(01-01-2021, 10:09 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-31-2020, 10:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-31-2020, 12:40 PM)David Horn Wrote: ...  It was Saint Ronnie who started deficit spending in good times, and cutting taxes to guarantee it would stay that way.  

You're welcome to your opinion, but you don't get your own facts.

You don't get your own facts either. So, who passed the Great Society and signed it into law while he was waging a needless war of attrition in South Vietnam that he had no intentions of winning?

You obviously didn't live in those times.  The Great Society was first honest attempt at dragging people out of poverty and guaranteeing their civil rights. Prior to that, things were a hell of a lot worse for anyone not well situated.  All those first generation college students from families too poor to attend on their own (which was most of us) created the wealth that's fueled the nation and much of the world ever since.

You're right about Vietnam, though. It was a clusterfuck from day one.

C-Xer Wrote:There's the splitting point dude and the beginning of the national split that occurred before Reagan entered office. What Reagan did was necessary to bring an end to the Soviet Union and the Cold War years.

Horse shit!  the Soviet Union was already imploding, and Reagan merely got the opportunity to be there for the funeral.  On the other hand, he started all the internal wars in Central America (see Oliver North) that produced the onslaught of refugees and, not surprising at all, MS-13 -- a street gang started by El Salvadorian teens in LA.

C-Xer Wrote:Show me a worthless Democrat in office who hasn't capitalized off the natural split that occurred during the 60's? So, who is going to win the war that's coming with the Left? Keep in mind, the American right won't have its hands legally bound during the war that's coming with today's Left and the Leftists race or gender won't be viewed as a factor that seems cause one to pause these days either.

This sounds a lot like a race war. Don't assume you can win this time.  If it happens, it will be the end of the USA as we've know it: no winners!

C-Xer Wrote:So, what's Saint Joe going to do other than nod his head and go along with the rich who prefer to gamble and do business with American tax dollars who bought him his place in what's left of our American history together? So, how much government does a smaller American nation with a large population of self reliant people (low cost/low maintenance/ high yield) who are more or less equals in each others eyes who fully identify with the term American and believe in the American way really need to have these days?

The assumption that Biden will do more of what Republicans have been doing for a century and a half is based on nothing so much as the paranoid phantasies of a lot of RW nut jobs.  Don't buy in unless you have evidence that something is happening. On the other hand, the wealthy élite are already hard at work trying to stretch-out their winning streak.  If Biden buys-in, I'll be the first to dump him for someone more willing to take them to task. On the other hand, your libertarian phantasy of a wide-open world with everyone treating everyone as equals is unachievable.  To work, people have to be ethical, and there will always be enough unethical greed-heads to make that model into a criminal anarchy (watch Gangs of New York for a quick overview of a society built on that premise.

When government is small enough to drown in a bath tub, per Grover Norquist, its place will be taken by afar less friendly power block focused on their own gain, not yours.

(01-01-2021, 12:53 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-01-2021, 12:06 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You prefer a prick like Obama who doesn't seem to come across as a prick. You do know that Obama was a decent looking, decent sounding two bit politician who was a prick right? Let's see, you're not far from being the "Rain Man" but you still have the right to vote and determine outcomes for other people and still seem to think that half the country is still obligated to go along and remain loyal like it was well over 80 years ago?

My side of the political spectrum, along with some sane conservatives who think that Donald Trump is a disaster, voted in Joe Biden. Donald Trump had nearly four years to make his case that government could be all about him. He needed to convince people who didn't vote for him the last time because he got by in the Electoral College because he won the right votes in 2016. Reliance upon getting enough votes wasn't enough in 2016 simply by running up vote totals in New York, California, and some hyper-partisan D states wasn't enough. Democrats would have to use strategy, or Trump would have to fail catastrophically as a pol. Both happened. 

To call Trump a prick is unfair... to pricks. He is worse, an extreme, pathological narcissist who sees himself as the measure of all things. Take your pick -- someone who knows that he has flaws and must act to seem normal or someone who has the emotional maturity of a sub-teen.  And, yes, votes mean as much whether they come from Warren Buffett or some welfare-receiving "loser". If our system isn't accountable to whole groups because they lack assets, then to what is it accountable? Practically nobody, of course, except people more likely to use the government to oppress others on the behalf of the "practically nobody" sliver of very rich and powerful people. 

Quote:I think someone should have wised you up to ways of the real world and instilled an understanding that nothing is guaranteed to last forever. You're right, over a third of a million have died as the Democrats have been fucking around and politicizing everything related to it.

