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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Alright, fair enough. I suppose my dislike of them is exceptionally bad. Odious too.
I'm just embittered, I suppose. I've not really seen very many politicians who are worth looking up to, honourable exceptions aside. It is exceptionally difficult to not look at them collectively with dislike after more than enough exposure to the sleaze they get up to.
Sometimes, it seems like all the good ones died off a long time ago and all we got are the sleazeballs.
I hold the secrets of the machine.
It is not wrong to look at politics and conclude that something is very wrong with our system. However, fixing that system requires more than just writing all politicians off as corrupt and/or incompetent. It requires critical thinking and the ability to discern causes from symptoms.
At the risk of sounding partisan, it is also possible to track the dysfunction in U.S. politics over the past 40 years to one specific party's movement away from a willingness to compromise and make deals. It's not a general phenomenon.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:36:05 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"It’s a self perpetuating cycle, we started saying that all politicians are sleazeballs (perhaps because a very high number were) and treating them all like sleazeballs, so all the non-sleezeballs got out, leaving us with the sleezeballs.
If you want to meet good politicians I’d say get involved locally, meet your local candidates/reps face to face on the doorstep instead of though a TV.
They’re not all bad, if they were I wouldn’t have spent so many weekends out campaigning for some of them.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranOne thing to consider — being a politician like a Congressman is actually a really soul-crushing job. A large part of their time is spent making calls asking for donations and stuff. Yeah, part of being a Congressman is essentially being a telemarketer.
It's really hard work being a politician. And we shit on them for it.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Another reason to overhaul campaign finance to ban contributions and instead have campaign money allocated from a public pool. That said, working with their constituents is a major part of a politician's job, not just sitting on committees and voting on laws.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:40:38 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"A Democratic congressman in my area kept his seat from the 60s-90s without doing the calls. He was always available to constituents, and even some of my dad’s republican friends voted for him.
His son (he had kids late in life) was a classmate of mine, and according to his mom, the congressman’s widow, it’s almost impossible to do that today because of how campaign financing has changed/escalated.
Edited by wisewillow on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:43:55 AM
I suspect that for some politicians working with constituents might well be the fun part of the job, they can use their position to ride in on a white horse and save people from the bureaucracy failing them, that’s probably a lot easier than trying to work out the five billion knock on impacts of a bill that they’ve had only an hour to read which isn’t properly funded.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranOh yes, I forgot about all of the reading they have to do too. They have to read through so many bills and vote on them. And they rarely get enough time to actually read through the bills.
So they need to be a speed-reader as well.
Edited by M84 on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:47:32 PM
Disgusted, but not surprisedThat’s why they have support staff to analyze bills and prepare summaries of key language.
AOC has argued that Congress should get higher allowance for staffing so they can properly pay these staffers, rather than relying on underpaid (mostly rich) college kids. And so they can have enough funds to properly staff their home office for constituent services.
Edited by wisewillow on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:50:06 AM
Oh, lord. Not that stupidity again. It happens every few years and rarely goes anywhere. The left is not immune to it.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 22nd 2019 at 11:18:51 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I taught Huck Finn. It’s a mediocre book with lots of n-bombs, not an irreplaceable classic. The entire premise is one white boy having adventures and as a side note learning one Black person is kinda human. And removing it from the curriculum isn’t the same as censorship or banning it from school libraries.
Teach them Their Eyes Were Watching God or some other book from the 1860s-1930s by an actual Black person.
Edited by wisewillow on Mar 22nd 2019 at 11:24:56 AM
One doesn't preclude the other. If they want to redo the curriculum, fine, I am all for it, but it should be about weighting what makes sense to teach and what doesn't. Not about "I really want to get rid of this book which is fiercely anti-slavery because the word "nigger" is used too often in it".
(And that does not mean that I am pro the use of the word today, the book simply reflects how the language was back when it was written. Which is an important lesson in and of itself. I certainly learned more about Slavery in the US by reading Huckleberry Finn than I did by consuming any other media in which the protagonist avoids the word in order to not look bad in the eyes of the audience today).
Edited by Swanpride on Mar 22nd 2019 at 8:29:48 AM
All literature has to be judged against the period in which it was written. Huck Finn is relatively progressive for its time and place. More to the point, it can be used as an illustrative lesson about the history of racism.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![]()
... the bill is literally about pulling it from the curriculum. Each year, you can only teach 3-4 books in most classes/grade levels. Huck Finn doesn’t get to reserve a spot on the curriculum in perpetuity.
Did you spend 2 months writing lesson plans and teaching it to 90 tenth graders? Its reputation is overblown, and the plot is basically Driving Miss Daisy/Green Book etc. And most of my Black students didn’t really enjoy reading a book whose premise is “sympathize with the powerful story of this white boy coming to like one Black person and also the Black person is traumatized for 90% of the book.”
I would be mad as hell if I spent 2 months reading a book where a boy learns one girl is also a person.
Edited by wisewillow on Mar 22nd 2019 at 11:30:43 AM
"Due to racism".
If you want to remove it from the curriculum, fine. However, your reason for doing so should not be because one of the least racist authors in 19th century America is "too racist". Values Dissonance is always going to be a thing and that's something that literature classes should be preparing students for.
Edited by RainehDaze on Mar 22nd 2019 at 3:29:21 PM
Yeah, I did.
IIRC for fun.
I enjoyed it, but it absolutely dropped the n-bomb a bunch. Does it make it evil? No. But if it is removed I'm not going to shed any tears. It's not some super crucial reading that will stunt children's development if they don't read it.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang![]()
Oh no, students would read a different book! THE HORROR. How dare we replace a Classic White Man novel, which is only sorta racist, and whose approach to race relations is mediocre at best? Students are never exposed to these messages that one virtuous black person can make one white person less racist! Why, what would we teach instead, a book by a Black author?? From the same time period? Who actually had to deal with racism? THE HORROR.
Imagine the example this sets. Why, in 2060, a school district might ban Green Book and have to show If Beale Street Could Talk instead!
Edited by wisewillow on Mar 22nd 2019 at 11:34:50 AM

Shit, Trump won in part because he wasn't a career politician for most of his life unlike Hillary Clinton.
Politics. The only field where having more experience is an obstacle to a higher position.
Edited by M84 on Mar 22nd 2019 at 10:31:15 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised