[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
I’m dead serious when I say that I don’t care. I don’t care about polygamy, or gay marriage, or swingers, or whatever. No sorcerer’s book tells me my morals- I make them myself, thanks.
I think it’s kind of cool.
[/quote]
That IS cool! Its part of Nietzsche’s definition of the Superman, the one who goes beyond man. Very cool indeed! “You KNOW that, Zarathustra? Nobody (Nietzsche means the Superman, he who is yet to evolve) knows that.”
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
I think Wired magazine, during the campaign, said he could be the “First Geek President,” and that resonated even if it sounds silly in retrospect and even though I knew then that I disagreed with quite a few of his policies. A young, cerebral, pragmatic guy who reminded me of the academic people I grew up with: I wanted to see “one of us” succeed in politics. [/quote]
So, the wierd fucking twerp who fixes my computer…is POTUS? No wonder we’re goat fucked.
Sarah Palin comes from somewhere ‘else’ to you? A woman who is a successful businesswoman, mayor, and governor, who is honest, decent, married to the father of their children…is alien to you? So you voted for a Kenyan nerd?
Wow!!
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
<<< Many (including a Senator who had young kids herself) seemed more angry that she was campaigning on being a “real” mom with “real” values…(which in turn made them what, exactly?)
They also seemed irritated that the GOP felt that by having a woman on the ticket meant that Palin would somehow “lock up” the women’s vote. >>>
Both, points I made here within minutes of her announcement. Even going so far as to say that they would lose some women’s votes for that very reason.
I’m talking about the rabid personal attacks. She represents the long discredited time warped, brain dead religious types that they have fought so hard to defeat.
And I was as wrong as I’ve EVER been on that one!
I really thought that Palin would put McCain over-the-top…
(No need to remind me to never run for any public office!)
Mufasa
You also expressed doubt about whether her daughter’s pregnancy would be used against her in the media to which I replied that was exactly what they were going to do and we’d be seeing it before dinner time =]
I couldn’t help myself buddy. I’m just giving you a hard time now. I had to avenge myself of that cruel and unusual punishment of being tricked into gazing upon the repulsive countenance of the senior senator from NY… twice.[/quote]
TOUCHE!!!
(LOL!)
Mufasa
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
I think Wired magazine, during the campaign, said he could be the “First Geek President,” and that resonated even if it sounds silly in retrospect and even though I knew then that I disagreed with quite a few of his policies. A young, cerebral, pragmatic guy who reminded me of the academic people I grew up with: I wanted to see “one of us” succeed in politics.
So, the wierd fucking twerp who fixes my computer…is POTUS? No wonder we’re goat fucked.
Sarah Palin comes from somewhere ‘else’ to you? A woman who is a successful businesswoman, mayor, and governor, who is honest, decent, married to the father of their children…is alien to you? So you voted for a Kenyan nerd?
Wow!!
[/quote]
Right, because all successful married women are the same.
Try thinking a little less boolean, and a little more decimal.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
I’m dead serious when I say that I don’t care. I don’t care about polygamy, or gay marriage, or swingers, or whatever. No sorcerer’s book tells me my morals- I make them myself, thanks.
I think it’s kind of cool.
That IS cool! Its part of Nietzsche’s definition of the Superman, the one who goes beyond man. Very cool indeed! “You KNOW that, Zarathustra? Nobody (Nietzsche means the Superman, he who is yet to evolve) knows that.”
[/quote]
One of my favorites. Alongside “Twilight of the Idols,” which was more or less my introduction into the world of philosophy.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
They hate her because she’s not a liberal, plain and simple.[/quote]
This is just stupid. I had made up my mind on political issues long before Sarah Palin made her way onto the national radar, and my dislike of her has little to do with those issues. McCain is not a liberal and I never hated him. Hell, I may even know a conservative or two. I “hate” Sarah Palin because she was a gimmick trotted out to try to trick me into thinking that there was something different or new about the McCain campaign. Other than the fact that she was incredibly small-time, there was nothing different about her politics, and no amount of “golly geez” or “doncha knows” was going to convince me that she some “real” American with a direct line straight to the will of the heartland.
