Republican Pork

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You have a remarkably short memory. Selective, too.

Ida know...because that's their job? Because when you shout over and over that Obama is wrecking our country and that your side can do things better, you'd better be able to prove that correct by coming up with a sound alternative that generates public support, so that IF Obama's agenda does fail, your side can say "if it'd been done our way, this is where we'd be now" and list specific projections. Instead, they've been undermining Obama's agenda with no viable alternative strategy, which, again, is their job. The very same clowns, I might add, who branded any legitimate criticisms of the last administration's policies as 'treason' or 'aid and comfort to our enemies.' Any party that displayed such vindictive, childish incompetence would cease to get my vote. Your mileage may vary.

UPDATE: This is more or less what I'm talking about.



As to the nutball bloggers, you miss two very key points. One: as Chandos said, it's you and martaug who regularly post with stenographic precision the opinions of right-wing bloggers, so much that it makes SP a virtual one-stop for the days headlines. It's you two, and guys like you, who ensure that the nutball bloggers don't get ignored. Two: it is expected for bloggers, who are accountable to no one, to make outrageous claims like "Obama is a Marxist" or "Obama wasn't born in the US" or "Obama's after the Fairness Doctrine!" or other silly conspiracy theories that anyone with an ounce of common sense would disregard (Bushitler and the 9/11 truther nonsense being two good examples from the other end).

The difference is, when the elected leaders of your party are getting in on the nutball action too, it's not only really scary, but it forces a response, whereas bloggers can simply be ignored. See the difference? The Democrats had one such elected official in recent years: Cynthia McKinney. But the difference I see in the two parties is, McKinney was run out of town and lost her seat. Dems these days pay a price for crazy, over-the-top partisanship. Republicans reward it and emulate it.

In any event - when you say things like "The current administration and its supporters seem to be more interested in what their critics are saying then doing anything," it makes me wonder where the hell you come up with this stuff. As a supporter myself who knows a great deal of fellow supporters, I have no idea where you get this from, since no one I know or read about is doing what you're saying. The way we see it, they ARE doing what they think is best and are doing a hell of a lot; And since it benefits us all, we hope they succeed. It makes us wonder how the leaders of your party could spend the last 8 years questioning everyone else's patriotism and then now, when they're out of power, openly hope for the new President to fail. It also makes me think you spend far too much time listening to echo-chamber opposition voices who are trying to create a narrative, rather than presenting reasonable criticism worthy of a response. By passing these "observations" along without really giving them much thought, you're doing their dirty work for them. This is how memes float to the surface, all the way up to the top levels of the party - where, yes, they eventually grow loud enough that they require a response from the leaders in the other party, no matter how silly the issue. So perhaps you shouldn't be complaining about a process you are an active participant in.

 

Have you lost your F***ing mind?
The democrats party as a whole is so partisan that the republicans could never raise to that level if they voted no on EVERY bill a democrat sponsored for the next 25 year straight.
It's funny that every critisicm that you are leveling at us are ones that we leveled against you over the past few years.
DR, the republicans came up with a stimulus package that even the GOA agreed would create more jobs & cost much less than obama's but it was rejected out of hand by the democrats because it didn't have all of their wishlists worth of crap in it.

Get over it, your party is as corrupt, if not more so, than the republicans can ever be.

 

Only in right-wing echo chamber world, martaug. You don't possess an ounce of perspective. That's exactly why you're part of the problem.

 

Haha! And you think you do(have perspective)?
Only in left wing echo chamber world.
You are one of the most(if not the most) biased people i have ever met.

 

Then you need to get out more.

 

Hehe, you and i sniping at each other doesn't do either of us any good.
How about going over to the obama adminstration thread and debate my post that has actual facts in it.
Our individual perspectives will never agree on just about anything political(well maybe the legalizing drug bit but not much else).

 

No, actually - I won't. There is no point in attempting honest debate with you. You don't argue in good faith.

You begin with the thesis of "liberals suck, Obama sucks" and then you go out and seek "facts" to support that thesis. You basically argue backwards. You never read a newspaper article or series of articles on a subject, consider the facts, then draw your own conclusions and form an opinion worth debating. Instead, you go to heavily-biased blogs and "Politifact" where someone else has already drawn a conclusion for you that you already agree with and post it here, conveniently ignoring facts and conclusions that contradict your thesis. How often does Politifact side with Obama? Fairly often, from the few times I've been there. Do you ever post those here, too, or do those not count?

If I'm going to debate, I'd rather debate your opinion and conclusions, not someone else's. If you're too lazy to form your own opinion, I'm not going to waste my time dignifying your posts with a response. When you feel like changing your tactics, let me know.

UPDATE: After giving it some thought, I have to acknowledge that you are indeed trying, though it is difficult to consider you sincere. I will give you the benefit of the doubt, this time.

 

I've found most people argue this way. A person forms an opinion based on experience, reading a position, statement from someone that person respects, fiction, or simply a gut feeling. Information is then sorted out into "fact" (stuff that agrees with me) and "lies" (stuff I don't like). I see it in nearly every argument -- at work, at home, with my family, and here on the boards.

 

Welcome to the world of cognitive psychology. Or cognitive science. Or...

well. The outlook is rather bleak, really. The human mind is a pigeon-holing machine, and is extremely efficient when it comes to confirmation and selection bias.

