Dateline East Asia : Citizens of Japan and South Korea cringe as rude , bloated , sociopathic American leader arrives to pledge his support against rude , bloated , sociopathic North Korean leader.
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Dateline East Asia : Citizens of Japan and South Korea cringe as rude , bloated , sociopathic American leader arrives to pledge his support against rude , bloated , sociopathic North Korean leader.
Some cunt should kidnap the pair of them and get them to slug it out, naked, in a big vat of tapioca.Quote:
Originally Posted by sukumvit boy
Then flush the pair of them.
And that's my thought for the day!
And no sushi, no sashimi, no fish food no Udon. Just burgers and fries. Make America Fat Again.Quote:
Originally Posted by sukumvit boy
Congrats to my fellow Virginians who swept the election tonight, we even elected a transgendered politician to the House of Delegates!!! This has been a terrible year for me, and this country, I hope tonight is a turn-around.
My thought for today is that as long as the 5% of humans alive who call themselves Americans own 25% of the world's wealth...........you will never hear a politician talk without forked tongue. Money is the root of all evil, but it's also the root of all good. And like Casey Stengel said "I been rich and I been poor, and I liked being rich better"
Sorry, Bernie.
Anyway, I'll be back next year for hopefully a landslide mid-term election. Unless the Republicans just got scared straight and start accomplishing things. Ciao.
One dreads to think what the Republicans think an accomplishment might be...welcome back, dude!Quote:
Originally Posted by buttslinger
WELCOME BACK BUTTSLINGER. Long time, no see.
That would be things like big tax cuts for the very rich and causing millions to lose health insurance - sure to be big vote-winners. And there's one guy who won't be scared straight no matter what:Quote:
Originally Posted by buttslinger
"Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump
Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for. Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before!
12:40 PM - Nov 8, 2017"
Child Marriage in the USA continues to perplex me, not least the bizarre situation in Alabama where a man called Luther Strange was beaten to the Republican Party nomination for the Senate by Roy Moore, an elderly man who rides around town on a horse while wearing a cowboy hat and kneels before the Ten Commandments engraved in stone...ironically, although in Alabama a 14 year old girl legally married a 74-year old man, child marriage in the state is actually in decline, and one hopes, a decline welcomed by Roy. I don't know if the allegations about him and teenage girls is true, but again you have to wonder at people who defend their bud with this nonsense:
A senior Alabama politician, Ziegler argues the Bible makes it clear there is no offence when it comes to such an age discrepancy, or the youth of one of the participants.
“Take the Bible — Zachariah and Elizabeth, for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist,” Ziegler told the Washington Examiner.
“Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus ...
“There’s just nothing immoral or illegal here,” Ziegler asserted. “Maybe just a little bit unusual.”
http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/rea...56d7114ccbbcf6
-Hmmm... Mr Ziegler, a little but unusual...
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/201...ill_legal.html
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/fed.../558/case.html
A post on another thread reminded me that only 15 years ago it was permissible for states to lock up adults having consensual same-sex relations in the privacy of their homes. Here the Supreme Court held that it violated due process, with three dissenting opinions, by Scalia, joined by Rehnquist, and Thomas.
Just a reminder, all three dissenters were considered the most conservative justices on the court appointed by Republican Presidents. So while I am not saying every Republican is homophobic, it is simply false to claim that Republicans were merely against the rights of same sex couples to marry. The discrimination has been uglier than that and the history of it is very recent.
For those not interested in the entire case (I don't blame you), here are summaries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_v._Texas ; https://www.oyez.org/cases/2002/02-102Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
Jerry Lee Lewis blew England's mind when he visited with his 13 year old wife who was also his cousin........Remember that, Stavros? ha ha.
Just 75 years ago we were dead center in a war that killed millions of people, we were pals with "Uncle Joe" Stalin because he was better than Hitler. Stalin made Putin look like a choir boy. Outside of New York City, the USA was Hicksville, and if you get far enough outside the cities, it still is.
