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I was reading an article on Yahoo last week and one of the comments was an ~1000 word essay deconstructing Obama's name into ancient Hebrew and it showed that he might indeed be the Anti-Christ.

The scary part about this was the roughly 150 thumbs up, and 20 or so thumbs down.

It's going to be hard for the Republican party to change when for the last 30 years its been pandering to people that honestly think the world is 6000 years old. The only way I see a long term survival is dumping all this "family values" bs and going for fiscally conservative stance.

It all depends on what movie comes out in 2016.

The beauty of extremism is exclusionsim. The liars for Jebus don't have anywhere else to go. If the Republicans stop pushing thier social agenda the Religious Right doesn't become democrat overnight. They have nowhere else to go. Because even if the Republicans don't push FOR thier adgenda, the Democrats still push AGAINST it. Unlike some "former natzis" most people don't sell thier core beliefs cheaply or often.
So while the Republicans become a viable option to moderates and social liberals who are also fiscal conservatives, there is no viable alternative for the LFJ short of forming a third party where they can spiral into oblivion or realize just how alone they are. In other words the Republicans stand to lose nothing and gain everything, but the Democrats don't stand to gain anything unless they decide to sell thier core beliefs. You know like they did in the middle of the 20th Century.

 Peregrine wrote:
Poll numbers aside, the problem with abortion is that the scientific facts are against the pro-life position. The pro-life argument is inherently a religious one, and if you get religion involved you're inevitably going to have to deal with the extremists saying stupid things and making you look bad. And can you really blame them? Certain candidates need a lesson in biology, but their basic argument against rape exceptions is absolutely consistent with, and in fact a mandatory consequence of, a belief that life begins at conception. As morally repulsive as these people are, they are the ones who are consistent in their beliefs

Actually they are only consistant in their beliefs if they are labeled a more correct pro-birth movement. Once a child is born, they don't care about keeping it alive and healthy, so if the kid makes the huge mistake of being born to the wrong parents, he will suffer for that.

For people that mostly seem happy the way the election turned out, some of you sure are putting out a lot of bile.

 Breotan wrote:
For people that mostly seem happy the way the election turned out, some of you sure are putting out a lot of bile.

er... who?

It's pretty civil here... on other sites? Whoa... lot's of gloating.

I am happy Obama won, that doesn't mean that he was my favorite candidate.

 d-usa wrote:
I am happy Obama won, that doesn't mean that he was my favorite candidate.

Right...

You posted some funny stuff... not bile-ish gloating...

I can certainly think of some non-religious arguments against abortion, though it's not enough to remove the choice in my opinion. Personally I think we should be promoting safe sex, and try to remove the social stigma from giving a child up for adoption if we want to see a real drop in abortion

 AustonT wrote:
He has to run in the primary. Sometimes he loses, it takes a pretty strong canidate to beat the incumbent VP though.

Sort of. I mean, sure, if you've got a guy like Gore who's been groomed for the role and given a healthy dose of the spotlight during the previous presidency, then he's gonna take a beating.

But not that many VPs even run in the primary. I'd be surprised if Biden did. I mean I like the guy but I think this is probably as far as good as its going to get for him - he's a good number two. Cheney was never going to run.

You have to go back to 1988, 24 years and six elections, to get a VP running and winning. Before that you have to go back to who, like Hubert Humphrey to find a VP that even had a presidential run.


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 Seaward wrote:
Christ, you guys are young.

I know, I get this feeling these guys are talking about this stuff like its history on a text book page, and I'm reading it thinking 'no, it isn't history, it actually happened I was there'

Yeah, Bush was against a few folks, McCain among them. Bush played extremely, extremely dirty with McCain, particularly in South Carolina.

Oh yeah, "Would you change your vote if you knew McCain had fathered a black baby?" is perhaps the classic example of dirty campaigning.


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 AustonT wrote:
In the 2014 gubernatorial and congress races you remove marriage equality and abortion from the planks, real publically. You emphasize a return to the big tent philosophy, you stop taking thier money.
Somehow the democrats have had religion firmly in thier corner and not had to deal with crazy. Take notes.
Basically be Republican. Social libertarians and Fiscal conservatives.

And then you lose, and you lose bad.

In fact, you don't even get far enough to lose, because you set off the social conservatives, who turn out hard in the primary, and you get talked about for a month or two as 'whatever happened to that guy in the primary, man he tanked' and then you get forgotten about hard.

You need to keep the religious right on-side, without saying anything that sets off the rest of the country, and at the same time adapting the message so that you can draw in voters from groups that aren't white.