 

[We really don't need you commenting on other members, thank-you-very-much - dmc]

It is true that everything Reps are being criticized for now are the same things Dems were criticized for during Bush's terms. It is true that Reps are also behaving about as badly as the Dems did. Guess what, I'm not surprised. Both are major politicial parties with a great deal of corruption in them and a great deal to loose in letting people see that. Both know that their only real options are 1.) massive reform (good luck) or 2.) getting the public to look more at the faults of the other side than at them. Unfortunately for the Dems right now, option 2 only really works when the 'other guy' is the one in power. It worked for them as long as Bush was in charge, and it's probably going to work for the Reps now that Obama is in charge.

And guess what, nothing's going to change any time soon. The best bet that the Dems have is to sit down and do things right so that there's less to criticize them for. Actually, the Dems have a halfway decent chance of doing that if they stick to their ideology. The only change I'd make is to spend less money in giving and more in paying. More people need a stable income right now than tax breaks.

 

Well said. Maybe the way you said it will get through as when I or Martaug try to explain this it seems to get people upset.

 

I can agree with what Nog said, for the most part. I've never said the Dems were perfect, either. They have a hell of a lot of work to do. That's why though I often vote for Dems, I will never register as one. What gets us upset is the argument that the Dems are "just as bad" as the Republicans, specifically when you look at the last decade, and what we see as the Republicans' inability to take responsibility for anything. Only by employing selective memory and frankly, being suckered by talk-radio blather, is that statement correct. Especially when you expect us to take you seriously when you think Obama using a teleprompter is a big deal, while I and others like me were dismissed as "Bush Bashers" when we voiced our concerns about WMDs, terror policies, outrageous spending, etc. You know...actual issues.

I only became politically aware during the end of the Clinton administration. So I will concede that the Dems may very well have been as vapid and terribly corrupt during the 80s and 90's as the Republicans would have us believe. Suffice to say, at the time, I believed it all and considered myself a Republican and especially early on in Bush's first term, defended them. I honestly don't know and don't care to do any digging to find out the political reality back then - it's hardly relevant today. All I know is what I have carefully observed since Monica Lewinsky until today. And I can honestly say - straight up, no bias - that the Democrats don't hold a candle to the Republicans in terms of criminal behavior, dirty campaigning, hypocracy, sycophancy, slavery to the most extreme elements of their movement, deliberately misinforming their supporters and just good old-fashioned incompetence. This is not merely my opinion, the facts support me on this. The Dems have all of these problems and more, believe me I know this. But you can't honestly look at the two parties and tell me they are equally rotten without me thinking you're deeply, deeply misinformed and intellectually dishonest.

 

Funny, I can't read that without thinking that you are horribly naive and self-delusional. No offense intended.

 

Coming from a fan of Michelle Malkin, I can't say that means very much. No offense intended.

 

Yes, because that's actually NOT what you say, TGS. NOG is right on target, IMO. And he gets a plus rep from me for at least trying to strike a good balance in his comments.

I agree with that statement completely. Nice.

 

I disagree. There are equal amounts of corruption in both parties. But then, I live in Illinois and have a deeper perspective of just how bad both parties can be. Politicians from both parties are in prison. Politicians from both parties are being investigated for corruption.

I believe you are confusing opinion with fact. The two parties have the same general long-term goal (make America better), they just have a different way of doing it and different priorities -- that does not make either of them "wrong" but may make one "wrong for you." There's absolutely nothing wrong with "wrong for you" or being passionate about a position.

To quote myself from an earlier post:

You two remind me of a young officer I knew when I first entered the military. There was a group of us in a debate about how officers were treated differently than enlisted -- to the extent of different speech was required around officers. The young officer disagreed vehemently stating, "You can say anything you want to an officer as long as you use the word 'sir.'"

To which one of the enlisted said, "F*** you ... SIR."

At which point the officer agreed there were differences.

"No offence intended" seems a lot like that "SIR."

 

I agree with this completely, T2 - I've often said the same myself. But respectfully, I don't think you got what I was saying. Perhaps I could have been more clear. I didn't mean "rotten" in terms of personal preference, because a conservative will almost always see the Democrats as "more rotten" than a liberal, and vice versa. And I did concede that both parties are full of corruption.

My point of contention is the degree and the scale of the party's overall dysfunction. And on a side-by-side comparison, overall and presently, it is obvious (to me, at least) that the balance is rather lopsided. For example: right now there are 24 current and former members of congress under investigation or indictment by ethics committees or law enforcement. 18 of them are Republicans, including the former House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay. That's 3 times as many as the Democrats. This is not simply my opinion.

Having lived in Chicago myself, grown up in Utah, and currently living in Texas has also shaped my perspective. But I guess that's true for anyone.

 

The number of democrats vs. republicans in hot water shifts constantly. If we look again in two or three years the number could very well be reversed. I just make the assumption that all politicians are crooks and I'm usually pleasantly surprised.

We must have crossed paths a few times. I did undergrad at Utah, grad school in Austin, and now live in Chicago.

 

UT? Great School. And it's not easy to get into their grad program either. It's way better than A&M (and its Republican HQ) at the Bush library.

 

Straight out of the Navy I was a TA for freshman chemistry. Wow. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The hot Austin summer and beautiful young women made for interesting classes. The program was good too.