The Partisan Divide on Issues

[David Horn]

(07-08-2020, 01:36 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: This tack is just a political ploy by Trump. He sees that it worked for Nixon and George Wallace. He is exaggerating and distorting the lawless actions so that people will be afraid and vote for him as the law and order candidate. But as one pundit pointed out, that worked for Nixon because he was not the incumbent. Trump is now the incumbent, and if lawlessness gets worse before November, the people will blame him and a Lichtman Key will turn against him, costing him the election...

The other and perhaps more important point: Nixon was making that pitch at the beginning of a conservative phase, when faith and interest in liberal ideas were at their nadir. We're in the opposite transition now, so that pitch will tend to sound very tinny and out of time -- because it is.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-08-2020, 12:33 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 12:13 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: If the liberals take over that's what they'll do, they'd either roll over or attempt to appease by turning a blind eye or reluctantly going along like they did with Hitler. Today, we have the benefit of hindsight. We can decide whether America needs Churchill (Trump) or Chamberlain (Bumbling Lovable Biden) right now. Right now, we have a bunch of liberal wimps and wimpy professional people pleasers in power and what you are seeing here is the result.

I would line up Trump with Hoover and Buchanan, stickers to the old values and making it clear how they fail in newer times.  We won’t know for sure until we are into the high, but things are heading that way again.

People are disappointed in advance with Biden.  If I gave Trump a year or so before I started giving him a hard time, I would do the same to Biden.

I know FDR was not viewed overly well in his early days.  He was a lawyer and governor from New York who hadn’t impressed yet.  He had yet to take his place next to Lincoln and Churchill.  You have to solve your crisis before being given political sainthood.  Even Churchill got the Order of the Boot.

I'd line him up with Teddy Roosevelt or Churchill myself. He won't be FDR or Washington but he could end up being a modern day Republican version of Abe Lincoln. So, you are willing to sacrifice or let go of the rule of law, equality, traditional Judeo/Christian values and accept lawlessness and mob rule to keep another not so good Democratic coalition together. So, does that seem about right to you? Yes, Churchill despite all he did to rally a nation that was badly losing a war and save Great Britain from inevitable defeat by the Axis powers and a divvy up or surrender of its empire and its monarchy or even worse by being invaded and conquered.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-08-2020, 01:18 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 12:58 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Me telling you over and over again that I'm going to respond to violence with violence is not a lie, it's a promise.

Seems like a lie to me.  Your ratio of empty threats made to actually doing something is nigh on infinite.  I still remember my high school math teacher trying to tell me that division by zero is undefined.  This changed when I got to college.  Three infinity, one undefined.  The three were physics, calculus and electronics.  The one was philosophy.  The relevant quote?  “Undefined is for little kids.”  Anyway, your ratio of empty threats to actual events seems infinite.

(07-08-2020, 12:58 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: You don't want lawlessness. Are you sure about that these days? What if the lawless people among your ranks want lawlessness and there aren't enough of you to do much about it and your worthless politicians aren't up to the task or view them as part of their political base?

You are the one obsessed with violence and lawlessness.  Read again your quote above.  My view is that the Information Age began as World War II ended, and that the major western powers who made the jump have gone with non violence.  Gandhi and MLK are the prime examples.  There are remnants like the racist violent police, the Boogaloo Bois and yourself as a wannabe amateur, but folks are working on it.

The information age began with the invention of the first printing press machine that was capable of mass production. America has always been in the information age. As you should know by my presence here, we are still in it these days despite all the obstacles and censorship that the liberals are trying to impose these days. Personally, I don't think you will be able to keep a powerful country like ours down like you are able to keep segments of blue society down but you can hope to and hope for miracles or hope for a white knight to swoop in and save you like usual.

Personally, I doubt the cop that killed George Floyd was a racist as you say. I think he went to far with with a lifelong criminal with some health issues (drug addiction and COVID19) that he knew personally that he didn't think much of as human being. I'm sure you and Black Lives Matter give a rats ass about the entire truth related to the tragic incident and all the factors that pertain to it. I'm not saying the cop was innocent because he's not innocent as most of us have seen with our own two eyes. Placing a knee to the back of a persons neck and not letting up is a serious no no. Personally, I parted ways with math when definitive answers couldn't be reached and an answer required an entire page of proofs and theorems with no definitive answer other than its some kind of a triangle or some kind of important thingy that's mainly important to scientists, engineers, mathematicians and all their various teachers.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-08-2020, 01:36 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: This tack is just a political ploy by Trump. He sees that it worked for Nixon and George Wallace. He is exaggerating and distorting the lawless actions so that people will be afraid and vote for him as the law and order candidate. But as one pundit pointed out, that worked for Nixon because he was not the incumbent. Trump is now the incumbent, and if lawlessness gets worse before November, the people will blame him and a Lichtman Key will turn against him, costing him the election.

Electing a president who acts on the real issues of police brutality and neglect of social programs in the black community will decrease lawlessness and improve the cities and society as a whole.