 AustonT wrote:
So while the Republicans become a viable option to moderates and social liberals who are also fiscal conservatives, there is no viable alternative for the LFJ short of forming a third party where they can spiral into oblivion or realize just how alone they are.

The problem is that the Liars for Jesus wing of the party is obsessed with ideological purity, and a frightening percentage of them have insane beliefs about the "end times" and how they will be alone in fighting to the end against "oppression" by everyone else. If the republican party abandons their agenda, especially with the kind of public break that would convince moderates that the republicans have genuinely dropped the social conservative agenda and aren't just being quiet about it to win opinion polls, they have a high risk of one of two bad scenarios:

1) Like the Ayn Rand faithful, the LFJ run a third-party candidate focused on ideological purity over any practical chance of winning the election. On election day large numbers of religious conservatives vote for the third party, confident that this is a sign that the end times are here and biblical prophecy has promised that they will be alone in their vote and have no hope of winning, but they will fight the spiritual war and be raptured up to heaven. While their candidate has zero appeal outside of the religous right it's enough to cut into the republican majority in otherwise close states, and turn them blue with a 43/42/15 split.

or

2) Convinced that both parties have abandoned them and the end times are here, the LFJ decide that a vote for either candidate means eternity in hell and stay home on election day. Or, at most, some of them reluctantly press the "R" as the lesser of the two evils, but don't invest any effort in campaigning/fundraising/etc. Without high (and universally republican) turnout from the LFJ several states (like NC) go from a 50/49 win to a 50/49 loss.

In either case the republican party has to pick up a lot of votes among moderates to make up for losing the guaranteed LFJ vote, and they have to do it fast, before the democrats have too much of an incumbent advantage and demographic shift for the republican party to overcome.

 youbedead wrote:
I can certainly think of some non-religious arguments against abortion, though it's not enough to remove the choice in my opinion. Personally I think we should be promoting safe sex, and try to remove the social stigma from giving a child up for adoption if we want to see a real drop in abortion

There are no non-religious arguments against abortion. The scientific evidence is absolutely clear on the subject, and indisputably says that abortion (at least early on, where almost all voluntary abortion happens) is no more of a problem than removing cancer cells. The only way to oppose abortion, other than "eww, I don't like it", is to invoke some kind of religious argument for a soul that begins at conception.

 skyth wrote:
That right there, is the core of the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. The Republicans are the party of exclusion and they insist on purity of thought. The Democrats are the party of inclusion. They don't usually care what you believe as long as you don't try to force them to abide by those beliefs.

True, though it's worth pointing out this hasn't always been the case, and isn't destined to always be the case. Afterall, Reagan famously said "if we agree on seven out of ten things then we're on the same side" or something to that effect.

With the diversity in the Democratic party, it is hard to get them pointed in one direction for what they believe in, but rather it's easier to get them pointed in the direction opposing someone that tries to impose the rules of their belief system on them. Your average Democrat doesn't care if you are against gay marriage. However, it's when you try to stop other people from trying to get married that they have an issue.

Definitely true. It's why the Democrats often look like a fairly coherent whole when they're opposition, and not at all like a party when they win government.

It's like when people point out that Obama had the house and a filibuster proof majority in the senate... but ignore that the party he was relying on are the Democrats.

 whembly wrote:

 Breotan wrote:
For people that mostly seem happy the way the election turned out, some of you sure are putting out a lot of bile.

er... who?

It's pretty civil here... on other sites? Whoa... lot's of gloating.

I'm not worried about gloating. I expected that regardless of the outcome. Still, I guess you are right that it is pretty civil here overall, especially compared to other places.

 Lone Cat wrote:
It is quite the shame. the origins of "Grand Old" Republican is intrinsictly LEFT. initiating emancipation. abolishing slavery. a considerable progress to american society. well it is another discussion entirely because it involves with American Civil War.

so is it G.W. Bush policy that trademarks the Republicans as Rightwing Party?

Basically the move of the Republicans to the right wing has its origins in the Great Depression. Hoover and the Republicans were focused on letting the depression run its course, Roosevelt took a view that government involvement would bring a quicker end. Battle lines were drawn, Roosevelt brought in his New Deal and Republicans set about dismantling it. The Republicans had evolved from a broadly conservative party to one with a clear opposition to government intervention in the economy.

The second major shift comes with the rise of young liberals within the Democratic party, and their focus on civil liberties. Under Lyndon Johnson you had the Civil Liberties Act passed and then enforced in the South, previously a Democratic stronghold. This left a huge number of voters in the South disaffected and feeling betrayed by the Democrats. Nixon picked up on this, instigating the Southern Strategy - a set of campaign policies that aimed to win those formerly Democratic voters in the South over to the Republican party - calling for State's Rights and other similar things.



