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

[Eric the Green]

(09-05-2016, 12:21 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(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".

But clearly I understand their point of view, even though I don't try to go into the history to psycho or socio-analyze why they supposedly think the way they do, beyond the basic stuff. There's no real reason to do that, although I could; people are responsible for their views, with no excuses allowed. I guess you mean I think the other side is brainwashed; yes I do, with abundant evidence to that effect. People tend to live in their cultural balloons; yes, I get that. I would disagree that this is an excuse to hold dangerous and incorrect views. My article clearly lays out what the free market advocates think, and why. You didn't see that, I guess; quite typical of you.

Quote: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.

I don't see any basis for such an opinion. Partisan and unflinching; yes. Shallow; no.

Quote:

(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.

It's not that hard to notice the latter. It really isn't.

Of course, a "straw man" is easy to knock down. If you make me into one, for example.

And if you include in that "we" Taramarie, kinser and Galen, then like most trolls, they don't count. And without them, there's not a whole lot of "we" here. And I don't expect strong conservatives in general to agree with me, and that's OK. All views are worth representing on this forum. Even if I think they are "brainwashed." I know the other side thinks the same of me. At least I can hope that a little bit of "cleaning" happens through the mutual exposure of opposing views. I prefer not to live in my bubble or echo chamber, at least not all the time.

[Classic-Xer]

(08-31-2016, 11:52 AM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-30-2016, 09:40 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(08-30-2016, 07:24 PM)Mikebert Wrote:

(08-28-2016, 08:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Robber Barons have a tendency to get in the way of business which requires them to be removed.

How so?  Robber barons run and/or own the most successful businesses, and for all practical political purposes ARE "Business".

Monopolies aren't very good for business.

They are very good for the monopolists and they are also very important businesses, whose interests the Republicans look out for as the business party.  I am speaking of politics here, not economics.

The Republicans look out for the interests of most businesses. What make you think/believe the Republicans would place the interests of a selected few above the interests of all businesses who support them politically? I can see Democrats doing something silly like to keep themselves in power because they have much less to draw from business wise at this point. Can monopolies remain monopolies without their political ties that are based on financial greed of politicians or political need for avenues relating to government funding and continued political support of the interests relating to modern day monopolies that are involved in banking, financing and healthcare which relate and matter to all businesses that exist today?

[Eric the Green]

Like Hillary against Trump, I'm probably not going to "win" the argument with Taramarie by playing on her level. But let's see, I think we need to elect a president of this forum, with two "major" nominees, and have THEM battle. We need two candidates. Ahh, yes! We can nominate the worst possible ones. Dishonest, always defensive, knocks the other guy, same old drivel? Of course! It's Hillary Terrible-Marie. And now the guy. Let's see.... hmmmm; oh, yeah: campaigns with insults, promises the good old days that never were, lies constantly, appeals to prejudice; it's Donald Ga-lint!

May the worst candidate win! lol



And I refuse to run on the ticket with either of them!

[Eric the Green]

Get your fill of facts as only Bill can recite them!

[Ragnarök_62]

Eric the Green Wrote:Like Hillary against Trump, I'm probably not going to "win" the argument with Taramarie by playing on her level.

I thought you had her on ignore.

Quote:But let's see, I think we need to elect a president of this forum, with two "major" nominees, and have THEM battle. We need two candidates. Ahh, yes! We can nominate the worst possible ones. Dishonest, always defensive, knocks the other guy, same old drivel? Of course! It's Hillary Terrible-Marie. And now the guy. Let's see.... hmmmm; oh, yeah: campaigns with insults, promises the good old days that never were, lies constantly, appeals to prejudice; it's Donald Ga-lint!

You can always make a forum poll. Dunno if Dan would approve of course.

Quote:May the worst candidate win! lol

Yeah, decision 2016 writ large. You can vote for beached badger or cackles cankled.

Quote:And I refuse to run on the ticket with either of them!

Oh, OK, I'll pair you with Vandal then.

[Bob Butler 54]

Can I be one of those independent nobodies who doesn't have a chance?

[Eric the Green]

(09-05-2016, 08:37 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:

Quote:And I refuse to run on the ticket with either of them!

