Is this hope I’m feeling?


After the Republican national convention, I was stuffed to the gills with cynicism and despair. It was a week-long orgy of America-hating yahoos ranting about the people who aren’t white American men destroying the world, and as one of them, it made me feel awful for my species.

Then I watched bits and pieces of the Democratic national convention. It started badly, with more people chanting “No! No! No!” and generally being irrational, but it got better, starting with Sarah Silverman.

To the Bernie or Bust people…you’re being ridiculous.

Yes. It is possible to favor Sanders’ ideas without being an ass about it, and to recognize reality. You know, even if Sanders had the nomination, it wouldn’t be as if you flicked a light switch and the world got better, right? That whether it’s Sanders or Clinton, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us?

Bernie Sanders also demonstrated principled graciousness.

In these stressful times for our country, this election must be about bringing our people together, not dividing us up. While Donald Trump is busy insulting one group after another, Hillary Clinton understands that our diversity is one of our greatest strengths. Yes. We become stronger when black and white, Latino, Asian-American, Native American – all of us – stand together. Yes. We become stronger when men and women, young and old, gay and straight, native born and immigrant fight to create the kind of country we all know we can become.

It is no secret that Hillary Clinton and I disagree on a number of issues. That’s what this campaign has been about. That’s what democracy is about. But I am happy to tell you that at the Democratic Platform Committee there was a significant coming together between the two campaigns and we produced, by far, the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party. Among many other strong provisions, the Democratic Party now calls for breaking up the major financial institutions on Wall Street and the passage of a 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act. It also calls for strong opposition to job-killing free trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Our job now is to see that platform implemented by a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House and a Hillary Clinton presidency – and I am going to do everything I can to make that happen.

I have known Hillary Clinton for 25 years. I remember her as a great first lady who broke precedent in terms of the role that a first lady was supposed to play as she helped lead the fight for universal health care. I served with her in the United States Senate and know her as a fierce advocate for the rights of children.

Hillary Clinton will make an outstanding president and I am proud to stand with her here tonight.

Now it’s time for all of us who voted for Sanders in the primary to follow his lead.

And Michelle Obama set the right tone.

It’s looking like we won’t be wallowing in a week of hate, and I’ll be coming out of this with a lot more optimism.

Comments

  1. Reginald Selkirk says

    Senator Warren repeatedly said “the system is rigged against you.” That may not have been causing the reaction she expected or wanted.

  2. jtdavi3 says

    Also check out Cory Booker’s speech if you haven’t yet. Was pretty awesome. Across the board the democrats (who do have their own set of problems) set a much more hopeful and optimistic tone than the apocalyptic demagoguery of the RNC.

    Anyone who abstains from voting this year as a protest against Clinton and the DNC is effectively saying they prefer Trump to her, which is insane.

  3. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    I liked Sanders saying directly (to all the Bernie Bros, anti-Hillary) “don’t just sit this one out, thinking things will eventually get better”. And that victory is not a, such as election cycle, but an ongoing process, thus, work with what is available and don’t hold back from disappointment. Hillary is a valuable tool in the process of revolutionizing the system. Not perfect, but useful. Trump will be the tool of destruction, Hill is construction.
    .
    once again, I’ll express my opinion for any who want to continue to read. Hillary is not perfect (to say the best), she is (let’s say) adequate. Trump is a destructionist, a thief, out to destroy everything about America by defrauding us that he’s fixing everything. Fixing everything against us, and only _for_ HIMSELF. Hillary may be slightly incompetent, and maybe a little arrogant, but at least moves in the correct direction of making life better for everyone and not just the .01%, but to include the 99%. Yeah she makes mistakes, but minor mistakes that her enemies exaggerate into mountains, while telling us the mountains they’re building are little bumps.
    <end of rant>

    It was also pretty cool how all the jabs at Drumph were pretty subtle and low key. Unlike the Rethugs [literally thugs]
    who lead chants of “jail her”, “hang her”, “shoot her”, etc etc etc.
    The Dems presented plans to address issues we face and didn’t just list all the problems as the failure of the current admin.
    yikes, I better stop for now…

  4. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    re #1:
    gosh I’ll hopefully assume that initial, M, stood for Malia and not Michelle.
    oh yeah, I see now, 20 yrs would put Malia at the correct age prerequisite for office of POTUS (ie 35).
    me too. worry is about the meantime …¯\_(ツ)_/¯

  5. archangelospumoni says

    I am too old, but in spite of that fact, am now going to have a bunch of kids so I can name them all “Michelle.”