Time has flown, but let me get to my two pressing thoughts of the day:
1) Will Trump's hair ever turn grey?
2) Will Oprah buy me a new car when She's President?
https://image.ibb.co/jFBoCR/00.jpg
I wanted to address the points made in the other thread about political labels sometimes being used to lump dissimilar views together. Sometimes this tactic of labeling a person's viewpoint, which might otherwise be described granularly, is really an attempt to engage in guilt by association. One might say, "you are a Republican and therefore are responsible for what other Republicans believe, even if you hold an exception or two." Further, it often greatly simplifies the analysis to place views on a left-right axis when the tenets of right wing politics for instance are not necessarily coextensive with each other. It is possible to pick and choose without contradicting one's self.
On the other hand, one is responsible not only for their particular views but for the principles that underpin those views. If a person holds out too many exceptions because they find their political allies too extreme, it's possible they really do not want to follow their principles to their logical conclusion. In that case, maybe the principle is wrong. Therefore, I think it's sometimes reasonable to say, "look at what those who agree with you believe. They are the ones being consistent. You are the one who wants to make too many ad hoc exceptions."
Any thoughts?
“Either lay off politics, or get out.” -Rick Blaine, CasablancaQuote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
The US Constitution never talked about a two party system, if an Administration does a fantastic job, watch out, because the party on the outside is going to use every trick in the book to get back into power. Rock Paper Scissors.
The Republicans lost the 2016 election. Even more bizarre is that the white working class males who voted for Trump by all rights should be Union Men. AKA Democrats. Bizarrer still is that Trump is the LAST person that should represent poor white working class lost souls.
I'll let Stavros and Trish answer your question thoughtfully, Broncofan, but unless you're from the planet Vulcan, nothing makes sense anymore. Republicans were supposed to fall in line while Democrats were supposed to fall in Love, the opposite happened, and now the rules have changed. Insanity Rules. (maybe literally)
When Coach Jim Valvano was dying of cancer, he said he didn't really mind going himself, it was about the people around him, you can't separate yourself from others. You can't really be a good debater unless you can win over the opposition, and on that thought, it's not the Democratic Party, It's the Republicans that are guilty as sin and are to blame. Them and Fox News, Jesus hated hypocrites most of all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
To be a good debater you only have to know how to win over the judges. In this forum the judges are the people who are reading (or those who will read) these threads. The obvious misapplication of labels to those who argue rationally and with integrity will be easily spotted by most observers as a dishonest and shallow ploy to win the applause of other small-minded, viewers; it won’t do much to persuade minds worth winning.Quote:
Originally Posted by buttslinger
When using labels, try to use them fairly. If someone objects to the way you labeled them it may be time for a discussion why they don’t feel comfortable, what they believe and how that compares to what the label implies they believe.
Sometimes this ‘implication’ can be interpreted as ‘logical implication’; e.g. if you are a flat-Earther, then you believe the Earth is flat (because that’s what it means to be a flat-Earther). But it follows from the flat-Earth hypothesis that still water has a tendency to flow down drains in the same direction everywhere on Earth. So when I meet a flat-Earther (I very rarely do) I assume they believe water flows down drains the same way in both the Northern and the Southern hemispheres. The same would apply to the directions in which cyclones and hurricanes rotate. If a flat-Earther insisted cyclones rotate oppositely to hurricanes, I would point out the logical inconsistency with his initial presumption. I would insist upon this point until he modified his Flat-Earthiness in such a way as to allow for the observed phenomenon.
Other times this ‘implication’ is more probabilistic. E.g. if you are a U.S. citizen and a gun collector, it might be assumed you’re a member of the NRA, or that you hunt, or that you’re Republican and yet none of these things need be true. These associations derive from a census but not from any principle to which gun collectors universally subscribe - at least not one I have discerned.
