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My fear is that the Skrull Empire have taken over our country and are now
manipulating us into reducing the volume of the only thing that could
provide our population with the radiation levels necessary for the development
of super powers. I guess we could always just wait for comets to fall or the
Shi'ar to awaken the Phoenix Force, but how often does that just happen?



Yes, I'm a bad liberal for posting this.

Opposition for the sake of opposition is going to launch the political careers
of many politcians, but god is it hard to watch.

malfred wrote:My fear is that the Skrull Empire have taken over our country and are now
manipulating us into reducing the volume of the only thing that could
provide our population with the radiation levels necessary for the development
of super powers. I guess we could always just wait for comets to fall or the
Shi'ar to awaken the Phoenix Force, but how often does that just happen?

To be fair, not very often. It's a good point well made.

I will vote when they try to outlaw my army men... until then in the grand scheme of things I don't have the time nor patience to read the fine print to know everything I am voting for. Especially people! I mean unless I'm having a sit down powow with someone I am not going to honestly say yea, I want this person to lead my country. All else fails I draw on the strength of my balls, cordon off a ten foot by ten foot area of soil and declare my own soveriegn nation. Where all is legal by my word and my word alone! and then die of hunger when an embargo is placed on my country. But, I will go down a free man.

As long as non-voters don't complain, meh.

Kilkrazy wrote:There was an editorial piece in the Evening Standard last night, which included this and some other examples of issues where some Republicans are more concerned with crippling the Obama presidency than good governance of the nation.

Isn't that how it usually goes?

I seem to remember a bit of an obstructionist streak in the Democrats while Dubya was still in office.

Monster Rain wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:There was an editorial piece in the Evening Standard last night, which included this and some other examples of issues where some Republicans are more concerned with crippling the Obama presidency than good governance of the nation.

Isn't that how it usually goes?

I seem to remember a bit of an obstructionist streak in the Democrats while Dubya was still in office.

It was there but it was utterly ineffectual. They were largely afraid of looking soft on terror post 9/11 and the blues have never been as cohesive a body as the reds.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:There was an editorial piece in the Evening Standard last night, which included this and some other examples of issues where some Republicans are more concerned with crippling the Obama presidency than good governance of the nation.

Isn't that how it usually goes?

I seem to remember a bit of an obstructionist streak in the Democrats while Dubya was still in office.

It was there but it was utterly ineffectual. They were largely afraid of looking soft on terror post 9/11 and the blues have never been as cohesive a body as the reds.

Why do you think that is? Not being sarcastic here, so don't take it that way.

Why were they afraid of being seen as soft on terror or why are they less cohesive?

Less cohesive. The terror thing is pretty self evident.

Monster Rain wrote:pretty self evident.

You do realize where you are posting right?

In answer to the question I will make it as offensively simple as I can.

The Republican party is made up of basically 2 general groups:
-Businessmen
-Theocrats

The Democrats are made up of:
-Environmentalists
-Socialists
-Communists
-Pacifists
-Atheists
-Pro-abortionists
-Lesbians
-Moderates

As you can see, there are more competing interests in the Democratic party.

Frazzled is a mod Silly shuma.

This is pretty bad...God I hate the way our country works

Ahtman wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:pretty self evident.

You do realize where you are posting right?

In answer to the question I will make it as offensively simple as I can.

The Republican party is made up of basically 2 general groups:
-Businessmen
-Theocrats

The Democrats are made up of:
-Environmentalists
-Socialists
-Communists
-Pacifists
-Atheists
-Pro-abortionists
-Lesbians
-Moderates

As you can see, there are more competing interests in the Democratic party.

Do you really think so? I imagine that they all have at least a few issues they could agree on. For example, I should think that they'd all be pretty much pro-choice.

Monster Rain wrote:Less cohesive. The terror thing is pretty self evident.

Ahtman oversimplified it, but he got to the general core. The republicans are a much less varied body, primarily composed of protestant whites with a slight skew towards less urbanized living. They are more often then not traditionalists and have historically been easier to cater too given what is a fairly simplistic mindset concerning foreign and domestic policy. Democrats on the other hand are a loose but large coalition of small interest groups that tend to focus around the concepts of social liberalism. This has all been heavily skewed in the last 10 years with the christian conservative ascendence and then breakup and the hardlining of the war on terror through media outlets. Of course this is all rather simplistic given that the real issues are dogmatic rather then cultural, and statistically the location of a person has far more to do with their political skew then their situation in life.

