The two ends of the political spectrum are killing us

[Mac1958]

Why should I have to start an entirely different thread? You made an interesting comment, and all I am doing is telling you that the open mindedness you call for, is here...Could it be that you really don't want to discuss what you post about?

Nope. I don't want this thread derailed.

If you're serious about this, start a thread on a topic that is important to you. Invite me, and I'll contribute. Pretty easy.

You're either serious, or you're not.

 

[JoeB131]

Ranked choice voting? Mac has a new MSM buzzword. Its so rank it would let LA NYC etc. take control of middle America.

I don't think ranked choice voting is a good idea. I would rather have runoffs like they do in Chicago.

I'm curious how you think that LA and NYC can "take control" exactly. We have 330 million people in this country. NYC has 10 million and LA has 3 million. Exactly what mathematical formula do you think that they can "take over the country".

exactly WHY the Electoral college was implemented. Two Senators for all.

The electoral college exists because the Founding Slave Rapists didn't trust the people.
It was almost immediately a clusterfuck and had to be modified by the 12th Amendment.

more Libstain BS. Term limits? Uh…ok. do good ones have to leave? After how long? That will get mucked up - watered down too.

I disagree with term limits, but the real problem is lack of competitiveness due to Gerrymandering. We had 435 seats up, but only about 25 of them changed parties. Most incumbents who sought re-election in 2022 won re-election. I think the only high profile incumbent who got voted out was the governor of Nevada, because he killed the tourist industry with Covid restrictions.

The system is rigged to protect incumbents, to be sure, but the biggest problem is our own apathy.

A guy like Santos can get elected on a completely fake resume because no one bothered to check?

 

[JoeB131]

I've shown no anger toward you Joe....Funny you'd try to provoke that....

You mean other than all the times you've threatened to kill me?

 

[gipper]

That's ok, after all it'd be pretty boring around here if we agreed on everything....lol



There was an article in the Jewish Policy Center, from the President of the Lexington Institute, Dr. Daniel Goure, which I'd like to quote the final paragraph, because I think he says it better than I can....

"Even if America runs, as the far left and right propose, it is too late to hide. Those who choose to be enemies can come after the United States. This is the lesson of 9-11. It also is the message that North Korea sent with its latest tests of a nuclear weapon and long-range ballistic missile. China, one of America’s largest trading partners and the holder of a trillion dollars in U.S. debt, is conducting a massive and continuous cyber assault on the nation’s private companies, infrastructure, and military facilities. To what mountaintop can America withdraw, how small must it become, and how meekly will it have to behave in order to ensure its security?

The irony is that the cost of the U.S. military had for decades represented a small and declining percentage of both overall GDP and total federal spending. Today, defense spending is about 4 percent of GDP and less than 20 percent of federal spending. For this relatively small sum the U.S. had to deter major wars—including nuclear attacks on the homeland—contain innumerable local conflicts, create an environment in which a community of democratic nations emerged, grown, and flourished, and secured literally trillions of dollars of overseas investments, trade flows, and natural resources. It is a tragedy of epic proportions that all this should be put at risk."

How U.S. Military Power Holds the World Together – Jewish Policy Center

Nations, like nature, abhor a vacuum. It must be filled. How it is filled, by whom and with what are the challenging questions. Unlike nature, which seeks to fill a vacuum with whatever is handy and can be stuffed or sucked into the space available, nations rely on power, relationships and...

www.jewishpolicycenter.org

The whole article is very good...

The US military is not a force for good. It is a force for evil and has been for decades. This is indisputable. It doesn’t protect the homeland (see 9/11), it doesn’t prevent foreign military conflicts, and it MOST CERTAINLY doesn’t promote democracy in foreign lands.

History is full of militaristic empires that have destroyed themselves. The USG is no different and will destroy itself and maybe the world in the process.

 

[BrokeLoser]

Okay, let's all take thirty seconds, admit that we're killing this country, drop the ego, start communicating and get to work.

Get with your people on that….the people who insist on morphing America into something it was not intended to be are the people responsible for “killing it”. Let us who insist on protecting and preserving America know how that meeting of the twisted minds goes.

 

[gipper]

He wouldn't have HAD to bail out the banks if Bush hadn't let them give out shaky mortgages and then inflate their value and sell them as investments.

If he hadn't bailed out the banks, the Great Recession would have been ten times worse.

So let's look at foreclosures, shall we? Oh, wait, they peaked in 2010 and were cut by 2/3rds by the time Obama left.

Number of new mortgages a year.

MEANWHILE, the number of repeat homeowners increased on his watch.

Of course, I don't feel a LOT of sympathy for these people who were "Thrown out of their homes" because a lot of them NEVER should have gotten a mortgage from the git-go.


I compare my home buying experience in 2004 (where it was pretty easy to get a loan) to the one I did in 2021, where they pretty much asked for everything short of a colonoscopy to make sure I was a good risk.

Lol. The point is Joe your cultist love of O is foolish (just like a Trumper). You think it’s fine that he bailed out the criminal banks, but refuse to criticize him for doing nothing for millions of American families who lost their homes.

 

[justoffal]

Political overcompensation is the new Great American Pastime.

