bustaheims
Active member
Boston Leaf said:
Or, how it's possible for a governing body to work on multiple things at the same time.
Idiocracy
- Thread starter Highlander
- Start date
Or, how it's possible for a governing body to work on multiple things at the same time.
OldTimeHockey
Active member
Nik the Trik said:
One, that's not how I read it. Two, I'm going to guess that the majority conservative/republican voters in the states aren't believers in misogyny, hatred and racism.
Labelling someone something they are not drives them further towards political ideas such as Trump's. Much the way painting Muslims with one broad stroke risks pushing more towards extreme ideology and a hatred for you and your beliefs.
Education is the only way to effect change. Telling someone they are a racist because they don't share your views doesn't educate anyone.
L K
Active member
OldTimeHockey said:
You are free to take it however you like. Education doesn't seem to matter anyone and if in 2019 we require hand holding to explain that being homophobic, or that locking people in cages isn't right then quite frankly I'm quite content to sit where I stand.
OldTimeHockey
Active member
L K said:
And that is just as close minded as those who according to you believe in those things.
Education isn't hand holding.
Grouping people together because they don't believe in your political views is the exact same thing you're accusing them of doing when they judge based on race/sex.
People don't have to be Liberals/democrats to denounce racism or locking people in cages. Give your head a shake man.
OldTimeHockey said:
No, judging based on race and sex is very different than judging based on political views.
Race/sex are things people can't change about themselves and has no bearing on the content of their character. Nobody chooses to be a visible minority, gay or a woman.
People can change their political views and voting behaviour. Continuing to support the party and vote for candidates that condone these things is a choice that people make.
Hobbes
New member
TML fan said:
A lot of votes in the 2016 USA election (and the Canadian 2015 and probably the Ontario 2018) were as much "votes against" as they were "votes for." Trump's margin of victory was likely thanks to the anti-Hillary vote being greater than the anti-unknown-commodity-Trump vote.
Hobbes
New member
Nik the Trik said:
I don't think that absolves people from the responsibility of what they voted for. Especially when the "unknown commodity" is a 70 year old man with a long and lengthy track record that more or less was a pretty good indication of what he'd do in office.
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I don't disagree with you. I have a number of friends in some of the swing States who voted for Trump which shocked me as I'd had the same reservations you note above. They each said that they felt at the time that Hillary was an even worse choice and hoped that the people surrounding Trump/the office of the President would be able to reign him in and/or he'd appreciate the gravitas a bit more and be less of a wingnut.
Were they being unreasonably hopeful? Hindsight says emphatically "yes" but I can at least sympathize with their difficult decision at the time. What I find far more troubling is (the much smaller number of) those who are actually willing to vote for him for a 2nd term in spite of the evidence to the contrary. I find it hard to imaging Clinton having done more damage to the USA in 4 years of office than Trump will.
Nik the Trik said:
I don't think that absolves people from the responsibility of what they voted for. Especially when the "unknown commodity" is a 70 year old man with a long and lengthy track record that more or less was a pretty good indication of what he'd do in office.
[/quote]
This isn't a direct reference to the above but I kind think it's like on the Simpsons when everyone voted for Sideshow Bob. One policy might be deploreable but you live with it because there's one policy that is more "in line" with your thinking and you accept the collateral damage, even if it might be great. Let's say hypothetically you get your tax cut but the country as a whole is worse off for dozens of other reasons.
Kin
New member
Bender said:
Sure, but to sort of bring it back to what LK I think was getting at if that "deplorable" policy that you're more or less willing to accept for your tax cut is, say, kids in cages at the border or the repeal of Roe v. Wade or whatever then regardless of how someone might define themselves with regards to issues of race or women's rights or gay rights or whatever that their tacit support is still support.
AtomicMapleLeaf
New member
Here's the thing I've noticed during my 35 years living here. A lot of Republicans (including all of the ones I personally know), will only vote for a republican and they defend them once elected like they're rooting for their favorite football team. They would vote for a gay muslim woman if she had an R next to her name. The other thing is that they only watch FOX news so they don't know some of the things that are actually going on because it's not presented to them. And if they do hear about it, they scoff it off as liberal nonsense or fake news.
Kin
New member
AtomicMapleLeaf said:
Yeah, that's sort of my point. "Conservatism" in the US basically seems to have lost all meaning beyond "this is what Republicans are doing, therefore I support it". Right now Trump is basically engaging in protectionist economic policy by means of trade tariffs and then using tax payer money to prop up the industries negatively affected by retaliatory measures. I grew up with a free market being the cornerstone of Conservative economic thought. Now Republicans are supporting isolationist trade agendas and talking seriously about nationalizing private tech companies if they're insufficiently "balanced".
The organized Left in the US basically spends all of its time slitting each others throats for being insufficiently ideologically pure while the Right seems to have lost any and all semblance of a coherent mission statement beyond supporting the con man they elected president.