It is your side who will instigate violence against the state. You will no doubt excuse this in some way as answering some kind of attack (probably on your gun rights or on some enforcement of gun laws). Or there may be more riots by those angry at society, perhaps sparked by more police violence, and this may be your excuse to make your own violence against them (via citizens' militias, probably). I don't see a competent liberal-Democratic state as unable to deal with either violent faction. But if Biden fails and the spiral of violence escalates, then he or his successor-candidate could face electoral trouble in 2024, no doubt.

He knows us and he knows them and he knows what's going to happen to them eventually. He's not talking to me or anyone remotely close to me so to speak. He's talking to the Democratic/ Independent population that you're side is either threatening, scaring and picking on the the most right now. I don't need Trump to fight my battles or protect me from some crazy liberals or some punk who thinks he or she is tough, intimidating, scary and invisible. As I've said, I have more respect for the white tail deer population and place more value on it than I do them right now. You want to save lumber, save the earth and do nature a favor by not having to provide housing, water, food, healthcare and space for them and the few of us that you assume are related to us that you seem to be able to see more of than those we see today. America will oblige and basically get rid of most of them one way or another for the greater good of the country and mother earth.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-08-2020, 10:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: The information age began with the invention of the first printing press machine that was capable of mass production. America has always been in the information age.

Disregarding an age is fairly typical of the partisan approach.  If something does not support your worldview, you pretend it doesn't exist.  It's just one of your holes.  Nukes, insurgent war, computer networks and renewable energy do exist and have changed the pattern of civilization.  You might pretend otherwise, block the changed out of your mind.  Still, war is less cost effective.  Information is far more available.  The shift is rather obvious to those with eyes open to see.

(07-08-2020, 10:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: As you should know by my presence here, we are still in it these days despite all the obstacles and censorship that the liberals are trying to impose these days.

Rights do not include the ability to hurt others.  You do not have a right to disregard other's rights.  If I and other liberals demand what you call censorship, it is of harmful speech.  It is of the dominant folk wishing to prove themselves superior to minorities.  Racists would have a true problem with that.

Normally liberals are all for free speech and the other rights of conscience.  Still, there is no right that cannot be abused.

(07-08-2020, 10:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Personally, I don't think you will be able to keep a powerful country like ours down like you are able to keep segments of blue society down but you can hope to and hope for miracles or hope for a white knight to swoop in and save you like usual.

It's not a miracle.  It is the turnings turning that I and others are hoping for.  Every four score and seven years, a new birth of freedom.  Yes, it is like usual.

Those who are against freedom, those who would hurt others, those who would lock flaws in the culture in place such as racist violent police, do get purged from time to time.  It is a feature, not a bug.  Being a cheerleader for violence, hatred and tribal thinking means risking the chance of getting purged once in a while.  This seems one of those times.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-08-2020, 09:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: I'd line him up with Teddy Roosevelt or Churchill myself. He won't be FDR or Washington but he could end up being a modern day Republican version of Abe Lincoln.

How can he be against racial equality and be like Lincoln?  How can he suppress voting of people who oppose him and be for democracy?  How can he consider himself above the law and be a law and order person?  I have a quite simple arrow of progress to measure him against.  I am confident that he belongs more with Buchanan and Hoover, though arguably this does more than a little injustice to Hoover.  Hoover was correct in thinking the US government traditionally did not interfere to regulate the economy, but incorrect in thinking this could continue.  His mistake is in not attempting to do what had never been done before.  Racism, voter suppression and acting as if one were above the law has been done before.

(07-08-2020, 09:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: So, you are willing to sacrifice or let go of the rule of law, equality, traditional Judeo/Christian values and accept lawlessness and mob rule to keep another not so good Democratic coalition together. So, does that seem about right to you?

No, I distinguish between the protestors and the looters.  In order to repeat your ridiculous claims, you have to be willfully blind to the difference between following the law and not.

(07-08-2020, 09:29 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Yes, Churchill despite all he did to rally a nation that was badly losing a war and save Great Britain from inevitable defeat by the Axis powers and a divvy up or surrender of its empire and its monarchy or even worse by being invaded and conquered.

Axis victory was not inevitable.  Are we debating who won World War II?  You are aware that the conservative autocratic side lost?  To what degree will you edit your perspective on history to support your warped ideology?

[Eric the Green]

(07-08-2020, 11:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 01:36 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: This tack is just a political ploy by Trump. He sees that it worked for Nixon and George Wallace. He is exaggerating and distorting the lawless actions so that people will be afraid and vote for him as the law and order candidate. But as one pundit pointed out, that worked for Nixon because he was not the incumbent. Trump is now the incumbent, and if lawlessness gets worse before November, the people will blame him and a Lichtman Key will turn against him, costing him the election.

Electing a president who acts on the real issues of police brutality and neglect of social programs in the black community will decrease lawlessness and improve the cities and society as a whole.

