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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
edited 28th Mar '16 8:41:22 AM by Medinoc
"And as long as a sack of shit is not a good thing to be, chivalry will never die."![]()
They're reacting by telling the market that they know better. The Republicans are really big on letting you be free to do whatever they want you to do. It's why so many libertarians and ex-libertarians (like me) are so disenchanted with the Party, despite its supposed commitment to small government.
edited 28th Mar '16 8:40:14 AM by Ramidel
What traditionally happens when progressive customers start boycotting non-progressive businesses is that conservatives claim that the act of boycotting is oppressing the business's freedom of speech. Translating that defense to a business to state relationship, instead of a customer to business one, I imagine they would claim that it oppresses states' rights.
Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.If the people of Georgia really were as welcoming and tolerant as the governor claimed, he wouldn't have had to veto such a bill. It simply wouldn't exist.
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"What I'm trying to say is, the Left must recover the spirit of tradition and patriotism from the people who are ruining the country with their nonsense. People inherently need tradition, but there's a vast variety of traditions that aren't rooted that sort of bullshit.
By appealing to the egalitarian, democratic, and individualist tradition of America, they can better convince traditionalists, and frame the Right as radicals corrupting America with their greed. Just call it "conservative" and "tradition"."
American "tradition" is rooted in slavery, racism, greed, and anti-intellectual frontier brawn. We have never been an honestly egalitarian or democratic society — we do everything we can to subvert and suppress any impulse towards either, and our "individualism" is really more like Social Darwinism, where rich sociopaths are prized for their success at running roughshod over the multitude.
We're not going to make America great by press ganging people into the military where they can be taught to be good little soldiers and exalt violent lumps instead of thinking men, and we're not going to make America great by appealing to nostalgia and a false golden age with libraries full of documented atrocities just underneath the appealing varnish. It's a bitter pill to swallow, but the only way we're going to become great is if we start to recognize that our history is overflowing with misery and hypocrisy, and reject it utterly in favor of the future.
You can't be an honest patriot if you feel dirty, intellectually and morally, about the vast majority of the stuff your country does.
edited 28th Mar '16 9:04:30 AM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
Does that include replacing the Constitution? Because the only way that'll happen is with a large-scale, popular Revolution.
Keep Rolling OnThere was always a tradition in America opposed to that, we simply need to frame that tradition as "the true American tradition" lost because of thuggery and ignorance.
Except that doesn't actually do anything to convince people. Telling people you reject America and tradition is shooting yourself in the foot, regardless if it's true.
And no, your straw man of me is not appreciated.
Fidel Castro is not happy about Obama's visit
And seeing that bastard fume just erased any doubt in my mind over the wisdom of Obama's course in Cuba.
"Does that include replacing the Constitution? Because the only way that'll happen is with a large-scale, popular Revolution."
We've amended it twenty-seven times. Even the Constitution changes with the times.
Regrettably. He's a Living Relic at this point.
edited 28th Mar '16 9:20:36 AM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."
"Best efforts" is giving them too much credit. Some of their attempts were hilariously over-the-top and doomed to fail.
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"There was always a tradition in America opposed to that, we simply need to frame that tradition as "the true American tradition" lost because of thuggery and ignorance."
That's called "counterculture," and it's always been routinely rejected, because American-As-Apple-Pie Middle America just wants to feel great about America, even if it sandpapers away America's many faults. The fact that many critics of American foreign policy, domestic policy, history, and national self-image are or were socialists and anarchists means it's pretty much not going to fly. Americans love Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, but they love the sanitized, second-grade history book version of Dr. King, not the edgier, real Dr. King who spoke about the oppression inherent in the American mindset, about how our warmongering ways would destroy us, about how we had a responsibility not just to the rich and successful, but to the poor. They labelled him a socialist after that, and it was all over.
edited 28th Mar '16 9:27:52 AM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."I would not say that racism and slavery are the roots of American tradition. I would even go as far as to argue they're they've historically been one of the most powerful and viscous opponents of the "American Dream". It was, after all, racists who betrayed and fought a war against the American nation.
But I guess it depends on how you define "American tradition".
edited 28th Mar '16 9:30:37 AM by Protagonist506
Leviticus 19:34"It was, after all, racists who betrayed and fought a war against the American nation."
Yeah, but we were all too eager to reconcile with them, and let them institute Jim Crow for nearly a century. Obviously, civil rights wasn't really that much of a priority. And from the historiography of the Civil War, up until the Sixties, you'd be hard pressed to find a pro-Union work — they were all neo-Confederate. So, remind me again how the Civil War was a definitive rejection of racism, or how it was a vindication of the American dream? If anything, it was a definitive rejection of secession as a legitimate method of political protest.
Twenty years later, the Republican Party would be the party of rich fat cats who turned a blind eye to the racial oppression in the South while they got rich by stepping over the urban poor in the North and Midwest.
edited 28th Mar '16 9:33:16 AM by CrimsonZephyr
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."Yep. I remember arguing once with a conservative-libertarian who had spent years preaching that the fear of consumer boycotts and lawsuits would keep businesses in line in his dream world where government largely ceased to be. Yet he was absolutely incensed when a gay couple who were refused service at a small business responded by putting up notices to other gay couples and their allies to avoid shopping there and spread the word. He went on and on about the couple trying to ruin the poor business owner's life and work, until I pointed out that they were using exactly the system he'd advocated for. The people weren't trying to change the law to screw over the business owner, they weren't even taking the owner to court, they simply spread their concerns to other, like minded people, who felt strongly enough about the issue to join in. How could he advocate that solving issues like multi-nationals poisoning a water supply with boycotts and lawsuits, but discrimination wasn't good enough to merit the same treatment?
For some reason, I never did get an answer to that one. Not that I needed it, just another case of "The rules are only supposed to benefit me and the causes I support."
See also; every right-wing response to Rush Limbaugh and company getting their advertisers pulled due to progressive pressure on said advertisers. "The left wing PC mafia is destroying free speech!" No they aren't, jackasses. You have free speech, which says that the government can't censor your opinion because the government doesn't like it. You don't have consequence free speech to stop people from disliking what you say and protesting it, exactly the same way you've protested tons of companies who took progressive stances.
In other news... another day, and another Senator up for re-election breaks with McConnell on the Supreme Court
, only to be immediately threatened by the Tea Party, who say they will primary him
.
Lets hear a cheer for party purity and enforced political orthodoxy.
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |

[Jealousy intensifies]
Sigh.
[Inherent sadness intensifies]