  6. says

    Re #7 slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)):
    Hillary Clinton for 8 years, then Chelsea Clinton the 8 years after. Just need someone to fill the other four years. Maybe we can try another Kennedy.

  7. rq says

    Well, I wouldn’t really mind an Obama dynasty. Speaking as an overseas Canadian, of course.

  8. davidnangle says

    Yeah, no dynasties. I got no problem with both Obamas being on the SCOTUS, though. And I’m hoping Bernie has spawned a thousand imitators, all over the country, to enter politics and transform the world.

  9. says

    No. NO MORE DYNASTIES!

    Dynasties are routine in democratic republics, particularly presidential ones. The US itself has had the Adamses, Lees, Harrisons, Garfields, Tafts, Roosevelts, Symingtons, Rockefellers, Kennedys, Bushes, Bayhs, Udalls, Romneys, Clintons and there are many, many other examples. It would be very, very suspicious of we stopped having them.

  10. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    re 11:
    I see satirism.
    ‘Dynasty’ implies offices being passed by inheritance, regardless of actual qualifications. Family name being the only qualification.
    Electing people who happen to be of the same family, is a little different than that.
    Dynasty is advocated only in the colloquial sense, not formally.
    Chelsea was suggested based on her current performance in Clinton Foundation, not because of the Clinton bit dangling at the end.

  11. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Something I have noticed among some of the more “reasonable” Rethug folk I know: They acknowledge that Herr Drumpf is indeed a cretin. However, they hate the political establishment so much that they are willing to inflict said cretin on the country to “shake things up”.

    One wonders whether the same could not be said of the Bernie-or-bust–do they hate Hillary more than they love the country?

  12. Jake Harban says

    Trump is a destructionist, a thief, out to destroy everything about America by defrauding us that he’s fixing everything.

    Oh please. There’s nothing Trump could possibly do that the Pharyngula Horde won’t defend when a Democrat does it in 2024.

  13. qwints says

    I thought Michelle Obama’s speech did an excellent job of both laying out a positive case for a way forward and criticizing Busters in a courteous and constructive manner.

  14. Jake Harban says

    One wonders whether the same could not be said of the Bernie-or-bust–do they hate Hillary more than they love the country?

    Wow. I mean, I’ve been pointing out that Clinton is basically indistinguishable from Bush for awhile now, but I never expected to his “if you criticize your Ruler then you hate the country” bullshit recycled on her behalf.

  15. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Oh please. There’s nothing Trump could possibly do that the Pharyngula Horde won’t defend when a Democrat does it in 2024.

    “You’re being ridiculous.” Sarah Silverman.

  16. Jake Harban says

    “You’re being ridiculous.” Sarah Silverman.

    If you believe that, then please name any policies so abhorrent that you wouldn’t support a Democrat who backs them even if the only alternative is a technically-worse Republican.

  17. rietpluim says

    a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House and a Hillary Clinton presidency

    Oh if only…

    @slithey tove #15
    Not really. There’s a reason why so many politicians come from the same families. If you consider the contacts and financial support that are needed to even run for president, elections are just deferring the dynastic inheritance, not really impeding it.

  18. Vivec says

    If I had to refrain from voting for any politician that supported things I consider morally abhorrent, I’d be a non-voter.

  19. Saad says

    Jake, #21

    If you believe that, then please name any policies so abhorrent that you wouldn’t support a Democrat who backs them even if the only alternative is a technically-worse Republican.

    You probably don’t even realize how fucking stupid that sounds.

  20. Matrim says

    But I am happy to tell you that at the Democratic Platform Committee there was a significant coming together between the two campaigns and we produced, by far, the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party.

    Which would matter if party platforms were actually things that got enacted. Honestly, the only thing a platform is good for is displaying how awful the party is willing to admit to being. The Republican platform is useful in that it openly declares how racist, sexist, and classist they are. Platforms full of awesome stuff are effectively worthless except as maybe a soft indicator of where the party’s intentions lay. I will be completely shocked if even 5% of the progressive rhetoric becomes progressive policy.

