Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of people who don't truly understand what the role of government actually is.
Also anyone who's going to want to move here when Trump loses is going to be forced to write out the definitions of 'irony' and 'hypocrisy' a thousand times, instead (okay so this is Joking Mode but I wish).
edited 17th Oct '16 7:52:45 AM by Pseudopartition
I wouldn't wish them on you in a million years. (Disgruntled Trump voters, that is.)
"If you want a comparison, how about some of these? Confederate martyrs monuments? How is this a thing?"
This might sound obvious, but t's because America isn't entirely ashamed of the Confederacy.
"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 understand a few assholes here and there, but those memorials right there look like government property. They take down the Confie flags but not this? At least rename them as "Monuments of shame in the Civil War" or "Civil War Crimes of the Union" or something. If the Union unlwafully killed POW's, acknowledging it is taking the moral high ground, but "martyrdom" requires a high cause to die for. The Confie was the lowest cause there could be.
Well, they've been known to have other priorities now and then:
People move. You're probably right but I would refrain from assuming.
Relevant: Confessions of a former neo-Confederate
John Ruth: What’s Wellenbeck?
Sheriff Chris Mannix: You ain’t never heard of Wellenbeck prisoner of war camp, West Virginia?
John Ruth: No Reb, I ain’t never heard of it! You bust out?
Sheriff Chris Mannix: Major Marquis did more than bust out. Major Marquis had a bright idea. So bright you got to wonder why nobody never thought about it before. Tell John Ruth about your bright idea.
Major Marquis Warren: Well the whole damn place was just made out of kindling. So I burnt it down.
[Warren, Ruth and Daisy start laughing]
Sheriff Chris Mannix: There was a rookie regiment spending the overnight in that camp. Forty-seven men burnt to a crisp. Southern youth, farmer’s sons, cream of the crop.
Major Marquis Warren: And I say, “Let ’em burn”. I’m supposed to apologize for killing Johnny Reb? You joined the war to keep niggers in chains. I joined the war to kill White Southern Crackers. That means killing ’em anyway I can. Shoot ’em. Stab ’em. Drown ’em. Burn ’em. Drop a big old rock on their head. Whatever it took to put White Southern Crackers in the ground that’s what I joined the war to do, and that’s what I did.
W Hats all this about firebombing a GOP office and free money for the Trump campaign through some sort of kickstarter?
What circumstances led to such schools being people's only choice?
And what causes schools in other countries to do well? What are they doing that we might be able to copy?
And why would school choice cause more "winners and losers"? Presumably, people can switch schools.
edited 17th Oct '16 8:27:46 AM by BonsaiForest
Bonsai Forest: Those questions are better asked in the education topic in this forum. Way too complicated to cover here.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The Anime association is weird, but the Pony one is absurd. That show is completely at odds with everything the Alt-Right stands for.
It's always boggled my mind that the fandom for such a transparently feminist show has such a belligerently anti-feminist current within it. I mean, it's not like we're talking about the gaming community, which I'm much less surprised but equally disgusted with having to watch gobble up and regurgitate conversaspiracy BS. At least the attitude somewhat matches the content in that case.
Was reading through the article about the former neo-confederate and found another article by an actual NFL player who utterly roasts Trump by telling us what they REALLY talk about in the locker room.
Last Friday, audio leaked of you making incredibly demeaning comments about women and bragging about sexual assault. When asked to justify your statements, you claimed that this was "locker room talk," and it's just how guys speak about women.
You're wrong, and only the type of wrong an over-tanned ham hock like yourself can accomplish, plummeting past the morass of gross incivility into the abyss of depraved sociopathy.
How do I know this? Simple. I was in an NFL locker room for eight years, the very definition of the macho, alpha male environment you're so feebly trying to evoke to protect yourself, and not once did anyone approach your breathtaking depths of arrogant imbecility. Oh, sure, we had some dumb guys, and some guys I wouldn't want to hang out with on any sort of regular basis, but we never had anyone say anything as foul and demeaning as you did on that tape, and, hell, I played a couple years with a guy who later turned out to be a serial rapist. Even he never talked like that.
Now, Donald, I'm sure you're wondering just what it is we talk about in a professional locker room, if we don't spend all our time regarding 50 percent of the population as mobile fuck receptacles eagerly awaiting our tiny-handed grasp on their love lapels. I shall educate you!
We talk about our families. We talk about our significant others, our children, and our parents. We talk about our fears that if a Hitler wannabe who can't even string together a coherent statement on domestic policy becomes president, what that might mean for those of us who are married to a member of a minority community, or are a member of a minority community, or have children going to schools where hopefully nobody screams racial epithets at them or tells them to go back to [insert foreign country they couldn't identify on a map here]. [...]
I've been in locker rooms, Donald, and you're the type of narcissistic, pants-soiling fecal eruption that just doesn't belong. Even football players are smart enough to know that.
Basically, even in the most machismo-centred, toxic masculinity-enabling environment you can imagine, Trump's comments would still be considered grossly inappropriate and crossing a line. Even the serial rapist the author played with didn't talk like that.
edited 17th Oct '16 8:45:55 AM by Draghinazzo
I could totally see Trump tweeting back with something like: "Chris Kluwe is a weak loser who couldn't hack it in another NFL season. SAD! #Rigged Media"
edited 17th Oct '16 8:55:51 AM by speedyboris

Anyway, the solution is to fix the current schools, not introduce free market elements into the system, which will inevitably lead to winners and losers even more than the current system.
Edited to add: Note the stock cop-out that implies that neither Republicans nor Democrats care about public education, which is demonstrably and provably false.
edited 17th Oct '16 8:01:14 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"