Sometimes people like to work both the implication and the converse. If someone is liberal they must believe in global warming. If someone endorses the science behind global warming, they must be liberal. Of course neither of these is a legitimate deduction because neither follows logically from the other. It may be reasonable to make an assumption based on census, but when someone replies that you presumed wrong, it seems a bit silly to insist otherwise.
The other situation is when someone insists that they are - say - lovers of abstract expressionism and when engaged they seem to dislike every painting or sculpture that came out of the movement, except for three compositions by Willem de Kooning. The rest just don’t measure up the ideal espoused in the imaginary manifesto that lives in their head. Then you’re just dealing with a loon we’d all do better to ignore. By loon I just mean a species of water fowl that...
In fact this has happened before with the so-called 'Reagan Democrats' who voted for him in the 1980s. Blue collar workers may have felt alienated from the Democrats at a time when 'identity politics' had appeared to become more important to the Party than bread and butter issues like jobs, the sad fact being that Clinton won the blue collar vote back but took the Democrats even further away from their immediate concerns, or at least, by failing to bridge the gap between rich and poor, perpetuated the sins of the Republican party. The centre ground of politics shifted under Reagan and Clinton didn't think an election could be won if they moved if back to where it had been under LBJ.Quote:
Originally Posted by buttslinger
That the two party system has such a problem with taxes may be the one indicator that begs the question: why have we become so terrified of taxes? Because it is as true of politics in the UK as it is in the USA.
It seems to me that American Conservatives have always had to deal with an internal contradiction. On the one hand you have the rational Conservatives who believe in a small state, low taxation, little or no regulation, and maximum individual liberty -think William F. Buckley, Bill and Irving Kristol along with Robert Nozick's challenge to Rawls. But there are also the Conservatives for whom the Bible is more important than the Constitution, who do not base their policies on reason but faith, and who believe individual liberty should be subject to the 'laws of God' and thus are opposed to same-sex relations as indeed they were opposed to inter-racial relations and marriage which was at one time illegal in the USA. Thus, for some Conservatives, a liberal view of individual freedom has no problem with same-sex marriage, where for others it is anathema. There may also be a North-South factor where Northern Conservatives are 'liberal' on race, where the South with its legacy of slavery and a romantic attachment to Dixie believes Civil Rights were and are a mistake.
That the Republican Party chose a candidate who is, in reality, an independent, suggests that they could not decide among the other candidates which one was closest to their position, be it the Constitution or the Bible, a choice if you prefer, between Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz, or between John Kasich and Marco Rubio. Sadly for American politics, the Democrats are also confused as to what direction they should be heading in. At some point, taxes will have to be addressed as the key mechanism for paying off the debt and reducing disparities in income, but can either party promise that jobs and income will return to what they are thought to have been in the good old days?
It is because neither party appears to have answers to basic questions that democracy is under challenge in the US as it is in the UK but for different reasons. The proposition that 'drastic measures' are needed to fix a 'broken' system is a gift to unconventional politics as we see in the White House today. But suppose those drastic measures only makes things worse? 2018 will be a fascinating year, but I don't see much coherence returning to either Republicans or Democrats.
If we all had law degrees, we could have a good discussion about Post #492.
But just like the debate for President, or the Decision to leave the European Union, the final decisions here are made by folks who are more interested in deciding which Tranny has the best dick, or does digging a transsexual make me gay?
Mob Mentality used to be contained by a Political Party that chose their best Candidate available, and a 4th Estate that fairly refereed the fight. It could be that the NYSE is actually running the Country, I don't know. All I know is hearsay.
A man named Johann Hari has recently written a book about depression that he has advertised by writing an op-ed in the Guardian about. Johann Hari is a journalist who a few years ago was accused of plagiarism and of making pejorative edits to the wikipedia entries of various other journalists. From his article in the guardian, it seems Mr. Hari does not understand even the most basic things about depression and spends the entire article arguing against strawmen. Nowhere in the article does he mention the current theory of what is taking place in the brains of depressed people but instead focuses on the advertisements by pharmaceutical companies that are more than a decade old. He doesn't appear to acknowledge that depression is not a single disease, that there are subtypes of depression that each respond differently to different treatment modalities.
