CNN Wrote:The reality Republicans face is this: A party without any principles isn't a party at all.

(08-13-2020, 09:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Conservatives are right to defend free markets, but when they defend class privilege in an order with severe inequality that degrades human life, they enter the realm of indefensible absurdity. The Democrats at least stand for means (including high-quality education) that allow many to escape poverty.  Republicans want people competing for a shrinking number of jobs in sweatshops while their tax policies favor monopolistic, vertically-integrated behemoths more capable of concentrating wealth and economic power while discarding workers.

(08-14-2020, 08:55 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-14-2020, 03:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The government that is breaking down now is being run by your guy, or haven't you noticed?

Don't confuse the poor guy with facts.  You are ruining some perfectly good fantasies!  

(08-14-2020, 03:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I thought I already refuted these statements. On another thread maybe? Or above?

That seem par for the course.  We seem to be repeating ourselves on both sides quite a bit.  Like, I got tired of saying what the Founding Fathers believed about the Second Amendment, and written quite clearly into the law.  There are certain things that an extremest of either flavor refuses to hear.

(08-14-2020, 03:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump has no values or principles at all, and your side following and depending on his showmanship for your political power over us shows no values at all on your part. As for "what happened the last time the New America started a war with America?" that was called the civil war, and your side lost pretty badly. And you still want to celebrate and laud the fallen heroes of this lost and ignoble cause.

I wouldn't say no values or principles.  'Get more wealth and power' counts, even if they seem so out of step as not to be counted as values or principles by some.  It is sort of like when Classic claims liberals have no values.  If your values are so much in conflict with the other guy, he might not recognize the values as values at all.

I think you could call the (expletive deleted) poor values, though.  

(08-14-2020, 02:48 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(08-14-2020, 08:55 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-14-2020, 03:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The government that is breaking down now is being run by your guy, or haven't you noticed?

Don't confuse the poor guy with facts.  You are ruining some perfectly good fantasies!  

(08-14-2020, 03:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I thought I already refuted these statements. On another thread maybe? Or above?

That seem par for the course.  We seem to be repeating ourselves on both sides quite a bit.  Like, I got tired of saying what the Founding Fathers believed about the Second Amendment, and written quite clearly into the law.  There are certain things that an extremest of either flavor refuses to hear.

(08-14-2020, 03:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Trump has no values or principles at all, and your side following and depending on his showmanship for your political power over us shows no values at all on your part. As for "what happened the last time the New America started a war with America?" that was called the civil war, and your side lost pretty badly. And you still want to celebrate and laud the fallen heroes of this lost and ignoble cause.

I wouldn't say no values or principles.  'Get more wealth and power' counts, even if they seem so out of step as not to be counted as values or principles by some.  It is sort of like when Classic claims liberals have no values.  If your values are so much in conflict with the other guy, he might not recognize the values as values at all.

I think you could call the (expletive deleted) poor values, though.  

I gave up on the entire wash-rinse-repeat cycle.  Classic is unreachable ... as are we for that matter.  He's exceedingly comfortable with his version of the truth.  We're comfortable with ours.  Spending hours trying to change that is hours spent on futility, so I wish you well.  I'll be over here having a beer.

(08-14-2020, 03:05 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I have tended to look at this as putting out the truth propaganda as I see it for those who may be lurking, and to counter Classic's propaganda truth, rather than trying to change Classic's mind.

(08-14-2020, 03:51 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The government that is breaking down now is being run by your guy, or haven't you noticed?

I thought I already refuted these statements. On another thread maybe? Or above?

Your observations don't convince us. What you see is not what is. It's only what you claim to see. We have almost no welfare today. Scapegoating single Moms who are working hard to raise their kids and work for a living because they get a little government help for a little while does not wash too well. It's a rather pathetic scapegoat indeed to blame for your resentment over paying reasonable taxes that mostly go to the military and paying the interest on the national debt that your side caused.

Trump has no values or principles at all, and your side following and depending on his showmanship for your political power over us shows no values at all on your part. As for "what happened the last time the New America started a war with America?" that was called the civil war, and your side lost pretty badly. And you still want to celebrate and laud the fallen heroes of this lost and ignoble cause.

(08-14-2020, 02:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-13-2020, 09:59 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Conservatives are right to defend free markets, but when they defend class privilege in an order with severe inequality that degrades human life, they enter the realm of indefensible absurdity. The Democrats at least stand for means (including high-quality education) that allow many to escape poverty.  Republicans want people competing for a shrinking number of jobs in sweatshops while their tax policies favor monopolistic, vertically-integrated behemoths more capable of concentrating wealth and economic power while discarding workers.