With comparatively few exceptions, the Democrats have done far better in responding to COVID-19 than Republicans. President Trump has even promoting quack medicine. Negligent homicide, folks. Negligent homicide.

Quote:Well, if I'm right, those dumb fuckers are going to be given power as a means to eliminate a group of dumb fuckers (beltway Republicans) who are clinging to power and getting in the way of American progress.

Progress? Progress and Trump go together about as well as meat within easy reach of a dog's mouth or paws and the voracious dog.  

Quote:So, what do you think is going to happen when a slim majority imposes its will on the Americans country? Do you think more than a third of a million Democrats are going to die? You haven't shown me that you have balls or the power to stop anything at this point. Partisan people who politically pander for a living/past time don't have the courage or the power to stop anything and that's what the bulk of the Democratic party is today. The Democrats have two years to change or the Democrats are going to be placed on ignore and virtually discarded by America.

Democrats must take advantages of whatever opportunities emerge. As Donald Trump shows, the Republicans look as if they are about to give Americans any way of finding any happiness in life other than ways that the Master Class is willing to offer. You know that one: pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die.

(01-01-2021, 06:00 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Trump represented progress along several stalled fronts that have been impacting middle America for many years.

Quote:Personally speaking, I could give to shits less about the Democratic fronts and the survival of the Democratic party and its system of preference as a whole. Yes, the Democrats must take advantage of whatever opportunity emerges like it did with the COVID19 crisis and the death of George Floyd because the days of America remaining together and functioning as one country are numbered at this point.

Quote:One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.  

Quote:You're going to see all kinds of signs of America splitting and moving away from Democratic cities after 4 years of Democrats running rough shot. What happens to them and those DUMB enough to support or cling?

Quote:Who cares at that point? According to the law, they're old enough which automatically means they're mature enough or wise enough to vote and determine they're own fate these days. I ain't your brother or your daddy and I'm not obligated to continue financially supporting you or serving your interests or the interests of Biden or Obama and I suggest that you find a way to plant that understanding into that head of yours.

Quote:Obama won't be here to save your ass. Obama will be on the first plane out along with every other two bit piece of shit that your reliant upon today. You do their bidding here and I have no sympathy for you whatsoever. I hear there's a new safe place available for the more deplorable Democratic supporters like you. I suggest that you learn to suck up and go along and don't show any signs of being an individual or signs of being your own man so to speak because the cult doesn't like that quality that we possess today.

(12-31-2020, 10:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-31-2020, 12:40 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(12-31-2020, 12:25 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The government doesn't need as much taxation now that it's fully embraced raising  debt ceilings then  borrowing and spending. It's going to be a pretty big mess when it crashes but whatever, it will be viewed as Democratic problem that most Americans will longer be directly related by then. So, the question is will you still be alive or dead by then? Oh, the other question is, if you're dead, does death grant you a pass or guarantee you a place in suffering for an entire lifetime?

Now, there is cynicism on stilts.  It was Saint Ronnie who started deficit spending in good times, and cutting taxes to guarantee it would stay that way.  

You're welcome to your opinion, but you don't get your own facts.

You don't get your own facts either. So, who passed the Great Society and signed it into law while he was waging a needless war of attrition in South Vietnam that he had no intentions of winning?

Quote:There's the splitting point dude and the beginning of the national split that occurred before Reagan entered office. What Reagan did was necessary to bring an end to the Soviet Union and the Cold War years.

Quote:Show me a worthless Democrat in office who hasn't capitalized off the natural split that occurred during the 60's? So, who is going to win the war that's coming with the Left? Keep in mind, the American right won't have its hands legally bound during the war that's coming with today's Left and the Leftists race or gender won't be viewed as a factor that seems cause one to pause these days either.

Quote:    Port Huron Statement participant Jack Newfield wrote in 1971 that "in its Weathermen, Panther and Yippee incarnations, [the New Left] seems anti-democratic, terroristic, dogmatic, stoned on rhetoric and badly disconnected from everyday reality".[55] In contrast, the more moderate groups associated with the New Left increasingly became central players in the Democratic Party and thus in mainstream American politics.

Quote:So, what's Saint Joe going to do other than nod his head and go along with the rich who prefer to gamble and do business with American tax dollars who bought him his place in what's left of our American history together? So, how much government does a smaller American nation with a large population of self reliant people (low cost/low maintenance/ high yield) who are more or less equals in each others eyes who fully identify with the term American and believe in the American way really need to have these days?