  21. KG says

    If you believe that, then please name any policies so abhorrent that you wouldn’t support a Democrat who backs them even if the only alternative is a technically-worse Republican. – Jake Harban@21

    Tagging all Muslims/atheists/immigrants (while the Republican is advocating exterminating them).
    A complete ban on abortion (while the Republican is also advocating banning contraception).
    Presidential right to veto candidates for governorships and congress on security grounds (while the Republican is advocating the end of all elections).
    Withdrawal from the UN (while the Republican is advocating withdrawal from all international treaties).
    Life imprisonment for all felonies (while the Republican is advocating the death penalty).
    Etc., etc., etc. – I really could go on indefinitely, as could anyone else here. You’re a deluded fanatic, Harban.

  22. Rob Grigjanis says

    a_ray_in_dilbert_space @16:

    do they hate Hillary more than they love the country?

    Yeah, there’s always some of those. Remember Hillary’s hardcore fans in 2008, the PUMAs (Part Unit My Ass)? It was Hillary or no-one (or Romney) for them, and there was far less difference between Obama and Clinton than there is between Sanders and Clinton. People are weird.

  23. says

    I can’t think of anyone I know around these parts who defend drones.

    From a world view, I don’t think Clinton will be much worse than Obama. My biggest fear about her is setting back the recent progress with Iran, but I expect the deadly status quo to pretty much remain the deadly status quo. Nobody with a real chance of being the US president is going to stop killing people overseas.

    Trump, however, with his recent talk about NATO, has the potential to make things worse, especially if he sits back and lets Russia flex its muscles.

    Domestically things are far different. Clinton will probably acquiesce to moneyed interests, but despite his rhetoric so will Trump, because those are also his interests. He’s not going to want to pay fair taxes, or make less money by having all his branded goods manufactured by people being paid a living wage.

    The Supreme Court though. There is already one vacancy that the Republicans aren’t going to allow to be filled until after the election (and if Clinton wins they might just allow the current nominee to fill the seat out of fear of someone further to the left being nominated), and there is a very good chance at least one or two more will need to be filled in the next four to eight years.
    The next president will affect the Supreme Court for at least a generation. If Scalia was still alive, Fisher v. University of Texas would have had a different outcome, and if Ginsburg dies or retires, say hello to rollbacks on reproductive rights and increased push backs on marriage equality.

    Here are some of the decisions since Scalia’s death…

    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/14/us/politics/how-scalias-death-could-affect-major-supreme-court-cases-in-the-2016-term.html

    Good luck if Trump ends up filling vacancies.

  24. says

    Sources are reporting that the plan is: the Vermont delegation will go last in the roll call, and Sanders will ask them to call for a unanimous nomination of Clinton.

  25. Jake Harban says

    Tagging all Muslims/atheists/immigrants (while the Republican is advocating exterminating them).
    A complete ban on abortion (while the Republican is also advocating banning contraception).
    Presidential right to veto candidates for governorships and congress on security grounds (while the Republican is advocating the end of all elections).
    Withdrawal from the UN (while the Republican is advocating withdrawal from all international treaties).
    Life imprisonment for all felonies (while the Republican is advocating the death penalty).

    But not murdering children? Torturing innocent people?

    Mind you, nothing on that list disproves my original point that there’s nothing Trump will do that the Horde won’t defend a Democrat for doing. If given a choice between Trump, Hitler, and Jill Stein, I bet half the commenters here would be calling me a “fanatic” for failing to support Trump.

    Etc., etc., etc. – I really could go on indefinitely, as could anyone else here.

    You’re the first one who’s ever tried and your standards for supporting a politician aren’t exactly high.

    If I had to refrain from voting for any politician that supported things I consider morally abhorrent, I’d be a non-voter.

    I didn’t say that. I just asked what your dealbreaker was— the position or action so abhorrent that you would never support them under any circumstances.

    I don’t agree with Stein but I’m willing to support her. I actively dislike Sanders, but if he were the Democratic nominee I’d vote for him in a second to keep Trump out of the White House. However, there’s a point where the “lesser evil” is still too evil to back, and Clinton has moved beyond that point.

  26. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Jake Harban,
    War is not homicide, even when children get killed. Please cite a single public utterance where Clinton has advocated torture of innocent people. Why do you hate the idea of having a woman as President?

  27. Jake Harban says

    War is not homicide, even when children get killed.

    Because when Democrats do it, it’s “collateral damage.”

    Please cite a single public utterance where Clinton has advocated torture of innocent people.

    Please cite a single public utterance where Trump has described himself as a racist.

    Why do you hate the idea of having a woman as President?