It is your side who will instigate violence against the state. You will no doubt excuse this in some way as answering some kind of attack (probably on your gun rights or on some enforcement of gun laws). Or there may be more riots by those angry at society, perhaps sparked by more police violence, and this may be your excuse to make your own violence against them (via citizens' militias, probably). I don't see a competent liberal-Democratic state as unable to deal with either violent faction. But if Biden fails and the spiral of violence escalates, then he or his successor-candidate could face electoral trouble in 2024, no doubt.

He knows us and he knows them and he knows what's going to happen to them eventually. He's not talking to me or anyone remotely close to me so to speak. He's talking to the Democratic/ Independent population that you're side is either threatening, scaring and picking on the the most right now. I don't need Trump to fight my battles or protect me from some crazy liberals or some punk who thinks he or she is tough, intimidating, scary and invisible. As I've said, I have more respect for the white tail deer population and place more value on it than I do them right now. You want to save lumber, save the earth and do nature a favor by not having to provide housing, water, food, healthcare and space for them and the few of us that you assume are related to us that you seem to be able to see more of than those we see today. America will oblige and basically get rid of most of them one way or another for the greater good of the country and mother earth.

Well, you certainly resemble Trump most clearly in your tendency to write an incoherent rant like this.

[Eric the Green]

(07-08-2020, 12:23 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 01:36 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: This tack is just a political ploy by Trump. He sees that it worked for Nixon and George Wallace. He is exaggerating and distorting the lawless actions so that people will be afraid and vote for him as the law and order candidate. But as one pundit pointed out, that worked for Nixon because he was not the incumbent. Trump is now the incumbent, and if lawlessness gets worse before November, the people will blame him and a Lichtman Key will turn against him, costing him the election...

The other and perhaps more important point: Nixon was making that pitch at the beginning of a conservative phase, when faith and interest in liberal ideas were at their nadir.  We're in the opposite transition now, so that pitch will tend to sound very tinny and out of time -- because it is.

Yes indeed, after 40 or 50 years of trickle-down, dog-whistle racism, it's like he represents or sounds like an incumbent who has been in office for that long. Very out of time and out of tune.

[pbrower2a]

(07-07-2020, 10:32 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-06-2020, 11:12 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(07-06-2020, 10:54 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Robert E. Lee actually tried to reunify the country once the issue was decided.  There are many wo feel that the US will not survive this crisis as a 50 state nation at least. Makes you wonder if the southern states might try to reform the Confederacy. If so, would they be enlightened enough as to not attempt to re-form Jim Crow laws let alone slavery.  I would bet that they would be.  I can see the possibility of Alaska joining Canada and Hawaii becoming its own nation.  Many now question whether the idea of 50 states under one central government is any longer feasible.

This is worth remembering. General Robert E. Lee was an excellent general. Once he surrendered at Appomattox he made clear that the Confederate cause and slavery were dead beyond any recovery. He lived only five years after the Confederate defeat, and one can only imagine o- 

He did not like losing, of course, but note well that he opposed the "Lost Cause" violence against blacks. He advocated reconciliation and not resistance. The Klan cruelty was out of his sympathy. So give up slavery and go for a full recovery, whatever that took.

Lee is himself a tragic figure in American history... and far more complex than his image. One can obviously not confuse him with the proto-fascist Nathan Bedford Forrest.

Yep. The bulk of South accepted their defeat as absolute (God's Will), let bygones be bygones and pledged their allegiance to the Union and the defense of the United States of America. Do you think we would have one World War I and World War II without the help and support of all their kids and grand kids and the kids and the grand kids of the slaves. So, as groups on your side are waging a war to stamp them out and picking a fight with us in the North as well, where does that leave you (the poor idiot stuck in middle with no where to go or turn because you alone are viewed as easy prey). I don't need a Democrat to recognize the contributions of Black Americans or the quality of Black Americans either. You might but I don't. I'm on the Pro American side and unfortunately you are on the Anti American side. I'm not saying that there aren't any Pro Americans in between because there are a lot of them as well. Are the do nothing Republicans ready to work and sacrifice for America? We'll see, if not, lumping them in with the Democrats ain't going to be a problem.

The difference between the KKK and Nazi fascists was on what to do with blacks. The KKK would have returned blacks to slavery had they had the chance, and would have likely murdered those who resisted. The Nazis would have murdered blacks after exploiting them as slave laborers on short rations. 

The problem in America is that the dominant elite in economics is mostly a coalition between the pre-industrial elites (big landowners), para-industrial elites (urban landlords like Trump), and industrial elites who have found some proletarian cultural values (religious superstition, ethnic and religious bigotry, and overall anti-intellectualism). But this is proving to be a cultural dead end as well as moral absurdity. 

The economic elites want 95% of the people suffering for 2% of the people, which is grossly undemocratic from an economic standpoint. Such requires that all but that elite and perhaps 3% or so (who would succeed under any social order) and about 3% who would succeed in any non-Marxist social order sell out any early dreams quickly -- thus be a domestic servant instead of an opera singer or a laborer instead of a physician. (So maybe you become a K-12 teacher if you are smart and generally competent in a democratic order... but in a not-so-democratic order such as Ku Kluxistan or racist South Africa, if you are born into the wrong ethnic group you will be crushed unless you submit to a rigid hierarchy). On the other hand, social mobility in America is typically downward, consistent with a democracy going authoritarian and elitist.  