(01-01-2021, 06:15 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: People might want to visit the Generational Dynamic thread and say you will support him for emergency moderator.  He is looking for ten supporters.  I personally don't think there are ten people active left.

(01-02-2021, 01:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Progress? If your idea of progress is having a trade war with China that the Chinese outsmarted. The Chinese slapped import bans on certain American farm commodities  that America's farmers typically supply for exports. To win back the farm vote that about everyone thought that he was going to lose during that trade war he opened the spigot on commodities that ended up with no market so that he could buy their votes back. Many of those commodities ended up either as livestock food (so meat is underpriced), and by flooding rural America with farm subsidies the USA must sell an increase in the national debt to whatever buyer there is. As in China. 

It has long been a conservative tenet that political decisions that buy elections by bleeding the treasury is a shameful deed to be avoided at all costs -- even recessions with high unemployment. Just when we liberals have come to all but completely despise that practice, Donald Trump does that. Donald Trump does not make that right. He may have prevented a landslide loss in the Electoral College instead of the narrower loss that he got... but he did so at a grave price to the treasury.        



 

Dammit! I want people to see the humanity behind a grave marker, and I want people to see the wrong in sending someone's body or ashes to a place with such a marker before that person's time. Of all the crimes that I associate with the Trump Administration the worst is negligent homicide. Damn him! Damn him! Damn him!  

     

(01-03-2021, 12:22 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-02-2021, 01:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Progress? If your idea of progress is having a trade war with China that the Chinese outsmarted. The Chinese slapped import bans on certain American farm commodities  that America's farmers typically supply for exports. To win back the farm vote that about everyone thought that he was going to lose during that trade war he opened the spigot on commodities that ended up with no market so that he could buy their votes back. Many of those commodities ended up either as livestock food (so meat is underpriced), and by flooding rural America with farm subsidies the USA must sell an increase in the national debt to whatever buyer there is. As in China. 

It has long been a conservative tenet that political decisions that buy elections by bleeding the treasury is a shameful deed to be avoided at all costs -- even recessions with high unemployment. Just when we liberals have come to all but completely despise that practice, Donald Trump does that. Donald Trump does not make that right. He may have prevented a landslide loss in the Electoral College instead of the narrower loss that he got... but he did so at a grave price to the treasury.        

Dammit! I want people to see the humanity behind a grave marker, and I want people to see the wrong in sending someone's body or ashes to a place with such a marker before that person's time. Of all the crimes that I associate with the Trump Administration the worst is negligent homicide. Damn him! Damn him! Damn him!  

Dude, this is proof that screwed up people like you should not have the right to vote. Where did the bug come from and who is guilty of negligent homicide and who is concerned about us upsetting the guilty party? Pull your fucking head out of your ass, your survival and way of life is now in doubt?

Quote:I do not care if a worthless partisan hack starves to death and I doubt Nancy and Chuck are really going to  care either.

Quote:In case you have forgotten, China is accountable for the death of over three hundred thousand Americans and unless Biden proves beyond all doubt that he is God in the flesh, one can easily assume that he wouldn't have done any better than Trump and could have done much worse had he wasted time going through the motions of an inept bureaucratic process and relied exclusively on the government institutions.

Quote:I hate to say it but pathetic blue piss ants like you really piss regular people like my off. My advice to you, get a fucking grip before half the country decides to turn your world upside down. Trump is free to do what he's doing now because he knows we could give two shits about the beltway crowd and we could give two shits less about what happens to people like you.

Quote:Think of it this way, your hammering nails in your own coffin right now. I'm pretty sure a large scale American revolt would send some major shock waves across the world. How many protestors/rioters and looters and property destroyers did we see over the summer? a half a million to a million or less?  I wonder what thirty million who hate the Democrats can do and how much trouble they could cause for the Democrats? I mean the Left pretty much allowed their own to do just about everything in the name of justice. I wonder what thirty million right wingers could do in the name of justice.

(01-03-2021, 03:43 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(01-03-2021, 12:22 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-02-2021, 01:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Progress? If your idea of progress is having a trade war with China that the Chinese outsmarted. The Chinese slapped import bans on certain American farm commodities  that America's farmers typically supply for exports. To win back the farm vote that about everyone thought that he was going to lose during that trade war he opened the spigot on commodities that ended up with no market so that he could buy their votes back. Many of those commodities ended up either as livestock food (so meat is underpriced), and by flooding rural America with farm subsidies the USA must sell an increase in the national debt to whatever buyer there is. As in China. 

