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RasperFat posted:However, they haven't done anything positive in the last few decades that I can think of. Rent-A-Cop fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Feb 3, 2017 |
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Feb 3, 2017 18:22
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White Rock posted:These questions could just as well be directed towards democrats the last couple of decades... Except that the Democrats do have a lot of things they can point to? TANF, saving the auto industry, protecting veterans, killing Bin Laden, and at least some other things that Americans can rally behind. I'm not saying our strategy switches to only tearing down the myth that Republicans are good for "business" or anything at all. Having effective policies is part and parcel to this narrative. "Republicans gently caress things up with the disastrous policies that hurt working Americans. Here is our plan to help you." Rent-A-Cop posted:They've spent the last 10 years absolutely killing it on gun rights. Which is admittedly pretty easy against the party of "shoulder thing that goes up" but is still a big deal for lots of people. I suppose this is a single area where the optics are in their favor. People were never in danger of having their guns taken away or being able to buy a fancy new deadly toy. They sure as hell think so though. The problem here is this is a big deal only for a small percentage of Americans, who likely vote R in 90+% and will never be swayed. Progressive gun owners do not go into a frenzy because mentally ill people are barred from gun access or you have to wait a few days to get your gun. In fact the overwhelming majority (~80%) of Americans actually want tougher restrictions on gun ownership. But the RWM whines about it so much it seems like half of America wants an assault rifle in every (white) living room. The American people are still on the Democrats side with gun control, so a reasonably charismatic politician could easily push gun control. And it still doesn't represent helpings anyone in meaningful way. It wouldn't sell well if you attacked them on it. R: "We have defended second amendment. That is how we have protected America and helped Americans" D: "How did waiting periods and background checks harm Americans or even threaten the right to bear arms? What did this do to actually help any American families?" If the Democrats weren't so spineless it's not that hard to fight back against this bullshit.
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Feb 3, 2017 21:13
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KomradeX posted:
I think the approach of deriding economic justice advocates an labelling them opponents of social justice are pretty strong in the vox populi of the actual left at this point. This manifests in the derision that many voices here and in the media have for sanders supporters. Back when the election just finished up an you had a significant amount of our famous so called 'progressives' defending hillary as a choice candidate speaks to the reality that the left is actually hosed at the bottom an not just at the top.
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Feb 3, 2017 22:00
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Sethex posted:I think the approach of deriding economic justice advocates an labelling them opponents of social justice are pretty strong in the vox populi of the actual left at this point. you can still see the vitriol democrats have for sanders' supporters all over d&d people still blame sanders and "bernie bros" for hillary's loss. its pretty unreal. their obsessive desperation to pin the failures of the democratic party on someone else is almost comical. but ultimately just depressing because their "with us or against us" mentality will most likely preclude any actually changes. look for dissension from the left to be violently clamped down on in the future under the banner of "not letting another trump win"
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Feb 3, 2017 23:54
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RaySmuckles posted:you can still see the vitriol democrats have for sanders' supporters all over d&d Unlikley, mostly I am seeing the third way types on the defensive when it comes to snipe fests. Helps that they tend to be over 60 so they are dying.
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Feb 4, 2017 03:56
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RasperFat posted:I suppose this is a single area where the optics are in their favor. People were never in danger of having their guns taken away or being able to buy a fancy new deadly toy. They sure as hell think so though.
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Feb 4, 2017 09:12
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Rent-A-Cop posted:This post evidences a truly staggering inability to think outside your own narrative. How so? When has the law abiding population been in danger of losing access to guns in America? I'm asking this sincerely. I should also note that I actually like guns and have no problem with people owning them. I've never owned one, but I have used shotguns, rifles, and pistols on ranges and it's quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, there is a sizeable portion of gun obsessed Americans, and they have been inundated, mostly by propaganda from the NRA, that any laws relating to guns are a sure path to the "pussification" of America, and/or an impending tyrannical government. Magically, every other developed nation that isn't armed to the teeth somehow manages to not have their governments brutally oppress their citizens, but hey American exceptionalism. Keeping your guns for an impending revolution is a childish wet dream. The U.S. Government is so absurdly powerful in military that it is historically unprecedented. Any arms you could legally buy would be borderline useless against the full might of the U.S. Armed Forces, especially within their own borders where they have fully stocked bases scattered across the entire country. Not to mention the aircraft, homefield knowledge, and surveillance state. The only way to counter that is to let private citizens have modern gen SAMs, extremely potent explosives, tanks, and all the other high end military hardware. This is obviously ridiculous, because people are not ok with their alarmingly racist, authoritarian, and detached neighbor having a fully loaded Blackhawk in their backyard. Even civilian guns are deadly tools. They can be extremely useful for people living in rural areas for hunting and pest control, and for deterrents and emergency defense a la LEO and security (like armored cash cars). But having a gun for home defense is statistically more likely to shoot the owner or the owners family than some home invader. Gun ownership needs to be responsible. The people clamoring that a mandatory background check for a powerful killing machine is tyranny are not responsible. As I said Democrats have a horrible grasp on the gun narrative, and the Republicans have been shits that are just catering to the gun manufacturers, which is why they want no regulations. Ironically, gun sales generally spike when Democrats have national control, as unwarranted fear of their guns being banned or taken away causes a surge of rubes to buy more guns. Again, magically, no one ever tried to stop them from buying guns or take away the ones they have. But they feel like they did, and we live in a post fact world where feelings outweigh reality.