Oh, OK, I'll pair you with Vandal then.

No, I refuse your nomination! And anyway he's AWOL, so he's not a nominee.

Now, maybe YOU and Vandal would make a nice pair. Like Pence, you could explain and make excuses for his outrageous comments! Yeah, you could do that well Exceedingly well!

Yes, I ignored Terrible Tara's four posts above. I don't even know what insults she spewed at me unless someone quotes them! I'm being a good boy

[Eric the Green]

(09-05-2016, 08:42 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Can I be one of those independent nobodies who doesn't have a chance?

I think you already are; ha ha

[Galen]

(09-05-2016, 05:48 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(09-05-2016, 05:41 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-05-2016, 05:36 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(09-05-2016, 05:22 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-05-2016, 04:44 AM)taramarie Wrote: " You may be far too certain about things for your own good.  Only time will tell if I am right about that. In the end it always does." You know me. I listen to both sides of the story and come to the best conclusion I can come up with. I always listen to both sides. Which is why i have so many fights with Eric. Because for him it is always listen to ME AND ONLY ME FOR I HAVE THE ANSWERS FOR ALL BECAUSE I AM ALWAYS RIGHT! Per capita yes of course Lost and GIs would be better than boomers. Some boomers knew no better. Even us millies and the gen xers have learned from hard times to be more careful with money so I have read. But that also is due to broken families, many have no jobs, living at home with parents, and so they literally have no money to spend. Some are saving for homes. Here in NZ we cannot afford homes especially in Auckland (housing crisis). We bus to save money because we cannot afford cars. Yes I also read this too. Hard times early in life teach you some wonderful things to just be careful with your money. That may save us in time. I have seen reckless spending in older folk. My mother is a fine example of credit card spending beyond her means.

As for "They really think that they can shape the world arbitrarily with no consequences.  They are going to spend their Golden Years denying they did anything wrong because the truth is too terrible for them to accept.  Boomers don't ask questions which I suspect is because they are afraid they won't like the answers."

To them it felt needed at the time. They saw injustice and saw what was needed to balance things out culturally. We all in our youth see what is needed at the time. That was needed in their time as far as they were concerned. For the positive of their result i am grateful to them. We know money is not everything. It sure does help out but who are we to keep people together who do not want to be just for financial security? Is that not selfish? I have no excuse for their generation for reckless spending without reflecting on the dire consequences other than the fact it is generational forgetting, greed and impatience. Many thought good times would always be good. We learned earlier on than them that is not always the case going through the worst recession since the great depression.Plus here in NZ city shattering quakes on top of it. We had it worse here especially. So I learned very quickly at a young age for which I am grateful.

What you see as positive result came at great cost and not just in terms of money.  Generation X has paid and is still paying that bill.  Millies are too but they don't really understand how high that price is.  It is a bill that the Boomers are busy trying to avoid that bill.

I wonder if you can guess what America's greatest cultural flaw is?

Lets see...greed, deception, propaganda (included in deception) tribalism (created partly due to deception). Hmm yeah thinking about it i would say deception. It is a great tool to separate then conquer for power, cultural and financial. Yes everything has its positive and negative consequence. Never denied that there were no negative consequence. Only that there was positives but to reverse it would be impossible culturally.

No.  Its an obsession with fairness.

Here in NZ fairness worked out quite well. Problem is you guys cannot come to an agreement on what is fair. Damn Dionysian societies never do.

Look up the Scott Adams definition of fairness and the reason why that particular obsession has become such a problem in the US.  It would be best to keep in mind that NZ is a much more homogeneous society than the US has ever been.

[Anthony '58]

But liberals should be "hawks," based on radical Islam's strident misogyny and literally deadly homophobia; liberals should also be "hawkish" on immigration, because slamming the door on immigration leads to labor shortages that drive up wages, especially low-end wages; and pro-Second Amendment because 95% of those who go to prison under the restrictive, confiscatory gun laws the various states already have are people of color, who make up only about half that percentage of those incarcerated under the "racist" drug laws.