It has long been a conservative tenet that political decisions that buy elections by bleeding the treasury is a shameful deed to be avoided at all costs -- even recessions with high unemployment. Just when we liberals have come to all but completely despise that practice, Donald Trump does that. Donald Trump does not make that right. He may have prevented a landslide loss in the Electoral College instead of the narrower loss that he got... but he did so at a grave price to the treasury.        

Dammit! I want people to see the humanity behind a grave marker, and I want people to see the wrong in sending someone's body or ashes to a place with such a marker before that person's time. Of all the crimes that I associate with the Trump Administration the worst is negligent homicide. Damn him! Damn him! Damn him!  

Dude, this is proof that screwed up people like you should not have the right to vote. Where did the bug come from and who is guilty of negligent homicide and who is concerned about us upsetting the guilty party? Pull your fucking head out of your ass, your survival and way of life is now in doubt?

The problem arose in free-enterprise meat markets in China in which the meat of practically everything except human flesh is available. Dog meat is available in such places, so hardly anyone bats an eye (pun intended) when someone butchers a bat. Bats are about the worst reservoirs of viral infections around. Someone came back with an infection, and in the first stages we Americans had no clue about what was going on before COVID-19 hopped a ride on a cab at JFK or LaGuardia Airport as a non-paying guest and infected the cabbie and then took a free ride on the New York Subway system pnly to infect just about everyone. 

The United States has had nearly one fourth of the world's cases and nearly one fifth of the world's deaths, and results between the states reflect the policies of those states. As an example, Michigan was hit hard and early in the greater Detroit area and was once fourth in cases and deaths. It is now eighth.

Quote:I do not care if a worthless partisan hack starves to death and I doubt Nancy and Chuck are really going to  care either.

Who are you to decide who is worthy to say who deserves to live and who does not deserve to live? Some people received that authority for making such a decision in accordance with a political order willing to make that decision:



After exposure of killings related to T4 the Nazis changed their ways. They learned to do their mass killings, including the Holocaust, out of sight of prying eyes.

Quote:In case you have forgotten, China is accountable for the death of over three hundred thousand Americans and unless Biden proves beyond all doubt that he is God in the flesh, one can easily assume that he wouldn't have done any better than Trump and could have done much worse had he wasted time going through the motions of an inept bureaucratic process and relied exclusively on the government institutions.

I'm going to give Corporate America much credit for doing the right things, like mandating masks in stores and closing high-risk venues. Big Business has an obvious interest in keeping its customer base intact, if you want to put it in crude economic terms. 

The People's Republic of China, whether you like its system or not, did far better than the US in stopping the spread of COVID-19.  

Quote:I hate to say it but pathetic blue piss ants like you really piss regular people like my off. My advice to you, get a fucking grip before half the country decides to turn your world upside down. Trump is free to do what he's doing now because he knows we could give two shits about the beltway crowd and we could give two shits less about what happens to people like you.

T4 time for you? Hell no!  Trump lost, in case you didn't know. 

Quote:Think of it this way, your hammering nails in your own coffin right now. I'm pretty sure a large scale American revolt would send some major shock waves across the world. How many protestors/rioters and looters and property destroyers did we see over the summer? a half a million to a million or less?  I wonder what thirty million who hate the Democrats can do and how much trouble they could cause for the Democrats? I mean the Left pretty much allowed their own to do just about everything in the name of justice. I wonder what thirty million right wingers could do in the name of justice.

In case some fascist demagogue offers you the opportunity of your dreams, one that pays better than selling, installing, and maintaining air conditioning and that offers the chance to 'renovate' society by culling the populace of "life unworthy of life", then just remember what happened to some of the participants in T-4: committing suicide in dread of exposure and sentencing in post-war trials, or like Paul Nitzsche, being convicted as an administrative doctor in the T4 program in territory that would become the Soviet sector of Germany. Beheaded. 

Say all you want about 74,224,501 people voting for Donald Trump, 81,284,778, voted for Joe Biden. Unlike the case in 2016, the Democratic nominee did not simply run up the vote total in a few sure states. Whether one votes in passionate love of a candidate or passionate hatred does not matter in our process. Note well that although you are free to hate (and so am I) we are expected to let the legal system identify, prosecute, and punish evil-doers in accordance with due process of the law. I despise Donald Trump and I would like to see him on trial for negligent homicide and violating civil liberties. But that would be for courts to decide. 