If you want my actual opinion on why they are less cohesive it isn't very friendly to the republicans. The democrats are an actual political party, they have varied interests and represent a large number of people. The republicans are a dogmatic cult which tend to try and mold people to their political views rather then the other way around, they are exceptionally effective in this given their stranglehold of radio and television news mediums which are still highly relevant to their voter base. The republicans are cohesive because they invent the politics that they want to support or quash, the democrats bicker because they try and deal with the real world. Death panels, The war on terror, Illegals, bailouts, elitests etc, the republican platform on almost every major issue is vastly oversimplified and designed to appeal to a reactionary and unfamiliar audience which is easily led. This doesn't really speak to the people though as numerous studies have shown that it's all branding anyway. People side with the party that their family sided with, not the one that best represents their current or logical interests, thats why you have tea partiers worried about the deficit defending tax cuts to the ludicrously wealthy and liberals in poor, business unfriendly areas worried about big business coming in to ruin their communities and environment.

Monster Rain wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:pretty self evident.

You do realize where you are posting right?

...

As you can see, there are more competing interests in the Democratic party.

Do you really think so? I imagine that they all have at least a few issues they could agree on. For example, I should think that they'd all be pretty much pro-choice.

Are they not?

The failure of Roe vs Wade to be overthrown in over 35 years would seem to indicate a broad base of support for it, which includes moderate Republicans.


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Samus_aran115 wrote:Frazzled is a mod Silly shuma.

This is pretty bad...God I hate the way our country works

There is nothing wrong with your system of government. The problem is the people, who tend to be greedy, selfish and short-sighted. As are people everywhere.

Every democracy has problems. What are you going to do about it?

Obligatory Winston Churchill quotation.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

Ahtman wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:pretty self evident.

You do realize where you are posting right?

...

As you can see, there are more competing interests in the Democratic party.

Do you really think so? I imagine that they all have at least a few issues they could agree on. For example, I should think that they'd all be pretty much pro-choice.

Are they not?

The failure of Roe vs Wade to be overthrown in over 35 years would seem to indicate a broad base of support for it, which includes moderate Republicans.

Yeah, that was kind of my point.

They can't be as splintered as some would make it seem. And if they can't come together to form a cohesive party, isn't that a reflection of why they maybe shouldn't be in charge?

The whole of the US constitution is built on the principle that no-one should be able to form a cohesive government for more than two years.

With that in view, maybe it's the Republicans who should not be let in as much as they would like, with their new-fangled cohesive ideas.

Kilkrazy wrote:With that in view, maybe it's the Republicans who should not be let in as much as they would like, with their new-fangled cohesive ideas.

You would think, and maybe I'm naive, that if the entire Republican platform was based on such false nonsense that the Democrats should be able to convince the voting population of this.

Monster Rain wrote:Less cohesive. The terror thing is pretty self evident.

Well sure, if your definition of "hard" is basically just another word for "masculine".

Contrary to popular belief manly men are often the quickest to throw a hissy-fit when their feelings are hurt. Its really quite hilarious.

And there's no quicker way to hurt a manly man's feeling then to suggest that hitting things may not be the best course of action.


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Monster Rain wrote:
Do you really think so? I imagine that they all have at least a few issues they could agree on. For example, I should think that they'd all be pretty much pro-choice.

Blue Dogs are often, if not pro-life, not pro-choice; ie. they avoid the issue by abstention.

I wonder what god is thinking right now. He must be wondering... "What The :beeping: Hell. Stupid Humans."

He is now.

Monster Rain wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:With that in view, maybe it's the Republicans who should not be let in as much as they would like, with their new-fangled cohesive ideas.

You would think, and maybe I'm naive, that if the entire Republican platform was based on such false nonsense that the Democrats should be able to convince the voting population of this.

Why should it all be false nonsense?

The Tea Partiers and their ilk make a lot of noise, but for decades the proportion of votes has swung between about 45 and 55 % either way. The mainstream of the two parties are much more similar than they are different.

There is a reason that the common political science parlance is "republicrats". There is also a reason that almost all comparative examinations of American politics use the PRI as a similar case.

Monster Rain wrote:What in the hell would we want to reduce our nuclear arsenal for?

It costs a lot and there's no good reason to have that many nukes.

There's no more Cold War. That's fantastic. Are we so sure that we really will never need a huge pile of nukes in the future though? Seems rather myopic to me.

What for? What scenario are you envisioning that would require us to have 5,000 nukes instead of say 1,000 or even 500? China loses its collective gak and tries to pull an evil empire Mk II? If we did head back down the road towards needing 30,000 nukes we've got a good head start on anyone else in the world. Aliens invade, incoming asteroid, Carrot Top? What job out there is doable with 5,000 nukes but the end of us all with 500?

No civilized country in the world is going to risk even half a dozen nukes being detonated in their borders. Like I said, with ten in the right places you can send this country into a slump that would make the Great Depression look like a lean week. 50 and we're a third world country for the next century. That goes for any other major power out there just with even fewer nukes needed. With 500 you've got more than enough nukes to eliminate every single country on our national gak list several times over from a practical standpoint.