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Feb 4, 2017 12:11
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RasperFat posted:The only way to counter that is to let private citizens have modern gen SAMs, extremely potent explosives, tanks, and all the other high end military hardware. This is obviously ridiculous, because people are not ok with their alarmingly racist, authoritarian, and detached neighbor having a fully loaded Blackhawk in their yard. When the country was founded, if you had the money a private citizen could buy a battleship. (Ship outfitted with cannons) My "Hit the lottery" dream has always been to have a F4 Phantom and fly it around 
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Feb 4, 2017 12:45
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Rent-A-Cop posted:This post evidences a truly staggering inability to think outside your own narrative. Gun control in this country has never taken guns away; anything banned prospectively had always had a grandfather clause for existing guns
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Feb 4, 2017 13:53
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WhiskeyJuvenile posted:Gun control in this country has never taken guns away; anything banned prospectively had always had a grandfather clause for existing guns Not the case. Generally the bans at the state level require that the firearm be transferred or sold to another state by a given dates or turned into the police for destruction. This is a taking. Even in instances where possession of a firearm is grandfathered, that possession is tied to one person and must be transferred out of the jurisdiction or turned over to the government during probate. Gun control is such a stupid issue to chase for so many reasons (like being stupid policy) but chief among them is that it brings out more of the Republican base than it does the democrat. I'd post more detail, but phones.
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Feb 4, 2017 14:35
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Having completely abandoned any pretense of helping workers, let alone the poor, Democrats started pushing guns as the real reason the inner city was terrible. Not you know, crushing poverty.
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Feb 4, 2017 18:29
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Proud Christian Mom posted:Having completely abandoned any pretense of helping workers, let alone the poor, Democrats started pushing guns as the real reason the inner city was terrible. Not you know, crushing poverty. Yeah pretty much, and it is also a bit embarrassing when Democrats working with Republicans that helped achieve much of it. Gun control is mostly a diversion, although I don't think the gun culture is anyway healthy. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Feb 4, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 18:41
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MattD1zzl3 posted:When the country was founded, if you had the money a private citizen could buy a battleship. (Ship outfitted with cannons) I know this is mostly  , but how different early America was is staggering. Only like 6% of the population could vote (15% excluding slaves), and those who had enough money to buy a merchant ship and outfit it were part of that small percentage of Americans able to vote. They effectively were the government because the voting class was so drat small. Also, there was actually a good chance pirates or the British would come and shoot cannons at you and steal your poo poo and maybe make you work for the Royal Navy. In modern times, this poo poo doesn't happen (except around Africa/SE Asia, but most waters are pretty protected at this point, and U.S. waters are definitely safe).
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Feb 4, 2017 20:11
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Proud Christian Mom posted:Having completely abandoned any pretense of helping workers, let alone the poor, Democrats started pushing guns as the real reason the inner city was terrible. Not you know, crushing poverty. I just heard about some city yesterday where the police put up a billboard saying there were 200 murders in the last decade and they were asking for raises. Maybe people wouldn't have to resort to violence if the wealth was shared better? Pigs
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Feb 4, 2017 20:16
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but will it solve racism?
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Feb 4, 2017 20:25
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RasperFat posted:How so? When has the law abiding population been in danger of losing access to guns in America? I'm asking this sincerely. RasperFat posted:But having a gun for home defense is statistically more likely to shoot the owner or the owners family than some home invader. Gun ownership needs to be responsible. The people clamoring that a mandatory background check for a powerful killing machine is tyranny are not responsible.
