Biden v Dump 1: If not now, when? If not us, who?

[SJHovey]

Then you should know that Northern CA isn't Eastern Oregon.

It's not eastern Oregon. But I also know that it's not SoCal either, and once the spirit of divorce hits, I don't see those two riding it out together.

[Kepler]

It's not eastern Oregon. But I also know that it's not SoCal either, and once the spirit of divorce hits, I don't see those two riding it out together.

I'm opposed to running, anyway. When the bully comes to the schoolyard you don't run, you organize the rest of the kids and kick the snot outta him til he runs home to mommy crying with his pants soiled.

[Deutsche Gopher Fan]

I see you have never been to Northern California.

I have family in the humboldt area and it feels pretty maga to me

[SJHovey]

Not that things can't change but this is 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_U...sults_2016.svg

[Kepler]

Not that things can't change but this is 2016.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_U...sults_2016.svg

Well I will admit Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Shasta all surprise me. I thought they were far more like southern OR -- a kinda of Vermonty bucolic/enviro genteel centrism.

Are those Presidential voting? Because remember a CA Republican is farther left than a Ohio Dem.

[SJHovey]

Well I will admit Del Norte, Siskiyou, and Shasta all surprise me. I thought they were far more like southern OR -- a kinda of Vermonty bucolic/enviro genteel centrism.

Are those Presidential voting? Because remember a CA Republican is farther left than a Ohio Dem.

That map was from the Wiki presidential election page. I can't vouch for it's accuracy.

[Kepler]

I have family in the humboldt area and it feels pretty maga to me

Yes, that's true. My wife's best friend's ex-husband is a Dumpy (fun fact: now in prison for life for murder) and he and his family were Humboldt. It might as well have been Meth Head, Arkansas.

[Kepler]

That map was from the Wiki presidential election page. I can't vouch for it's accuracy.

Thanks. I'm gonna repent and say I was totally wrong.

[Jimjamesak]

I'm with Obama: our job is to correct the wrongs of the past. America is a good fundamental idea. Even if the Founders were sociopaths (which they weren't) the stated principles of America are sound and good. I am highly patriotic towards those principles. I am god d-mned Captain America when it comes to the Four Freedoms.



All the crap that has tainted America over the years is horrific, but it is a bug, not a feature, and our job is to clean it up and redeem our promise. That is our mission. We have one job: make America what it claims to be. That's what all the heroes from Thoreau to Lincoln to Harlan to Anthony to Holmes to Du Bois to Debs to Brandeis to FDR to Murrow to Chavez to MLK to Milk to Bernie to AOC have been doing. Slowly and painfully. It is the work of all those lifetimes.

So don't give me your defeatist sh-t that all those people were suckers. America is not irredeemably racist or plutocratic. If something bugs you do something, don't whine.

The same people that wrote the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment are the same people that wrote the 3/5ths Compromise and the Electoral College and believed that only white, land owning males should vote. It took 100+ years just to correct women being able to vote, it took decades and a bloody war just to kind of get rid of slavery (and we really haven’t gotten rid of it). Again, your ideals are BS, America is working as intended.

And I do want to do something: I want to burn this MFer down and start over. I’ll settle for getting rid of Trump and we’ll go from there. But the reality is our system is designed to be like this and any change is either going to come after a ton of spilled blood or we split up and go our separate ways. I get why you still hold your ideals, you grew up in an America where there was still truth to them, but a childhood of being lied to and an adulthood of realization that it was a lie does not make one idealistic for this country’s future.

[Handyman]

Well this thread got interesting...

[ScoobyDoo]

The same people that wrote the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment are the same people that wrote the 3/5ths Compromise and the Electoral College and believed that only white, land owning males should vote. It took 100+ years just to correct women being able to vote, it took decades and a bloody war just to kind of get rid of slavery (and we really haven’t gotten rid of it). Again, your ideals are BS, America is working as intended.

And I do want to do something: I want to burn this MFer down and start over. I’ll settle for getting rid of Trump and we’ll go from there. But the reality is our system is designed to be like this and any change is either going to come after a ton of spilled blood or we split up and go our separate ways. I get why you still hold your ideals, you grew up in an America where there was still truth to them, but a childhood of being lied to and an adulthood of realization that it was a lie does not make one idealistic for this country’s future.

I feel your frustration. You have to overwhelm the idiots at the ballot box. As it is you're looking at 50 years + to turn over a Supreme Court that the majority of the left couldn't be bothered about. It's sad really. A lot of how bad it is right now could have been prevented in 2016 but "they didn't like her enough".

[SJHovey]

I tend to think that we're really not set up for unified society for more than 50-75 years before the cracks start to appear and the fracturing of society becomes apparent to everyone. Up until now we've typically had a unifying event that has sort of glued everything back together every 75 years or so, but we're due for another.

[Handyman]

https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/st...45776588218370

Some of Trump's finest with their peaceful protests...should have just kept running not one of those people could go anther 10 feet.

[ScoobyDoo]

I tend to think that we're really not set up for unified society for more than 50-75 years before the cracks start to appear and the fracturing of society becomes apparent to everyone. Up until now we've typically had a unifying event that has sort of glued everything back together every 75 years or so, but we're due for another.

If a 100 year pandemic isn't unifying what makes you think anything will be? I don't. The unifying thing is done. It's time for the side that hates governing to be told they'll never be elected again (by getting their asses kicked all over) unless they actually govern. Until that happens, we're ****ing doomed.

[Kepler]

The same people that wrote the Declaration of Independence and the First Amendment are the same people that wrote the 3/5ths Compromise and the Electoral College and believed that only white, land owning males should vote. It took 100+ years just to correct women being able to vote, it took decades and a bloody war just to kind of get rid of slavery (and we really haven’t gotten rid of it). Again, your ideals are BS, America is working as intended.

And I do want to do something: I want to burn this MFer down and start over. I’ll settle for getting rid of Trump and we’ll go from there. But the reality is our system is designed to be like this and any change is either going to come after a ton of spilled blood or we split up and go our separate ways. I get why you still hold your ideals, you grew up in an America where there was still truth to them, but a childhood of being lied to and an adulthood of realization that it was a lie does not make one idealistic for this country’s future.

I grew up in Nixon's America. The scumbags have always been here. My god, some of them are the same people!



The point is the ideals are a good way to live and govern. If Jefferson and Washington were slave owners, then Jefferson and Washington were flawed people. Just like every hero has been. I'm sure MLK was a raging homophobe. People are a product of their times and places.

The idea is to reach for better -- perfect will always be impossible. To see the injustice that we can and correct it. Then we can lie down in our graves and sleep the sleep of the just. Others will come after and judge us by their standards, and doubtless find us wanting. But we will have done what we could. This is not idealism, it is pragmatism.

Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for? -- Robert Browning

I don't want to burn it all down, that way almost never works. The bones of this country and our traditions, even if honored in the breach, are sound. Certainly there are many better places to live now, where people are more free, have better lives, and more human dignity, but so much the better -- we have models to emulate now, we don't have to be pioneers like Franklin and Madison.

Revolutions almost always cause massive pain for the common people while the as-sholes who were responsible for the sins of the old regime skate. And even in those rare instances when they are caught and punished, bloodshed typically just expands in ever-widening circles and drowns the innocent. Robespierre and Lenin and Mao and Mugabe were great liberators. Until they weren't. Instead, we need to be FDR or Mandela: they evolved the existing system and improved it radically. Their changes are real and lasting.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with America that a long, long run of radical Left reforms can't fix. But you can't use dynamite in a surgery.