Who is the idiot (the mentally handicapped person in your case) who is being used to defend class privilege without knowing it these days? It's not me. Who is the political party that's been using him and taking advantage of him as a cheap source spread lies and spread their propaganda and ideological beliefs and so forth? It's not the Republican party.

(08-14-2020, 04:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As I recall, the Democratic group that started the last Civil War with America lost just about everything.

(08-14-2020, 04:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As I've said, Trump represents the entire American right these days.

(08-13-2020, 02:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Maybe one month of a lock-down would have been adequate. 

Oh, it most likely won't kill you? Would you ride with a drunk driver? Would you use street drugs? Would you drive a car at a speed over 100 mph on the open road? Would you take the risk of a rattlesnake bite? If you are going to take inordinate risk, then it had better be for some cause undeniably good such as combat on behalf of your country. 

People on welfare are obliged to seek work and take work available in many places even if the work is odious and a poor fit for the person. 

You are a fool. You think you represent the common man, but you loyally serve people who believe that no human suffering can be in excess so long as it serves those elites. Furthermore you cannot recognize that people as American as you are are fully American.

(08-14-2020, 05:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-14-2020, 04:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As I recall, the Democratic group that started the last Civil War with America lost just about everything.

I would say the last civil war the rural racist faction lost just about everything.  The side for democracy, human rights and equality came out ahead.  The Republicans switched and picked up the racist vote around Nixon’s time, just as whey went from isolationists to strong on defense world policemen.  Parties flip flop on various issues.  If you don’t want to seem ignorant,  you learn these things.  You can’t take credit for Lincoln anymore.

(08-14-2020, 04:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As I've said, Trump represents the entire American right these days.

Not the entire right.  Biden picked up quite a few, so that’s one faction.  There is the Tea Party base which has become Trump’s base and the establishment which doesn’t dare stand against him.  It seems we have two years at least to see how the Republicans come out of the COVID deaths and Black Lives Matter values change.  I think it will be like previous 4Ts with the old racist and elitist biases purged form the main line conservatives, but it has to happen.

(08-14-2020, 05:28 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Asperger's syndrome is not mental retardation.  OK, you use a word (idiot) that has had a formal meaning in the psychological lexicon, although the current term is "profoundly mentally impaired", typically for someone with an IQ under 30. That is the level of development characteristic of someone six years old once an adult. The words idiot (as in "that idiot cut me off"), to a lesser extent imbecile, and moron (as in "pop culture is designed so that morons can enjoy it" or "that moron expected to find Twin Cities broadcast channels in Duluth". 

A healthy economic order will reward people well for competence  in scarce abilities and skills (such as your ability to install and repair HVAC units) and might make most jobs (let us say retail sales clerking) easy enough that someone on the borderline of mental retardation can do them and will pay such people far less than someone with well-honed, specialized skills and talents.

(08-14-2020, 07:38 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-14-2020, 05:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-14-2020, 04:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As I recall, the Democratic group that started the last Civil War with America lost just about everything.

I would say the last civil war the rural racist faction lost just about everything.  The side for democracy, human rights and equality came out ahead.  The Republicans switched and picked up the racist vote around Nixon’s time, just as whey went from isolationists to strong on defense world policemen.  Parties flip flop on various issues.  If you don’t want to seem ignorant,  you learn these things.  You can’t take credit for Lincoln anymore.

(08-14-2020, 04:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As I've said, Trump represents the entire American right these days.

Not the entire right.  Biden picked up quite a few, so that’s one faction.  There is the Tea Party base which has become Trump’s base and the establishment which doesn’t dare stand against him.  It seems we have two years at least to see how the Republicans come out of the COVID deaths and Black Lives Matter values change.  I think it will be like previous 4Ts with the old racist and elitist biases purged form the main line conservatives, but it has to happen.

I'm sorry but I am still associated with the party of Lincoln and the USA.

(08-14-2020, 03:49 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: You don't seem to be holding your own too well. But whatever you say.

(08-14-2020, 04:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

Quote:How many Liberal Woke's want the freedom to (have sex with) little boys and girls these days?

I dunno... sex with minors is a crime, and rightly so. Jeffrey Epstein knew what awaited him. If you are talking about LGBT rights, then the advocates of LGBT rights sacrificed the perverts to get the rights that they won.  They ended up with an unlikely victim in Jeffrey Epstein. He should have gotten the message; in his case his sick desires overpowered his significant intelligence.

