Let's make fun of Trump, bash him, etc. while we can!

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-05-2016, 10:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I don't know if you've read any of my articles, or would admit it if you have not. But if you haven't, you can't really say I don't understand my political rivals. For example, can you honestly say that I don't understand my free-market opponents upon reading this article?
http://philosopherswheel.com/freemarket.html

No, you are not on my list of top authors such that I pursue everything you're written.  I get what I feel to be enough of your writing here.  I don't find that particular article enlightening, but more of the same.  It is black and white, clearly presents you right other guys wrong.  I am not disagreeing with you that recent Republican presidents have way way overdone supply side stimulus.  Another aggressive supply sider would likely do no better than the Bushes.  I just don't see you making any attempt to really understand why history veered that way and why so many people still want to head that way.  Your perspective is more or less 'brainwashed by evil clown".

(09-05-2016, 10:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: This ideology that Galen passionately believes in, is not hard to "understand;" nor that it holds sway to a great extent in the red states. There are other aspects of southern culture besides the belief in this ideology; other ideologies and folkways and so on. I don't say southern culture is all bad, since it is a musical hub, it shows hospitality, I like baseball, etc., although I don't like greasy food, or guns, and I don't follow NASCAR anymore, and sympathize with Colin Kaepernick, and disagree with knocking hippies, etc.; but as long as they keep voting for Republicans, as they exist today, they stereotype themselves, and they are fair game, because their votes have real-world consequences, such as climate change, war, poverty and discrimination. That doesn't mean that Democrats and Greens and people who believe in other ideologies don't make mistakes too.

You might want to try Hillbilly Eulogy.  Watching NASCAR and eating fried food does not really teach you much about Scots-Irish-Hillbilly culture.  Hillbilly Eulogy dives deep under the skin and is written by someone from hillbilly culture who truly loves his highly dysfunctional hillbilly family.  Rules for living...  Never start a fistfight unless someone insults your family, but it seems to be OK to insult the other guy's family.  It is taboo to beat your wife unless she throws the first punch.  If you have a pregnant girlfriend and someone gives you a full time job with health benefits, and you get fired for taking four full hour bathroom breaks a day, the boss that fires you is being unreasonable.  There really are lots of welfare queens out there, and an awful lot of them are white trash males.  

Now from a high and abstract political theory angle I have some pretense of seeing how they might come to love Reagan.  This is different from a view from the inside of a culture that is abusing meth and heroin much as they have long abused alcohol.  I mean, how can you not appreciate a grandmother whose uncle had to stop her from committing murder as a 12 year old?  What alternative to murder is there if somebody is stealing the family cow?  It's an amazing book.  It gives a fond loving insider's view of a culture that is still presented as very badly abusive and dysfunctional.  The author isn't out to demonize a political faction he disagrees with, but his portrayal of hillbilly culture is all the more damming for his love and understanding of it.  No liberal progressive could possibly tear into the culture as thoroughly and effectively as he does.

I know we don't generally follow each other's reading lists, but this one is a whopper.

(09-05-2016, 10:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: But I hadn't been clear on just how reactionary Galen is, until I saw these recent posts. Not only is he a free-market libertarian, but upholds traditional gender roles and says boomers messed up society by challenging them. No doubt that I am a progressive, because I am interested and concerned and support movements for change, and therefore I am going to disagree with reactionary ideas. To say I don't understand them, just because I oppose them, makes zero logical sense.

I too have found his recent posts revealing.  I'm remaining something of a neo-whig myself.  I still find much of your presentation of ideas that you oppose to be shallow straw men.

(09-05-2016, 10:15 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: What I notice often from you, Tara (especially), galen and others, is that when I make measured and qualified statements, they are ignored. Only my apparent extremist positions are heard or remembered.

We're too busy responding to the other stuff to notice the alleged measured and qualified qualified stuff.