I mean, that's a really simple look at it. Like everything there's lots of complicating factors, but in broad strokes pretty much sums up how you get from the party of Lincoln to the modern Republican party.


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 Grakmar wrote:
This election really wasn't all that close (despite the hype).

No, it was close. 100,000 votes in Ohio and Virginia, and 50,000 votes in Florida and we'd all be talking about how the Democrats recover from the hole they're in.

The point is that in an economy like this the Republicans the outside party should be winning, and that, whether they won this election or not the Republicans have a long term demographic problem.

 sebster wrote:
No, it was close. 100,000 votes in Ohio and Virginia, and 50,000 votes in Florida and Obama still wins, but the democrats worry about how they're going to win again in 2016.

Fixed that for you. Even if Romney wins Ohio, Virginia and Florida he still loses.

 sebster wrote:

 AustonT wrote:
He has to run in the primary. Sometimes he loses, it takes a pretty strong canidate to beat the incumbent VP though.

Sort of. I mean, sure, if you've got a guy like Gore who's been groomed for the role and given a healthy dose of the spotlight during the previous presidency, then he's gonna take a beating.

But not that many VPs even run in the primary. I'd be surprised if Biden did. I mean I like the guy but I think this is probably as far as good as its going to get for him - he's a good number two. Cheney was never going to run.

You have to go back to 1988, 24 years and six elections, to get a VP running and winning. Before that you have to go back to who, like Hubert Humphrey to find a VP that even had a presidential run.

You must have missed the part where we were talking about primaries.

 Peregrine wrote:

 sebster wrote:
No, it was close. 100,000 votes in Ohio and Virginia, and 50,000 votes in Florida and Obama still wins, but the democrats worry about how they're going to win again in 2016.

Fixed that for you. Even if Romney wins Ohio, Virginia and Florida he still loses.

Seb... where are you getting the 100K and 50k figures?

I thought it was waaaaaaaaaay more than that?

 d-usa wrote:
I think the pundits are partly to blame. I don't know if they are living inside their own lies, or if Fox News knew that they were predicting crap but want to give their viewers what they want to hear to boost ratings.

The pundits exist in a totally insular world. They talk to each other and bounce ideas off each other and come up with little theories that work perfectly inside their own little fact free world. They honestly think if they can shout 'bias' at people giving them facts often enough, and are imaginitive enough they can explain away reality and then reality will actually stop being a problem.

I think this explains why so many political attacks against Obama in this campaign weren't just dishonest, but were so god damn stupid. They lost perspective, and thought if they could convince themselves it was a real issue, then it was an people would be swayed by it.


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 AustonT wrote:
The beauty of extremism is exclusionsim. The liars for Jebus don't have anywhere else to go. If the Republicans stop pushing thier social agenda the Religious Right doesn't become democrat overnight. They have nowhere else to go. Because even if the Republicans don't push FOR thier adgenda, the Democrats still push AGAINST it. Unlike some "former natzis" most people don't sell thier core beliefs cheaply or often.

But that means they won't go vote for Democrats, but it doesn't mean they keep voting Republican. Instead, it means they go back to what they were doing before the 1970s - simply not voting at all. And right now, if they're not voting Republican, then the Republicans are facing eradication.

So while the Republicans become a viable option to moderates and social liberals who are also fiscal conservatives, there is no viable alternative for the LFJ short of forming a third party where they can spiral into oblivion or realize just how alone they are. In other words the Republicans stand to lose nothing and gain everything, but the Democrats don't stand to gain anything unless they decide to sell thier core beliefs. You know like they did in the middle of the 20th Century.

The big problem there is your assumption that the Republicans can just claim the ground for fiscal conservatism. The party of the Laffer Curve doesn't get to claim its fiscally prudent.

A Republican party that actually delivered disciplined, forward minded budgets? That'd be a hell of a thing. But you don't just get to claim that's who you are without delivering, and with the US political structure as it is, its near impossible to deliver even if you desperately want to.

 Peregrine wrote:

 youbedead wrote:
I can certainly think of some non-religious arguments against abortion, though it's not enough to remove the choice in my opinion. Personally I think we should be promoting safe sex, and try to remove the social stigma from giving a child up for adoption if we want to see a real drop in abortion

There are no non-religious arguments against abortion. The scientific evidence is absolutely clear on the subject, and indisputably says that abortion (at least early on, where almost all voluntary abortion happens) is no more of a problem than removing cancer cells. The only way to oppose abortion, other than "eww, I don't like it", is to invoke some kind of religious argument for a soul that begins at conception.