I don't think we should eliminate every nuke out there but I do think you need a better reason than, "Maybe" for keeping that many around.

Not to mention the fact that the article doesn't really address the Russians pretty much telling the US to go feth itself when it denounced Russia's actions in South Ossetia when talking about the "relationship" between the two countries.

Yeah, so? This is a matter that's important enough to over look Russia's being total dicks about that. If we want to hold their feet to the first over that with some other negotiation like a trade treaty then go for it.

Also, the Russians have started to cooperate with us more, such as allowing us to go through their territory to get into Afghanistan,and allowing us to use their airspace.

Melissia wrote:Also, the Russians have started to cooperate with us more,

Just what they want us to think...

Gorskar.da.Lost wrote:Politics is politics is politics, I guess. They're like this over here, too; if the party in power announces something, the other party denounces it as the worst idea ever.

Nah, they declare that the deal is nowhere near as good as a stronger leader could have achieved, but it will have to do given the position this guy has foolishly backed us into. After scoring a few political points they'd approve the thing because they understand that in between sleazy politics they're supposed to actually be doing something constructive for the country.


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Frazzled wrote:Thats incorrect and frankly short term thinking. Cochroaches would have no problem with it. I for one welcome our new cochroach overlords, and am sure their benevolent rulership will help mankind for generations to come.

Cochroaches are anti-gun.


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Frazzled wrote:

dogma wrote:Why?

They blew the case, an easy case. 280 people died and he helped kill them and was convicted of one count. He almost walked. An important witness was premitted to testify. He might get 20 years. Thats nothing.

When you say 'maybe 20 years' you mean '20 years a federally mandated minimum and almost certainly more'. Don't play silly word games.


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Monster Rain wrote:What in the hell would we want to reduce our nuclear arsenal for?

There's no more Cold War. That's fantastic. Are we so sure that we really will never need a huge pile of nukes in the future though? Seems rather myopic to me.

You possibly might need an unlimited supply of everything that's ever needed in the unknowable future. But you don't have unlimited money. You can pick between maintaining the nukes or something that might actually be useful in a reasonably forseeable future conflict. Or maybe just less deficit.


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Monster Rain wrote:Paranoid or pragmatic? The idea that the whole world will always be best buddies forever now that the Cold War is over is a bit naive.

The idea that international relations operate on any kind of level involving the phrase 'best buddies forever' or anything that might imply is incredibly naive. Accepting that you can take a guarded stance towards other nations without retaining the ability to turn their country to to glass is very simple, and something most of the rest of the world takes for granted.


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filbert wrote:No but it did send them spiralling into an increasingly expensive arms and space race that they couldn't afford, ultimately bankrupting the USSR and leading to the end of the Cold War.

No it didn't. Russian spending didn't increase to match US levels, they just told more ridiculous lies to pretend their spending matched.

The USSR collapsed because communist didn't work.


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BearersOfSalvation wrote:But so what? That just gives you the end up modern civilization which, while obviously bad, isn't the same thing as the end of the human race, much less the end of life on earth.

The feth?

'Oh sure, we'd end human civilisation, but we wouldn't kill every single person on Earth, stop exaggerating!'


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Monster Rain wrote:Do you really think so? I imagine that they all have at least a few issues they could agree on. For example, I should think that they'd all be pretty much pro-choice.

Abortion is not an actual issue that is going to get traction in congress. It's just something the Republicans throw out to get the theocrats into the voting booths.

Which is why the Republicans are better organised than the Democrats. The voting blocks for the Republicans come back for more, every single time, no matter how much they're ignored. The Republicans had control of both houses of congress and the presidency and didn't even try to address Roe v Wade. The anti-abortion people complained but they still showed up to vote. A voting base that bizarrely loyal is a tremendous strength.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are trying and making progress on DADT, but no matter how fast they go they can't stop the frenzy of gay voters declaring they were betrayed. The left loves nothing more than self-flagellation, and that is a source of immense weakness.

Also, Harry Reid is pretty bad at his job.


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Monster Rain wrote:They can't be as splintered as some would make it seem. And if they can't come together to form a cohesive party, isn't that a reflection of why they maybe shouldn't be in charge?

No, they're all over the shop. And yes, it is a very good reason they shouldn't be in charge.

Problematically, the other party is organised, but completely insane.

Even more problematically, the odds of the Democrats getting organised at any point in the future is about as likely as the odds of the other party getting sane.

sebster wrote:

Problematically, the other party is organised, but completely insane.

Even more problematically, the odds of the Democrats getting organised at any point in the future is about as likely as the odds of the other party getting sane.

Wins thread.