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Feb 5, 2017 00:15
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U.T. Raptor posted:Yeah, that, if Sandy Hook didn't result in gun control nothing loving will. To fight off the people clutching their bibles and guns thinking Dems are the devil (if Dems were smart), the dems should go the opposite way, say free guns for all, especially minorities.
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Feb 5, 2017 00:25
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got any sevens posted:To fight off the people clutching their bibles and guns thinking Dems are the devil (if Dems were smart), the dems should go the opposite way, say free guns for all, especially minorities.
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Feb 5, 2017 01:02
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The problem is that minorities are the people who most support gun control, though even there attitudes are starting to shift. Because for them handguns mean shootouts in front of their house, not protecting their house. Giving up on gun control is yet another attempt to woo Republican moderate voters by turning on the base. It never works. They will always vote for the real Republican. Democrats should back off on the most stupid gun control proposals, but they shouldn't back down on the proposals that do have popular support. quote:To be sure, attitudes toward guns are still deeply divided along racial lines, with 60 percent of blacks prioritizing controls on gun ownership over protecting gun rights, while 61 percent of whites say they consider gun rights more important than gun controls, according to a December poll by the Pew Reserch Center. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-africanamerican-guns-idUSKCN0PP2N320150715
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Feb 5, 2017 01:09
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U.T. Raptor posted:Yeah, that, if Sandy Hook didn't result in gun control nothing loving will. Yeah post Sandy Hook and all the other mass shootings is what I was referencing when I said Americans are largely in favor of gun control. If I remember correctly, 80% of Americans are in favor of stricter gun control. I also said before that the majority of gun owners have no problem with not allowing mentally ill people to own guns/mandatory background checks. But the NRA has poisoned the narrative so much that he idea that gun owners should be responsible/licensed is equated with straight up tyranny.
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Feb 5, 2017 01:12
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RasperFat posted:Yeah post Sandy Hook and all the other mass shootings is what I was referencing when I said Americans are largely in favor of gun control. If I remember correctly, 80% of Americans are in favor of stricter gun control. You don't remember correctly. Gun control is a bad policy and a losing issue. Giving it up isn't an attempt to woo Republican voters, it's putting the red cape down in the face of a bull. You get more Democratic response on other issues.
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Feb 5, 2017 01:22
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RasperFat posted:Yeah post Sandy Hook and all the other mass shootings is what I was referencing when I said Americans are largely in favor of gun control. If I remember correctly, 80% of Americans are in favor of stricter gun control. You'll have 80% of the country saying they're in favor of stricter gun control but when you poll them about specifics they don't like any of the proposals. It's like "tough on crime" people like it in theory but it tends to lead to a lot of dumb poo poo that people hate.
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Feb 5, 2017 02:05
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Reading Michigan news, I just bumped into this piece about how midwestern unions turned from Bernie to Trump: http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2017/02/at_dnc_forum_in_detroit_democr.html quote:United Steelworkers Local 1999 President Chuck Jones -- who was singled out for criticism by Trump on Twitter after he said Trump had "lied his rear end off" when he claimed to have saved 1,100 jobs at Carrier's plant in Indianapolis -- said from his experience, he'd never seen more enthusiasm from workers for a presidential candidate than Bernie Sanders. I saw Democrats ignoring unions back in 2012 - I was a member of AFT local 3550, and OFA was happy to use us for volunteer door-knocking hours, but they weren't at all interested in our issues. Our staff organizer put it nicely: "They were happy to have us help with their poo poo, but our poo poo wasn't even a little bit important."
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Feb 5, 2017 05:34
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a foolish pianist posted:Reading Michigan news, I just bumped into this piece about how midwestern unions turned from Bernie to Trump: This vibes with the feeling I've gotten from a lot of Democrats. Basically everyone should be helping and voting for them because the Republicans are so bad, but if they want anything in return they are entitled or not being Serious enough. There's only so long that attitude can hold out before people just don't bother and we seem to have hit that point last year.
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Feb 5, 2017 17:10
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Radish posted:This vibes with the feeling I've gotten from a lot of Democrats. Basically everyone should be helping and voting for them because the Republicans are so bad, but if they want anything in return they are entitled or not being Serious enough. There's only so long that attitude can hold out before people just don't bother and we seem to have hit that point last year. You'd think, but republican's have been doing the same thing from the opposite side and their voting base is rock solid.