It's easy, the reason that an unexpected death, especially of someone who is young, is viewed as worse then the natural death of an old person is that the young person still has potential left in them, as there is nothing with more potential then a human. By that logic abortion should be avoided as it removes the entire potential of a person. It's not killing a person as there is no person to kill yet, but it is removing the potential of a future human. But as I said earlier it's not a good enough argument to remove the woman choice.

 Peregrine wrote:

There are no non-religious arguments against abortion. The scientific evidence is absolutely clear on the subject, and indisputably says that abortion (at least early on, where almost all voluntary abortion happens) is no more of a problem than removing cancer cells. The only way to oppose abortion, other than "eww, I don't like it", is to invoke some kind of religious argument for a soul that begins at conception.

I usually like your posts. But this is absolutely ridiculous. There are many arguments that can be offered from the atheistic point of view (mine, for example) against abortion, many of them underlying the contradictions amongst legal principles used in current modern legal systems. Arguments refering to human dignity as a principle of humanitarian law can also (and are) be dissociated from their initial religious basis.

Furthermore, you cannot offer scientific evidence to directly support a moral choice. You must first underline how a certain natural aspect has a moral value, which in itself argue in a non-scientific manner.

 sebster wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
I think the pundits are partly to blame. I don't know if they are living inside their own lies, or if Fox News knew that they were predicting crap but want to give their viewers what they want to hear to boost ratings.

The pundits exist in a totally insular world. They talk to each other and bounce ideas off each other and come up with little theories that work perfectly inside their own little fact free world. They honestly think if they can shout 'bias' at people giving them facts often enough, and are imaginitive enough they can explain away reality and then reality will actually stop being a problem.

I think this explains why so many political attacks against Obama in this campaign weren't just dishonest, but were so god damn stupid. They lost perspective, and thought if they could convince themselves it was a real issue, then it was an people would be swayed by it.

I think Megyn Kelly asked Karl Rove the best question of the night:

"so is this math you as a republican do to make yourself feel better or is it real?"

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
I usually like your posts. But this is absolutely ridiculous. There are many arguments that can be offered from the atheistic point of view (mine, for example) against abortion, many of them underlying the contradictions amongst legal principles used in current modern legal systems. Arguments refering to human dignity as a principle of humanitarian law can also (and are) be dissociated from their initial religious basis.

Except any "human dignity" that can apply to a fetus with no functioning nervous system, capacity to feel pain, etc, can apply equally well to cancer cells and nobody would ever argue that you shouldn't treat cancer by removing the problem cells. The only way to oppose abortion is to bring in some kind of characteristic that the fetus has that other blobs of meat don't have, and that requires religion.

So, while there may be "arguments" in the sense that people compose grammatically correct sentences expressing their disagreement, those arguments are laughably bad and we should not pay any attention to them.

Furthermore, you cannot offer scientific evidence to directly support a moral choice. You must first underline how a certain natural aspect has a moral value, which in itself argue in a non-scientific manner.

Sure I can. The scientific evidence overwhelmingly states that the fetus has none of the characteristics that define any non-religious concept of "human", therefore it has no moral value. If your secular moral system allows you to squish a cockroach it can have no possible objection to abortion.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kovnik Obama wrote:
I usually like your posts. But this is absolutely ridiculous. There are many arguments that can be offered from the atheistic point of view (mine, for example) against abortion, many of them underlying the contradictions amongst legal principles used in current modern legal systems. Arguments refering to human dignity as a principle of humanitarian law can also (and are) be dissociated from their initial religious basis.

Except any "human dignity" that can apply to a fetus with no functioning nervous system, capacity to feel pain, etc, can apply equally well to cancer cells and nobody would ever argue that you shouldn't treat cancer by removing the problem cells. The only way to oppose abortion is to bring in some kind of characteristic that the fetus has that other blobs of meat don't have, and that requires religion.

So, while there may be "arguments" in the sense that people compose grammatically correct sentences expressing their disagreement, those arguments are laughably bad and we should not pay any attention to them.

Furthermore, you cannot offer scientific evidence to directly support a moral choice. You must first underline how a certain natural aspect has a moral value, which in itself argue in a non-scientific manner.

Sure I can. The scientific evidence overwhelmingly states that the fetus has none of the characteristics that define any non-religious concept of "human", therefore it has no moral value. If your secular moral system allows you to squish a cockroach it can have no possible objection to abortion.