You have a derogatory view of poor people of color. At the least the non-poor people of color seem to show far more empathy toward poor people of their ethnic group than do non-poor white people toward poor whites. OK, white people of cultural privilege, the sorts who visit art galleries, read as a habit, and listen to abstract music with some intellectual appeal (classical, jazz, folk, and some very sophisticated rock -- rhythm-and-blues qualifies as someone else's folk tradition) often cannot relate to poor white people who have an anti-intellectual heritage.  

Our educational system tantalizes youth with the promise that if they work hard with adequate devotion that they too can succeed greatly. This is not the authoritarian order that trains people to be cleaners and toilers because they are born into such an order. The Right is trying to establish an authoritarian order in which people other than the elites must subordinate themselves to those with the economic power. Such is feudal in pre-industrial times and fascist in industrial times. 

The economic Right used to believe that it needed to establish opportunity as a cause for getting people to believe in the capitalist order. That may have been tricky, but at least that had some rationale in results. The Hard Right has abandoned any pretense of offering opportunity to any outside an entrenched elite. If you wonder about bureaucratic hierarchies, then the fast track (and only) route to success within those is available only to a hereditary hierarchy -- something like the old Soviet nomenklatura that itself became as exploitative and repressive as feudal lords, sweat-shop exploiters, and mobsters. (That ultimately caused the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and in the Soviet bloc -- the conflict between the promises of a 'classless society' and the rise of a new class of exploitative administrators).

We have a Hegelian conflict that you manifestly fail to understand. A new way of thought, originally revolutionary in methods and even mass appeal, begins to show conflicts with the feelings, reasoning, observations, and entrenched morals of those not in the elite. Toward the end of the run of that new order the elites begin to act like a cheating spouse "are you going to believe me or are you going to believe your lying eyes?" Modern technology except as conduits of pure entertainment depend upon sophisticated reasoning  and upon the honing of intellectual talent for its creation. Even in pure entertainment the really good stuff (much material from Pixar and Marvel) requires some well-honed talent for creating material of technical sophistication. As intellectual property becomes more important as a share of the economy and industrial production becomes little more than a means of achieving easily-sated needs, we have a conflict. 

In several respects we have a conflict that has festered  until it can only break. Exploitative capitalists promoted the irrationalism of racism, low mass culture, and religious fundamentalism  because racism well serves the precept of divide et impera, mass low culture stifles thought, and religious fundamentalism tells people to suffer in This World for rapacious elites because they will get their rewards in Heaven while those who insist upon something better here will be damned to Hell. 

The people whose ideology you support have failed, and for them to maintain their position they must resort to brutal repression. Those people see you as another expendable tool.

[pbrower2a]

(07-08-2020, 12:33 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 12:13 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: If the liberals take over that's what they'll do, they'd either roll over or attempt to appease by turning a blind eye or reluctantly going along like they did with Hitler. Today, we have the benefit of hindsight. We can decide whether America needs Churchill (Trump) or Chamberlain (Bumbling Lovable Biden) right now. Right now, we have a bunch of liberal wimps and wimpy professional people pleasers in power and what you are seeing here is the result.

I would line up Trump with Hoover and Buchanan, stickers to the old values and making it clear how they fail in newer times.  We won’t know for sure until we are into the high, but things are heading that way again.

People are disappointed in advance with Biden.  If I gave Trump a year or so before I started giving him a hard time, I would do the same to Biden.

I know FDR was not viewed overly well in his early days.  He was a lawyer and governor from New York who hadn’t impressed yet.  He had yet to take his place next to Lincoln and Churchill.  You have to solve your crisis before being given political sainthood.  Even Churchill got the Order of the Boot.

Churchill was a highly-respected figure by the 1930's. All that kept him from being Foreign Minister was the legitimate fear that he would offend Hitler. Churchill had nothing good to say about Hitler, whom he saw as evil and intellectually shallow. 

Churchill had had a spectacular failure at Gallipoli. He obviously learned from it. Oh, how did the Turks win there? The best-made plans of mice and men...Churchill was ready to do what the Turks did at Gallipoli... impose a stalemate more costly to the attacker than to the defender that causes the attacker to either run out of resources or give up for something more promising.  Quick, decisive victories entice everyone, but Gallipoli proved otherwise. So did the Blitz. 

Wise leaders may make mistakes, but they can certainly learn from them. They also learn from their losses... which explains why the British were able to exploit the decisive battle of the Middle East, the second battle of el Alamein as its own Blitzkrieg all the way to Tunis (where the Americans got to finish off the Afrika Korps. 

Neither Lincoln nor FDR wanted to be wartime leaders, but that is exactly what they became. One need not like war to wage it well. War on the fronts of land, sea, and (beginning about a century ago) air are won -- or at least one avoids losing -- by brute force. The grand strategy of exploiting the economic and political weaknesses of the Enemy is far more cerebral. 