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Feb 5, 2017 17:26
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Radish posted:This vibes with the feeling I've gotten from a lot of Democrats. Basically everyone should be helping and voting for them because the Republicans are so bad, but if they want anything in return they are entitled or not being Serious enough. There's only so long that attitude can hold out before people just don't bother and we seem to have hit that point last year. Dems following the Labour party's lead, right into irrelevance!
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Feb 5, 2017 17:31
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Gustav posted:You'd think, but republican's have been doing the same thing from the opposite side and their voting base is rock solid. Republican politicians have been solid on racism, xenophobia, and other social issues like that which is their underlying support from their voters. They can screw over their voters a good deal as long as it looks like they are screwing over everyone else more. Republican voters are spiteful and cowardly before all else. Democrats no longer have a real base to count on since they abandoned labor, they get votes depending on how terrible their opponent is. Their policies are basically tepid fiscal conservatism combined with not being absolute fuckers on social stuff but generally waiting for public sentiment to turn before doing anything good or ratfucking them if they are in the way of big business (see Hillary's comments on the DAPL protesters or supporting Charter Schools which basically are a back door to re-segregation and abandoning special needs students). That's an overly simplistic synopsis but honestly I've been really discouraged by the Democrats in terms of social protections which is supposed to be 90% of why we are voting them in. Eggplant Squire fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Feb 5, 2017 |
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Feb 5, 2017 18:02
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RasperFat posted:Keeping your guns for an impending revolution is a childish wet dream. The U.S. Government is so absurdly powerful in military that it is historically unprecedented. Any arms you could legally buy would be borderline useless against the full might of the U.S. Armed Forces, especially within their own borders where they have fully stocked bases scattered across the entire country. Not to mention the aircraft, homefield knowledge, and surveillance state.
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Feb 6, 2017 01:48
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got any sevens posted:Dems following the Labour party's lead, right into irrelevance!
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Feb 6, 2017 01:54
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Kilroy posted:This is a really, really dumb argument. As though making casual oppression vastly more difficult is a useless exercise, because if the US government decided to turn the full might of its military on its own population we'd be powerless to stop it. Setting aside whether that's a true thing, you need only consider the difference between a protest numbering in the hundreds of thousands, where one-third or so of the people there are doing open carry, versus one where none of them are because they are expressly prohibited from doing so. There are many scenarios between where we are now, and the US military waging an extermination campaign against its own people. In more than a few of them an armed population will help keep our government in check. Drop the fantasies, large scale civilian gun ownership will not do anything against the most modern, powerful military on the planet. If you wanted large scale resistance in such an absurd scenario then your best bet would be that large chunks of the army would desert, which is usually the most critical part of ensuring a protracted civil war in many countries. In any event an overbearing federal government isn't really the problem, its almost the opposite. The country's beset with poorly developed social safety nets that are continually attacked, inequality is continually rising and the government is doing an increasingly poor job at representing its citizens and protecting them from the deprivations of capital. We're already in a world of high civilian armament and it hasn't really helped these issues at all.
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Feb 6, 2017 02:28
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khwarezm posted:Drop the fantasies, large scale civilian gun ownership will not do anything against the most modern, powerful military on the planet. If you wanted large scale resistance in such an absurd scenario then your best bet would be that large chunks of the army would desert, which is usually the most critical part of ensuring a protracted civil war in many countries. I disagree. Our modern military has shown itself to be really, really bad at dealing with widespread insurgency since Vietnam. Now, I'm not sure what would happen to result in a wide-scale insurgency in America. It obviously didn't happen under Obama, when we came closest to it within the lifetimes of most posters on this forum. Turns out cyber-warriors with Rascals are paper tigers. Now, I'm not sure that guns are really necessary since IEDs are pretty easy to make. But I don't think ISIS et al. would be as successful without also having guns. So, if we want to create an anti-government insurgency using asymmetrical warfare as a model, then I don't see why "patriotic" gun owners couldn't beat the US military or at least ground them to a standstill. Obviously in a traditional war a la Civil War II the insurgents would lose but so what? That isn't how wars are fought anymore.
