Random Politics Thread

[The Cat]

Chimeric research. Let it happen. Let it go wild. Let the planet be over run with hybrids. It's already over run by beast people, and I want to go to dog heaven.

there is no way it could be scarier (even if it went off the rails out of control) than what the GOP/Fox news seems to want to be the new normal.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Political discourse. TypoC is no exception. Irony abounds.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Political discourse. TypoC is no exception. Irony abounds.

You think I've become part of the Borg? You can say yes, I'm just intrigued at your perceptions. I think I can sort of see what you're getting at, if so. I have felt a desire as of late to be part of something greater than myself, and that could look like being subsumed into a collective. To me it gives me more pep to my step to know that I don't stand alone and is one of the things that innoculates me against nihilism which is definitely a trap I try to avoid.

 

[Virtual ghost]

The EU’s carbon club of one



What do you guys think about this ? (since this is potential game changer)
Since it allows countries that are making progress in carbon emission reductions to have protections from the economies that don't try to do that. What in a way is forcing them to take this path as well.

 

[The Cat]

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

You think I've become part of the Borg? You can say yes, I'm just intrigued at your perceptions. I think I can sort of see what you're getting at, if so. I have felt a desire as of late to be part of something greater than myself, and that could look like being subsumed into a collective. To me it gives me more pep to my step to know that I don't stand alone and is one of the things that innoculates me against nihilism which is definitely a trap I try to avoid.

I'll state it squarely. I think the political subforum has become extremist and there are certain socially dominant posters who have a high level of social control here and are leading down a path of group think. I don't know how to evaluate the extent to which you are roped in. Maybe to some degree, but I have seen you at odds with some of the most dominant posters, so I don't know where you stand today.

I am pretty far to the extreme of Left politically, but I think the subforum is out of control. I think that anyone with any Right leaning is devolved in the eyes of that *group to be either Alt-Right or Qanon in the subtext of discussions. Yes, those two groups are mind-numbing and frustrating, but there are a great many people who fall outside those categories who still have conservative political philosophies. I am not personally even fighting for conservative views as I have stated I don't hold them personally, but there are reasoned positions on all sides of the political spectrum which are not allowed here. This is a crude way to say it but it feels like a cyber-gang bang with dominatrix overtones when it gets going really good. The overt manipulation tactics practiced there bleed onto the rest of the forum.

The posts I recently made I do not expect everyone to agree with them, but they were so diplomatic for BOTH sides, that that to start any sort of gang up seems beyond absurd. I have liberal extremist family who thought it was great. That particular exchange is nearly irrelevant to this discussion because the main problems occur in discussions I avoid, so if people want to dismiss it I will simply agree with you and dismiss my interactions as well. The absence of extremist Right posters like Disco Biscuit has left a fighting void, so that the people who enjoyed that conflict and derived energy from it now are searching for new enemies and they are willing to extend their fighting tactics to rather benign disagreements. The dynamics is not healthy and it is extremist.

Personally I would do away with the political sub-forum

* group= a non-static number of people, consisting of a handful of very socially dominant individuals who draw in others to varying degrees in different discussions

 

[Totenkindly]

Because hey, the Southern Baptists aren't conservative and restrictive enough already. Gotta keep it all pure.

'Take the Ship': Conservatives Aim to Commandeer Southern Baptists

Allen Nelson IV walked to the front of his small church in central Arkansas, stopped in front of the communion table with three large crosses behind him, and unfurled a giant black flag with a white skull and crossed swords.

For several years, the pastor and father of five had felt that too many of his fellow Christians were drifting unmistakably leftward on issues of race, gender and the strict authority of the Bible. The flag was a gift from a friend, energized — like Nelson — by the idea of heroically reclaiming the faith.

It was time, he believed, to “take the ship.”

“We’re fighting for the very heart of the Southern Baptist Convention,” Nelson said in an interview. “For a long time what I thought a good Southern Baptist pastor should do was to send money and trust the system. We can’t do that anymore...."

 

[The Cat]

Because hey, the Southern Baptists aren't conservative and restrictive enough already. Gotta keep it all pure.

'Take the Ship': Conservatives Aim to Commandeer Southern Baptists

oh, just all the fucks no, that's utterly terrifying to me.

 

[Totenkindly]

oh, just all the fucks no, that's utterly terrifying to me.

Typical crap. Any time someone tries to reform the church and right the ship, there's a stalwart group of committed hardcores who see that as perversion and insist on running it into the ground regardless. Assimilating new information or admitting flaws in past application is seen as taint.