He makes highly misleading statements about temporary mood shifts in response to adverse life events that he thinks bolster his argument that depression is simply the way a completely healthy person's brain responds to adversity. It is true that a person who does not have depression can develop depression if you expose them to an unceasing stream of calamities. But what makes it depression and not simply grief is that the symptoms are not extinguished long after the adverse circumstances disappear. If the symptoms persist in the face of circumstances that should not in any objective sense cause distress, the person has depression.
What he does not realize is that doctors recognize that adverse life events can cause depression, but that once a person has depression, it is in many ways self-reinforcing and highly resistant to interventions. As a result, it has settled in and is a biological condition; one caused by a combination of genetics interacting with life circumstances. The depressed person may have difficulty finding anything fulfilling until the condition is treated.
I can only hope that he agrees to debate the issue with doctors and researchers who have studied depression and can expose him as someone who doesn't understand the condition.
No prerequisites required:)Quote:
Originally Posted by buttslinger
One speech and the rest is history. One can only hope Oprah Winfrey does not take the bait, it is not as if she needs the money like the current incumbent charging Americans for his golfing trips, or his daughter getting free publicity for her brand when she is not referred to as Ivanka Kushner -and let us hope she too decides not to run for the White House; ditto 'The Rock'.
Or maybe this could just relegate the Presidency to a game show, as long as Congress changes the Constitution to make the Presidency a ceremonial rather than an Executive post. I expect Nikki Haley (should that be Nimrata?) will run, Julian Castro for the Democrats.
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-r...ident-analysis
When I was 41 I got a new house, right after a job transfer that set me up to finally rake in some good money. Two years later I had a bigshot Johns Hopkins Doctor who wrote articles in JAMA telling me not only would I be ill for the rest of my life, I've been sick all my life. The NEURALLY MEDIATED HYPOTENSION I have translates to fatigue and depression, which always go hand in hand, the trick is to find out which came first.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
I've had a few psychiatrists, most of them cost $500/hour. Some were better than others, the guy I liked most ..I asked him how did he even know I have depression, he answered because he saw depressed people every day and could see it in my face. He had not only a degree in psychiatry, he had a degree in neurology. At the end of the day they all just give you one of the latest drugs to treat depression. It's the psychologists that you talk to for hours to help you out of your bad behavior. Bad Behavior is what got me to 41.
The Psychiatrist I liked gave me a 5 minute mini-test to see how "with it" I am. I had to name all the US Presidents backwards and explain what "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" means.
I suggest you all take that test for your own amusement.
IMO We have no clue who will run in 2020. These are remarkable times.
PS I did take the recommendation of the Johns Hopkins Doctor's one amendment from twenty years ago and cut wheat and dairy from my diet. It has made a difference.
https://twitter.com/RP_Newsletter
I found this twitter account which posts the most inflammatory lines from Ron Paul's old newsletter. I suppose I am posting this so I remember where it is when Ron Paul acolytes pop up. Paul claimed he was unaware of all of these comments going out under his name...I found it an interesting read anyway.
I also am posting it because I think both Pauls hold very dangerous views which they've tried to present as palatable...I was also shocked by how extremely racist some of the rhetoric was (though I generally knew about the type of content he published) from this link so I apologize if anyone finds it upsetting.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
I knew that man was disgusting, but his Newsletter makes my skin crawl.
I find it hard to believe someone like this can be nominated let alone elected to public office, I suspect on the hustings and on tv he has focused more on his libertarian economic ideas rather than the conspiracy theories he seems addicted to. Or it could be that there a lot of Americans who do believe this rubbish just as they believe American is 'broken' and u-no-who is going to fix it.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
I was intrigued by the concept of a 'witch-lesbo-feminists' to look at Texe Marrs contributions to history on Amazon, where he has multiple books, two of which stand out: Mystery Babylon: New World Order Unveiled (2010) where the product description includes-
What if Jesus was absolutely accurate when he said,"I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan.