If you want to see protesters executed for protests -- Iran does that.

(01-03-2021, 12:22 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(01-02-2021, 01:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Progress? If your idea of progress is having a trade war with China that the Chinese outsmarted. The Chinese slapped import bans on certain American farm commodities  that America's farmers typically supply for exports. To win back the farm vote that about everyone thought that he was going to lose during that trade war he opened the spigot on commodities that ended up with no market so that he could buy their votes back. Many of those commodities ended up either as livestock food (so meat is underpriced), and by flooding rural America with farm subsidies the USA must sell an increase in the national debt to whatever buyer there is. As in China. 

It has long been a conservative tenet that political decisions that buy elections by bleeding the treasury is a shameful deed to be avoided at all costs -- even recessions with high unemployment. Just when we liberals have come to all but completely despise that practice, Donald Trump does that. Donald Trump does not make that right. He may have prevented a landslide loss in the Electoral College instead of the narrower loss that he got... but he did so at a grave price to the treasury.        



 

Dammit! I want people to see the humanity behind a grave marker, and I want people to see the wrong in sending someone's body or ashes to a place with such a marker before that person's time. Of all the crimes that I associate with the Trump Administration the worst is negligent homicide. Damn him! Damn him! Damn him!  

     

I heard Trump was subsidizing the farmers with the tariffs on Chinese goods. Trump is actually pretty smart when it comes to business. You'd think a regime with a billion mouths to feed would be smart enough to leave food off the table when their messing with the worlds largest food producer. I mean, an American right wing country could bring China to its knees by cutting off a portion of  food supply and tripling tariffs and messing with them militarily while its moving back into manufacturing and positioning themselves to replace them. As we say, where there's a will, there is a way. I know that's garbled French which you's don't grasp but we do and that's all that matters.

Quote:I'm going to assume that you know where COVID19 came from and understand that they failed to contain and failed to inform while our people were doing business over there and then used their influence with top UN  (a third worlder with college degree) to cover it up and understand that they are solely responsible for the deaths of over three hundred thousand American citizens and I hope the old man with dementia that you elected doesn't forget it and he doesn't have to be reminded/lectured like you.

Quote:Wow! Talk about a run-on, incoherent sentence complete with flawed references in pronouns, let alone faulty logic including the infamous non sequitur. First of all, certain meat is invariably suspect, especially if butchered in unsanitary conditions or supplied with severe faults of preparation, packaging, and chain of custody. I would be leery of foods that require refrigeration if I have some question of whether the refrigeration has failed at any stage. China is practically a free-market economy but it is far newer at free markets than is the United States. Fre markets require some regulation to ensure safety, and the USA is far better at that than is China. I would trust technology-distrusting Old Order Amish as butchers of meat more than I would trust open markets in Chinese backwater cities. (At that I would trust the food supply more in a more thoroughly-modern city like Shanghai or Tianjin than those isolated small cities). 

Second, the Third World turns out some very good people. Your smear of the Third World is racist.  If anything, Third World conditions are beginning to appear in some of the "whitest" parts of America, like eastern Kentucky, southern West Virginia, and southeastern Ohio. Remember well that the nastiest slums have some very good people, and people who come from those slums or still live there and maintain some goodness are far more tested in their righteousness than people who endure few economic challenges.  

Third, I put much of the blame on Donald Trump, who has set a horrid example for dealing with COVID-19. It is bad enough that he closed the pandemic-control officer that his predecessor established out of spite for a President whose father was from the Third World. You know, the President that Rush Limbaugh called "Halfrican". Trump failed to wear a mask in public and held "mask-free" political rallies that themselves became super-spreader events. Over 350,000 people (and that is still more than the population of Anaheim, California (the 55th-largest city in the United States)... you know, home of Disneyland. In case you are curious, the grim statistical tour has its next stop in Aurora, Colorado, which as I understand has little worthy of mention. 

You excuse extreme incompetence and cruelty by a leader. You have fallen for something completely un-American: the cult of personality of a current President. FDR had the decency to keep the focus on Abraham Lincoln as a model of how to lead a country through the Crisis of 1940, as shown in a photo showing an image of the Great Emancipator of the 1860's with the two Great Emancipators of the 1940's (he and Churchill). Trump offered "herd immunity" that would have killed far more people -- quite possibly me due to age and some slight auto-immune problem (psoriasis, which suggests the hazard of a cytokine stream) -- and even some quack medicine. He faulted people for failing to believe in him.  Herman Cain might be alive had he not believed Trump.          