    You are responding to a post in which I explicitly announced my support for a woman as President.

  28. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    Harbullshitter@34:
    If given a choice between Trump, Hitler, and Jill Stein, I bet half the commenters here would be calling me a “fanatic” for failing to support Trump.
    This time I think I’ll use it correctly: FALSE DICHOTOMY.

    Sure, call us stupid for your imagined response to your fucked up analogy you pulled out of your arse. shithead.

    Yeah, I’m letting my emotions take over my rational arguments. Taking after you, Harbullshitter.

  29. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Jill Stein, presently polling at 3%, and without any support mechanism in the form of her party in the House and Senate. Unelectable, and unable to govern….Dismissed as a serious alternative to HC.

  30. rpjohnston says

    Harban you’re a fanatic because you’re making up demons that simply aren’t there.

    That entire list disproves your point. But it’s also irrelevant for one very simple reason: Hillary is a centrist democrat who advocates ordinary, centrist positions – a lot of them preserving the status quo (which is itself better than it was 8 years ago) and some of them progressive. Trump advocates and runs with a party that advocates bigotry, persecution, authoritarianism. and incompetence.

    I’ll repeat this: Your rabbit hole of what-ifs is completely meaningless because what’s important is reality, and the reality is that Trump is an existential danger to millions of Americans, the world, and peace and order; Hillary is not.

    But here’s one more thing, Jake Harban. This is personal to me. I and my friends, not to mention the millions of people who are LGBT, or are muslim, black, non-male, etc are directly at risk under a Trump presidency. A Trump presidency can enact laws and policies, create a Supreme Court, and drag the Overton window of the country to the point where I and the rest of us may be LOSE OUR RIGHTS, be JAILED, or be KILLED. Yes, our LIVES are at stake here. Clinton will not do that, and even better, we can continue our progressive march under her.

    What you are supporting, Jake Harban, is the death of me and the people I know. You are willing to throw sacrifice *OUR* lives for your thrice-damned “purity”. She may not be the best, Jake Harban, and she may not be good enough for you, but when millions of lives are on the line she’s damn good enough for the rest of us. And if you want to plunge your knife into our backs, Jake Harban, know that we WILL remember who sold us out to the Devil. We know that you are no ally of ours, traitor.

  31. Vivec says

    I didn’t say that. I just asked what your dealbreaker was— the position or action so abhorrent that you would never support them under any circumstances.

    Every candidate/party currently in the running has crossed what I would consider my limit for abhorrent actions. Bereft of any option that doesn’t offend my morality, I’m either going to have to be a non-voter, or play the “well at least they’re not as abhorrent as x” game.

  32. throwaway, butcher of tongues, mauler of metaphor says

    Oh gods, not Jake “dead horse” Harban again.

    There isn’t a breed of dog he wouldn’t run over as long as it wasn’t his own dog. I bet he can’t prove me wrong, either.

  33. consciousness razor says

    Jake Harban:

    But not murdering children? Torturing innocent people?

    So you don’t understand the meaning of KG’s next sentence? Or are you just being an idiot? I mean this one right here, which you definitely read since you decided to quote it separately:

    Etc., etc., etc. – I really could go on indefinitely, as could anyone else here.

    But more importantly, aren’t you implying you’re okay with murdering non-children and torturing guilty people? What about other kinds of violence? What about non-human animals? What about other bad things that are non-violent?

    Should I assume the worst about everything, even after you tell me otherwise? Why the fuck would I do that?

  34. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Jake Harban,
    You proclaimed support for a woman who cannot win. How convenient. There is one woman who can win. That by itself is revolutionary. It is what the Rethugs fear more than anyone else. Do you hate Hillary so much that you are willing to inflict Drumpf on the country and the world?

  35. carlie says

    I’ll just leave this here for Jake:

    Finding a candidate who embraces your values is understandable, crucial even. But fervent idealism, which places support for a certain candidate above all practical consequences of that support, is foolhardy. According to ethicists, it’s also immoral.
    “The purpose of voting is not to express your fidelity to a worldview. It’s not to wave a flag or paint your face in team colors; it’s to produce outcomes,” says Jason Brennan, a philosopher at Georgetown University and author of The Ethics of Voting. “If they’re smart, they’ll vote for the candidate likely to best produce the outcome they want. That might very well be compromising, but if voting for a far-left or far-right candidate means that you’re just going to lose the election, then you’ve brought the world further away from justice rather than closer to it.”