Indeed, there is another book, written by an English 'Christian' called Hitchcock (!) called The Synagogue of Satan: the Secret History of Jewish World Domination (2015) which includes facts you never knew about, such as that Stalin and Rupert Murdoch were/are Jewish, and I bet you never heard of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, or the German Jews who transformed themselves into Christian Illuminati, and bet you never heard the name Rothschild before. One wonders what purpose this drivel serves when it repeats age old lies that bear no relation to the world we live in, unless you think there really is secret world government and that Chinese Communists are part of it and, wait for it, also Jews. See how cunning they are? Sweet and sour pork with fried rice...the devil's own dish.
As for the 'Synagogue of Satan' if synagogue is the correct translation for the reference in the book of Revelation (itself a mish-mash of threats and warnings rather than actual revelations, or maybe just the revelations of a mad man called John) it refers to the complex relationship early Christians had with the Jews of Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean as the 'fake' Christian Paul embarked on his mission to unify Christians under his perverted interpretation of the Gospels. There is a complex history and theology involved here, but not as a stick with which to beat the Jews and their comrades in arms, which appear to be Communists, and those 'witch-lesbo-feminists' who are known as you see them: they wear trouser suits, have short hair, and are interested in politics.
But if I were to call this 'fake history' someone not far from you may pluck this rubbish from obscurity and present the American public with his list of True Books to Read. But then I take the dim view that the only person who could create 'Fake News Awards' is a fake President, who hasn't read the Constitution, doesn't know the words of the National Anthem whether standing up or bent on one knee; who heaps insults and abuse on the families of service men and women who have died for their country; who has dismissed everyone in the armed forces before his reign as 'failures'; who has no humility, no grace, no sense of humour, no policies but does have three marriages, five legitimate children that we know about, a long history of sexual misconduct and a curious fascination with Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.
The FISA program has always been controversial because initially it was unclear whether its procedures in general violate the fourth amendment. The court's proceedings are ex parte, in secret, and if never used in a criminal prosecution the subject of surveillance never knows about it. Early on it was thought that if there was a firewall between national security operations and eventual criminal prosecutions, there might not be a fourth amendment issue. When the fourth amendment is violated, the remedy in criminal trials is that the evidence obtained can't be used. If the surveillance is done in order to prevent attacks or prevent active espionage operations and not to gather evidence for criminal trial, then perhaps the fourth amendment concerns aren't as great.
But the concerns about the fisa courts are inherent in the program which has been repeatedly approved and re-approved, and in times of emergency expanded.
To give you a sense of how easy it has been historically to get a fisa warrant against a subject thought to be an agent of a foreign power, there is a chart in the wikipedia link. Out of more than 35,000 requests, only 12 denials of applications. Does anyone think the surveillance of Carter Page would be anywhere close to the most egregious, given his extensive contacts with Russian diplomats and spies?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United...eillance_Court
And for those concerned about wikipedia's reliability, here's a useful article discussing it.;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia
As a thought for today, imagine someone comes fresh to this and asks the question: why Russia?
The Chinese, on the basis of campaign speeches could reasonably prefer Mrs Clinton to someone who abuses them in public and threatens their trade with the US -but there is no evidence the Chinese interfered with the election on her behalf, ditto the Iranians who would also have preferred Mrs Clinton as someone supporting the Nuclear Deal. So if major states are taking sides, why would Russia be working on behalf of the Republicans, or, at least, manipulating the election to defeat the chances of Mrs Clinton?
