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Aeriq
Social climber
Location: It's a MisterE
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I think opposing viewpoints are essential to a healthy society.
Any form of racial, gender or religious based bigotry is not.
StahlBro - yes.
History sadly shows otherwise.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/sick-and-tired-of-trump-heres-what-to-do/2018/10/31/7
Sick and Tired
By Max Boot
Washington Post Columnist
October 31
“I am sick and tired of this administration. I’m sick and tired of what’s going on. I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I hope you are, too.”
— Joe Biden
I’m sick and tired, too.
I’m sick and tired of a president who pretends that a caravan of impoverished refugees is an “invasion” by “unknown Middle Easterners” and “bad thugs” — and whose followers on Fox News pretend the refugees are bringing leprosy and smallpox to the United States. (Smallpox was eliminated about 40 years ago.)
I’m sick and tired of a president who misuses his office to demagogue on immigration — by unnecessarily sending 5,200 troops to the border and by threatening to rescind by executive order the 14th Amendment guarantee of citizenship to anyone born in the United States.
I’m sick and tired of a president who is so self-absorbed that he thinks he is the real victim of mail-bomb attacks on his political opponents — and who, after visiting Pittsburgh despite being asked by local leaders to stay away, tweeted about how he was treated, not about the victims of the synagogue massacre.
Opinion | Trump owns the Republican Party, and there's no going back
Donald Trump has irreversibly changed the Republican Party. The upheaval might seem unusual, but political transformations crop up throughout U.S. history. (Adriana Usero, Danielle Kunitz, Robert Gebelhoff/The Washington Post)
I’m sick and tired of a president who cheers a congressman for his physical assault of a reporter, calls the press the “enemy of the people ” and won’t stop or apologize even after bombs were sent to CNN in the mail.
ADVERTISING
I’m sick and tired of a president who employs the language of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Jewish financier George Soros and “globalists,” and won’t apologize or retract even after what is believed to be the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history.
[Americans will head to the polls in less than a week. Here’s why some won’t.]
I’m sick and tired of a president who won’t stop engaging in crazed partisanship, denouncing Democrats as “evil,” “un-American” and “treasonous” subversives who are in league with criminals.
I’m sick and tired of a president who cares so little about right-wing terrorism that, on the very day of the synagogue shooting, he proceeded with a campaign rally, telling his supporters, “Let’s have a good time.”
I’m sick and tired of a president who presides over one of the most unethical administrations in U.S. history — with three Cabinet members resigning for reported ethical infractions and the secretary of the interior the subject of at least 18 federal investigations.
I’m sick and tired of a president who flouts norms of accountability by refusing to release his tax returns or place his business holdings in a blind trust.
I’m sick and tired of a president who lies outrageously and incessantly — an average of eight times a day — claiming recently that there are riots in California and that a bill that passed the Senate 98 to 1 had “very little Democrat support.”
I’m sick and tired of a president who can’t be bothered to work hard and instead prefers to spend his time watching Fox News and acting like a Twitter troll.
And I’m sick and tired of Republicans who go along with Trump — defending, abetting and imitating his egregious excesses.
I’m sick and tired of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) acting like a caddie for the man he once denounced as a “kook” — just this week, Graham endorsed Trump’s call for rescinding “birthright citizenship,” a kooky idea if ever there was one.
I’m sick and tired of House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who got his start in politics as a protege of the “bleeding-heart conservative” Jack Kemp, refusing to call out Trump’s race-baiting.
I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once complained about the federal debt adding $113 billion to the debt just in fiscal year 2018.
I’m sick and tired of Republicans who once championed free trade refusing to stop Trump as he launches trade wars with all of our major trade partners.
I’m sick and tired of Republicans who not only refuse to investigate Trump’s alleged ethical violations but who also help him to obstruct justice by maligning the FBI, the special counsel and the Justice Department.
Most of all, I’m sick and tired of Republicans who feel that Trump’s blatant bigotry gives them license to do the same — with Rep. Pete Olson (R-Tex.) denouncing his opponent as an “Indo-American carpetbagger,” Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis warning voters not to “monkey this up” by electing his African American opponent, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.) labeling his “Palestinian Mexican” opponent a “security risk” who is “working to inf iltrate Congress,” and Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio) accusing his opponent, who is of Indian Tibetan heritage, of “selling out Americans” because he once worked at a law firm that settled terrorism-related cases against Libya.
If you’re sick and tired, too, here is what you can do. Vote for Democrats on Tuesday. For every office. Regardless of who they are. And I say that as a former Republican. Some Republicans in suburban districts may claim they aren’t for Trump. Don’t believe them. Whatever their private qualms, no Republicans have consistently held Trump to account. They are too scared that doing so will hurt their chances of reelection. If you’re as sick and tired as I am of being sick and tired about what’s going on, vote against all Republicans. Every single one. That’s the only message they will understand.