Trump may have learned from some entrepreneurial mistakes to stick to what one does best and not make half-hearted efforts to exploit a name... so he focused his efforts on being a real-estate developer and landlord. What relevance that has to American politics is beyond my imagination.

[TnT]

(07-05-2020, 09:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 08:55 PM)TnT Wrote: Well, if the pictures of the beer-gut wanna-bes that showed up at Gettysburg this weekend, having been gulled by the very cesspool of information that they subscribe to, have any credibility, I guess I'm not too worried about any "civil war" that these guys foment.

You ever mess with a tough older dude with a beer gut. Hint....I'm pretty sure the dudes with the beer guts can handle themselves and know how fight and want the opportunity to get their hands on your punks. It's amazing how many punks there are walking around these days. I mean, it used to be open season on punks not so long ago. Hint...Moms way ain't working out so well but that's OK as far as the liberals go these days.

I get what you're saying.  It turns out that I look a lot like those dudes.  And I too own firearms.  I would think that since you and I are drawn to a history-based venue like this, that we would share a more realistic view of the military value of groups like this.

I know a number of these guys.  Out at the range, they look at my short hair and the age in my face and my white skin and assume that I agree with them about their fantasies.  I'm not even sure they know exactly who they would shoot if they got the chance.  My concern is that they would conjure up some conspiracy theory off the internet and then shoot innocent folks to no good.

A good military organization is NOT democratic.  It has a tightly organized chain of command.  These rabble groups, that so like to call themselves "militias" tend to be informal,  and relatively democratic.  They are loosely organized.  Egos abound.  Everyone wants to be an officer.  Politics gets going.  Splintering starts up with each little tinpot "captain" having a few sycophant followers.  I've been there and seen it in operation.

Another simple principle.  You and I should both know - when the shooting starts, all sorts of people just die.  There's little or no sense to it.  If it goes on long enough, it gets better organized and more people die.  Ultimately, one "side" prevails.  No one wins in any real sense of the word.  Revolutions have occurred over and over again over the ages.  They all seem to get into extremism of some sort eventually before something brings it to an end.  My goodness, but this very theory of history is an effort to describe it!

The so-called "militia" movement, it seems to me, might well result in hundreds of small groups running around out in the hills shooting at each other; kind of a replication of the disparate sects fighting amongst themselves in the mideast, over trivial conspiracy-theory differences.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-09-2020, 02:37 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 11:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 01:36 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: This tack is just a political ploy by Trump. He sees that it worked for Nixon and George Wallace. He is exaggerating and distorting the lawless actions so that people will be afraid and vote for him as the law and order candidate. But as one pundit pointed out, that worked for Nixon because he was not the incumbent. Trump is now the incumbent, and if lawlessness gets worse before November, the people will blame him and a Lichtman Key will turn against him, costing him the election.

Electing a president who acts on the real issues of police brutality and neglect of social programs in the black community will decrease lawlessness and improve the cities and society as a whole.

It is your side who will instigate violence against the state. You will no doubt excuse this in some way as answering some kind of attack (probably on your gun rights or on some enforcement of gun laws). Or there may be more riots by those angry at society, perhaps sparked by more police violence, and this may be your excuse to make your own violence against them (via citizens' militias, probably). I don't see a competent liberal-Democratic state as unable to deal with either violent faction. But if Biden fails and the spiral of violence escalates, then he or his successor-candidate could face electoral trouble in 2024, no doubt.

He knows us and he knows them and he knows what's going to happen to them eventually. He's not talking to me or anyone remotely close to me so to speak. He's talking to the Democratic/ Independent population that you're side is either threatening, scaring and picking on the the most right now. I don't need Trump to fight my battles or protect me from some crazy liberals or some punk who thinks he or she is tough, intimidating, scary and invisible. As I've said, I have more respect for the white tail deer population and place more value on it than I do them right now. You want to save lumber, save the earth and do nature a favor by not having to provide housing, water, food, healthcare and space for them and the few of us that you assume are related to us that you seem to be able to see more of than those we see today. America will oblige and basically get rid of most of them one way or another for the greater good of the country and mother earth.

Well, you certainly resemble Trump most clearly in your tendency to write an incoherent rant like this.

What can I say, I'm not a professional writer or a highfalutin liberal either. In a way, I wish that I was a more professional writer because walking all over you guys would be pretty easy.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-09-2020, 02:39 PM)TnT Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 09:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 08:55 PM)TnT Wrote: Well, if the pictures of the beer-gut wanna-bes that showed up at Gettysburg this weekend, having been gulled by the very cesspool of information that they subscribe to, have any credibility, I guess I'm not too worried about any "civil war" that these guys foment.

You ever mess with a tough older dude with a beer gut. Hint....I'm pretty sure the dudes with the beer guts can handle themselves and know how fight and want the opportunity to get their hands on your punks. It's amazing how many punks there are walking around these days. I mean, it used to be open season on punks not so long ago. Hint...Moms way ain't working out so well but that's OK as far as the liberals go these days.