You would have to hope that eventually they will run themselves aground into obsolescence.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'll state it squarely. I think the political subforum has become extremist and there are certain socially dominant posters who have a high level of social control here and are leading down a path of group think. I don't know how to evaluate the extent to which you are roped in. Maybe to some degree, but I have seen you at odds with some of the most dominant posters, so I don't know where you stand today.



I am pretty far to the extreme of Left politically, but I think the subforum is out of control. I think that anyone with any Right leaning is devolved in the eyes of that *group to be either Alt-Right or Qanon in the subtext of discussions. Yes, those two groups are mind-numbing and frustrating, but there are a great many people who fall outside those categories who still have conservative political philosophies. I am not personally even fighting for conservative views as I have stated I don't hold them personally, but there are reasoned positions on all sides of the political spectrum which are not allowed here. This is a crude way to say it but it feels like a cyber-gang bang with dominatrix overtones when it gets going really good. The overt manipulation tactics practiced there bleed onto the rest of the forum.


The posts I recently made I do not expect everyone to agree with them, but they were so diplomatic for BOTH sides, that that to start any sort of gang up seems beyond absurd. I have liberal extremist family who thought it was great. That particular exchange is nearly irrelevant to this discussion because the main problems occur in discussions I avoid, so if people want to dismiss it I will simply agree with you and dismiss my interactions as well. The absence of extremist Right posters like Disco Biscuit has left a fighting void, so that the people who enjoyed that conflict and derived energy from it now are searching for new enemies and they are willing to extend their fighting tactics to rather benign disagreements. The dynamics is not healthy and it is extremist.

I don't think this dynamic in the subforum is new and I think the worst offenders in this regard have actually left the forum and what we have now is pretty mild in comparison. I will discuss things with people of different political stripes who have some form of intellectual integrity, but I think my experience has taught me that this is a lot rarer than calls for unity would imply. How many times have I engaged in discussion with someone for a long time and then they blot out their reasoning that "the only reason this is a problem is because it is a 'Democrat city'," or start going on about Hillary's emails like that's pertinent to anything or like I'm some kind of Hillary stan who has to answer for that?

I get that there is a sort of consensus emerging on what is allowed and what isn't, but at this point I think this place will always be like that. What would you do to make the political subforum different? I would say, for instance, that there is little point in trying to have a dialogue with someone who labels those who disagree with him as narcissists. The thing is that having a dialogue is a two-way street and there is no reason for one person to engage in it when the other person has demonstrated pretty clear signs that they are unwilling to do so. (Nobody is willing to have a dialogue with someone they consider a narcissist, for example.EDIT for clarity: Perhaps you have some ideas for talking to a person who thinks of the opposition as enabling narcissism, or being narcissists, that I do not.

I suppose you might consider me pretty roped in, but that has a great deal to do with beliefs and attitudes I had before I ever joined the forum and which I'd largely kept quiet until recently. If I appear roped in, it's because I feel an awareness of the sense that I am no longer alone in the way I perceive the world is a great innoculation against the despair that seems to affect so many people these days.

I also don't see this form as being dominated by extremism, or at least, it should not considered extremism in any sane society. We have had extremists on this forum before, and this forum has even been dominated by them at times (like 2016 and so forth), but that doesn't seem to be the case now.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'll state it squarely. I think the political subforum has become extremist and there are certain socially dominant posters who have a high level of social control here and are leading down a path of group think.

Who would those posters be?
Maybe everyone arrived at the same conclusions individually?

I don't really see anyone being led around by the nose here. It just looks like the people who still talk here happen to be on the left side of middle (well, as far as USA goes -- it has been noted our "leftists" in this country are close to centrists).

I post in this subforum occasionally but remain mostly indifferent to discussing it, as I feel like I'm just trying to survive day to day. I probably gripe most about stuff related to religious factions (evangelicalism and Southern Baptists) because those groups are relevant to my life and had a huge impact (for good or bad) on me personally. But I take credit for my own opinions on those matters, they are based on my life experience and I don't give a shit what anyone else here thinks about them honestly. It is what it is, for me.

I am pretty far to the extreme of Left politically

Are you? By what standard?

but I think the subforum is out of control.

I think it's been the most stable it's been for years. Albeit in part that is because most of the hardcore right-wingers are no longer around.

I think that anyone with any Right leaning is devolved in the eyes of that *group to be either Alt-Right or Qanon in the subtext of discussions. Yes, those two groups are mind-numbing and frustrating, but there are a great many people who fall outside those categories who still have conservative political philosophies.

On this forum? "great many people"? Is that actually true? How did you measure this?