"I am sick and tired, physically, but I work at doing something about it. I wish there was more I could do about sidelining the Republicans' agenda. Maybe if I use my head I'll come up with something."
--mfm
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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So is being sick and tired, enough?
Rhetorical question, to which the rhetorical answer is a resounding "NO!"
I call your attention to the 1994 California goobernatorial election and Pito Wilson's ad on TV.
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/20/14332296/reaction-trump-democrats-organize-hispanic-turnout-prop187
Latinos in the state organized in protest. Opposition to the initiative flowed from across the political and economic establishment, and grew to include most California newspapers, professional groups, law enforcement organizations, and corporate leaders, plus a few national Republican leaders like Jack Kemp and Bill Bennett. To no avail: In November 1994, Proposition 187 passed with 59 percent of the vote.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Wow. Even Max Boot has turned on Trump!
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dirtbag
climber
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Oh yeah, Gary! He turned on trump before his election and has strongly renounced his Republican Party membership, even publishing a book digging into the southern strategy and xenophobic/racist allure of the modern Republican Party.
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Trump
climber
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What I don't understand is Why all who are against the current administration and the Republican party are not Doing something to change things.
They are doing something - they’re expressing their unhappiness and frustration and desire for change. They’re making some arguments for why their side is good and the other side is bad. They’re trying to influence other people to share their beliefs, or to be similarly morally outraged and motivated, maybe to vote, maybe to take some other action, maybe just for the boost of approval of their shared tribal identity.
They’re making choices of how to invest their resources of time and energy in a way that works to their best advantage, according to their best cost/reward analysis, whether that choice is to post to some Internet forum, or to fly to a swing state to canvas undecided swing voters. And we have an opportunity to see what they decide, and to try to understand why that’s what they decide to do and to believe.
And like every every everything, the way they do it might not match the way you or I would do it. Maybe the way that seems right to us is to believe in God or let Jesus take the wheel, and that seems like it would be right for everyone, but for them, they have their own sense for their own reasons why doing it their way is the right way.
Their way might not end up being the best way - it might be ineffective, it might create a worse situation with worse conflicts and a worse outcome for everyone.
It might not. You might use your hatred and tribalism and name calling and become president and affect the culture and appoint two Supreme Court judges.
What’s actually going in the end to be effective at accomplishing what we want might not match what we think is going to be effective, whether what we think should be most effective is love, or hate, or some balance of the two.
Being big and cold blooded seemed like a good idea at the time, but there are no dinosaurs left regardless. We can think whatever we want about what’s the best way for us to think or for us to behave, or what’s wrong with the way other people do it for themselves, but ultimately, we’re not the ones who decide whether or not we’re right about what we believe.
Who woulda thunk those little rats were going to outcompete the dinosaurs?
When you say you don’t understand why other people do things the way they do - that’s just our nature - it’s really really hard to understand. I don’t think we even understand ourselves and our own reasons for believing and behaving the way we do.
I think that understanding isn’t necessarily what we’re trying to do with these big brains - I think we’re just trying to compute advantageous (often social) beliefs and behaviors. I think that’s the “doing something” that WE’re doing. And while understanding can be advantageous, sometimes other beliefs are more advantageous within the constellation of our incomplete understandings.
And then for other people, we lay what we think are our reasons for believing and behaving the way we do (where I expect that often those self-confirming beliefs about ourselves are wrong) on them, and then we don’t understand why they don’t match what we see in other people. But we’re always looking through a self-confirming lens that my beliefs are true, whether they’re actually true or not.
When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Things might not be quite the way we see them, because of who and what we are while looking at them.
I admire wanting and trying to understand, but the first thing I want to understand is why we - that big WE that both I and my children and those trump supporters are all part of together - don’t understand, then maybe I’ll be able to move on to what’s wrong with other people’s understanding.
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Hi, Wilbeer,
I’ve personally seen veterans do horrible things in war zone, both in combat and otherwise. I’ll put no veteran on a platform. They signed up (for the most part). I’ve also recently been consulting with a many doctors, and I can tell you that most of them seem to be more oriented to their own self interests than mine. I would say they have no special claim on compassion or wisdom; I’ve gotten much more of both from nurses in my life.
Responsibility seems to imply that one is supposed to direct or control the experiences of another, and that seems to arise from a sense of *duty* to control or direct for outcomes. Responsibility would seem to require behaviors like praises and rewards, but also punishment and blame, of one over another. That view seems rather conservative to me. Liberalism seems to be somewhat opposed to that philosophy (“give me freedom” not “give me responsibility”).