The answer lies with the money, the money train from Moscow to New York, the historic purchase of apartments and condos in Manhattan and Florida. It lies in the men around the man, from Felix Sater to Carter Page, from Roger Stone to Michael Flynn, from Paul Manafort to George Papadopoulos -the links to Russia being laid out like bear shit in the woods. Again and again, the links are solid, established over time, above all, special, in a way links to other countries are not, with one exception, namely the links to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
I find it hard to believe a huge arms deal with Saudi Arabia was signed without a single bribe being paid. This, to me, is one relationship that needs forensic examination, as the direct attack on US citizens by Saudi Arabians, with or without the full knowledge or approval of the Saudi government must open a new window onto the power of money to corrupt politics to the extent that dead Americans are the price that is paid for the imaginary prize of stability in the Middle East.
Anyone who knows how the stock market works would know that Trump was not responsible for the stock market rising in the past year. Stocks represent only those companies that are publicly traded and they don't trade on fundamentals like earnings in the short term but rather expectations as well as the opportunity cost of other investments. People whose behavior buoys or depresses stock prices are paying attention to things like interest rates, market volatility, and their own personal planning which includes the time horizon of their investments and their spending needs.
In the past five days the s & P dropped 7%. Today alone it dipped 4%. The point is that the President does not have full control over the short term direction that the market goes in. His policies may affect employment and possibly earnings growth, though the latter has as much to do with monetary policy, and is also controlled by many factors not sensitive to either fiscal or monetary policy.
The only thing this establishes is that our country is currently led by a moron. A moron. He doesn't know what drives the economy. He doesn't know how our government works or is supposed to work. He doesn't know how the stock market operates. A moron.
But...but...but he's a business man!Quote:
He (Trump) doesn't know what drives the economy. He doesn't know how our government works or is supposed to work. He doesn't know how the stock market operates.
One of the commentators on "the shows" said that Trump is like Mr. Burns on The Simpsons.
His doctor examined him and found that his had practically every ailment known to man......but they kind of balanced or cancelled each other out so he could function in spite of all the faults.
If it weren't for the Russian Sword of Damocles hanging over his head, Trump would be a lot like BUSH II point II 1/2, feeding the rich and starving the poor, while the World frowns in disapproval.
On TV and Radio this morning, The Republicans are just flat out lying now. Business as usual.
When I worked in the Library of Congress, all kinds of stuff used to roll through there. I once read an original script for That Girl with Marlo Thomas. All the sentences were about five words long and written on a fifth grade level. This is how the Republicans talk to their Audience. The simpler the better. Say what you will, it works well enough to fill the pockets of Politicians and their Sponsors. This Market Crash will make Insiders a ton of money in the end. It's good to be King, isn't it Donald? You Lying Sack o' Shit. I want to see the downfall of Trump set up the big move, the downfall of Putin. Followed by the landslide election of Mark Warner. But I'm a Dreamer.
From a country that has given us world class achievements in the arts, sciences, engineering, medicine, philosophy -the list goes on- comes the bleak reality that this President prefers to take advice from people who have achieved nothing, but promote ideas so remote from Christianity as to be something else, and to be garbage. This is not a cure for flu, but voluntary euthanasia -maybe that is the true aim of these dangerous people?
“Jesus himself gave us the flu shot. He redeemed us from the curse of flu and we receive it, and we take it, and we are healed by his stripes.
“Get on the word, stay on the word, and if you say, ‘Well, I don’t have any symptoms of the flu’, great, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
“Just keep saying that ‘I’ll never have the flu, I’ll never have the flu’. Put words, inoculate yourself with the word of God.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a8197801.html
Jesus Himself gave me these black lace Van Jonsson panties.
Praise be to Jee-YAY-sus!
A large portion of Trump's base come from Smalltown USA. In the town where my sister-in-law grew up people thought you were crazy to drive 25 minutes to the next town for a better job. I'm not sure if they still have TV Evangelists, but I know in the rural part of the country, College is for people that are very rich or very smart. For the most part, the smalltown group dynamic sees being different, or exceling past your peers, or trying to change things as uppity, or citified. Everybody knows their neighbor, nobody locks doors.
