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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller sent and then deleted a tweet calling Hillary a c**t.
SERIOUSLY SPELLCHECK
edited 1st Nov '16 2:54:28 PM by tclittle
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."Re: #147814
I ran into a similar situation on my Idaho ballot today. Since I didn't have the knowledge to write in a candidate seriously, I just rolled with it.
I can't help but think the only surprise is that Trump didn't do it first.
edited 1st Nov '16 2:54:16 PM by sgamer82
More to the point, more "poor" legislators (those who depend on their salary for living expenses as opposed to being independently well-off) are Democrats than are Republicans. You can see where this leads.
The idea that legislators can be docked pay for "not doing their jobs" means that only people who can afford not to get paid those salaries will seek office.
What I've been hearing, though, is that an independent commission is more likely to increase the leglislators' salaries. Voting to increase your own salary is something that can make you look bad come campaign season, so a lot of legislators are unlikely to do it. Pay for Minnesota legislators hasn't been increased since 1999 (about $30,000 a year (not counting expenses), though since the legislature's only in session for about five months a year, it is considered a part time job).
That actually seems to be the main opposition argument to the amendment: it would let legislators get a pay increase while avoiding public responsibility for the decision.
edited 1st Nov '16 2:57:52 PM by RavenWilder
Well, more people live in cities for one thing. And also a bunch of other reasons people here can rail against much harder and/or better than I can.
My local representative has been in office for I don't know how many terms now. I voted for someone else during the primaries but they didn't make it to the general elections, so I voted for the incumbent because for better or worse they're in the Democrat party, and I'd rather not be represented by a libertarian or republican
Stopping Trump 2, 3, 4, and 5 are valuable goals in and of themselves as well. The thing is, it's not one or the other. You can work on educating people while also shutting down the attacks from the belligerently ig'nant designed to tear down people they hate. Trump's voterbase isn't going to live forever. He's mainly popular with crotchety white Baby Boomers. They've only got so many elections left. Trump himself is 70 for God's sake!
So we keep doing what we've been doing. We work on reaching out to as many young people as we can to win over hearts and minds still open to listen and help undo as much of the right's brainwashing as we can, and as long as we keep that ball rolling, the Baby Boomers die out and the Millennials take over, and Millenials die off and the next generation takes over, and bit by bit progressive attitudes overtake the nation.
But it can't happen if we let people like Trump take power and continue dictating the course of our country, if we let people like him become the role models and continue instilling values in children like it being okay to hate Mexicans.
edited 1st Nov '16 3:04:43 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Marginalizing Nazisim in Germany after WWII doesn't stop them from having to play whack-a-mole with Neo-Nazi groups...and they've made it outright illegal to be a Nazi there. What was likely much more effective at curbing Nazisim was the Marshal Plan, a.k.a. "we helped put Germany in this mess by punishing them for WWI, let's not make that mistake again".
Take a normal human being, add stress, desperation and fear, add a demagogue willing and able to prey on those fears and shake, then you can get them to believe anything.
But yeah, the more such statements get thrown in, the more fuel for the opposition to just point them out as hypocrisies of supposedly tolerant intolerance and tune them out altogether. Crying racism still generally evokes reactions to the effect of "No!", meaning people are still bothered by being labeled as such. There's only so far the label can be thrown, however, before the reaction shifts to an indifferent "So?", when the term loses meaning, not through overuse, but through association with generic insults, and a sanctimonious attitude just as intolerant as the views it claims to oppose. And if the ought-to-be-marginalized group really accounts for half the country, possibly even growing, the situation soon starts looking like claiming to fence the whole world in by building a wall around yourself.
I mean, Nazi Germany hasn't exactly seen a resurgence. Neo-Nazis exist but they're a dying breed, which is more of a testament to how slow change is than anything else.
Meanwhile, we've already seen evidence in this very election that legitimizing radical beliefs undermines the progressive goal. Trump's behavior hasn't just emboldened hate groups, it's also had a sharp impact on children who have taken to imitating him in schools, such as shouting "BUILD THE WALL" at Latino kids.
The National Education Association is calling this "the Trump Effect" and it's a direct result of letting Trump run wild. Children will define the future of the nation, which is why they are the most important demographic. If we allow them to grow up believing that being a Neo-Nazi or a KKK member is a perfectly legitimate and entirely reasonable lifestyle choice that no one can judge you for, then we aren't going to get anywhere.
edited 1st Nov '16 3:22:04 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.The compromise with racism is not "half racism". Seriously, folks.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!""Mmm. They're planning on lynching that black guy, but I've already used a Racism label this week. I should save my other one for if a cop shoots a black kid. I'll let this lynching go."
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It honestly feels a bit hypocritical that the party that advocates negotiating with the Taliban has "we will not negotiate with terrorists" attitude towards their own country men. But alas such are the times we live in. And I suppose we could flip the switch and ask why another half of the country would rather have a Russian puppet as the President than a Democrat.
I Bring Doom,and a bit of gloom, but mostly gloom.A major problem in this country is the attitude that being called a racist is equally as despicable as the behavior of a racist. It's that same cult of moderation issue that leads to the Clinton/Trump false equivalency. False equivalent is a very popular weapon of deplorables.
But that's just it: it's a weapon of deplorables. We've talked about this before regarding "egalitarianism" and the general attitude of, "Now, I'm not an x-ist BUT". It all boils down to the fact that people with deplorable opinions who know damned well that their opinions are deplorable use moderate labels to disguise themselves as "the voice of reason" - which then allows them to recruit that demographic of college-age kids who are too cool to take sides, man.
People don't huddle into factions because they're afraid of individualism. They do it because it's easier than forming an informed opinion about every f*cking thing under the sun. A person is more likely to be asked their opinion on the energy crisis than to actually have a degree in nuclear physics and economics, so on certain subjects, they wind up drifting towards others who share their opinions on other things and going, "Psst, you're smart, explain this to me in a way I can get."
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.@Jack: What the fuck are you on about again?
@nervmeister: Look, you can't teach the kids to "think like independent individuals" if they're going to soak up racism from their parents and when the elimination of critical thinking skills is a primary, documented objective of one of the two political parties in this country. I'll let you guess which one.
There is no honest conversation occurring on the Republican side. This isn't a place where compromise is possible, or negotiation, since the party has expressly disavowed such things.
edited 1st Nov '16 3:35:24 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"When a supposedly anti-racist attitude allows statements like "half the country is utterly repugnant", "there is nothing to be done about these people", "they actively reject assistance", etc. , it does sound less than convincing as a stance for tolerance. If anything, it reminds me of old soc-state policies regarding "undesirables" - the soviet days weren't racist per se, but could be just as vicious toward anyone regarded as a potential opponent. So far, the left rides on a relatively high horse, with criticism based around political correctness gone mad; the moment it starts looking like it's actually advocating a totalitarian purge, is the moment even that high ground is lost. When the utterly repugnant and unsalvageable people are also the ones owning most of the guns and making the bulk of the army, the aggressive approach isn't all too advisable, unless you want to be the last DJ in atheist heaven.

Guys when you see a poll like the one from NC today it is better to paid attention to poll averages and state poll too. She has been leading in all the poll averages across the swing states and nationally. If it really brother you just go vote.