[playwrite]

(09-05-2016, 05:41 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-05-2016, 05:36 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(09-05-2016, 05:22 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-05-2016, 04:44 AM)taramarie Wrote:

(09-05-2016, 04:20 AM)Galen Wrote: Fewer than the ones that were screwed up in the seventies.  Even the Boomers that were in a good situation rebelled as hard as that may be for you to understand because it just what they did.  They really think that they can shape the world arbitrarily with no consquences.  They are going to spend their Golden Years denying they did anything wrong because the truth is too terrible for them to accept.  Boomers don't ask questions which I suspect is because they are afraid they won't like the answers.  For Generation X sometimes questions are all we have, there are very few certainties for us.

Take it from an Xer, sometimes you only get to choose from bad or worse.  Judging from the statistics after the sixties, the Boomers have fucked up far more people, per capita, than the Lost or the GIs ever did.  I judge them from their results. Truth is, I got far better advice from them then I ever did from the Boomers.

Only through uncertainty can understanding come.  You may be far too certain about things for your own good.  Only time will tell if I am right about that. In the end it always does.

" You may be far too certain about things for your own good.  Only time will tell if I am right about that. In the end it always does." You know me. I listen to both sides of the story and come to the best conclusion I can come up with. I always listen to both sides. Which is why i have so many fights with Eric. Because for him it is always listen to ME AND ONLY ME FOR I HAVE THE ANSWERS FOR ALL BECAUSE I AM ALWAYS RIGHT! Per capita yes of course Lost and GIs would be better than boomers. Some boomers knew no better. Even us millies and the gen xers have learned from hard times to be more careful with money so I have read. But that also is due to broken families, many have no jobs, living at home with parents, and so they literally have no money to spend. Some are saving for homes. Here in NZ we cannot afford homes especially in Auckland (housing crisis). We bus to save money because we cannot afford cars. Yes I also read this too. Hard times early in life teach you some wonderful things to just be careful with your money. That may save us in time. I have seen reckless spending in older folk. My mother is a fine example of credit card spending beyond her means.

As for "They really think that they can shape the world arbitrarily with no consequences.  They are going to spend their Golden Years denying they did anything wrong because the truth is too terrible for them to accept.  Boomers don't ask questions which I suspect is because they are afraid they won't like the answers."

To them it felt needed at the time. They saw injustice and saw what was needed to balance things out culturally. We all in our youth see what is needed at the time. That was needed in their time as far as they were concerned. For the positive of their result i am grateful to them. We know money is not everything. It sure does help out but who are we to keep people together who do not want to be just for financial security? Is that not selfish? I have no excuse for their generation for reckless spending without reflecting on the dire consequences other than the fact it is generational forgetting, greed and impatience. Many thought good times would always be good. We learned earlier on than them that is not always the case going through the worst recession since the great depression.Plus here in NZ city shattering quakes on top of it. We had it worse here especially. So I learned very quickly at a young age for which I am grateful.

What you see as positive result came at great cost and not just in terms of money.  Generation X has paid and is still paying that bill.  Millies are too but they don't really understand how high that price is.  It is a bill that the Boomers are busy trying to avoid that bill.

I wonder if you can guess what America's greatest cultural flaw is?

Lets see...greed, deception, propaganda (included in deception) tribalism (created partly due to deception). Hmm yeah thinking about it i would say deception. It is a great tool to separate then conquer for power, cultural and financial. Yes everything has its positive and negative consequence. Never denied that there were no negative consequence. Only that there was positives but to reverse it would be impossible culturally.

No.  Its an obsession with fairness.

It's hilarious when one's clamor for the 1950s is based on the unfairness of today's issue of fairness.

White male entitlement may be blind but it sure is funny.

[Eric the Green]

(09-06-2016, 08:51 AM)Anthony 58 Wrote: But liberals should be "hawks," based on radical Islam's strident misogyny and literally deadly homophobia;

Yes, but selectively and not stupidly; using negotiation, with war as a last resort not a first.

Quote: liberals should also be "hawkish" on immigration, because slamming the door on immigration leads to labor shortages that drive up wages, especially low-end wages;

No, because immigration creates jobs; it's why the USA was recovering better than Europe was.

