Fuck unity

[Keith&Co.]

I'm not a fan of the water! Love flying though

So, everyone gets a helo, one carrier per household.

Why?? If we don't need "unity" how about helo for everyone self identifying as a democrat. To hell with those republicans. Nothing for those meanies!

But that's just it. Thry SAY the only reason people vote Democrat is to get free stuff. And pretend to be above that. But did the RNC ever give them a helo?

 

[Jarhyn]

Why?? If we don't need "unity" how about helo for everyone self identifying as a democrat. To hell with those republicans. Nothing for those meanies!

But that's just it. Thry SAY the only reason people vote Democrat is to get free stuff. And pretend to be above that. But did the RNC ever give them a helo?

Depends on how rich they already were...

 

[Harry Bosch]

Why?? If we don't need "unity" how about helo for everyone self identifying as a democrat. To hell with those republicans. Nothing for those meanies!

But that's just it. Thry SAY the only reason people vote Democrat is to get free stuff. And pretend to be above that. But did the RNC ever give them a helo?

No the RNC never gave them a helo. But they sure as shootin protected their god given rights to an AK-47 from the godless heathens on the left.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Well there's the thing - if you claim to be a supporter of social progress, and and that you're an overall good, helpful person - but your actions have negative consequences and are counter to those goals, does that not cause some sense of cognitive dissonance? What is your motive for insulting Trump supporters? What are you trying to accomplish?

I know you're trying to make me feel bad about insulting abusers who claim I don't deserve to exist, but I'm not falling for it.

Sometimes my actions (punching nazis)

Saying you think it is good doesn't mean you have actually done it.

 

[bilby]

Sometimes my actions (punching nazis)

Saying you think it is good doesn't mean you have actually done it.

Next contestant, Mrs. Sybil Fawlty from Torquay. Specialist subject - the bleeding obvious.

 

[excreationist]

BTW in Australia there's Pauline Hanson's "One Nation" even though they are in a small minority. There was also the billionaire Clive Palmer's "United Australia" party.

It implies that the party members have to follow whatever the party policy is....

 

[Angry Floof]

And as usual, the liberal redneck offers clarity on the topic:

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5AAoOFw28o[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Sometimes my actions (punching nazis)

Saying you think it is good doesn't mean you have actually done it.

Next contestant, Mrs. Sybil Fawlty from Torquay. Specialist subject - the bleeding obvious.

Saying Jahryn has never actually punched any "Nazis" probably is pretty bleeding obvious.

 

[bilby]

Next contestant, Mrs. Sybil Fawlty from Torquay. Specialist subject - the bleeding obvious.

Saying Jahryn has never actually punched any "Nazis" probably is pretty bleeding obvious.

Not really; But then, you didn't say that.

"Saying you think it is good doesn't mean you have actually done it".

Facts exist. It's a fact that that is the thing you said to which I was responding. To pretend otherwise is insane, in the most literal sense.

 

[Jarhyn]

Next contestant, Mrs. Sybil Fawlty from Torquay. Specialist subject - the bleeding obvious.

Saying Jahryn has never actually punched any "Nazis" probably is pretty bleeding obvious.

Not really; But then, you didn't say that.

"Saying you think it is good doesn't mean you have actually done it".

Facts exist. It's a fact that that is the thing you said to which I was responding. To pretend otherwise is insane, in the most literal sense.

Like, I don't get what's so hard to understand. I mean, the fact is, I'm not about to talk about what I have done in the past. All it would be doing is violent, psychopathic chest beating. Jason can have his opinions about who I am and what I will do and why, and Jason can be as wrong as he wants; it is indeed his right.

I have not, in fact, ever punched a Nazi. No Nazi has ever given me the chance, as all such persons who may have passed through my life are too much of bitches in general to expose themselves in that way.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm not interested in unity with Trump supporters. They are the same people they were before the election, the source of most of the harm done in past 4 years, and they will find another conduit to exert their agenda.

Simply put, there is little to have unity with Trump supporters on. They are rather apolitical and scream about freedom, but when they do, they are specifically speaking of their own, not the freedom of others... of which in this pandemic, they seemingly have no trouble restricting other people's freedom so they can be free.

 

[rousseau]

I should say: I do not think that all Republicans are "bad people" who to a man want every one not like them to die or be reduced to menial servitude. But if they support politicians who do, what good do their fundamentally beautiful souls do for those of us who stand to be the targets of their regime?

A few things - Conservatism is not, in itself, always bad, and Liberalism is not in itself always good. No doubt conservatism tends toward the selfish side of the spectrum, and liberalism tends toward the giving side, but conservatism can be realistic and liberalism can be unrealistic. The reality is that we live in a world of real, material constraints, and some elements of conservatism help us stay within those constraints.