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Feb 6, 2017 02:46
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Shbobdb posted:I disagree. Our modern military has shown itself to be really, really bad at dealing with widespread insurgency since Vietnam. Now, I'm not sure what would happen to result in a wide-scale insurgency in America. It obviously didn't happen under Obama, when we came closest to it within the lifetimes of most posters on this forum. Turns out cyber-warriors with Rascals are paper tigers. Comparisons to things like Vietnam are intrinsically flawed because first, especially in Vietnam's case, the conception of it as a grassroots insurgency is only part of the story. There was a literal regular state army in the form of the NVA that already had decades of fighting under its belt that was arrayed against the United States, which itself had assistance from other Communist nations. This was way, way beyond a collection of survivalist gun enthusiasts forming a militia out in the sticks, it was an undeclared war with an existing country that could marshal significant industry and manpower. Second, it was a foreign occupation trying to prop a government with next to no popular legitimacy (likewise Iraq and Afghanistan) which brings with it totally different tactics and expectations. If you want to know what would be more comparable to hypothetical 'Civil War 2' (coming to theaters 2023) Syria would be the best example, and there you see the full force of state power, a state much weaker and with a military much less advanced than the US I might add, unleashing utterly ruthless levels of destruction against its own population and it looks like that determined brutality will slowly push the war to a conclusion in their favor. In part that's because the leadership and demographics who represent the government forces there are facing much higher stakes than their counterparts in America during their recent wars. When America lost in Vietnam it was loss of face and international influence in Southeast Asia. For the losers of major civil wars it often means loss of life or loss of their homes forever. Even if it didn't come to that level I find it exceedingly unlikely that the US government would just roll over in the event that a genuine insurgency did break out since it would tell the nation and the world that it is unwilling to enforce its own legitimacy and authority within its own borders, which is antithetical to the modern nation state. Its not like any of this is reasonably going to happen in our lifetime, but I wish people didn't so casually talk about how guns could be used to fight the government since I don't think they've really thought through what exactly that would entail or the repercussions of real life civil wars and insurgencies.
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Feb 6, 2017 03:23
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Kilroy posted:This is a really, really dumb argument. As though making casual oppression vastly more difficult is a useless exercise, because if the US government decided to turn the full might of its military on its own population we'd be powerless to stop it. Setting aside whether that's a true thing, you need only consider the difference between a protest numbering in the hundreds of thousands, where one-third or so of the people there are doing open carry, versus one where none of them are because they are expressly prohibited from doing so. There are many scenarios between where we are now, and the US military waging an extermination campaign against its own people. In more than a few of them an armed population will help keep our government in check. I have to simply disagree. I want people to be able to own guns, and they are certainly useful in protests. However, their usefulness is limited to keeping LEO and maybe some national guard from being trigger happy with tear gas/batons/tasers/bean bag guns. It can also help minorities protect their rights against local yahoos and racist police departments. Again this is limited to your city/state officials and residents. Having 50,000 Americans show up with guns to the capitol could seriously encourage military action against protesters. And the optics wouldn't be that bad because that's a loving army descending on official government institutions. As another poster said before, if Trump went the Syria route on response to civil unrest, we are all hosed unless there is mass desertions in our armed forces. And if thousands of people are showing up with guns it gives a good god drat excuse to just carpet bomb the protesters.
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Feb 6, 2017 03:57
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I'm so sorry I mentioned gun control and set off the idiot bomb.
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Feb 6, 2017 03:59
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I didn't want to derail the Trump thread with election chat, but after his dumpster fire conference he just had I was reminded how bad Trump is at answering questions. I don't know if it's because I took debate classes with longer speaking times since the last election, but were the debate response times shortened in the 2016 elections? I tried to google but couldn't easily find how much time is given to each candidate in previous debates. Trump falls apart after 2-3 minutes max when trying to make a coherent response, so a five minute response is untenable for him. It felt like they made the responses only 3 minutes in the debates, and that seemed really short. Did they switch this up to make Trump not look completely incompetent, or do candidates usually only get 2-3 minutes to respond. Genuinely curious.
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Feb 16, 2017 22:30
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Every debate has set its own rules, sometimes they do 5, sometimes even more oldschool and set like 15mins as the timer. Depends on which network does it and their target audience (and advertisers) which also determines how many and what type of questions they take/prepare.
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Feb 17, 2017 01:50
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Another problem was that from the get-go the Republican debates had 10 clowns on stage at once with about 2 hours of air time total.
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Feb 17, 2017 08:58
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got any sevens posted:Every debate has set its own rules, sometimes they do 5, sometimes even more oldschool and set like 15mins as the timer. Depends on which network does it and their target audience (and advertisers) which also determines how many and what type of questions they take/prepare. I was just wondering because all three debates seemed to have short responses with a lot of interruptions. Seriously LOL if one of them had decided to do 15 min not allowing any interruptions with Trump.
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Feb 17, 2017 12:37
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