Quote:He'll probably be the most coddled and protected and absent or unavailable President that the country has ever seen. I can already see it now. Where is Sleepy Joe? What you probably did is succeed in turning the Democratic Presidency into a complete mockery? I know that wasn't your intent but that's what you probably did  Maybe that was the reason why a portion of the Republican party supported Biden and more or less crossed over to the Democratic side. Who knows, they could be positioning themselves to take over when the Democratic party implodes.

TO BE DETERMINED.

"Sleepy Joe" has been cautious about in-person appearances because of the danger of COVID-19. If he spares us incendiary tweets -- such is all the better. Obama seems to have never released any communication unless it went through some committee of trusted people to examine it for facts, ambiguities, and grammatical errors. All really-good writing goes through some editor, and I have done copy-editing. You would be surprised at what I can do to cut the volume of writing. For example, I am veritable death to the passive voice which all but ensures choppy sentence structure.  As others might notice I use the passive voice  rarely. Some creature or thing does something. 

Coddled? He is President and he will need to get away with some things -- far fewer than Trump even if he should be a two-term President. 

If you are thinking of all the Republicans for Biden -- I thank them for having the best arguments against Donald Trump!  We still have political traditions that keep us from going into the realm of tyranny. Trump made efforts to short-circuit those traditions. Nothing could be more genuinely conservative than a respect for tradition, something to be disposed of only with solid cause. 

The failure of Donald Trump practically ensures that when conservatism re-appears it will be more a repudiation of Donald Trump than of Barack Obama. Just think of Barack Obama who as President stood for

1. TRADITION -- old decencies are preferable to new horrors. Obama stood squarely with legal precedents and formalities. He was a stickler for the rule of law, a theme normal for conservatives who eschew demagoguery. He did not play games with language; he kept his expressions as simple and clear as possible instead of creating the sort of Newspeak that one associates with Trump. Words have meanings, especially in law. Words have rigid meanings in determining law, but not in puffing real estate or other commodities. The law even has Black's Law Dictionary as the arbiter of the legal meaning of words in legal context. In eight years, Obama shook far less up than did Trump. Even with Obergfell v. Hodges, Obama let the legal process decide the law and did nothing to hasten the process. Once decided, Obama went fully with it... just as Eisenhower went fully with the Supreme Court decisions involving racially-separated schools. 

2. HIERARCHY -- even if Obama wasn't for oppression and exploitation as perquisites of hierarchy, Obama at least recognized the validity of competence. Such may well serve Model Minorities well... in case you resent them for their successes, tough. Obama recognizes the hierarchy of learning, skill, and talent in deciding who succeeds and who fails. 

3. REALISM -- accepting that deeds have consequences and that one is wise to choose such means as achieve desired consequences. 

Conservatism isn't to be confused with fascism, an ideology that perverts national traditions into a pretext for new terror, oppression, and tyranny. 

Conservatism in 2040 is more likely to resemble the Obama of the 2010's than Donald Trump. . 

(01-08-2021, 02:01 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: With the recent capitol riots, the dangers of people spreading lies have become clearly an important issue.  This has been going on for quite some time.  Fox News has been doing it through much of the unraveling, especially their opinion show hosts.  The question is, what can be done about it?  Assuming in the never again phase, at the end of the crisis, what could be done to present a false collection of lies from being pressed on the people?

One answer could be censorship.  Fox transmits over the air and uses internet domains.  What if these were pulled if someone was clearly disseminating lies?  China does it all the time, I assume.  

The problem would be free speech.  Traditionally, no matter how whacko the position, you have a right to present it.

But as many have pointed out, there are limits on rights too.  The major limit is that possessing a right to do something does not give the right to harm others.  The recent capitol riots count.

A compromise might be fines.  If harm is done, the organization is responsible for recompense.  The problem is that Trump’s ‘massive voter fraud’ lie didn’t lead to immediate harm, until it did.  Does Fox and the other folks who spread that lie assume financial responsibility in part for that harm?

And would you trust any federal organization to enforce censorship, be it true censorship or financial.  Would a leader like Trump put a loyalist in charge of whatever organization, declare his partisan lies truth, then try to censor the main line press?