If I asked any of you to make a list of your top 5 politicos who represented all that the conservative movement should be, I would be shocked if any of you included her name. She is not incredibly knowledgeable, and she is not charming. She could not talk the talk, and by breaking her public oath of office she has proven she cannot walk the walk.
Good riddance to her, and if the conservative movement is lucky there will be a wake up call where you guys ask yourselves what the hell you were thinking in backing her. Until that wake up call, the GOP will not get my vote again.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
I think Wired magazine, during the campaign, said he could be the “First Geek President,” and that resonated even if it sounds silly in retrospect and even though I knew then that I disagreed with quite a few of his policies. A young, cerebral, pragmatic guy who reminded me of the academic people I grew up with: I wanted to see “one of us” succeed in politics.
So, the wierd fucking twerp who fixes my computer…is POTUS? No wonder we’re goat fucked.
Sarah Palin comes from somewhere ‘else’ to you? A woman who is a successful businesswoman, mayor, and governor, who is honest, decent, married to the father of their children…is alien to you? So you voted for a Kenyan nerd?
Wow!!
[/quote]
I was being honest. I don’t doubt that she’s decent – I didn’t say she wasn’t.
There are cultural differences. Evangelical Christianity. Hunting. Marrying young and having many children. Rural life, with very little contact with foreigners, foreign countries, or nonwhites (except Native Americans). Family in the military. None of these are bad – and I’d say the military service is admirable – but they are a long way outside my own experience. I mean, my mom didn’t bring home caribou meat, she brought home extra issues of Signs University of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent from the office. Sarah Palin does come from somewhere else: she comes from Wasilla.
I did think Palin was inexperienced, and she’s a social conservative and I’m not. Those are more serious reasons than the cultural stuff, which I’ll admit is something we ought to strive to look beyond.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
As opposed to the Republicans, who truly represent “working class commoners.”[/quote]
You seem confused - I didn’t say the Republicans truly represened the “working class commoners”, and you still fail to account for the Democrats’ wide eyed advertising that they do.
Liberals can’t stand “common men” - what, with their crazy sky god, less-than-libertine social values and their Puritan work ethic and what not.
How could you possibly know what a “common man” thinks?
And more besides, you are offering a red herring - Republicans may or may not be the champion of the “common man”, but that is irrelevant to whether the Left/Democrats are.
Hint: they aren’t, despite their self-marketing. You know as well as anyone - you wouldn’t be caught dead spending time with an Ohio pipefitter or a Tennessee farmer, or an Alaskan moose hunter, for that matter.
That is fine you (and others) have your reasons, but my point is - why keep up the fiction that you do?
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
AlisaV wrote:
I think Wired magazine, during the campaign, said he could be the “First Geek President,” and that resonated even if it sounds silly in retrospect and even though I knew then that I disagreed with quite a few of his policies. A young, cerebral, pragmatic guy who reminded me of the academic people I grew up with: I wanted to see “one of us” succeed in politics.
So, the wierd fucking twerp who fixes my computer…is POTUS? No wonder we’re goat fucked.
Sarah Palin comes from somewhere ‘else’ to you? A woman who is a successful businesswoman, mayor, and governor, who is honest, decent, married to the father of their children…is alien to you? So you voted for a Kenyan nerd?
Wow!!
I was being honest. I don’t doubt that she’s decent – I didn’t say she wasn’t.
There are cultural differences. Evangelical Christianity. Hunting. Marrying young and having many children. Rural life, with very little contact with foreigners, foreign countries, or nonwhites (except Native Americans). Family in the military. None of these are bad – and I’d say the military service is admirable – but they are a long way outside my own experience. I mean, my mom didn’t bring home caribou meat, she brought home extra issues of Signs University of Chicago Press Journals: Cookie absent from the office. Sarah Palin does come from somewhere else: she comes from Wasilla.