I'm friends with many bleeding heart NDP supporters on social media, and their heart is consistently in the right place, but few of them seem to be able to acknowledge the aforementioned reality - we can't just arbitrarily get everything we want, all the time. The issue they seem to have is that they look at hard-line Conservatives and see the diametric opposite issue - people who are selfish beyond repair.

In reality most people don't exist on the fringes, and even on the Conservative side there is a lot of variation among 47 million voters. And that's largely what I'm getting at - right now what's happening isn't working so someone has to do something different than they were doing before, and that someone certainly isn't going to be the conservative base, so that leaves the liberal side to try to turn the ship around. On some level you need to pull some Conservatives in the right direction, rather than creating more polarity and hatred.

So if liberals are going to do nothing but continue to characterize half of their country as evil and beyond repair then you're just going to get more of what's happening now - continued fracture, more entrenched conservatism, and more leaders like Trump. And unfortunately that's all I'm really seeing from the liberal side - constant vitriol, which ironically is similarly inhumane to the behaviour that comes from the right.

If all we're going to do is scream at each other and call each other morons, maybe the ship deserves to go down.

 

[prideandfall]

A few things - Conservatism is not, in itself, always bad

i need to take a moment here to respectfully disagree with this.
even putting aside the issue of morals and ethics and one's ideology on a political spectrum, can anyone post any incident in the history of the human species where political or social conservatism lead to a positive outcome for the forward progress of human civilization?
anything at all... one single time that anything on the right side of the political spectrum (or culturally regressive behavior) ended up serving the betterment of mankind in any way?

obviously i'm talking about the sociopolitical incarnation of "conservatism" and so bringing up roosevelt "conserving" nature isn't a valid example, i mean aggressively pro-corporate, anti-liberal, anti-society, fuck-you-i-got-mine, anti-government but also extremely authoritarian, cultural-bigotry conservatism... is there a single identifiable thing it has ever produced in the history of the human race of any even vaguely definable value?

 

[Jarhyn]

A few things - Conservatism is not, in itself, always bad

i need to take a moment here to respectfully disagree with this.
even putting aside the issue of morals and ethics and one's ideology on a political spectrum, can anyone post any incident in the history of the human species where political or social conservatism lead to a positive outcome for the forward progress of human civilization?
anything at all... one single time that anything on the right side of the political spectrum (or culturally regressive behavior) ended up serving the betterment of mankind in any way?

obviously i'm talking about the sociopolitical incarnation of "conservatism" and so bringing up roosevelt "conserving" nature isn't a valid example, i mean aggressively pro-corporate, anti-liberal, anti-society, fuck-you-i-got-mine, anti-government but also extremely authoritarian, cultural-bigotry conservatism... is there a single identifiable thing it has ever produced in the history of the human race of any even vaguely definable value?

See, this is the thing: being a progressive does not imply any fundamental inability to tolerate "things staying as they are"; rather it merely implies a personally acknowledged obligation to always ask "are things, as they are, understood as the best of all alternatives?"

The problem with conservatives is that they oppose change not after a reasoned analysis but rather "for the sake of conserving what is". It is healthy to be nervous about change! The difference is that progressives turn that nervousness towards vetting (and often rejecting!) changes while conservatives use that nervousness to run screaming from ANY proposed changes like a little bitch.

I recall this whole discussion is fairly laid out by Camus in "The Rebel", and suggest it as a fantastic read in understanding the philosophy of saying NO!

 

[prideandfall]

See, this is the thing: being a progressive does not imply any fundamental inability to tolerate "things staying as they are"; rather it merely implies a personally acknowledged obligation to always ask "are things, as they are, understood as the best of all alternatives?"

The problem with conservatives is that they oppose change not after a reasoned analysis but rather "for the sake of conserving what is". It is healthy to be nervous about change! The difference is that progressives turn that nervousness towards vetting (and often rejecting!) changes while conservatives use that nervousness to run screaming from ANY proposed changes like a little bitch.

i was arguing with my mother about politics and she was vaguely bitching about 'democrats' and how i'm a 'bleeding heart liberal' and i said that liberalism is demonstrably and observably the better ideology because i can list 100 things that have come out of liberalism that improved the human condition, and there is nothing conservatism has ever done for anyone.
she couldn't think of an example either, but of course she didn't then stop and think about the implications of that because why would she?

anyways the rhetorical point stuck out to me and now i'm curious about the input of other people - seriously, can anyone come up with even a single example of anything that came out conservatism being a net positive for society?

 

[rousseau]

A few things - Conservatism is not, in itself, always bad

i need to take a moment here to respectfully disagree with this.
even putting aside the issue of morals and ethics and one's ideology on a political spectrum, can anyone post any incident in the history of the human species where political or social conservatism lead to a positive outcome for the forward progress of human civilization?
anything at all... one single time that anything on the right side of the political spectrum (or culturally regressive behavior) ended up serving the betterment of mankind in any way?

obviously i'm talking about the sociopolitical incarnation of "conservatism" and so bringing up roosevelt "conserving" nature isn't a valid example, i mean aggressively pro-corporate, anti-liberal, anti-society, fuck-you-i-got-mine, anti-government but also extremely authoritarian, cultural-bigotry conservatism... is there a single identifiable thing it has ever produced in the history of the human race of any even vaguely definable value?

