Senate The US Politics discussion

i already ate it. how did daenerys stormborns get into that event?

 

Nevada rancher vs the evil tyrrany of Obama

This is politics as militia from around the country are gathering to possibly help defend a rancher who has apparently been illegally letting his cows graze on federal land. And if they take him down they take away the rights of The People.

 

Missouri considers lifting lifetime ban on food stamps for some drug convictions.

Miami-Dade County implements rule to prohibit anybody in line at polling places from using the bathroom.

The reason? "To ensure peope with disablities are treated fairly."

 

Yay, we can all break the law now and do whatever the hell we want...because Obama.

 

I'm planning to cry myself to sleep over the indignities suffered by wealthy ranchers.

 

My favorite part of the stories is how "hundreds" of self-proclaimed militiamen are apparently rushing to Nevada to help "protect the ranch." Yeah, I'm sure they're genuinely horrified about what's happening, instead of being thrilled that they're finally going to be act out the Freedom Fighter fantasy they've been constructing in their minds for decades.

 

Disagree. More like the 18th or 17th century.

 

spokespersons for the goshute tribes could not be reached for comment

 

CBO: ObamaCare will cost less than previously projected: (Souderwan)
http://news.yahoo.com/cbo-says-obamacare-cost-less-191500438.html

And the total insured because of the law this year seems to be around 12 million:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/14/cbo-obamacare-report_n_5146896.html

The overall deficit has also shrunk 33% from last year, which itself saw a deficit much smaller than expected.

 

lol. Seriously? Why tag me with this nonsense? The original projection was $900 billion over 10 yrs. They made an upward projection to $1.5 trillion over 10 yrs. Now they're revising it back down to $1.4 trillion and that's good news? Only in politics.

Also, a deficit of $452 billion (caused at least in part by the fact that the government is running on a CR, which precludes expanding spending)--admittedly smaller than expected--is still a disgustingly high number.

You'll forgive me if I don't leap for joy. Bad back, you know.

 

I leapt for joy and fell to my death.

 

Oh. And I loved this bit from the article, that you chose not to highlight:

I'd laugh if it wasn't so ridiculous.

Edit: Also this, at the end

So, for a mere $1.4 trillion, we will get a net 26 million more people insured than before this law, and in a mere 10 more years! So for a mere $53,000/person in direct government costs, plus the disruption in commerce, individual choice and a whole new government bureaucracy, 14 yrs later, you still won't have everyone insured and premiums will have increased at 6% per year above inflation when the stated goal of the law was to reduce insurance costs and get everyone insured.

Only in politics can this be spun into some sort of victory. Unreal.

 

Universal coverage was the aspiration of the law. There was never any projection or estimate that showed it actually doing so. Such projections as were made are being roughly met or surpassed, and this in spite of tremendous legislative and bureaucratic sabotage by the laws opponents. One can disagree ideologically about whether this was worth doing or not. But let's be clear. It's being "spun" as a victory because it is a victory. The law is having the effects its framers intended. That's all you can ultimately ask.

 

No. No it's not. The law was presented as a solution to a problem but does not actually solve that problem and, depending on your perspective, even exacerbates the problem.

You can only call this tripe a victory if you willfully ignore the facts. This is why I stay out of this tread. It is primarily a venue for an ideological echo chamber and the recurring intellectual dishonesty is repulsive. Please desist from tagging me for these discussions. I don't root for or against any political team. I suspect no one here is actually interested in my perspective. If you are, feel free to PM me. Otherwise, keep me out of it.

 

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Sorry for adding my opinion, anyway.

EDIT: In fact, this is beyond irritating. I'm sorry Ghost tagged you if you didn't want to hear about it. Regardless, no one in this thread deserved whatever that indignant explosion was. As I have already said, you are perfectly within your right to feel that the law "didn't solve" the problem it was aimed at. But it's entirely fair to respond, as I did, that the people who wrote the law didn't envision more than a "partial" solution with this law. That's not an "echo chamber" and it's not anywhere near a personal attack on you or even your ideas. I simply disagreed. People should be able to do that without having their heads bitten off.

 

Indignant explosion? Please. There wasn't a smidgen of rage in my post. I was simply direct. I am not interested in playing Crossfire on the boards. I think that's straightforward. If you find that kind of very specific, clear, rational feedback insulting, then I'm not sure what to tell you.

Also, I accused no one of making a personal attack on me or my ideas in that post. The "echo chamber" comment I made was in reference to the culture of this thread.

But since I'm here once again and you brought up the topic, I think I'll take a brief moment to address this particular point.