I think that exists in real life, but the large frustration of this subforum in the past has been that we just got the extremists / hardcore cases that had nowhere else to call home. I grew up conservative, voted Republican until my 30's, and didn't really see a lot of the respectable conservative opinion expressed on the forum as often as the fringe. The loudest folks seemed to be the extremes. In part this could be because the middle doesn't care to get involved in that and just goes elsewhere / talks one-on-one privately when there's just a public war in the politics subforum, but typically the people shooting off in this subforum were not the middle.

This seems reflective of our culture as well. If there are actual conservatives out there, they are doing a terrible job at combatting the crazy on the right. I think we did see some positive contributions during the election, to rein in the voting shenanigans, but I don't think that will save our country the next time. How are we supposed to believe there's a huge body of mature conservatives out there with something substantial to contribute to our country when they have seemingly lost control of the right?

I am not personally even fighting for conservative views as I have stated I don't hold them personally, but there are reasoned positions on all sides of the political spectrum which are not allowed here. This is a crude way to say it but it feels like a cyber-gang bang with dominatrix overtones when it gets going really good. The overt manipulation tactics practiced there bleed onto the rest of the forum.

I think the only part I can relate to (and I really don't go on about this much) is that I consider myself sympathetic to causes on the left and would like to see things keep moving left (just as I came from a conservative religious background but seem to find myself moving left further and further with age), but probably expect it to be a much slower pace than I see being demanded. I'm not even sure I have an issue with those demands because you need an awful lot of force to dislodge this country from where it's been stuck, but it has definitely made me reluctant to actually discuss what I think (like here or on FaceBook) because I'm afraid I won't be far enough left for some particular individual in how I state my opinion, so then I'm going to get dragged for it and don't have the energy to engage to such a degree. I'm already kind of exhausted just making this post, honestly -- my health has sucked.

I feel like I had some left cred in the past (especially with my particular background) but I don't feel left enough in social media, at least.

The posts I recently made I do not expect everyone to agree with them, but they were so diplomatic for BOTH sides, that that to start any sort of gang up seems beyond absurd. I have liberal extremist family who thought it was great. That particular exchange is nearly irrelevant to this discussion because the main problems occur in discussions I avoid, so if people want to dismiss it I will simply agree with you and dismiss my interactions as well. The absence of extremist Right posters like Disco Biscuit has left a fighting void, so that the people who enjoyed that conflict and derived energy from it now are searching for new enemies and they are willing to extend their fighting tactics to rather benign disagreements. The dynamics is not healthy and it is extremist.

Maybe I simply missed someone criticizing you for something here, because I have little idea what is being talked about. If so, I'm sorry. I don't really monitor this subforum as much, I'm more interested in my blog and the Arts & Entertainment area...

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I haven't seen this posted here yet: Is American Democracy Sliding Toward Minority Rule? : NPR

Twice in the last 20 years, their presidential candidate got more votes but lost the election. And now that the 2022 redistricting cycle is beginning, Republicans in many states will be able to get fewer votes but end up with a majority of seats.

[...]

Right now, the Senate is split evenly in half, but the 50 Democratic senators represent 41.5 million more people than the 50 Republican senators.

By 2040, if population trends continue, 70% of Americans will be represented by just 30 senators, and 30% of Americans by 70 senators.

​

 

[Z Buck McFate]

And this is actually the most frustrating thing to me currently.

That recent Manchin op ed defending his position was infuriating. He didn't offer a single Goddamn piece of substantial feedback about his refusal to sign, just the same spineless, tired, vague accusations with emotionally charged words. It's so vague that it's not possible to prove he actually read the bill.

Joe Manchin: Why I'm Voting Against the For The People Act

 

[Virtual ghost]

I haven't seen this posted here yet: Is American Democracy Sliding Toward Minority Rule? : NPR

Twice in the last 20 years, their presidential candidate got more votes but lost the election. And now that the 2022 redistricting cycle is beginning, Republicans in many states will be able to get fewer votes but end up with a majority of seats.

[...]

Right now, the Senate is split evenly in half, but the 50 Democratic senators represent 41.5 million more people than the 50 Republican senators.

By 2040, if population trends continue, 70% of Americans will be represented by just 30 senators, and 30% of Americans by 70 senators.

​

Your only real hope are none voters.
Since they are the only group that has the numbers to simply overrun this even if it becomes a rule. Plus those people can really come in handy in the primaries, which basically define a good chunk of the game (perhaps even the most of it). Getting people into the game isn't easy and requires subtlety as well as nicely placed talking points (around the people that don't vote, but they could). The points such as: "They are all the same" is invented by the worst in order to keep people disinterested and away. Or: If half of people doesn't vote how can you be sure this is truly a blue or red area ? (especially if the margin is 10 points, what is just 5 for the overall population. While 50 is still up for grabs.)