Quote:How many Woke's want the freedom (legal right)  to (have sex with) whoever they want whenever they want and do whatever else they want to do these days?

Underage or without consent? That is called rape, a very serious crime. 

Quote:So, how many Woke's are mortal human beings who would die when shot in the head or hung by the neck or blown up in their homes and how many of them would starve without food, medical treatment, roofs over their heads and money in their pockets? We aren't  there yet but we are getting closer and  I'm just curious about what you think about your Woke's and their politicians and political organizations   these days?

At this you verge on a terrorist threat. Besides, who is this "we" that you are talking about? That plot reeks of the infamous Turner Diaries about white racist nationalists taking over America, taking revenge upon minorities and 'racial traitors' on the "Day of the Rope" . Beware! Americans of all origins will oppose anyone who goes down that road. 

from the Anti-Defamation League

Quote:The “Day of the Rope” is a white supremacist concept taken from The Turner Diaries, a fictionalized blueprint for a white supremacist revolution written in 1978 by neo-Nazi leader William Pierce (under the pseudonym “Andrew Macdonald”).  The novel influenced many violent right-wing extremists from the 1980s through the 2010s, including Timothy McVeigh.

In the novel, white supremacist rebels, having taken control of California, engage in mass lynchings of purported “race traitors” such as journalists, politicians, and women in relationships with non-white men. These murders, which take place on the same day, are referred to in the novel as the “Day of the Rope.”

By the 1990s, the “Day of the Rope” had become a concept well-known across the white supremacist movement, even to the extent that a white supremacist business selling white power music CDs and racist paraphernalia named itself “Day of the Rope Productions.”  A 1994 song from white power band Bound for Glory contained the lyrics, “Politicians to Pope, there’ll be no hope/There is no escaping the Day of the Rope.”  During the early 2000s, the term was borrowed for a series of white supremacist music compilations from Eastern Europe.

Within a few years, “Day of the Rope” became a popular white supremacist slogan on social media websites, as did the phrase “There is no escaping the Day of the Rope,” the latter even appearing on a white supremacist flyer created by the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen. Another variation is “The Day of the Rope is coming.”

Please assure me that you would not go anywhere in that direction. Maybe you are more tolerant of interracial relationships than the writer of that dreadful story... but you seem willing to do so to people who fail to share your political orthodoxy. Killing people who fail to share a leader's political values? With that one is in the same moral universe with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Saddam. It is sickening enough to share the same physical universe with people like that.

Quote:As I recall, the Democratic group that started the last Civil War with America lost just about everything. I'm an American dude and you know it and everyone who can read and understand a little knows it too.

Many people are Americans despite looking unlike you, believing something very different from what you believe, and having origins unlike yours. They as legitimately consider themselves Americans as you do. They of course have every right to loathe what you stand for. Deciding that other people are not Americans because their religious beliefs, sexual preference, physiognomy, or political views are not like yours is contrary to the standards of citizenship that I associate with being a responsible American. 

Quote: Trump has the same values and principles as every other American on the Republican side today. As I've said, Trump represents the entire American right these days. So, who are the ones on the left sending the money to bailout their criminals caught rioting in Minneapolis/St. Paul these days? Did you know that a group of your rich people raised millions of dollars to bail out a bunch of your/their low life criminals for the price of $350,000 each? Minnesota was informed of it last week. It's already done and there is nothing that Minnesotans can do about it now.

No, he does not! Plenty of conservatives despise him for his contempt for old decencies that most of us, liberal or conservative, have long taken for granted. The rule of law, checks and balances, and separation of powers that underpin a workable democracy remain as essential today as they were to the Founding Fathers. Anything less is the questionable order that a lynch mob offers. Such is the dangerous rabble, whether it follows a Lenin or a Hitler. Obviously the preservation of a workable depends upon more than some platitudes in a high-school civics text, but those platitudes, however excessive in their simplicity of expression, are true. 

Note well that if you stand with people who kill and beat others for their political beliefs then you are no morally better than an armed robber who does so for the money on a person.

