2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

[walrus]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Perry - too early to tell, but he's not Obama. His problem is that the MSM will make him GWB reincarnate.?

Isn't his problem that he is GWB reincarnate, no one has to make him out to be

 

[Bakunin]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

What's wrong with a man/women who is comfortable with their faith, attends church regularly, and has a strong sense of Judeo-Christian morality?

No problem with the morality, but I have a big problem with the lunacy of the belief itself (and this applies to all theistic religions). People who believe something so strongly when there is no credible evidence backing it up make me think of a word: it begins with a 'del' and ends with 'usional'.

Is climate change man-made or is it a natural part of the world's evolution? .

A big part of it is man-made, and the evidence is strong regarding that. The bulk of CO2 levels that are now present in the atmosphere came from man-made sources.

As to evolution, why can't you say that things change within a set of rules set up by the Supreme Referee?

Because the existence of a "supreme referee" as you put it is incredibly unlikely. The existence of a personal referee that answers prayers of millions of sentient beings is an even more remote possibility. In fact, I would call it "wishful thinking", much like the religious belief of eternal life. I recognize that most conscious entities would naturally fear their own death - but to take it to the extreme of believing in life *after* death is going rather far for a security blanket, don't you think?

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Meanwhile, the sheriff in Cowlitz county, Washington, says he wants to put some union goon SOB's in the slammer.

http://tdn.com/news/local/article_0da048fe-db66-11e0-949e-001cc4c002e0.html

 

[Slap Shot]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Stolen from another thread:

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

Had a friend send me this article by former Republican staffer Mike Lofgren under the subject line, "Informative reading for tonight's Republican showcase." I'm probably late in seeing it, but Lofgren's piece raises fascinating and terrifying questions about the future of our political system and the increasing possibility that we are headed toward something like a civil war, or a constitutional crisis.

Lofgren, in describing the reasons for his defection from the Republican party, describes a Republican camp that increasingly acts not like a traditional peacetime political organization, but more like an apocalyptic cult or one of the authoritarian movements from early 20th century European history.

In particular, the insane decision to turn the once-routine procedure of raising the debt ceiling (Lofgren notes it was done 87 times since WWII) into a political crisis revealed that the GOP party mainstream had sunk to the level of terrorism – holding our economic system hostage in exchange for political concessions.

This was a form of violence, and a serious escalation even from the days of George W. Bush, when the party was mostly limited in its willingness to use human beings as pawns in homicidal ploys for political power. Bush and Rove were willing to sacrifice Iraqi lives, and the lives of American servicemen, for oil and votes. But this current crew of Republicans shook canisters of kerosene over the entire American population and threatened to light a match if it didn't get what it wanted.

As Lofgren notes, this was insurrectionary, revolutionary behavior. Only the massive scale of the gambit prevented it from being easily identified as terrorism and criminal blackmail. If in exchange for not defaulting on our debt Boehner, Hensarling, Cantor and the rest of them had asked for a billion dollars worth of gold bullion deposited in Swiss bank accounts, or the release of a dozen Baader-Meinhofs from German prisons, it could hardly have been much different from what they actually did.

I think most Americans can agree that reducing the public debt is a goal we can all share – and in the old days of thirty or forty years ago, when congress operated on a more collegial model that involved members from opposing parties getting together on weekends to achieve reasonable compromises over golf and highballs, the Rs and Ds could have found a way to press forward with reasonable deficit reduction plans without pushing us all to the edge of a cliff.

But for the new GOP, compromise of any kind defeats their central purpose, which is political totale krieg. This party's entire reason for being is conflict and aggression. There is no underlying patriotic instinct to find middle ground with the rest of us, because the party doesn't have a vision for society that includes anyone outside the tent.

I've always been queasy about piling on against the Republicans because it's intellectually too easy; I also worry a lot that the habit pundits have of choosing sides and simply beating on the other party contributes to the extremist tone of the culture war.

But the time is coming when we are all going to be forced to literally take sides in a political conflict far more serious and extreme than we're used to imagining. The situation is such a tinderbox now that all it will take is some prominent politician to openly acknowledge the fact of a cultural/civil war for the real craziness to begin.