Still thinking it through.  Anyone have any other ideas?

• First, drastically reduce the protective bubble enjoyed by corporations and their executives.  This is hard, because some of those protections need to continue, but it's obvious that accepting corporate fines is often a strategy in support of profitable wrong-doing.  Corporate fines should grow and include the surrender of voting stock, and people need to be held responsible for corporate actions they control.  That applies to media empires in spades.
  
• Second, make it easier to sue for slander. Right now, public figures have virtually no ability to do that. The only successful suit by a public figure was Carol Burnette's suit against the National Enquirer.
  

(01-09-2021, 05:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Some posts from the Facebook site that got promptly buried.  I'll repeat them here where you have the forum format's greater control.  I'm sort of with Dave in having a dislike of Facebook.

I have heard that the insurgents behind the capital riots are starting to talk about a repeat on January 17th. The internet talk has been intercepted. The police could be ready for it if they chose to be. We will see if the force available and the no arrest policies have changed. It seems likely. Putting up huge forces against BLM but obviously inadequate forces against Trump's insurgents has drawn attention. MSNBC's Joy Reid ranted on the subject. Meanwhile, I expect the insurgents might break down and wear masks and not put their insurgency on the net.

The House is running a fast track impeachment. In the Senate, McConnell put out a memo suggesting he will slow schedule it, that he would not start a trial until Biden was going to be inaugurated anyway. Last night, Schiff was on MSNBC. He thinks McConnell is bluffing. If he were to block rapid impeachment, he would own everything Trump did in the remaining days. McConnell would be better off putting the credit or blame on all senators, rather than shining history’s spotlight on himself.

Rachel also made another point. Conviction requires two thirds of the senators present at the trial. It does not require two thirds of the senators. If 20 or so senators stayed away from the trial, the fifty or so Democratic and independent votes for conviction is enough for two thirds, plus a few Republicans who have suggested that they would vote to convict. That allows Republican a route by staying away to not bump into Trump head on but still do their part to see Trump convicted.

Another point is that while it takes two thirds to convict, it only takes a simple majority to ban the convicted from holding office or a position of authority again. This would be a later vote held only if they got a conviction.

They also showed a draft version of the article of impeachment. While it was short and to the point for a official document, it could be made shorter and easier to attract Republican votes.

(01-09-2021, 05:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Some posts from the Facebook site that got promptly buried.  I'll repeat them here where you have the forum format's greater control.  I'm sort of with Dave in having a dislike of Facebook.

I have heard that the insurgents behind the capital riots are starting to talk about a repeat on January 17th. The internet talk has been intercepted. The police could be ready for it if they chose to be. We will see if the force available and the no arrest policies have changed. It seems likely. Putting up huge forces against BLM but obviously inadequate forces against Trump's insurgents has drawn attention. MSNBC's Joy Reid ranted on the subject. Meanwhile, I expect the insurgents might break down and wear masks and not put their insurgency on the net.

The House is running a fast track impeachment. In the Senate, McConnell put out a memo suggesting he will slow schedule it, that he would not start a trial until Biden was going to be inaugurated anyway. Last night, Schiff was on MSNBC. He thinks McConnell is bluffing. If he were to block rapid impeachment, he would own everything Trump did in the remaining days. McConnell would be better off putting the credit or blame on all senators, rather than shining history’s spotlight on himself.

Rachel also made another point. Conviction requires two thirds of the senators present at the trial. It does not require two thirds of the senators. If 20 or so senators stayed away from the trial, the fifty or so Democratic and independent votes for conviction is enough for two thirds, plus a few Republicans who have suggested that they would vote to convict. That allows Republican a route by staying away to not bump into Trump head on but still do their part to see Trump convicted.

Another point is that while it takes two thirds to convict, it only takes a simple majority to ban the convicted from holding office or a position of authority again. This would be a later vote held only if they got a conviction.

They also showed a draft version of the article of impeachment. While it was short and to the point for a official document, it could be made shorter and easier to attract Republican votes.

(01-10-2021, 03:22 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: That would be perfect. I think you guys need to do do every thing you can to destroy Trump and anger/turn/divide Americans further right now. The GOP working with the Democrats to oust Trump will turn out to be the worst decision/mistake they ever made politically.

(01-11-2021, 10:48 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: I see three solid conservative reasons for impeachment:

1. the nuclear football.

2. national security, especially with high-level secrets.

3. law and order. He did foster an insurrection.