I get what you're saying.  It turns out that I look a lot like those dudes.  And I too own firearms.  I would think that since you and I are drawn to a history-based venue like this, that we would share a more realistic view of the military value of groups like this.

I know a number of these guys.  Out at the range, they look at my short hair and the age in my face and my white skin and assume that I agree with them about their fantasies.  I'm not even sure they know exactly who they would shoot if they got the chance.  My concern is that they would conjure up some conspiracy theory off the internet and then shoot innocent folks to no good.

A good military organization is NOT democratic.  It has a tightly organized chain of command.  These rabble groups, that so like to call themselves "militias" tend to be informal,  and relatively democratic.  They are loosely organized.  Egos abound.  Everyone wants to be an officer.  Politics gets going.  Splintering starts up with each little tinpot "captain" having a few sycophant followers.  I've been there and seen it in operation.

Another simple principle.  You and I should both know - when the shooting starts, all sorts of people just die.  There's little or no sense to it.  If it goes on long enough, it gets better organized and more people die.  Ultimately, one "side" prevails.  No one wins in any real sense of the word.  Revolutions have occurred over and over again over the ages.  They all seem to get into extremism of some sort eventually before something brings it to an end.  My goodness, but this very theory of history is an effort to describe it!

The so-called "militia" movement, it seems to me, might well result in hundreds of small groups running around out in the hills shooting at each other; kind of a replication of the disparate sects fighting amongst themselves in the mideast, over trivial conspiracy-theory differences.

Well, I've got a legal permit to carry a firearm in public and an old gun safety certificate that still has value too. I didn't see the dudes that you saw doing whatever at Gettysburg. So,  I can't really comment on what I thought about them as a group. I don't have a beer gut myself. I must say, I was pretty impressed by the AR-15. It's a cool gun.

[Classic-Xer]

(07-09-2020, 09:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 12:33 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 12:13 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: If the liberals take over that's what they'll do, they'd either roll over or attempt to appease by turning a blind eye or reluctantly going along like they did with Hitler. Today, we have the benefit of hindsight. We can decide whether America needs Churchill (Trump) or Chamberlain (Bumbling Lovable Biden) right now. Right now, we have a bunch of liberal wimps and wimpy professional people pleasers in power and what you are seeing here is the result.

I would line up Trump with Hoover and Buchanan, stickers to the old values and making it clear how they fail in newer times.  We won’t know for sure until we are into the high, but things are heading that way again.

People are disappointed in advance with Biden.  If I gave Trump a year or so before I started giving him a hard time, I would do the same to Biden.

I know FDR was not viewed overly well in his early days.  He was a lawyer and governor from New York who hadn’t impressed yet.  He had yet to take his place next to Lincoln and Churchill.  You have to solve your crisis before being given political sainthood.  Even Churchill got the Order of the Boot.

Churchill was a highly-respected figure by the 1930's. All that kept him from being Foreign Minister was the legitimate fear that he would offend Hitler. Churchill had nothing good to say about Hitler, whom he saw as evil and intellectually shallow. 

Churchill had had a spectacular failure at Gallipoli. He obviously learned from it. Oh, how did the Turks win there? The best-made plans of mice and men...Churchill was ready to do what the Turks did at Gallipoli... impose a stalemate more costly to the attacker than to the defender that causes the attacker to either run out of resources or give up for something more promising.  Quick, decisive victories entice everyone, but Gallipoli proved otherwise. So did the Blitz. 

Wise leaders may make mistakes, but they can certainly learn from them. They also learn from their losses... which explains why the British were able to exploit the decisive battle of the Middle East, the second battle of el Alamein as its own Blitzkrieg all the way to Tunis (where the Americans got to finish off the Afrika Korps. 

Neither Lincoln nor FDR wanted to be wartime leaders, but that is exactly what they became. One need not like war to wage it well. War on the fronts of land, sea, and (beginning about a century ago) air are won -- or at least one avoids losing -- by brute force. The grand strategy of exploiting the economic and political weaknesses of the Enemy is far more cerebral. 

Trump may have learned from some entrepreneurial mistakes to stick to what one does best and not make half-hearted efforts to exploit a name... so he focused his efforts on being a real-estate developer and landlord. What relevance that has to American politics is beyond my imagination.

Trump was a pure political outsider with no skin in the political game. Personally, I didn't think he had a chance after he bashed Bush II and then bashed McCain and then bashed and blew off Romney and then bashed pretty Megyn Kelly during a debate on Fox too. Unlike the liberals who talk about change and pin their hopes on change, the Republican base decided it wanted a change and made a change by electing Trump. Personally, I viewed Trump as the best candidate to face Hilary. As it turned out, I was right about that one. I've been pretty much right all along as well. To be fair, I was wrong about Obama because I didn't think he had a chance to beat Hilary back in 08'.