And how do you adress my point then, I made no mention of a soul nor dignity and acknowledged that a fetus is not living

 youbedead wrote:
And how do you adress my point then, I made no mention of a soul nor dignity and acknowledged that a fetus is not living

Then what point do you have? The fetus has no soul, no dignity, no life, so what exactly does it have that deserves protection?

And no, the "potential" argument doesn't count, because every single egg* cell a woman produces has the potential to become another human and we don't throw women in prison for life for "ending" that potential by declining to get pregnant at every possible opportunity for their entire life. Nor do we immediately put the entire resources of society into doing everything we can to solve the "problem" that many fetuses end in miscarriage for completely natural reasons, a "death" toll far worse than any other loss of life in the world right now. And because we don't do those things we reveal the "potential" argument to be nothing more than a flimsy excuse.

*We'll ignore the male side since there's no way to avoid that mass murder of "potential".

My main question in the pro-life/pro-choice question (being pro-life myself while wanting a pro-choice system) is one thing that appears like a double standard:

If a woman and a doctor want to abort, then it is legal.
If a man causes injury that results in an abortion, then it is murder.

 d-usa wrote:
My main question in the pro-life/pro-choice question (being pro-life myself while wanting a pro-choice system) is one thing that appears like a double standard:

If a woman and a doctor want to abort, then it is legal.
If a man causes injury that results in an abortion, then it is murder.

Or try this... and it's true, I've experienced this...

If a woman wants to abort... that's her choice.

If a man wants a vasectomy... he needs approval from his spouse.

Strange world eh?

 Peregrine wrote:

 youbedead wrote:
And how do you adress my point then, I made no mention of a soul nor dignity and acknowledged that a fetus is not living

Then what point do you have? The fetus has no soul, no dignity, no life, so what exactly does it have that deserves protection?

And no, the "potential" argument doesn't count, because every single egg* cell a woman produces has the potential to become another human and we don't throw women in prison for life for "ending" that potential by declining to get pregnant at every possible opportunity for their entire life. Nor do we immediately put the entire resources of society into doing everything we can to solve the "problem" that many fetuses end in miscarriage for completely natural reasons, a "death" toll far worse than any other loss of life in the world right now. And because we don't do those things we reveal the "potential" argument to be nothing more than a flimsy excuse.

*We'll ignore the male side since there's no way to avoid that mass murder of "potential".

Alright then a question to you, do you believe that it it is completely ethical for a woman to drink and smoke while pregnant. Also your argument was that there is no argument against abortion that is non-religious not that you have to agree with that argument

 Peregrine wrote:
Fixed that for you. Even if Romney wins Ohio, Virginia and Florida he still loses.

Fair point, you have to add in Colorado as well. Point still remains, though, that not that much has to change for the Republicans to turn things around.

People were calling the death of the Republicans in 2000, afterall. Remember the permanent majority?

 d-usa wrote:
My main question in the pro-life/pro-choice question (being pro-life myself while wanting a pro-choice system) is one thing that appears like a double standard:

If a woman and a doctor want to abort, then it is legal.
If a man causes injury that results in an abortion, then it is murder.

It's a crime for the man to do it (I'm not sure if it's actually murder) because it's an unwanted end. Whether or not it's precisely murder it should be an additional crime to represent the fact that, in addition to the usual effects of violence (like getting punched in the face or whatever), the woman now has to suffer the loss of a child. It might not be a technically accurate representation of the loss, but if the only way to add that punishment under the existing legal system is to call it "murder", call it murder and increase the sentence.

 whembly wrote:
If a man wants a vasectomy... he needs approval from his spouse.

Err, what? Do you have a source for that?

 youbedead wrote:
Alright then a question to you, do you believe that it it is completely ethical for a woman to drink and smoke while pregnant.

No, because doing those things increases the chance of harming a person, not just a lump of meat. The fetus as it exists at the time of the drinking/smoking might not have a right to avoid that harm, but if the woman keeps it then eventually it will become a child that suffers the consequences of the drinking/smoking. The ban isn't to protect the current lump of meat, it's to protect the possible future child.

(And of course it would be just fine for the woman to drink and smoke on her way to get an abortion, since there would be no harm done.)

Also your argument was that there is no argument against abortion that is non-religious not that you have to agree with that argument

Ok, there's no legitimate argument that is based on anything more than "because I said so". You can form grammatically correct sentences opposing abortion, but if they're laughably wrong then I don't really see how that's any different than there being no argument at all.

The abortion argument is probably pretty off-topic by now. So if we want the 28th abortion argument of 2012 we should probably start a new thread and keep this one focused on the GOP.