As of now, more restrictive legal immigration plus massive deportation is the only way to slam any doors. Companies want cheap labor, and immigrants are the only ones who will do the low-end jobs. No, the flat minimum wage is what kept low-end wages low. It needs to be raised and enforced for all workers, whether illegal or legal.

Quote: and pro-Second Amendment because 95% of those who go to prison under the restrictive, confiscatory gun laws the various states already have are people of color, who make up only about half that percentage of those incarcerated under the "racist" drug laws.

The second Amendment is not under threat. Only, perhaps, the Heller/Scalia interpretation of it. But gun fanatics like to conflate the two.

You have a source for that 95% figure?

IF true, it's not for gun control laws that they go to prison, but for using guns in crimes. Those are the laws that exist "in the various states out there." Right now, gun control is sparse; only in some blue states, which have lower gun crime rates as a result of their laws.

It's the racist drug laws that account for people of color in prison, along with racial profiling.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-06-2016, 11:02 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The second Amendment is not under threat. Only, perhaps, the Heller/Scalia interpretation of it. But gun fanatics like to conflate the two.

Gun fanatics and constitutional scholars.

[Bob Butler 54]

(09-06-2016, 08:57 AM)playwrite Wrote: It's hilarious when one's clamor for the 1950s is based on the unfairness of today's issue of fairness.

White male entitlement may be blind but it sure is funny.

What I don't get is the longing for the good old economic times of tax and spend economics while at the same time pushing for the hyperextended supply side stimulus that failed so miserably under the Bushes.

I can find little humor in it, though.

[Eric the Green]

(09-06-2016, 11:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-06-2016, 11:02 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The second Amendment is not under threat. Only, perhaps, the Heller/Scalia interpretation of it. But gun fanatics like to conflate the two.

Gun fanatics and constitutional scholars.

Only some of the latter. The constitutional scholars who are also gun fanatics, yes.

We need to go back to the "well-regulated militia" interpretation not the "individual rights" interpretation. But even under Heller, gun control is legal, so the "support the second amendment" talk has no bearing on what the gun control advocates want. But as usual, the opponents of progress (like Cruz and Trump) are not concerned with accuracy, just slogans.

[Eric the Green]

(09-06-2016, 12:09 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:

(09-06-2016, 11:12 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(09-06-2016, 11:07 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-06-2016, 11:02 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: The second Amendment is not under threat. Only, perhaps, the Heller/Scalia interpretation of it. But gun fanatics like to conflate the two.

Gun fanatics and constitutional scholars.

Only some of the latter. The constitutional scholars who are also gun fanatics, yes.

We need to go back to the "well-regulated militia" interpretation not the "individual rights" interpretation. But even under Heller, gun control is legal, so the "support the second amendment" talk has no bearing on what the gun control advocates want. But as usual, the opponents of progress (like Cruz and Trump) are not concerned with accuracy, just slogans.

Let's make a deal. I will consider dialing back my support to the ILA in return for something. Namely, realization of the Restoration of the Republic described in Gary Hart's PhD thesis (which became a published book).

Well, thanks for the generous offer, but I can't agree about two things of which I know nothing about (and again acronyms are not my strong suit; ILA???).

[Odin]

(09-04-2016, 12:13 AM)taramarie Wrote: were they all really like him?   that is a frightening thought. I am glad our kiwi boomers have more sense.

No they weren't, Galen is making ridiculous, sweeping generalizations (or as Bob would say, "vile stereotypes") because of his own bitterness and hate. People like Eric are a small minority of Boomers.

[Odin]

(09-04-2016, 07:47 PM)Galen Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 05:21 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 02:07 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 01:19 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 12:19 AM)Galen Wrote: Yes, for the most part, and it never really ended.  What happened is that once the question of their fighting in the Vietnam war to their satisfaction and defeated the hated Nixon they then took the rest of the decade off in a cocaine fueled bout of hedonism.  By 1982 they all got religion and half of them went back to Christianity.  It was the perfect set up for the Culture Wars and the current situation.

Galen and Eric tend to indulge in what I call 'vile stereotypes'.  They have spliced together the worst aspects of members of their opposite cultures into ugly caricatures, and will try to sell their venom as if it represents the culture of their political rivals.  They are highly partisan and as such are making no attempt to understand or sympathize with people who disagree with them.