I am a libertarian. I have friends who are actively involved in the Tea Party movement. I also have close relationships with any number of people who support the GOP. I also have many friends who are self-identified socialists. And, of course, most of my friends here are varying degrees of liberal-leaning. The reason I get along with all of them is that I don't tolerate any of them disparaging each other.

Of course, Bill the Republican would never call Tom the Democrat a bumbling moron any more than Tom would ever call Bill a racist, misogynist homophobe. But it’s become commonplace to throw these kinds of attacks at people by attacking the group to which they are associated. And frankly, I find that just as offensive, since there’s a very good chance that attack is directed at me or someone I love and/or respect.

When I wander into this thread and see pages upon pages of GOP and/or Tea-Party bashing, the majority of which are focused on impugning the character of those people, I find the place more than a bit inhospitable. While you may not personally take part in those kinds of attacks, you certainly seem to tolerate them and will only rise to indignant defense when someone like me comes by and shakes the apple cart. Of course, this isn’t the only thread like this. It pretty much happens anywhere we talk politics.

In the past, I made an effort to participate in these conversations and ignore the condescension, insulting barbs, and general disdain that I saw routinely leveled at me and people who agree with me politically. I did this in the interests of free exchange of ideas, mutual learning, and hopefully mutual respect. But I’ve become weary of the whole thing. We don’t actually listen to each other and it’s more about winning an argument than about exploring “truth”. Worse yet, I found that rather than having fun with people I like, I was arguing with them all the time. I find that a waste.

Bottom line, I’m happy to go to the threads where politics and religion aren’t discussed. If someone wants to actually talk to me one-on-one (respecting the ground rules that we don’t bash people’s character simply because we disagree), then I’m happy to do so via PM, text, IM, whatever. Just not on the boards.

 

I see where Brian's coming from. He was pretty much randomly dragged into the thread. I also agree that it's tiresome to come online and argue all the time. There are far better things to to amongst ourselves.

 

I'd like to point out that my default term of "Tea Party Wingnut" is on a policy-basis.

 

1. All those things were equally true before you ever chose to post here.

2. I don't see where it's very respectful of those who disagree with you to claim that the only way someone could disagree with you is if they "willfully ignore the facts." Not that they have a different set of priorities. Not that they're giving different importance to different data points. Not that they're offering differing explanations for the same objective points.They couldn't even honestly misunderstand the truth. According to you, the only way to disagree and be happy about this is if you know how bad the truth is in and then consciously decide to lie about it and "willfully ignore" that truth.

3. In light of point 1, posting within in 10 minutes of another person and including the line "this is why I stay out of this thread" makes it pretty easy to read as a response to that person. If you didn't intend that, fine. But please understand how it comes across.

EDIT: 4. As to the overall state of this thread, are there a lot of drive-by attacks? Sure. But there's also very little actual discussion. It's much more a collection of links, followed by one or two posts of people agreeing "Wow that makes me angry."

I can fully understand wanting to have an actual discussion. But it also seems to me that that's probably what Ghost had in mind. He brought up a topic and tried to consciously involve people who disagree with him. He aimed no negative remarks at those people. Nor did anyone else who subsequently participated. Again, I'm sorry Souderwan was contacted when he didn't want to be, but he might've simply PMed Ghost about the topic. Instead he engaged, and at the very first response to his post, claimed that "no one was genuinely interested" in what he had to say, declared he was leaving the thread, and warned people off ever trying to get him to come back.

That's why I characterized the post as "angry" and "undeserved." Yes, you can talk about the problems that this thread has. But none of those problems were active in the actual discussion he chose to criticize. They hadn't come up at all. That is, by definition, unprovoked. Maybe he just started talking and then got cold feet about the experience. He should've said that, then, instead of impugning everyone's behavior.

 

lol.... and here comes wocky.... still looking to argue.

 

Jabba, I have zero desire to argue with you. You want to get indignant, feel free.

I posted my response to Ghost and it stands on it's own. I "engaged" by asking "Why tag me with this nonsense?" I honestly didn't see the point. Did he have a question? Did he want a discussion? If so, he didn't say so. All he did was post a link and tag me.

As for my specific response to you after you responded to my post, it was exactly as I intended. My follow-on expansion on that post stands. As I said, I was not angry, merely direct and specific. You are free to feel however you like about it.

 

I'm busy the last few days, but I tagged you because I know you used to talk about the costs of Obamacare a lot and I wanted to know your opinion, especially since I hadn't heard from you in so long. That's all. I thought it was obvious. You used to say you liked debating and discussing these things with me.

 

I think he's now saying that this is no longer the case.