And this is actually the most frustrating thing to me currently.

That recent Manchin op ed defending his position was infuriating. He didn't offer a single Goddamn piece of substantial feedback about his refusal to sign, just the same spineless, tired, vague accusations with emotionally charged words. It's so vague that it's not possible to prove he actually read the bill.


Joe Manchin: Why I'm Voting Against the For The People Act

Plus it seems that he played his part in this as well.

US and Japan leave G7 stuck on coal

 

[The Cat]

Your only real hope are none voters.
Since they are the only group that has the numbers to simply overrun this even if it becomes a rule. Plus those people can really come in handy in the primaries, which basically define a good chunk of the game (perhaps even the most of it). Getting people into the game isn't easy and requires subtlety as well as nicely placed talking points (around the people that don't vote, but they could). The points such as: "They are all the same" is invented by the worst in order to keep people disinterested and away. Or: If half of people doesn't vote how can you be sure this is truly a blue or red area ? (especially if the margin is 10 points, what is just 5 for the overall population. While 50 is still up for grabs.)









Plus it seems that he played his part in this as well.

US and Japan leave G7 stuck on coal

Gah!!!

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Your only real hope are none voters.
Since they are the only group that has the numbers to simply overrun this even if it becomes a rule. Plus those people can really come in handy in the primaries, which basically define a good chunk of the game (perhaps even the most of it). Getting people into the game isn't easy and requires subtlety as well as nicely placed talking points (around the people that don't vote, but they could). The points such as: "They are all the same" is invented by the worst in order to keep people disinterested and away. Or: If half of people doesn't vote how can you be sure this is truly a blue or red area ? (especially if the margin is 10 points, what is just 5 for the overall population. While 50 is still up for grabs.)

Really not sure what to do about this. It really kinda baffles me there hasn't been some Jon Stewart type to start a show to respectfully challenge the notion that 'both sides are equally dishonest'. It has to be done respectfully, or it won't reach anyone but the choir. Right now, everyone in that general occupation is being too divisive. But if someone were to systematically challenge the pathological lies coming from the right - respectfully, but also relentlessly steadfast about demanding answers - I think it would make a difference. It's actually become my #1 lottery fantasy to start something like that. Not kidding.

 

[ceecee]

Really not sure what to do about this. It really kinda baffles me there hasn't been some Jon Stewart type to start a show to respectfully challenge the notion that 'both sides are equally dishonest'. It has to be done respectfully, or it won't reach anyone but the choir. Right now, everyone in that general occupation is being too divisive. But if someone were to systematically challenge the pathological lies coming from the right - respectfully, but also relentlessly steadfast about demanding answers - I think it would make a difference. It's actually become my #1 lottery fantasy to start something like that. Not kidding.

If the media stopped the bothsideism, it would help but they won't. There is no $$ in it. I'm not referring to Fox/Newsmax/OANN or anything like it - they're not anything but propaganda. I mean the MSM that claims to be journalism. There is NO way to do this respectfully because the right are going to get their feelings hurt/instant outrage because anything they view as coming from the not right is an enemy. And the libs want civility over anything else. And anything that might be called "populism", no matter how much it could actually help the majority of people in this country is called communism/socialism by both the right and center.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Really not sure what to do about this. It really kinda baffles me there hasn't been some Jon Stewart type to start a show to respectfully challenge the notion that 'both sides are equally dishonest'. It has to be done respectfully, or it won't reach anyone but the choir. Right now, everyone in that general occupation is being too divisive. But if someone were to systematically challenge the pathological lies coming from the right - respectfully, but also relentlessly steadfast about demanding answers - I think it would make a difference. It's actually become my #1 lottery fantasy to start something like that. Not kidding.

Ok, but I am not sure this will work.
In my book this set of arguments has to come from the people (or at least someone who came directly out of the people). While if it comes from media and celebrities it will just turn into another "meh" or cultural war thing. This has to be something that people spread to each other rather than some top down story. Especially since the target are none voters. Which often skip political TV shows because they basically gave up on politics and the whole useless spectacle around it.

 

[ceecee]

Ok, but I am not sure this will work.
In my book this set of arguments has to come from the people (or at least someone who came directly out of the people). While if it comes from media and celebrities it will just turn into another "meh" or cultural war thing. This has to be something that people spread to each other rather than some top down story. Especially since the target are none voters. Which often skip political TV shows because they basically gave up on politics and the whole useless spectacle around it.

This. Nothing top down works in any way.