There is a couple of things that you are forgetting.  One is that I don't really do red or blue and both teams  tend to embody the worst of the Boomers.  While their objectives may be different the means often tend to be the same.

(09-04-2016, 01:19 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The awakening was a brief though glorious dream time.  Eric is in some ways an echo of it.  Not a total echo.  Most blue boomers aren't into astrology or mysticism.  Eric has become something of a hawk of late, which is not representative of the old anti-war hippies.  Most blue boomers did grow out of the awakening mood, and got into wives, family, jobs and (shudder) disco.  They in time outgrew the disco as well.  As much as anyone on this forum, though, Eric might give you some impression of hippie culture.  I'm a blue boomer too, though.  Not all blue boomers are totally alike.  Beware vile stereotypes.  Don't judge the United States as a scrambled collection of hateful partisan propaganda.

Eric the (Green) is not merely an echo but rather still acts as if its 1968.  If he were living in Oregon he would have moved to Eugene which is where all the hippies went, this process started about 1985.  In the present Eugene seems to be populated by militant vegans.  A friend of mine was working at HP when one of them complained to her about eating a hamburger during a meeting.  In typical Xer fashion she started eating hamburgers at this vegan.  Militant vegans are the only people on Earth it is possible to eat a hamburger at.

Here is one thing you need to know about politics: Seventy percent of the population doesn't really matter because they are just picking the lesser of evils.  The remaining thirty percent are the ones that do matter because they are busy lining up the rest who do about as much thinking as a herd of cattle.  This is the crowd that tends to embody the worst of any population because they are doing even less thinking than the herd is.

Bob is looking back on the Awakening as a good time because for most of the Boomers it was.  They were simply too blitzed out or self-absorbed to notice much of anything.  The rest of us really didn't enjoy the experience.

You are trafficking in stereotypes again.

1. People can be priced into a vegan diet. It is safer and less expensive, and probably healthier. I'm from a farm family, and at my age going vegetarian would be almost as much a denial of the family culture as getting involved in an interracial marriage.

2. People are not voting for the 'lesser evil'; a very bad nominee like George McGovern got 37.52% of the popular vote in 1972. 36.54% of the electorate voted for Alf Landon against the FDR steamroller in 1936. I'm not saying that either was a really bad politician; it's just that everything went wrong with them as campaigners.  Do you really want to say that people who voted for Landon or McGovern were parts of the herd?

You are likely to find demographics (college-educated people in 1936 for Landon, blacks in 1972 for McGovern) who 'voted wrong'.

3. The Boom  Awakening may have been the optimal time for me to be a teenager. Even my authoritarian parents had to lighten up a bit.

I have encountered plenty of militant vegans myself in the People's Republic of Portland and they behave in much the same way out of the same sense of outraged moral superiority.  There just seem to be more of them in Eugene.  Ironically, one group that often goes vegetarian and does not generally behave this way are the Seventh-Day Adventists.

Given the rather limited choices, in reality they are voting for the lesser of evils.  Clearly there is some disagreement on what lesser evil might actually be.  In the end the herd tends to either vote for one of the major parties and refuse in general to consider any other possibility.  When I ask people about that they invariably tell me that they don't want to vote for someone who can't possibly win.  Sounds like herd behavior to me.

As I said before, it may have been good for you but it tended to suck for anybody else.  The usual self-absorbed behavior I have come to expect from Boomers in general.

The militant Vegan wackos are of all generations, and most Vegans actually hate the wackos.

[Galen]

(09-06-2016, 03:10 PM)Odin Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 12:13 AM)taramarie Wrote: were they all really like him?   that is a frightening thought. I am glad our kiwi boomers have more sense.

No they weren't, Galen is making ridiculous, sweeping generalizations (or as Bob would say, "vile stereotypes") because of his own bitterness and hate. People like Eric are a small minority of Boomers.

How the hell would you know?  The only real difference between Boomers on the right or left is what god they worship.  Either the traditional Christian God or the state.  In all other respects they tend to have pretty much the same destructive idealism and an inability to leave people the hell alone.