Reading Lofgren's piece, and a piece by John Judis of the New Republic, makes one realize that we came pretty close to real chaos in that debt ceiling debate. Had Obama invoked emergency powers to raise the debt limit unilaterally – and I think he had good reasons to do that – we might have had a revolt on our hands.

Most people aren't thinking about this because we're so accustomed to thinking of America as a stable, conservative place where politics is not a life-or-death affair but more something that people like to argue about over dinner, as entertainment almost. But it's headed in another, more twisted direction. I'm beginning to wonder if this election season is going to be one none of us ever forget – a 1968 on crack. Anyway, I hope I'm wrong, and I hope everyone reads this Lofgren piece, which is a rare piece of insider insight.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Stolen from another thread:

http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779

Hyperbolic libtard horsesh*t.

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

As for liberals,
What's wrong with a man/women who is comfortable with their faith, attends church regularly, and has a strong sense of Judeo-Christian morality?

Nothing, just as long as they don't try to enforce their views on me. People of my ilk do not, for example, stand outside maternity wards and make life a living hell for women who wish to give birth. We do not shoot pediatricians in the head. We do not insist on women reading a pamphlet titled "Have you considered an abortion?" before they give birth. We also do not try to ban (or burn) books that disagree with our point of view or question our beliefs. Most of us accept that the beginning of the universe we simply are not yet meant to understand or have the wisdom to explain...that doesn't mean we all turn to fairy tales to explain our existence.

Is climate change man-made or is it a natural part of the world's evolution? .

Both. See, one of the nice things about not basing our beliefs on a book is that we can change our opinions as the learning and understanding of mankind changes. If I get my beliefs from a book that says the Earth is the center of the universe, it becomes very difficult to accept that this planet isn't even the center of the solar system, much less the universe. The Book is infallible. It is the word of God. How could it be wrong about that little tidbit?

The planet goes through cycles. Unfortunately, we are now living through a cycle where the earth is warming, ice is melting and the water is rising. We are also living at a time when mankind is helping to speed this cycle along, when we should be trying to slow it down. A large percentage of the world's population lives along her coasts, or relies on those melting glaciers for water. Global climate change is both natural and man-made. There is plenty of scientific evidence to back this up. People don't want to see it because they fear it will drastically impact our way of life. For all those conservatives who cry about the debt we are leaving our grandchildren, I have good news. Money will be the least of their worries when they have to grow gills in order to live.

As to evolution, why can't you say that things change within a set of rules set up by the Supreme Referee?

Because there is no Supreme Referee.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Only the idiots living on low-lying islands or within a few miles of the coasts will have to grow gills. The sea rise won't be sufficient to create a "water world" type situation.

 

[walrus]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Only the idiots living on low-lying islands or within a few miles of the coasts will have to grow gills. The sea rise won't be sufficient to create a "water world" type situation.

For the first time it will be good to live in fly over country

 

[Bakunin]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

For the first time it will be good to live in fly over country

It's already good to live here - no hurricanes or earthquakes.

 

[Priceless]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

For the first time it will be good to live in fly over country

Except for that whole "dying of dehydration" thing.

Only the idiots living on low-lying islands or within a few miles of the coasts will have to grow gills. The sea rise won't be sufficient to create a "water world" type situation.

Maybe I was using a tad bit of hyperbole

 

[Foxton]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

As for liberals,
What's wrong with a man/women who is comfortable with their faith, attends church regularly, and has a strong sense of Judeo-Christian morality?

Because you really don't have judeo-xtian morality but one based off over a thousand of years of systematically rejecting moral dictates that humanity grew out of. (Otherwise we would still have slavery)

Is climate change man-made or is it a natural part of the world's evolution? .

As noted, it's both.

As to evolution, why can't you say that things change within a set of rules set up by the Supreme Referee?

Things do change within a set of rules by a supreme referee (natural processes). Not whatever god you want to fit into whatever gaps you can find.

 

[duper]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

As for liberals,
What's wrong with a man/women who is comfortable with their faith, attends church regularly, and has a strong sense of Judeo-Christian morality?
Is climate change man-made or is it a natural part of the world's evolution? .
As to evolution, why can't you say that things change within a set of rules set up by the Supreme Referee?