[Eric the Green]

(07-09-2020, 10:00 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-09-2020, 09:04 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 12:33 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 12:13 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote: If the liberals take over that's what they'll do, they'd either roll over or attempt to appease by turning a blind eye or reluctantly going along like they did with Hitler. Today, we have the benefit of hindsight. We can decide whether America needs Churchill (Trump) or Chamberlain (Bumbling Lovable Biden) right now. Right now, we have a bunch of liberal wimps and wimpy professional people pleasers in power and what you are seeing here is the result.

I would line up Trump with Hoover and Buchanan, stickers to the old values and making it clear how they fail in newer times.  We won’t know for sure until we are into the high, but things are heading that way again.

People are disappointed in advance with Biden.  If I gave Trump a year or so before I started giving him a hard time, I would do the same to Biden.

I know FDR was not viewed overly well in his early days.  He was a lawyer and governor from New York who hadn’t impressed yet.  He had yet to take his place next to Lincoln and Churchill.  You have to solve your crisis before being given political sainthood.  Even Churchill got the Order of the Boot.

Churchill was a highly-respected figure by the 1930's. All that kept him from being Foreign Minister was the legitimate fear that he would offend Hitler. Churchill had nothing good to say about Hitler, whom he saw as evil and intellectually shallow. 

Churchill had had a spectacular failure at Gallipoli. He obviously learned from it. Oh, how did the Turks win there? The best-made plans of mice and men...Churchill was ready to do what the Turks did at Gallipoli... impose a stalemate more costly to the attacker than to the defender that causes the attacker to either run out of resources or give up for something more promising.  Quick, decisive victories entice everyone, but Gallipoli proved otherwise. So did the Blitz. 

Wise leaders may make mistakes, but they can certainly learn from them. They also learn from their losses... which explains why the British were able to exploit the decisive battle of the Middle East, the second battle of el Alamein as its own Blitzkrieg all the way to Tunis (where the Americans got to finish off the Afrika Korps. 

Neither Lincoln nor FDR wanted to be wartime leaders, but that is exactly what they became. One need not like war to wage it well. War on the fronts of land, sea, and (beginning about a century ago) air are won -- or at least one avoids losing -- by brute force. The grand strategy of exploiting the economic and political weaknesses of the Enemy is far more cerebral. 

Trump may have learned from some entrepreneurial mistakes to stick to what one does best and not make half-hearted efforts to exploit a name... so he focused his efforts on being a real-estate developer and landlord. What relevance that has to American politics is beyond my imagination.

Trump was a pure political outsider with no skin in the political game. Personally, I didn't think he had a chance after he bashed Bush II and then bashed McCain and then bashed and blew off Romney and then bashed pretty Megyn Kelly during a debate on Fox too. Unlike the liberals who talk about change and pin their hopes on change, the Republican base decided it wanted a change and made a change by electing Trump. Personally, I viewed Trump as the best candidate to face Hilary. As it turned out, I was right about that one. I've been pretty much right all along as well. To be fair, I was wrong about Obama because I didn't think he had a chance to beat Hilary back in 08'.

Don't forget, I was right about Trump too. And about Obama too.

[Eric the Green]

(07-09-2020, 09:25 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-09-2020, 02:39 PM)TnT Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 09:47 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-05-2020, 08:55 PM)TnT Wrote: Well, if the pictures of the beer-gut wanna-bes that showed up at Gettysburg this weekend, having been gulled by the very cesspool of information that they subscribe to, have any credibility, I guess I'm not too worried about any "civil war" that these guys foment.

You ever mess with a tough older dude with a beer gut. Hint....I'm pretty sure the dudes with the beer guts can handle themselves and know how fight and want the opportunity to get their hands on your punks. It's amazing how many punks there are walking around these days. I mean, it used to be open season on punks not so long ago. Hint...Moms way ain't working out so well but that's OK as far as the liberals go these days.

I get what you're saying.  It turns out that I look a lot like those dudes.  And I too own firearms.  I would think that since you and I are drawn to a history-based venue like this, that we would share a more realistic view of the military value of groups like this.

I know a number of these guys.  Out at the range, they look at my short hair and the age in my face and my white skin and assume that I agree with them about their fantasies.  I'm not even sure they know exactly who they would shoot if they got the chance.  My concern is that they would conjure up some conspiracy theory off the internet and then shoot innocent folks to no good.

A good military organization is NOT democratic.  It has a tightly organized chain of command.  These rabble groups, that so like to call themselves "militias" tend to be informal,  and relatively democratic.  They are loosely organized.  Egos abound.  Everyone wants to be an officer.  Politics gets going.  Splintering starts up with each little tinpot "captain" having a few sycophant followers.  I've been there and seen it in operation.

Another simple principle.  You and I should both know - when the shooting starts, all sorts of people just die.  There's little or no sense to it.  If it goes on long enough, it gets better organized and more people die.  Ultimately, one "side" prevails.  No one wins in any real sense of the word.  Revolutions have occurred over and over again over the ages.  They all seem to get into extremism of some sort eventually before something brings it to an end.  My goodness, but this very theory of history is an effort to describe it!

