Yeah, I'm looking into the various claims made on that (it is a blog, so I take it with a grain of salt until I see supporting evidence). So far, the quotes he mentions more recently pan out.
I'd love to be able to make the "they're just bad eggs" argument, but Christ. These are elected officials, and they're not being recalled. That means there are enough people supporting them that they can get elected. It's not like they hide their horrible opinions.
If every Republican were a Reagan-era live and let live, let's talk about regulations Republican I'd be much happier. I'd even consider supporting them. Too bad that's not the case.
Sorry, but there's no credible way to claim that crazy is on both sides right now. Dems have come so far right that they mirror Republicans of 30 years ago. If anything Dems need to go MORE left just to get the country back to a point of sanity again.
Yeah, you're going to have a really hard time finding equivalency for this on the left. I mean, the left has moved more right since JFK. The only place where that's not true is in the minds of Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, etc.
Unless you're thinking of "The Left" as Elizabeth Warren or Jill Stein. Who aren't mainstream.
I also feel like I should caution you at this point, Jack, because I know your knee jerk reaction is to defend your party affiliation out of a sense of loyalty. It's understandable, but you're going to be treading a fine line. The things these dudes and dudettes are saying in regard to Muslims is (are?) indefensible and atrocious.
Wait. JFK was pretty left leaning, considering his social policies and massive government spending (Apollo program? Massive cold war funding?) so I'm not quite sure I understand your meaning.
Unless you mean to say that you wish all Democrats were more like JFK, ie. white and rich.
Honestly I have no idea what you're talking about ROE. I'm independent.
My mistake, then. I figured since you listen to Rush and visit Breitbart and whatnot, you subscribe to their beliefs and identify with their party. Also since your post was a mild defense by way of trying to find equivalency.
Glad to hear you don't identify with that party anymore, though. They're rapidly losing relevancy in modern politics.
The blog's core premise is a red herring issue. It's a real issue, don't get me wrong, but I doubt it had much if anything to do with the core problem of the Republican party and why it lost this election.
If you consider that issue in isolation, yeah definitely. However, I think it helps paint a picture of the Republican party's descent into xenophobia. They lost the Muslim vote, African American vote, Asian American vote, married and unmarried woman vote, Latino vote and Hispanic vote. Sometimes by staggering margins.
In isolation, these groups may not make up a significant part of the population, and I think that's why Republicans were able to so successfully ignore them (and were surprised by the numbers after the fact). However, together they're a significant voting bloc.
That's why the article is interesting. It helps add detail to something we already understand.
This is true. The only way they're really able to get away from it now is if they get away from labeling themselves as "conservatives" in general. Once you start using that label, you get into social issues and they still want to play to the religious groups heavily.
If they started ignoring the "Conservative" label and just using the "Republican" label, they could probably start focusing on fiscal issues. Also, they'd probably need to ease up on the Libertarian ideals to be appealing to people like me. Honestly, even if I ignore the appalling social values, the libertarian ideas turn me right off.
Don't think I switched because of any notion of rejecting their ideals. I'm disgusted. Disgusted with the hard right voters who sat on their hands at home because Romney was too moderate (yes there are people who though he was too moderate and he was in fact not nearly as radical as anyone made him out to be). I'm disgusted at the leadership in the federal government, choosing political expediency over doing the right thing, and I'm disgusted at the 50% of American voters that chose style over substance. This isn't my country anymore, and I'm sorry but you can't change my mind on that. That's why I'm sequestering myself in college and then moving away. I don't care what they've got elsewhere, America isn't home anymore. And all I've got to say is "you reap what you sow."
Don't think I switched because of any notion of rejecting their ideals. I'm disgusted. Disgusted with the hard right voters who sat on their hands at home because Romney was too moderate (yes there are people who though he was too moderate and he was in fact not nearly as radical as anyone made him out to be). I'm disgusted at the leadership in the federal government, choosing political expediency over doing the right thing, and I'm disgusted at the 50% of American voters that chose style over substance. This isn't my country anymore, and I'm sorry but you can't change my mind on that. That's why I'm sequestering myself in college and then moving away. I don't care what they've got elsewhere, America isn't home anymore. And all I've got to say is "you reap what you sow."