All this seems somewhat reasonable and justified in situations like parenting and educational environments. However, when it is adult overseeing adults, or when the few manages the many, then one gets into the thickets. What I’m suggesting here is a need to talk about principles or the philosophy of government and management. IMO, none of it is clear to me other than: allowing cultures to be whatever they want to be—people select in, and the cultures get to de-select members they don’t want in them. We use voting most often to gauge the will and objectives of a culture (assuming it / they know what they want in the first place). The more modern cultures are, however, the more they seem fragmented. It seems that any one leader or manager is partly a result and a part of the fragmentation. Hence, most everyone these days feels marginalized to some extent or another. Blame freedom and individual will.
Spiritually, it’s been argued by almost everyone noteworthy that one needs to save him or herself first before “saving” others. (Then one can see whether the world needs saving.) We hear that every time we take a plane flight: “put on your oxygen first.”
SLR,
Thanks.
Is your high regard for Jefferson because he is a founder, because he expresses ideas that you agree with, he was a really smart guy, or something else? Because Jefferson said it, are you done thinking about the issues? Weren’t there not others who had different opinions in Jefferson’s time who then came to compromises that led to the formation of the country? Have there not been changes in mindsets and environments that might lead to changes in the objectives and means of government?
I question whether anyone could say if Jefferson and his colleagues would necessarily support your list of “safety and happiness” items. Weren’t many of the founding fathers not slave owners, for example? I think your list is your list, not Jefferson’s. Of course it’s open to interpretation, and it seems that is what the judicial branch of government is supposed to concern themselves with.
If you want to be a selfish bastard, and don't want to participate in our society - our Social Contract - then get the f*#k out of our country.
Brother, *that* sounds about as conservative as I can remember from (the 60s and 70s).
Be well.
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wilbeer
Mountain climber
Terence Wilson greeneck alleghenys,ny,
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MikeL,
I have different experiences than you ,hence my opinion.
I really do not know any undrafted veterans,but ,know and have helped a lot of Nam vets.
20 year EMT. Would agree about nurses.
SLR was an emergency room doctor at UR.
As far as having “Conservative”views,that I agree with. Eastern Democratic Socialist are somewhat conservative,yet folks label them. Most are middle class working folk and small business owners.
I don’t get to fly in jets.
Cheers and thanks for explaining responsibility.
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Sierra Ledge Rat
Mountain climber
Old and Broken Down in Appalachia
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I will never apologize for fighting hard against the enemy within - the Republicans - no matter how many of them there are.
These people are always clamoring that we should respect their opinions, and if we don't then we are the haters.
Nope. We will never buy into your justifications.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Mike, I learned about civic responsibility while climbing in Sweden. They considered it their civic duty to wear climbing helmets long before they became anywhere near the norm here.
edit:
I married into the medical field. I hear you loud and clear. That said I am quite impressed and hopeful about the newer generation of docs. As to the older gen in many cases I think the caring is there, it’s just not expressed well. The main problem with the latter is that you have to be yer own advocate often.
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zBrown
Ice climber
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Any truth to the rumour that Trump is seeking a pardon for El Polozero to help combat the invasion?
Cartel gangster ‘The Stew Maker’ dissolved as many as 650 people in ACID
Santiago Meza Lopez, a stocky 45-year-old taken into custody after a raid near Ensenada, was identified as the pozolero who liquefied the bodies of victims for lieutenants of the Arellano Felix drug cartel. Authorities say he laid claim to stuffing 300 bodies into barrels of lye, then dumping some of the liquefied remains in a pit in a hillside compound in eastern Tijuana.
Relevance?
Did the stew maker and the cartel hate all these folks, or was it just busness "as usual"?
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monolith
climber
state of being
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The jews should have shown love to the Nazis. Love is all that matters, right?
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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I don’t get why so many Jews drive Mercedes and Bimmers.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Sport climber
moving thru
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 2, 2018 - 09:17pm PT
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Reilly, I think Bimmer, BMW, stands for British Motor Works...I don't think it's German.
Monolith, an unsupported statement.....
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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May god save us from those who would save us from ourselves.
MikeL, well said. Hearkens one of my favorite quotes:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
--CS Lewis
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Lituya, I'm assuming for political points you are equating Agnostic, American liberals elites with hardcore Irish, Catholic, labor types born of a gorilla movement simply because of the shared "liberal" moniker.
Philosophically you're way off the mark- consider these guys more like your standard, white, angry Trumpeter.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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CS Lewis was a writer of fiction. His whole world was intentionally clouded from clarity, accordingly.
He made up stories.
This is disappointing, Jim. I expected more from you.
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Gary
Social climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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Reilly, I think Bimmer, BMW, stands for British Motor Works...I don't think it's German.
Lynne, it's Bavarian Motor Works. They got their start making aviation engines in WWI. The logo represents a spinning propeller.
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Lituya
Mountain climber
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The jews should have shown love to the Nazis. Love is all that matters, right?
WWKS? (What would Kant say?)
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