The so-called "militia" movement, it seems to me, might well result in hundreds of small groups running around out in the hills shooting at each other; kind of a replication of the disparate sects fighting amongst themselves in the mideast, over trivial conspiracy-theory differences.

Well, I've got a legal permit to carry a firearm in public and an old gun safety certificate that still has value too. I didn't see the dudes that you saw doing whatever at Gettysburg. So,  I can't really comment on what I thought about them as a group. I don't have a beer gut myself. I must say, I was pretty impressed by the AR-15. It's a cool gun.

Revolutions start over and over, the shotgun sings the song, the party on the left becomes the party on the right, the new boss is the same as the old, and the cycle starts again. That's why Woodstock was better, ha ha! It will be back for another go-round too, according to Strauss and Howe.

Knowing what Classic has said here for years, I sure don't think he should have that permit. No, the AR-15 is about the un-coolest thing going.

[Eric the Green]

(07-09-2020, 08:55 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-09-2020, 02:37 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 11:13 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(07-08-2020, 01:36 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: This tack is just a political ploy by Trump. He sees that it worked for Nixon and George Wallace. He is exaggerating and distorting the lawless actions so that people will be afraid and vote for him as the law and order candidate. But as one pundit pointed out, that worked for Nixon because he was not the incumbent. Trump is now the incumbent, and if lawlessness gets worse before November, the people will blame him and a Lichtman Key will turn against him, costing him the election.

Electing a president who acts on the real issues of police brutality and neglect of social programs in the black community will decrease lawlessness and improve the cities and society as a whole.

It is your side who will instigate violence against the state. You will no doubt excuse this in some way as answering some kind of attack (probably on your gun rights or on some enforcement of gun laws). Or there may be more riots by those angry at society, perhaps sparked by more police violence, and this may be your excuse to make your own violence against them (via citizens' militias, probably). I don't see a competent liberal-Democratic state as unable to deal with either violent faction. But if Biden fails and the spiral of violence escalates, then he or his successor-candidate could face electoral trouble in 2024, no doubt.

He knows us and he knows them and he knows what's going to happen to them eventually. He's not talking to me or anyone remotely close to me so to speak. He's talking to the Democratic/ Independent population that you're side is either threatening, scaring and picking on the the most right now. I don't need Trump to fight my battles or protect me from some crazy liberals or some punk who thinks he or she is tough, intimidating, scary and invisible. As I've said, I have more respect for the white tail deer population and place more value on it than I do them right now. You want to save lumber, save the earth and do nature a favor by not having to provide housing, water, food, healthcare and space for them and the few of us that you assume are related to us that you seem to be able to see more of than those we see today. America will oblige and basically get rid of most of them one way or another for the greater good of the country and mother earth.

Well, you certainly resemble Trump most clearly in your tendency to write an incoherent rant like this.

What can I say, I'm not a professional writer or a highfalutin liberal either. In a way, I wish that I was a more professional writer because walking all over you guys would be pretty easy.

You certainly resemble Trump in that way too, always claiming that you can do things that you never could.

[Bob Butler 54]

(07-10-2020, 12:32 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(07-09-2020, 08:55 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: What can I say, I'm not a professional writer or a highfalutin liberal either. In a way, I wish that I was a more professional writer because walking all over you guys would be pretty easy.

You certainly resemble Trump in that way too, always claiming that you can do things that you never could.

Well, if he can manage not to distinguish between looters and protestors, he can imagine a universe where he is winning the debate. If he could find a following with people as obsessed with violence and ideologically blind as he is, he could gather dozens of followers.

Perhaps he is better off playing fixit man.

[pbrower2a]

(07-09-2020, 10:00 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: Trump was a pure political outsider with no skin in the political game. Personally, I didn't think he had a chance after he bashed Bush II and then bashed McCain and then bashed and blew off Romney and then bashed pretty Megyn Kelly during a debate on Fox too. Unlike the liberals who talk about change and pin their hopes on change, the Republican base decided it wanted a change and made a change by electing Trump. Personally, I viewed Trump as the best candidate to face Hilary. As it turned out, I was right about that one. I've been pretty much right all along as well. To be fair, I was wrong about Obama because I didn't think he had a chance to beat Hilary back in 08'.

He didn't know what he was doing, he does not trust anyone with even a legitimate claim to greater knowledge on any topic, and he is all in all a horrible person, someone whose emotional maturity is at an elementary level. A pathological narcissist whose core character is meanness, he can only bring catastrophe.The surprise is that he got away with his awfulness as a leader as long as he did. 

He pleases a sector of the electorate that ordinarily gets ignored in part because satisfaction of that sector brings suffering to a vast majority of Americans. That is his political 'genius'... which is about like Al Capone being a 'genius' as a bootlegger. 

The game is already up. Our political system clicks its heels and follows a really good President; it basically ignores that President when he goes bad. As a basic reality the President has few real powers that he cannot get without support of Congress.

[Bob Butler 54]

CNN reports one Republican voter would rather vote for a tuna fish sandwich than Trump.

Maybe, but I would want to know how the tuna fish sandwich stood on the issues?