I did think Palin was inexperienced, and she’s a social conservative and I’m not. Those are more serious reasons than the cultural stuff, which I’ll admit is something we ought to strive to look beyond.
[/quote]
WHOA!
I may be going out on a LIMB here, Alisa…
But somehow I don’t think that they are reading “SIGNS” at the “Wasilla Hair and Nails”!
Mufasa
[quote]AlisaV wrote:
Edit: To Thunderbolt: It’s culture, not class. The Palins are richer than I am. My mom grew up poor in a small town, hated it, put herself through college, and got to New York City, where her coworkers called her the “token hillbilly.” And her story is a common one. You don’t have to be born rich to travel, and you don’t have to be born rich to be interested in ideas, and I was irritated with Palin for using her “middle-class” status to justify her points of ignorance.[/quote]
I concur: it is culture. Money isn’t the driving force. And I am not here to defend Palin who too many times equated her schtick about being “middle America”.
But culture is precisely what the urban Left Democrats despise. I know fourth generation ranchers that make more money (have more wealth, to be precise) than urbanite computer programmers in New York City who are far more well-read and intellectually curious than their urban counterparts, but the mere fact that they drive a truck, hunt elk, and open doors for women is enough to earn them a white-hot sneer.
It’s not that the issue is to be taken personally, the culture clash is in some ways natural - but we should at least have the intellectual honesty to call a spade a spade and let party politics sort it out with the truth laid bare.
Wait a minute, guys!
Don’t BOTH parties profess a support for the “common” man? (Using the term used in this thread).
Where the parties differ, IMO, is who fits that definition.
DEMS: Minorities/Immigrants/Victims of “-isms”
GOP: Blue-collar whites/Victims of “reverse -isms”/“true” Americans
While I think BOTH parties are full of shit…and they tend to support who funds their campaigns…I think they BOTH try to give lip-service to their own versions of the “common man”.
Mufasa
[quote]pushharder wrote:
FTR, Irish, even if someone had laid a piece of pipe to your head and you started talking trash about Nancy Pelosi’s husband and children I would’ve jumped your case.[/quote]
Another litmus test: take Obama’s girls and lay out the same diatribe against them, even making fun of their unusual names.
It would be just as trashy and pathetic. Party is irrelevant.
[quote]Mufasa wrote:
Wait a minute, guys!
Don’t BOTH parties profess a support for the “common” man? (Using the term used in this thread).
Where the parties differ, IMO, is who fits that definition.
DEMS: Minorities/Immigrants/Victims of “-isms”
GOP: Blue-collar whites/Victims of “reverse -isms”/“true” Americans
While I think BOTH parties are full of shit…and they tend to support who funds their campaigns…I think they BOTH try to give lip-service to their own versions of the “common man”.[/quote]
To a certain extent, yes - but start at the most basic of starting points: what does the “common man” care about? What are his values?
While it is not easy to generalize, if a party - as a starting point - essentially rejects what the “common man” holds dear, we can be assured that party is not the party of the “common man”.
I am not here to claim that the Republican party is the true party for the “common man” - maybe no party is these days - I only note that the one party that bellows the most about being that party is, in fact, the one party that simply isn’t.
I have always been a wet blanket on the thought of a third party - due largely to the chances it has to succeed in our system - but I am now to a point where I would like to see a bona fide third party that actually captures a great deal of what we generalize (honestly) as the priorities of “middle America”.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Mufasa wrote:
Wait a minute, guys!
Don’t BOTH parties profess a support for the “common” man? (Using the term used in this thread).
Where the parties differ, IMO, is who fits that definition.
DEMS: Minorities/Immigrants/Victims of “-isms”
GOP: Blue-collar whites/Victims of “reverse -isms”/“true” Americans
While I think BOTH parties are full of shit…and they tend to support who funds their campaigns…I think they BOTH try to give lip-service to their own versions of the “common man”.
To a certain extent, yes - but start at the most basic of starting points: what does the “common man” care about? What are his values?
While it is not easy to generalize, if a party - as a starting point - essentially rejects what the “common man” holds dear, we can be assured that party is not the party of the “common man”.