That's entertaining to hear, coming from the guy who's now probably objectively better off thanks to new healthcare legislation and tax breaks.
Don't think I switched because of any notion of rejecting their ideals. I'm disgusted. Disgusted with the hard right voters who sat on their hands at home because Romney was too moderate (yes there are people who though he was too moderate and he was in fact not nearly as radical as anyone made him out to be). I'm disgusted at the leadership in the federal government, choosing political expediency over doing the right thing, and I'm disgusted at the 50% of American voters that chose style over substance. This isn't my country anymore, and I'm sorry but you can't change my mind on that. That's why I'm sequestering myself in college and then moving away. I don't care what they've got elsewhere, America isn't home anymore. And all I've got to say is "you reap what you sow."
Wow. That's certainly a bunch of words. Have fun constructing your own little world there, I hope that reality doesn't manage to get through to you.
Also, seriously, fuck you. We've managed to explain almost all of our views in depth and it just whiffs by you, doesn't it? I think I'm gonna go ahead and just treat you like shit anytime I see you post in here, because you really don't want to learn anything. You just want to be happy in your little world and every time someone posts something you don't agree with, you'll plug your ears and go "You reap what you sow, LIBERALS."
The xenophobia comes directly out of core "conservative" values though. It can't be separated without the party being fractured.
What?!?!?!
Conservatism wants to slow down/hold back change of all stripes on a fundamental level.
So, they resist, among other things:
1. Gay rights 2. Immigration 3. Changes to family structure 4. Changes to marriage culture 5. Drug decriminalization
They are both conservative in their platform, and conservative in updating their platform. Meanwhile, society is experiencing the beginning of a combinatorial explosion of fundamental change stemming from a number of factors coinciding.
Thus, the Republican party is falling behind society at an increasing rate. There is literally no way for a party like that to become relevant again.
Don't think I switched because of any notion of rejecting their ideals. I'm disgusted. Disgusted with the hard right voters who sat on their hands at home because Romney was too moderate (yes there are people who though he was too moderate and he was in fact not nearly as radical as anyone made him out to be). I'm disgusted at the leadership in the federal government, choosing political expediency over doing the right thing, and I'm disgusted at the 50% of American voters that chose style over substance. This isn't my country anymore, and I'm sorry but you can't change my mind on that. That's why I'm sequestering myself in college and then moving away. I don't care what they've got elsewhere, America isn't home anymore. And all I've got to say is "you reap what you sow."
Dude, that reads like you copy/pasted it.
You're doing none of these things, and you're acting like a spoiled child. ;^)
I'm pretty glad it's not Jack's country. If it was, it would be an incredibly shitty one drawn by a 5-year old with Down's syndrome. All one-dimensional with a smiling sun and a lot of white people standing around because he couldn't find a brown crayon.
He didn't copy/paste it, but it sounds familiar because it is. It's literally the same exact thing that Fox News is running with right now.
No, no guys Jack does have a point. He is disappointed in the voting public because we just want things that we don't have to work for and Obama can give to us. It doesn't matter that pretty much every other first world nation has it because fuck those guys, we are America, we are the best. Fuck poor people.
@Steve, at this point it's kind of hard to seperate social conservatism with the conservative movement, sure you aren't one, but the party has sort of ingrained it to their platform.
You are using the attributes of social conservatives to smear conservatism as a whole.
Conservatism opposes change as a philosophy. Social conservatism is equally core to the party, and has been for a long time, as other aspects of conservatism.
Unless you see the Republican party going soft on drugs, opening to gay marriage, and dropping abortion and contraception as issues, the point remains. The party is fundamentally out of step with the trends of society on all of these.
No, no guys Jack does have a point. He is disappointed in the voting public because we just want things that we don't have to work for and Obama can give to us. It doesn't matter that pretty much every other first world nation has it because fuck those guys, we are America, we are the best. Fuck poor people.
@Steve, at this point it's kind of hard to seperate social conservatism with the conservative movement, sure you aren't one, but the party has sort of ingrained it to their platform.