[Galen]

(09-06-2016, 03:18 PM)Odin Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 07:47 PM)Galen Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 05:21 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 02:07 AM)Galen Wrote:

(09-04-2016, 01:19 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Galen and Eric tend to indulge in what I call 'vile stereotypes'.  They have spliced together the worst aspects of members of their opposite cultures into ugly caricatures, and will try to sell their venom as if it represents the culture of their political rivals.  They are highly partisan and as such are making no attempt to understand or sympathize with people who disagree with them.

There is a couple of things that you are forgetting.  One is that I don't really do red or blue and both teams  tend to embody the worst of the Boomers.  While their objectives may be different the means often tend to be the same.

(09-04-2016, 01:19 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: The awakening was a brief though glorious dream time.  Eric is in some ways an echo of it.  Not a total echo.  Most blue boomers aren't into astrology or mysticism.  Eric has become something of a hawk of late, which is not representative of the old anti-war hippies.  Most blue boomers did grow out of the awakening mood, and got into wives, family, jobs and (shudder) disco.  They in time outgrew the disco as well.  As much as anyone on this forum, though, Eric might give you some impression of hippie culture.  I'm a blue boomer too, though.  Not all blue boomers are totally alike.  Beware vile stereotypes.  Don't judge the United States as a scrambled collection of hateful partisan propaganda.

Eric the (Green) is not merely an echo but rather still acts as if its 1968.  If he were living in Oregon he would have moved to Eugene which is where all the hippies went, this process started about 1985.  In the present Eugene seems to be populated by militant vegans.  A friend of mine was working at HP when one of them complained to her about eating a hamburger during a meeting.  In typical Xer fashion she started eating hamburgers at this vegan.  Militant vegans are the only people on Earth it is possible to eat a hamburger at.

Here is one thing you need to know about politics: Seventy percent of the population doesn't really matter because they are just picking the lesser of evils.  The remaining thirty percent are the ones that do matter because they are busy lining up the rest who do about as much thinking as a herd of cattle.  This is the crowd that tends to embody the worst of any population because they are doing even less thinking than the herd is.

Bob is looking back on the Awakening as a good time because for most of the Boomers it was.  They were simply too blitzed out or self-absorbed to notice much of anything.  The rest of us really didn't enjoy the experience.

You are trafficking in stereotypes again.

1. People can be priced into a vegan diet. It is safer and less expensive, and probably healthier. I'm from a farm family, and at my age going vegetarian would be almost as much a denial of the family culture as getting involved in an interracial marriage.

2. People are not voting for the 'lesser evil'; a very bad nominee like George McGovern got 37.52% of the popular vote in 1972. 36.54% of the electorate voted for Alf Landon against the FDR steamroller in 1936. I'm not saying that either was a really bad politician; it's just that everything went wrong with them as campaigners.  Do you really want to say that people who voted for Landon or McGovern were parts of the herd?

You are likely to find demographics (college-educated people in 1936 for Landon, blacks in 1972 for McGovern) who 'voted wrong'.

3. The Boom  Awakening may have been the optimal time for me to be a teenager. Even my authoritarian parents had to lighten up a bit.

I have encountered plenty of militant vegans myself in the People's Republic of Portland and they behave in much the same way out of the same sense of outraged moral superiority.  There just seem to be more of them in Eugene.  Ironically, one group that often goes vegetarian and does not generally behave this way are the Seventh-Day Adventists.

Given the rather limited choices, in reality they are voting for the lesser of evils.  Clearly there is some disagreement on what lesser evil might actually be.  In the end the herd tends to either vote for one of the major parties and refuse in general to consider any other possibility.  When I ask people about that they invariably tell me that they don't want to vote for someone who can't possibly win.  Sounds like herd behavior to me.

As I said before, it may have been good for you but it tended to suck for anybody else.  The usual self-absorbed behavior I have come to expect from Boomers in general.

The militant Vegan wackos are of all generations, and most Vegans actually hate the wackos.

I have yet to meet anything other than a militant Vegan.  They seem to have the same self-righteous attitude the bicyclists have around here.