I left an example in my post - it's value is that it constrains liberalism from getting out of hand. Yes conservative policies are often regressive, but fringe left policies are also often unrealistic - they counter-balance each other. This keeps us bound to the centre where we take helpful elements from both sides.

The error is the liberal idea of progress. Progress isn't getting to a point where everyone sits around doing nothing all day, receiving the very best healthcare. Progress is a country not declining into anarchy because of stupid policy on either wing. Yes I'll grant you that the U.S. is leaning too far to the right.

 

[prideandfall]

I left an example in my post - it's value is that it constrains liberalism from getting out of hand. Yes conservative policies are often regressive, but fringe left policies are also often unrealistic - they counter-balance each other. This keeps us bound to the centre where we take helpful elements from both sides.

so hang on, the only thing you can think of that political conservatism has ever done for the benefit of the human species is "stop things from getting too liberal"?

The error is the liberal idea of progress. Progress isn't getting to a point where everyone sits around doing nothing all day, receiving the very best healthcare.

wait, what?
by hook or by crook, a utopia that has eliminated resource scarcity should always be the eventual long term goal of civilization - anything else being the sought after eventual outcome is fucking stupid.
are you saying that progress is a vision of a human species that for the rest of its physical existence unto the heat death of the universe is wage slavery and resource inequality?

Progress is a country not declining into anarchy because of stupid policy on either wing. Yes I'll grant you that the U.S. is leaning too far to the right.

ah, i see the problem.
the word you're looking for is stability within the current technological era.
that isn't progress, that's not advancing the human condition - and, history has shown repeatedly, that kind of stability leads to the very factors which cause anarchy in the first place: wealth inequality, the amassing of resources to the few at the expense of the many, destruction of the environment for the sake of it being cheaper, etc etc.

technological and social advancement aren't just 'better', they are *mandatory* for the survival of the human race.

 

[rousseau]

so hang on, the only thing you can think of that political conservatism has ever done for the benefit of the human species is "stop things from getting too liberal"?


wait, what?
by hook or by crook, a utopia that has eliminated resource scarcity should always be the eventual long term goal of civilization - anything else being the sought after eventual outcome is fucking stupid.
are you saying that progress is a vision of a human species that for the rest of its physical existence unto the heat death of the universe is wage slavery and resource inequality?

Progress is a country not declining into anarchy because of stupid policy on either wing. Yes I'll grant you that the U.S. is leaning too far to the right.

ah, i see the problem.
the word you're looking for is stability within the current technological era.
that isn't progress, that's not advancing the human condition - and, history has shown repeatedly, that kind of stability leads to the very factors which cause anarchy in the first place: wealth inequality, the amassing of resources to the few at the expense of the many, destruction of the environment for the sake of it being cheaper, etc etc.

technological and social advancement aren't just 'better', they are *mandatory* for the survival of the human race.

I think you're misinterpreting and misrepresenting my viewpoint. Sure - I think if most people could flick a utopia switch and solve all of our problems they'd do it. I have no qualms with the concept of a utopia. My point is that this type of vision obscures the fragile reality that we're living in right now. Hopeful, progressive politicians will push hard to the left while ignoring the things they need to do right now to not completely fuck your country over. It's not about changing the U.S. overnight, it's about avoiding catastrophe - actual progress - which is my point.

And yes, political conservatism constraining liberalism is a strong benefit. The USSR serves as a pretty good example of what happens when this constraint isn't there.

 

[prideandfall]

I think you're misinterpreting and misrepresenting my viewpoint. Sure - I think if most people could flick a utopia switch and solve all of our problems they'd do it. I have no qualms with the concept of a utopia. My point is that this type of vision obscures the fragile reality that we're living in right now.

well i suppose that depends on what you consider 'fragile reality' and what you consider 'obscuring'

can you think of an example?

Hopeful, progressive politicians will push hard to the left while ignoring the things they need to do right now to not completely fuck your country over. It's not about changing the U.S. overnight, it's about avoiding catastrophe - actual progress - which is my point.

such as?

And yes, political conservatism constraining liberalism is a strong benefit. The USSR serves as a pretty good example of what happens when this constraint isn't there.

how so? the USSR isn't now nor has it been in the last 200 years remotely liberal or progressive, so i don't see how this is in any way relevant.

 

[rousseau]

well i suppose that depends on what you consider 'fragile reality' and what you consider 'obscuring'

can you think of an example?

You guys are inches away from voting in an actual, competent populist. This is likely a worthwhile, immediate goal to think about.