1) Most of U.S. Presidents have fit this mold exactly. I think that only a fringe have any problem with a religious President, and I can't think of anyone who has said as much.

My question back: do you assume that liberals do not fit this description?

2) Climate Change is a natural part of the earth's evolution, which is being HEAVILY influenced by man. So, basically, this is not a one or the other, it is very much both.

3) I ask the exact same question back: why can so many conservatives not recognize that some god could be the guiding force behind evolutionary change.

Maybe I was using a tad bit of hyperbole

Hyperbole is the greatest thing in the history of the universe.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

3) I ask the exact same question back: why can so many conservatives not recognize that some god could be the guiding force behind evolutionary change.

The guiding force is natural selection not some imaginary supernatural being.

 

[Foxton]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

1) Most of U.S. Presidents have fit this mold exactly. I think that only a fringe have any problem with a religious President, and I can't think of anyone who has said as much.

While a good chunk are scared to death that the president might not be part of their religion. And what Bakunin just reiterated. Evolution exists in direct opposition to a literal reading to pretty much every one of the major religious texts. They simply can't accept that their dogma isn't true.

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[Bakunin]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

http://www.gallup.com/poll/26611/so...mormon-72yearold-presidential-candidates.aspx

Note the affiliation that came in last - not even half of the polls' respondents would support an atheist candidate.

This tells me the truly intolerant people out there are religious.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

http://www.gallup.com/poll/26611/so...mormon-72yearold-presidential-candidates.aspx

Note the affiliation that came in last - not even half of the polls' respondents would support an atheist candidate.

This tells me the truly intolerant people out there are religious.

Why are athiests so GD evangelical? Just like vegetarians. They're not satisfied with picking the corn out of their own sh*t, they want everyone else to do it too. Most athiests, at least the ones who post here, are like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, on a lifetime mission to show how clever they are and how stupid everyone else is, and just as charming.

 

[Bakunin]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Yes, shame on us for attempting to stand up to ignorance. Let's just sit idly by as creationism/ID is taught like it's just as valid as evolution despite no evidence backing it. Let's ignore the harassment of innocent women attempting to end their pregnancies and the cold-blooded murder of the doctors ending them. Let's laugh mindlessly as people "pray away the gay" and carry such wonderful signs saying "God hates ***s". And oh yes, let's bend over backwards to avoid offending any religious types who may overreact to any real or imagined offense by torching buildings and murdering people. "Love thy neighbor", indeed.

 

[Foxton]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Why are athiests so GD evangelical? Just like vegetarians. They're not satisfied with picking the corn out of their own sh*t, they want everyone else to do it too. Most athiests, at least the ones who post here, are like Madalyn Murray O'Hair, on a lifetime mission to show how clever they are and how stupid everyone else is, and just as charming.

Because I want to boil a baby goat in it's mother's milk?
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[Kepler]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Hyperbole is the greatest thing in the history of the universe.

All generalizations are false.

 

[Old Pio]

Re: 2012 Elections Part I: All Politics is Yokel

Yes, shame on us for attempting to stand up to ignorance. Let's just sit idly by as creationism/ID is taught like it's just as valid as evolution despite no evidence backing it. Let's ignore the harassment of innocent women attempting to end their pregnancies and the cold-blooded murder of the doctors ending them. Let's laugh mindlessly as people "pray away the gay" and carry such wonderful signs saying "God hates ***s". And oh yes, let's bend over backwards to avoid offending any religious types who may overreact to any real or imagined offense by torching buildings and murdering people. "Love thy neighbor", indeed.

A complete list of your excuses for being intolerant. Keep tugging yourself over this very small sement of the population, Madalyn. And keep on picking the corn out of your sh*t. MMMMMMM yummy.

Why don't you and all the rest of the pompous, annoying atheists and the pompous, annoying uber religious types go someplace to settle your differences, and leave the rest of us the ***** alone? Most of us are pretty tired of your sh*t. Wake up and smell the coffee, Madalyn, you're just as bad as they are.