I'm kind of surprised Trump didn't have Mike Pence lay hands on a cripple and make him walk again at his rallies, once the sinner casts out Satan (gay sex, porn, abortionists, touching yourself, and most of all, TRANNIES!!!!)
I'm pretty sure the whole reason they got Trump to put Pence on the ticket was to reel in the Evangelicals, scarier than Trump being a phony Believer is Pence as a true Believer. I hope Mueller's net is big enough to snare Pence or we'll have another problem on out hands, President Mike Pence receiving marching orders from God.
If you are still wondering how someone so obviously unfit for public office was selected by the Republican Party to run for the highest in the USA, questions must be asked how someone unfit for public office can be nominated to run in a race [no pun intended] he cannot win. Does this party actually have membership rules that determine who can and cannot run for office in its name?
ILLINOIS Republicans should have paid closer attention to the state’s third district, a Democratic fiefdom that includes a part of Chicago and its southwestern suburbs. Arthur Jones, a notorious neo-Nazi, will almost certainly win the Republican primary for the third district’s seat in the House of Representatives on March 20th because he is unopposed by any other Republican candidate. Mr Jones is a former member of the National Socialist White People’s Party and a variety of other Nazi groupings. He calls the Holocaust an “international extortion racket” and proudly displays racist and anti-Semitic bile on his website and blog.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/demo...2/nazi-nominee
We all learned in civics class that a party affiliation, even one as distasteful as Neo-Nazi, does not disqualify someone from running or holding public office. If the seat is unwinnable the GOP must feel it's a waste of scarce resources to challenge the lunatic. Why give him attention with a primary contest?
And what's your campaign strategy against a holocost denying Nazi? "My opponent is wrong, the holocost definitely occurred...now how do we fix Obamacare?"
Fair point but I wonder whether parties should have procedures for excluding individuals from membership if they bring the party into disrepute or express views that are inconsistent with the party line. With such rules they can force someone like Arthur Jones to run as an independent or form his own party but never force him out of a race or off a ballot etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by flabbybody
My guess from the little I've read about the subject is that the different treatment of party membership in the U.S v the UK is that parties don't have as much intrinsic significance in our system. They do not have to form a majority of our legislature or form coalitions and so there is very little government standing to enforce rules of membership.
As for the parties doing so themselves, the question might be to what extent a private organization can prevent someone from using their name or attempting to affiliate. They can deny funding and resources but maybe there is no easy legal mechanism (I can think of causes of action but would a party really want to sue?) to preclude someone from saying they are a Republican even if they express views the party disagrees with. One thing to consider is that we never actually register with the party. We state an "affiliation" when we register to vote with our state. I don't know how this impacts the analysis.
I feel that a lot of political change in the U.S. (for good or ill) is due the possibility that political parties are up for grabs. Is the Democratic Party the party of civil rights, or of economic equality etc. because those issues are represented in the party platform, or are they in the party platform because individuals who care about those issues decided to make them the issues of the party?
I sitting here trying to wake up, morning coffee in hand, and trying to think of examples of how the Republican and Democratic parties have changed faces over the decades because of pressures within the party or because of energized people joining them and changing them from within.
Your last comment about registering to vote as a Democrat or a Republican has initiated some thoughts on why your party system is so different. If I were asked when filling out my registration form to register a political preference that would be because I lived in a dictatorship or some sort of police state. I understand why it is done in the US, yet the explanation -to enable registered Democrats to vote in the nominating procedures for Democrat candidates- is itself weakened if someone registers as a 'independent' whereupon they too, in an Open Primacy can vote for the Democrat candidate, which is absurd since it may allow a swivel-eyed lunatic to vote for or against someone just to spoil the ballot or select another extremist candidate.Quote:
Originally Posted by broncofan
My understanding now is that because States rather than the Government run elections, the rules are different in each state and thus the national organizations are in effect managing local decisions and that Americans believe this to be democracy in action. An alternative would be for a central committee in Washington DC to approve candidates in California or Vermont that local people might resent.