Blind obedience to the Leader is inadequate unless one wishes to pretend that some tyranny is the expression of a "true" democracy. Aside from that the details are best left to one of those high-school civics texts whose content you either never read or have forgotten. By violating norms that sensible Americans, liberal and conservative alike, have long had as assumptions, Donald Trump has degraded the American political tradition. Donald Trump, through his offense to those old decencies and to some others, may be bringing Americans of very different attitudes on economics and social priorities together out of concern for the traditions that underpin what most learned Americans consider essential. Such is more essential than getting one's way on economic or social priorities as completely and quickly as possible.   

(08-14-2020, 08:15 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The old time Lincoln Republicans as well as being the party of the abolitionists were for industrial development, the climax of the industrial revolution.  At that time the were the progressives.  They were against the agriculture landowners of the south, against the slaveowners thus against the old culture.  I would have been with the Republicans had I lived then.  They wanted to move forward but the south was holding them back.  Development would mean more free states, threaten the slave economy, thus there was a big conflict between Agricultural Age and Industrial Age thinking.  

They soon became the robber barons and opposed the workers.  As Jim Crow went in, the Republicans stopped thinking race an important issue.  I am not a fan of the Republicans as they were in the Gilded Age.  For much of the Gilded Age, both parties had progressive and conservative wings.  They were loyal to their civil war heritages more than the progressive vs conservative relatively 'unimportant' issue.

That is one place where the Republicans have been consistent.  They have always had a robber baron - elite stance.  They have varied on race and varied on isolationism, but they have stayed with their wall street and corporation loyalty.  Well, almost always.  The Tea Party began to dislike the Republican Establishment and tried to shake off loyalty to the elites, but ended up giving their loyalty to the biggest alligator in the swamp.  They took a big step back.

I could sympathize with the conservatives if they made a point of getting rid of their elitist and racist tendency.  Trump exemplifies both.  You haven't often advocated either.  I can hope they get rid of the elitist, racist and Trump factions and become an honorable opposition someday.

But to a great degree today's GOP is not what it was in Lincoln's time, nor are the Democrats.  Much has changed.  I know this should require you to learn a little of the history, but Lincoln's and Trump's time were quite different.

(08-14-2020, 07:20 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-13-2020, 02:00 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Maybe one month of a lock-down would have been adequate. 

Oh, it most likely won't kill you? Would you ride with a drunk driver? Would you use street drugs? Would you drive a car at a speed over 100 mph on the open road? Would you take the risk of a rattlesnake bite? If you are going to take inordinate risk, then it had better be for some cause undeniably good such as combat on behalf of your country. 

People on welfare are obliged to seek work and take work available in many places even if the work is odious and a poor fit for the person. 

You are a fool. You think you represent the common man, but you loyally serve people who believe that no human suffering can be in excess so long as it serves those elites. Furthermore you cannot recognize that people as American as you are are fully American.

Maybe??? Maybe not??? Maybe a month or two or three or maybe even a year or maybe even two or three years to be completely safe??? Well, we are going to see the negative results of months of Democratic maybe's and absolutely not with the exception of our own or those politically associated with us.

(08-14-2020, 10:07 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Dude, I'm not the one using a progressive view of history as a guide and predicting the progressive side will win again despite the obvious differences and advancements associated with today. How many racist and bigoted minorities and whites do you have left on your side these days? You're VP wasn't picked on the basis of her merits or the content of her character. She was picked strictly on the basis of her  skin color.

(08-14-2020, 07:38 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-14-2020, 05:40 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(08-14-2020, 04:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As I recall, the Democratic group that started the last Civil War with America lost just about everything.

I would say the last civil war the rural racist faction lost just about everything.  The side for democracy, human rights and equality came out ahead.  The Republicans switched and picked up the racist vote around Nixon’s time, just as whey went from isolationists to strong on defense world policemen.  Parties flip flop on various issues.  If you don’t want to seem ignorant,  you learn these things.  You can’t take credit for Lincoln anymore.

(08-14-2020, 04:26 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As I've said, Trump represents the entire American right these days.

Not the entire right.  Biden picked up quite a few, so that’s one faction.  There is the Tea Party base which has become Trump’s base and the establishment which doesn’t dare stand against him.  It seems we have two years at least to see how the Republicans come out of the COVID deaths and Black Lives Matter values change.  I think it will be like previous 4Ts with the old racist and elitist biases purged form the main line conservatives, but it has to happen.

I'm sorry but I am still associated with the party of Lincoln and the USA.

(08-14-2020, 11:23 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(08-14-2020, 07:38 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'm sorry but I am still associated with the party of Lincoln and the USA.

No, you are associated with the party of John Breckinridge, Jefferson Davis and the CSA.