You're misunderstanding his point. 50% of the country chose style over substance. We like the cool guy with glasses rather than the business man who can help run America.
Obviously there is no more to it than that, we were just duped by a nice show that we could not possibly see beyond.
It's not like we actually thought about these things for ourselves and criticized every thing we saw from both sides and decided that we'd best go with the guy who has ideas based in reality. Nope, that's not it at all. It's gotta be that we're just duping ourselves completely and utterly. We should probably just go back to watching MSNBC and learning about Everybody Loves Raymond or whatever.
Comments
I'd love to be able to make the "they're just bad eggs" argument, but Christ. These are elected officials, and they're not being recalled. That means there are enough people supporting them that they can get elected. It's not like they hide their horrible opinions.
If every Republican were a Reagan-era live and let live, let's talk about regulations Republican I'd be much happier. I'd even consider supporting them. Too bad that's not the case.
And if every democrat were a JFK democrat we all might be able to get along better.
Unless you're thinking of "The Left" as Elizabeth Warren or Jill Stein. Who aren't mainstream.
I also feel like I should caution you at this point, Jack, because I know your knee jerk reaction is to defend your party affiliation out of a sense of loyalty. It's understandable, but you're going to be treading a fine line. The things these dudes and dudettes are saying in regard to Muslims is (are?) indefensible and atrocious.
Wait. JFK was pretty left leaning, considering his social policies and massive government spending (Apollo program? Massive cold war funding?) so I'm not quite sure I understand your meaning.
Unless you mean to say that you wish all Democrats were more like JFK, ie. white and rich.
Glad to hear you don't identify with that party anymore, though. They're rapidly losing relevancy in modern politics.
In isolation, these groups may not make up a significant part of the population, and I think that's why Republicans were able to so successfully ignore them (and were surprised by the numbers after the fact). However, together they're a significant voting bloc.
That's why the article is interesting. It helps add detail to something we already understand.
If they started ignoring the "Conservative" label and just using the "Republican" label, they could probably start focusing on fiscal issues. Also, they'd probably need to ease up on the Libertarian ideals to be appealing to people like me. Honestly, even if I ignore the appalling social values, the libertarian ideas turn me right off.
Also, seriously, fuck you. We've managed to explain almost all of our views in depth and it just whiffs by you, doesn't it? I think I'm gonna go ahead and just treat you like shit anytime I see you post in here, because you really don't want to learn anything. You just want to be happy in your little world and every time someone posts something you don't agree with, you'll plug your ears and go "You reap what you sow, LIBERALS."
So, they resist, among other things:
1. Gay rights
2. Immigration
3. Changes to family structure
4. Changes to marriage culture
5. Drug decriminalization
They are both conservative in their platform, and conservative in updating their platform. Meanwhile, society is experiencing the beginning of a combinatorial explosion of fundamental change stemming from a number of factors coinciding.
Thus, the Republican party is falling behind society at an increasing rate. There is literally no way for a party like that to become relevant again.
You're doing none of these things, and you're acting like a spoiled child. ;^)
He didn't copy/paste it, but it sounds familiar because it is. It's literally the same exact thing that Fox News is running with right now.
You are using the attributes of social conservatives to smear conservatism as a whole.
@Steve, at this point it's kind of hard to seperate social conservatism with the conservative movement, sure you aren't one, but the party has sort of ingrained it to their platform.
Unless you see the Republican party going soft on drugs, opening to gay marriage, and dropping abortion and contraception as issues, the point remains. The party is fundamentally out of step with the trends of society on all of these.
Conservatism does not oppose change it just prefers that change occurs slowly and organically.
Obviously there is no more to it than that, we were just duped by a nice show that we could not possibly see beyond.
It's not like we actually thought about these things for ourselves and criticized every thing we saw from both sides and decided that we'd best go with the guy who has ideas based in reality. Nope, that's not it at all. It's gotta be that we're just duping ourselves completely and utterly. We should probably just go back to watching MSNBC and learning about Everybody Loves Raymond or whatever.