The GQP Thread: I'm even sick of that ****** number and, anyway, he's gone (for now)

[Kepler]

You may certainly be correct, but Hawley strikes me as the Cruz type; smart, disingenous. Blackburn strikes me as someone who is exactly who she portrays herself as.

Same here.

The only thing I would point out is Cruz has a fundy**** father, so he probably believes all the Death Cult sh-t. Hawley OTOH is Lee Atwater: a pure guided missile of cynical mendacity. If he had seen a way to rise as a Dem he would have done that. He just saw a wide open field among the smoking ruins of the Dumpublicans.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Same here.

The only thing I would point out is Cruz has a fundy**** father, so he probably believes all the Death Cult sh-t. Hawley OTOH is Lee Atwater: a pure guided missile of cynical mendacity. If he had seen a way to rise as a Dem he would have done that. He just saw a wide open field among the smoking ruins of the Dumpublicans.

I think people who ascribe amoral characteristics to many of our politicians (and currently virtually every one of those who are republicans) are getting it wrong. These guys are not just doing things for pragmatic reasons. They are not A-moral they are IM-moral. These are bad, evil people. If they were just amoral we might get a few more to behave if for no other reason than to save their skin. We'd be better off if they were all to just disappear.

[Kepler]

I think people who ascribe amoral characteristics to many of our politicians (and currently virtually every one of those who are republicans) are getting it wrong. These guys are not just doing things for pragmatic reasons. They are not A-moral they are IM-moral. These are bad, evil people. If they were just amoral we might get a few more to behave if for no other reason than to save their skin. We'd be better off if they were all to just disappear.

Well, people who join a fascist party are probably pretty sick bags of human feces. People who sign up to lead it certainly are. But I think there are people like Romney who are simply without any morals. Behind that empty CEO grip and grin facade is a mind to match. It's just an eating machine, where the food is power or prestige or whatever absence gnaws at the empty hole in his center. Or they are malevolent narcissists like Dump who are essentially mentally disfigured. I'm not sure those people are immoral, really. They lack the ability to self-reflect.

I'm sure there are plenty of waitresses and roofers and programmers and fisherman just like that, too. They just don't hit our radar because they can't harm so many people. But it seems a pretty common human type: burrowers who just find some source of warmth and drill into it without regard for the host's pain or suffering.

[French Rage]

Cruz's wife is too educated and successful for her to go along with that crap for real; she and him are in on the con. Now, Rubio with a bimbo wife, I can believe he's a true believer.

(Yes, yes, Kepler, I know she want to business school and worked for JPMorgan and to you both of those are awful because she didn't have to memorize Plutarch and therefore is not smart. I'm not saying she's wise, but she's worked too hard on herself to believe the crap. She uses the crap to make money.)

[rufus]

I'm in the amoral camp. All that matters is money and power, and they'll get that any way they can.

The concept of right and wrong, good and evil, never even enters their minds. Not even part of the equation. The equation is: Is it good for me? Is it bad for me?

[Kepler]

I know she want to business school and worked for JPMorgan and to you both of those are awful because she didn't have to memorize Plutarch and therefore is not smart.

That isn't the point of a liberal arts education. Please tell me that was part of the joke (which TBF was otherwise very good and got me twice because I don't know any Plutarch).

A Spartan woman, whose son deserted, seeing he was unworthy of his country, declared, “No offspring of mine!” and dispatched him. This is her epigram:

Bad seed—off to the darkness where Broad River
Begrudges its flow to timid deer that shiver.
Worthless whelp, short straw, slink off to Hades!
No son of Sparta—nor of one of her ladies.

•

Another, hearing her son had fallen in the line of duty, said:

Mourning is for cowards. I shed no tear for you,
My child. I am a Spartan; you are too.

•

Another, hearing her son was safe and sound having deserted the fighting, wrote to him: “A bad rumor besmirches you. Expunge it, or yourself.”

•

Another, when her sons had slipped away from battle and returned to her, said, “Where do you think you’re fleeing to, you sorry runaways? Trying to slink back here where you came from?” and yanked up her robe and showed them.