A few years ago, some of us were warning the Left: You're going too far with Political Correctness and Identity Politics. You're going too far screaming RACIST at every last fucking thing that moves. You're going too far lowering standards and expectations for people based solely on their skin color. You're going too far in normalizing sexual disorders such as gender dysphoria. You're going too far in putting your agenda in schools. You're going too far in disallowing conservative voices on college campuses. And most of all, you're going too far in attacking, intimidating and penalizing people in everyday life for saying things you don't like.

There's going to be pushback, we said. You're overcompensating, we said. This stuff is not right, we said. I only said that a few thousand times here, to be met with attacks from the Left. (By the way, a zillion examples of that available upon request via the search function)

So now we see the pushback, with this Neanderthal, middle school bully-approach to the culture from the Right. This is the pushback we warned about -- although, admittedly, even worse than I imagined. And this sucker has legs, just like your weaponized PC and Identity Politics did. They're making laws and attacking and intimidating. Gee, what a coincidence. What Deja Vu we're seeing, huh? Go figure!

And most amazing of all, this pushback included the election of a petulant child, an obvious con man, an orange buffoon, in 2016, and all the fucking unbelievable madness that has followed.

No doubt there will be pushback to this, too. Back and forth. Back and forth. More and more damage.

Ideological politics poisons everything it touches. Now it's putting this country at risk of falling apart. Great job, gang. You're BOTH so much like those you hate, and you just won't stop.

Young Republicans Are Begging Party Elders To Stop Saying 'Woke'

The next generation of conservatives support their party's culture wars. But they hate the way they describe them

www.rollingstone.com

Without going into any details.... I am simply going to agree with the post title.... We are killing our own nation by constantly looking for our differences instead of our similarities which I would posit are actually far greater than we choose to admit. This is a good post.

JO

 

[BrokeLoser]

The US military is not a force for good. It is a force for evil and has been for decades. This is indisputable. It doesn’t protect the homeland (see 9/11), it doesn’t prevent foreign military conflicts, and it MOST CERTAINLY doesn’t promote democracy in foreign lands.

History is full of militaristic empires that have destroyed themselves. The USG is no different and will destroy itself and maybe the world in the process.

It’s very existence alone is a “force for good”.
Had it not existed we would have been conquered long ago.

 

[j-mac]

Nope. I don't want this thread derailed.

If you're serious about this, start a thread on a topic that is important to you. Invite me, and I'll contribute. Pretty easy.

You're either serious, or you're not.

Well, I am serious Mac, and the premise of your thread is/was interesting enough that I totally put myself out there, wanted to further discussion, and when I did, you didn’t want to actually discuss the topic of your own thread title further, but rather tell me to start yet another thread…

is all you were looking for is validation of the simplistic, or we’re you serious about trying to find compromise? Because, cutting discussion doesn’t scream serious to me…But I’m listening.

 

[Mac1958]

Get with your people on that….the people who insist on morphing America into something it was not intended to be are the people responsible for “killing it”. Let us who insist on protecting and preserving America know how that meeting of the twisted minds goes.

My people want both ends of the spectrum to grow up. But we do know that there are people like you, who will not.

 

[Curried Goats]

My people want both ends of the spectrum to grow up. But we do know that there are people like you, who will not.

Sounds like you want lecture people about name calling while name calling.

 

[Mac1958]

Without going into any details.... I am simply going to agree with the post title.... We are killing our own nation by constantly looking for our differences instead of our similarities which I would posit are actually far greater than we choose to admit. This is a good post.

JO

Thanks.

We've gone so far down this screwed up road that even admitting that we HAVE similarities seems to be equated with weakness and capitulation.

But yeah, just being able to admit where we have similarities would be an excellent first move. Baby steps, I guess.

 

[Mac1958]

Sounds like you want lecture people about name calling while name calling.

Then don't read my posts.

 

[Curried Goats]

Then don't read my posts.

I do it for the LOLs.

 

[BrokeLoser]

My people want both ends of the spectrum to grow up. But we do know that there are people like you, who will not.

What does that even mean?
What more do you want Conservatives to do to preserve, protect and improve America?
Remember, keeping America intact was always the primary bond between the citizenry…we have never in our history had such a large faction of the population so hell-bent on restructuring/redesigning America.

 

[BrokeLoser]

Thanks.

We've gone so far down this screwed up road that even admitting that we HAVE similarities seems to be equated with weakness and capitulation.

But yeah, just being able to admit where we have similarities would be an excellent first move. Baby steps, I guess.

justoffal our very few “similarities“ are too few, too deep and too meaningless while our differences are all over the surface and extremely impactful in real world practice.

 

[gipper]

It’s very existence alone is a “force for good”.
Had it not existed we would have been conquered long ago.

Lol. You’re living in a fantasy world.

This isn’t 1941.

 

[BrokeLoser]

Lol. You’re living in a fantasy world.

This isn’t 1941.

What does that mean?
If we had Canada’s military do you think China and or Russia would attack us?

 

[gipper]

What does that mean?
If we had Canada’s military do you think China and or Russia would attack us?

Lol. You’re confusing things.

 

[j-mac]

The US military is not a force for good. It is a force for evil and has been for decades. This is indisputable. It doesn’t protect the homeland (see 9/11), it doesn’t prevent foreign military conflicts, and it MOST CERTAINLY doesn’t promote democracy in foreign lands.

History is full of militaristic empires that have destroyed themselves. The USG is no different and will destroy itself and maybe the world in the process.

Oh no, I simply can not agree with any of this…