I am not here to claim that the Republican party is the true party for the “common man” - maybe no party is these days - I only note that the one party that bellows the most about being that party is, in fact, the one party that simply isn’t.
I have always been a wet blanket on the thought of a third party - due largely to the chances it has to succeed in our system - but I am now to a point where I would like to see a bona fide third party that actually captures a great deal of what we generalize (honestly) as the priorities of “middle America”.[/quote]
This is all based on the single flawed assumption that there is some way to generalize the values of middle America. The only single value I think that group has is a desire to be able to work hard and put food on the table. After that, it’s all wide open and to think otherwise is foolish.
[quote]borrek wrote:
Tiribulus wrote:
They hate her because she’s not a liberal, plain and simple.
This is just stupid. I had made up my mind on political issues long before Sarah Palin made her way onto the national radar, and my dislike of her has little to do with those issues. McCain is not a liberal and I never hated him. Hell, I may even know a conservative or two. I “hate” Sarah Palin because she was a gimmick trotted out to try to trick me into thinking that there was something different or new about the McCain campaign. Other than the fact that she was incredibly small-time, there was nothing different about her politics, and no amount of “golly geez” or “doncha knows” was going to convince me that she some “real” American with a direct line straight to the will of the heartland.
If I asked any of you to make a list of your top 5 politicos who represented all that the conservative movement should be, I would be shocked if any of you included her name. She is not incredibly knowledgeable, and she is not charming. She could not talk the talk, and by breaking her public oath of office she has proven she cannot walk the walk.
Good riddance to her, and if the conservative movement is lucky there will be a wake up call where you guys ask yourselves what the hell you were thinking in backing her. Until that wake up call, the GOP will not get my vote again.[/quote]
Uh, I never supported her and said in this very thread I hope she just goes back to her private life. I apparently wasn’t talking about people like you. I was talking about people who attacked and viciously demeaned her and her family. And McCain IS a domestic liberal. I was sick to my stomach being forced to vote for him just to keep this guy away from the Whitehouse.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Well, prove that they don’t. I’m not going to argue over something that you haven’t defined yet. On what issues are they less friendly than the Republicans? [/quote]
Seriously? Social policy, economic policy, and environmental policy. Other than that, the Democrats are dead on.
Unions are in a freefall in terms of membership and support, and have been for decades, so you may want to pick a different example.
That said, the liberalism of the Democratic party finds it engine in San Francisco, Boston, and New York - not Des Moines, Boise, or Santa Fe.
Because it has no basis in fact.
You share none of their values, and you wouldn’t bother sullying yourself with any of them since you already have formed conclusions on them and you don’t respect them…so how could you possibly know them?
Nope, your selective editing aside - Democrats don’t particularly care about any of the types I listed. Any feigned concern or interest is just that: a convenient fraud.
You are educated enough to know that the Democratic party has always marketed itself as the true champions of the common man, from Andrew Jackson to William Jennings Bryan to John Edwards (despite the amazing difference between the listed politicians).
My point is that parties change, and the Democrats - if they were honest - would admit that he party represents interests contrast to the common man’s. I know they won’t - that isn’t my point, every political party promises to be all things to all people, it seems - my point is that these voters will begin to peel away because they are going to stop falling for the marketing.
[quote]borrek wrote:
This is all based on the single flawed assumption that there is some way to generalize the values of middle America.[/quote]
Politics is America is entirely coalitional, so “generalizing” is the most important thing you can do when considering a political party. Political parties thrive on generalizations and appealing to those generalizations.
Your “only single value” speaks volumes, more than you intended - such an ethic of “being able to work hard” implies a belief in the equality of opportunity, but not the equality of result (and so policy should drive the former, and not attempt the latter), and legitimate fiscal responsibility (I’d use the term “fiscal conservatism”, but the term will be misunderstood on ideology).
Even based on your “only single value” and my two-minute response, there is already the basis for a platform for a party that could appeal to the “middle class”, no matter how diverse it really is.