In addition, historically, parties in the US, including the two main ones, have emerged and changed radically over time, the most obvious being the Democrats as the party that replaced slavery with segregation in the South before becoming the party of the northern industrial working class, and the Republicans which once opposed slavery yet these days seems to lament its loss. Whereas in the UK the two main parties in the 19th century, Tories and Liberals emerged from within the ruling elites and were thus imposed on the electorate until Labour emerged from the streets, the mines and the factories in 1900, in the US it seems to me parties are local affairs that are not integrated into a nationwide organization. But that doesn't mean even local parties should not have a mechanism for ensuring that someone with a proven past that is opposed to the party now seeks to represent should be approved not least when it is clear his views have not changed.
Is this a strength or a weakness? In the UK, you can run for local office or Parliament if you want to, forming your own party or standing as an individual championing some cause, but you must get the endorsements of local residents and pay the fee to do so. But in the major parties you have to be a paid-up member of the party with a party card to prove it. Moreover, in the Tory, Labour and Liberal-Democrat parties there is usually a time constraint that means you cannot join the party on Friday and seek nomination on a Monday. When I knew these things better than I do now, it used to be a minimum of two years membership before anyone could run for the local council, either the same for Parliament or maybe it was five years but the rules have changed since then anyway. In addition, the examination of your past and the assumption your party colleagues know who you are is a major source of support, as I believe it must be in the US. Mavericks do get through sometimes but most of the time the system works, the one issue of recent vintage being 'women-only' shortlists in selection processes for local council and Parliamentary seats to give more women the chance to be elected.
The absence of an annual membership fee and a roll of members and of any restrain on who can step forward and seek the nomination for a party is in my view a major flaw in the US precisely because it gives an opportunity to individuals with no proven skills in politics or even coherent ideas 'the right' to seek election, which they should do as independents if they are so keen. I would go so far as to suggest that the nomination of a man utterly incapable of political leadership, who can barely read and write and has not a shred of interest in either the rule of law or the Constitution validates my position, but the fact is you just don't do politics our way and there is nothing other than the vote on the day to prevent one of those ghastly Kardashian or Jenner people from receiving the nomination to be President. Maybe the point is that the norms we have seen erased in the last year suggest you do now need a reform or tightening of the way in which people seek the nomination of the two main parties or the selection process will turn into a farce.
I found the contributions here to be of interest-
https://ask.metafilter.com/22753/Why...ion-in-America
Such things in Germany are illegal, indeed Arthur Jones would by now either be in prison, or live in exile- in the USA (?).Quote:
Originally Posted by flabbybody
German democracy does not suffer by banning representations of the Third Reich, and Holocaust Denial is illegal there and in 15 other countries in Europe and again democracy has not suffered because of it.
Free speech is a precious right, but it appears in the US to enable speech whose only purpose is to insult, or provoke, or even to incite violence though there must be limits even on that. You could of course argue that Arthur Jones will always be a loser because his views are so extreme and the manner in which he presents them so hysterical, but Alex Jones is also hysterical and has directly or indirectly damaged people's lives.
What does one do? In the UK most of the time we confront them. When the English Defence League or Britain First gets permission to march, a counter-demonstration is organized to confront them, even though that is what they want -to cause trouble and get free publicity. It is for the most part a tedious exercise, but the reality is that these people have little or no support in this country. Even in the case of UKIP, Nigel Farage appealed to neo-Nazis, racists, anti-Muslims and the assortment of nationalist and right-wing weirdos to 'hold your noses and vote UKIP'. The result: rejection at the last election. Now Farage spends his days bleating about the 'betrayal' of Brexit and backing the break-up of California, while urgently waiting for the €70,000 golden goodbye from the European Parliament.
I guess you will be spending the rest of your life shaking your head in disbelief at the rubbish people believe. You don't need candidates in election to broadcast it, and should be able to stop it, at least in the Democrat and Republican parties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_a...locaust_denial