•

Another, seeing her son approaching from battle, asked, “How fares Sparta?” He replied, “All are dead!” Picking up a roof tile, she brained him, saying, “And I suppose they sent you to give us the bad news?”

•

When a man detailed his brother’s brave death to his mother, she replied, “Isn’t it a shame you failed to join him on such a glorious journey?”

•

A woman who had sent her five sons to war waited anxiously outside the city and asked a man approaching which way the battle was going. When he replied that her sons had all perished, she retorted, “You sorry slave, that’s not what I asked.” When he said Sparta was winning, she said, “In that case, I gladly accept the death of my sons.”

•

Another, sending her lame son to the front line, said, “Think valor with every step.”

•

Another, when her son limped back from battle wounded in the foot and in a world of pain, said, “Remember courage and you’ll forget to hurt.”

•

A Spartan so badly wounded he had to struggle on all fours was embarrassed to look so ridiculous. His mother told him, “Isn’t it better to exult in your courage than blush at the laughter of fools?”

•

Another Spartan woman handed her son a shield and encouraged him with: “As a shield or a stretcher.”

•

Another gave her son a shield as he set out for war, saying, “Your father always saved this for you. Keep it safe, not yourself.”

•

Another, when her son complained his sword was too short, said, “Step forward: add a foot to it.”

•

A go-between asked a Spartan matron if she was open to an affair. She replied, “As a girl I learned to obey my father; as a woman, my husband. If this man’s proposal is on the up-and-up, let him ask my husband first.”

•

A penniless Spartan maiden, when asked what dowry she would bring her bridegroom, replied, “My native...wit.”

•

When a Spartan girl was asked if she had been free with a man, she said, “No, but he was with me.”

•

An unmarried girl, who secretly fell pregnant, performed her own abortion and was so disciplined she didn’t make a peep, so neither her father nor her neighbors had any idea: by beautifully confronting her ugly deed, she mastered her agony.

•

A captive Spartan woman up for auction, when asked what tasks she could be entrusted with, said, “to be trustworthy.”

•

Another, asked the same question, said, “to be mistress of a house.”

•

A third, asked by someone if she would be a good girl if he bought her, retorted, “Yes, and if you don’t.”

•

A fourth, asked what she knew how to do, replied, “Be free.” And when her buyer made her perform tasks unbefitting a free woman, she said, “I’ll give you buyer’s remorse!” and killed herself.

[ScoobyDoo]

I'm in the amoral camp. All that matters is money and power, and they'll get that any way they can.

The concept of right and wrong, good and evil, never even enters their minds. Not even part of the equation. The equation is: Is it good for me? Is it bad for me?

I agree. Ann Coulter for example. She doesn't believe anything she says but she knows what she says makes her a ton of moola.

[Kepler]

I agree. Ann Coulter for example. She doesn't believe anything she says but she knows what she says makes her a ton of moola.

She did have as-shole righty parents, though, so this may be one of those keening Earn Daddy's Respect spectacles like Tucker Carlson.

[Kepler]

Russia has its own Fox douc-hebags.

[rufus]

Russia has its own Fox douc-hebags.

Just as with today's Republican party, a bunch of pu&&ies trying to act tough.

[Kepler]

Just as with today's Republican party, a bunch of pu&&ies trying to act tough.

Amygdala-Americans. Bullies are always bedwetters.

Deport the Right.

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

Senator Braun from Indiana today questioned interracial marriage and said it should be up to states so…what a week.

contraception, gay marriage, interracial marriage- all on docket to be taken away by SC

[rufus]

It's true. Teachers are indoctrinating our children.

[aparch]

Senator Braun from Indiana today questioned interracial marriage and said it should be up to states so…what a week.

contraception, gay marriage, interracial marriage- all on docket to be taken away by SC

Evangelical Taliban.

[WeAreNDHockey]

It's true. Teachers are indoctrinating our children.

Always projecting. It is always the same with the right. Projection, projection, projection.