easy -- that the HR head would call in the rare occasion of a legal claim. Well, that was almost every claim. That fucking department annoyed the living shit out of me and everyone around it and in it. Lawyers came out of the woodwork every time anyone was terminated. It was whack a mole. Once a day, some fucking call, some complaint, some assertion of some right violated. The drag on resources was simply amazing. Few of the cases resulted in payouts, but the cost in hours expended where we could have been dealing with other matters was staggering. In the millions, easily.

Why? Because between labor and employment law, we've created so much fucking red tape that even the simplest grievance or complaint, the weakest EEOC filing, has to be addressed and this takes so much time. Add in workman's comp (because a lot of these folks who want to cash out work numerous angles at once) and you have the most fucking confusing mess of conflicting laws imaginable.

I consult for a few companies on how to handle problem employees. Some lazy pill eater's request for accommodations, and his comp claim, costs the company several thousand dollars by the time its done. I have to spend hours on the phone counseling on how to best paper the file.

It's fucking nuts. These laws work like an attractive nuisance, giving the laziest people in the workforce a way to get "on the dole." And it hurts the people with real claims. Because the companies say, "Fuck it. Fight them all."

And that's just HR shit. Tax, OSHA, environmental regs on disposal of med waste... It's a road to hell paved with good intentions. All it does is make money for us, the worst human beings in the economy. If there's any silver lining to the rule of law losing respect under Trump, it's that maybe, if we're lucky, people will start disregarding the approximately 10,000 laws on the books that have no business being there.

Where's the party that will advocate the following:

"Our first response to any problem shall never, under any circumstance, be, 'Let's pass a law.'"

I'd vote for that party regardless of the rest of its plank.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Actually, conservatives are split on incarceration. In shitty areas with low education, where "tough on crime" is a popular election slogan, both Ds and Rs are regressive. In more educated areas, you'll find Rs advocate against jails on both social and economic bases (the latter more so). You can easily sell and R on ankle bracelets and drug treatment in lieu of jail on the basis that it's cheaper.

On the military, Rs are also split. They'd prefer to spend less. Recall it was Rumsfeld, under Bush, who sought to cut the Pentagon budget. The problem there is, defense is a jobs program for many states (each part of a plane is built somewhere else, etc.). Ds and Rs with defense contractors in their districts fight like hell against any effort to pare the military.

I totally agree that conservatives are pushing for big govt. I think they're just a different version of progressives. Both sides want to spend more and have people live the way they want them to live. This is why I said progressives are excellent in terms of tolerance, but lousy in terms of passing new rules and laws and starting new agencies. They want people to be free to do as they want in their personal lives... but they want to manage business more aggressively. And that'd be fine if it were limited to big business. But it's not. When they pass new laws, like Dodd Frank for example, it doesn't just address the big banks. It nails the little ones as well.

Conservatives attempt, badly, to leave you on your own in matters regarding commerce. That's not an asshole policy. It's a form of freedom that progressives don't offer. Unfortunately, conservatives don't execute on that very well, because they allow crony capitalism to run amuck, which allows monopolies and big players to crush the little guys at every turn. But at least in theory, they're trying to leave people alone to make money as they like.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

I just don't believe you on incarceration - tell me who among them has done squat on that.

As to commerce, this is the first time you've said anything that seems to propose a serious, non-assaholic policy for conservatives, so let's look at it.

There are many ways in which conservatives are pushing plenty of government regulation of businesses, they are just different ones than progressives push. Sure, they're fine if a Soy farmer sprays their crops with all kinds of shit, and if they hire low wage workers and discriminate on the basis of sexual preference in their hiring (OK, low wages and discrimination are positively assaholic, but let's not focus on those). But they've used government power to eliminate the Soy farmer's main markets. Isn't that pretty serious government regulation? And they don't want the Soy farmer hiring undocumented workers, and have even been staging raids on farmers. If you look at banks, sure, they don't care about the bank's capital levels as much, or whether the bank decides to use its money to buy equities or go into the venture capital business, but they are pretty eager to prevent any pot related business from being able to use a US bank and you have a President with an explicit goal of using monetary policy to push banks into negative interest rate territory - that's kind of a big deal, isn't it? We can hit other businesses, but looking at commerce broadly, I still see plenty of assaholic policy at place and not the kind of broad "free commerce" approach that we were taught was a hallmark of conservativism back in grade school.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Ha ha ha!!! Do you even read the moronic crap you write before you post it? This is the brain-deadiest of cock juggling that you have engaged in since, I don't know, back when you denied that anyone ever called Hillary shrill. You cite to one poll showing young Republicans may be out of step with Republican leadership because they are concerned about climate change. That's because the Republican leadership, including the motherfucking president, are not only climate change deniers, but they are actively and currently rolling back environmental protection measures that could reverse or at least slow down climate change. The fucking RNC plans to pull that stupid hamburgers and plastic straws stunt, to dismissively mock any actual efforts to stop climate change, and you say that does not reflect the "adults" of the party. The RNC is the "U.S. political committee that provides national leadership for the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican political platform, as well as coordinating fundraising and election strategy." (Wikipedia) Those are the adults of the party. I understand you will say anything, no matter how untethered from facts or reality, to avoid having to admit that the thing you said earlier was wrong, but don't think for a second that your half-wit bullshit is fooling anyone here. Fuck, the whole reason my family has gone fucking vegan is because even my daughter is able to see that brain-dead cock-juggling jackholes like you are incapable of doing anything more than to pay the occasional empty lip service bloviation to environmental issues, because you're so fucking worried about getting preferable tax treatment on your real estate investment.

[Full disclosure -- I continue to eat non-plant-based foods.]

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

On the other hand, I help, via my employment group, a lot of tech companies deal with employment issues. There is some overhead, but frankly the market in that area is to treat employees a lot better than law requires, and the main place I see the laws actually bite is not so much in termination and severance as in discrimination and harassment. And companies get away with amazing levels of discrimination and harassment.

To me, the question is how to write effective laws rather than ineffective ones.

But I'd posit conservative policy toward the workplace (pay 'em shit and give 'em no protections, and bust every union) fits the bill of "assaholic" pretty completely. Indeed, the kinds of business that do the legal minimum (Wallmart, I'm looking at you) generally deserve the hassles they get, I just wish all those laws were more effective in keeping them from being assholes.

Have you seen "Superstore"? A light TV comedy that's actually pretty good at spoofing some of this stuff.

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

You take pitches in a situation in which you are not sure that the first pitch will be right down the middle. If you know the pitcher is trying to achieve a strikeout goal and is absolutely throwing a fastball down the middle hoping you won't swing because your playoff hopes are over and you "play the game the right way," (whatever the fuck that means) the approach changes. This isn't difficult stuff to understand.

The question is, why is this asshole's strikeout goal more important than my batting average or us trying to win this game?

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Sorry. Let me revise. On the list of dumbest shit I've ever read, that is now second.

TM

Re: Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same
 

Think about that one. Really. You're worried about people having to take care with biohazards?