    Ethicists say voting with your heart, without a care about the consequences, is actually immoral

  36. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    What you are supporting, Jake Harban, is the death of me and the people I know. You are willing to throw sacrifice *OUR* lives for your thrice-damned “purity”. She may not be the best, Jake Harban, and she may not be good enough for you, but when millions of lives are on the line she’s damn good enough for the rest of us. And if you want to plunge your knife into our backs, Jake Harban, know that we WILL remember who sold us out to the Devil. We know that you are no ally of ours, traitor.

    Yeah, but that’s just other people’s lives. You’re asking Jake to stop masturbating over how much better and purer he is than anyone else for three seconds. Have some perspective!

  37. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    If you believe that, then please name any policies so abhorrent that you wouldn’t support a Democrat who backs them even if the only alternative is a technically-worse Republican.

    “Letting the country burn rather than accept an imperfect compromise.”

  38. wsierichs says

    Because I live in La., my vote for president does not count unless I vote for the orange-topped fascist, so I’m free to vote my conscience. This will be the third presidential election in a row that I’ve voted Green. But I did not vote for Obama only because my vote does not count. I pegged him as a corporate-owned right-wing Republican before the 2008 election. No, he’s not as right-wing as the millions of Fox News-watching fascists who control that other party. But he basically continued policies that Reagan and the Bushes would smilingly approve of. He “evolved” on LGBT rights only when the battle already was won by the activists. I’ll give him points for being ahead of other Dems, such as HRC, but not very many. Before I get to the 2016 election, here’s something I must say.
    What has long infuriated me is that he bailed out the banks but blocked any prosecution of the Tony Sopranos Gang of Wall Street. Even Reagan, whose people engineered the 1980s savings and loan financial disaster, at least allowed the prosecution of the more obvious crooks. Obama also blocked prosecution of the hundreds (thousands?) of war criminals of the Bush maladministration, just as Ford protected Nixon from prosecution and conviction and Bush the Elder and Bill Clinton protected Reagan and the vile war criminals around him. Refusing to prosecute war crimes and torture, when you have the legal authority, is the same as endorsing those horrors. Obama not only continued Bush’s serial drone murder program, but expanded it, and justified the murder of thousands of civilians by claiming anyone standing near an accused terrorist must also be a terrorist.
    So I consider Obama to be a member of the Democratic Party leadership, which is just as corrupt as the Republican Party. I had caught onto that by the late 1990s. The Democratic membership is centrist/moderately liberal. The leadership is owned by the same people who own the Republicans, and that leadership has no problem with right-wing policies/laws. They talk/do a few liberal things that won’t hurt their corporate masters, but only when the political benefits of being a temporary liberal are high enough to justify changing the status quo. If anyone disagrees with this, consider this for a moment: One of the most destructive laws/policies of the past several decades has been the civil asset seizure law, under which police can steal people’s property simply by declaring that it must be from some unspecified, unproven crime. This is blatantly unconstitutional, it’s the source of massive corruption among police, and combined with the racist “war on drugs”/for-profit prison explosion, has been devastating to the black community. So why haven’t the Democrats waged war against these two destructive laws and trends? Democrats have, in fact, supported them, particularly Bill and HIllary “super predators” Clinton. I could point to a lot more instances of the Democrats backing right-wing policies, making at most token efforts at opposition.
    Hillary Clinton simply promises to continue the same policies that, followed by every president since Jan. 20, 1981, have been slowly destroying the middle class, crushing workers and intensifying poverty. Worse, Clinton’s foreign policy, at least toward Third World countries, makes her sound like a Dalek: Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate! The women and children, and everyone else in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Honduras and Ukraine certainly don’t consider her to be some liberal protector. Her foreign policy can best be described as warmongering sociopathy. And going by her record, she will ramp up the aggression against Russia favored by such neo-fascists Henry Kissinger, Robert Kagan, Victoria Nuland et al.
    So I think Clinton would be as big a disaster as Trump, just in a different way. And if she does pursue neo-fascist (there’s nothing conservative about these people) aggression against Russia, that’s playing Russian roulette. Russia has a well-founded fear of attacks from the West. Pushing NATO to Russia’s western border is insane. Threatening an aerial war with Russia over Syria, in order to destroy a Russian client, Assad, is insane. A few miscalculations and Russia might feel it has no choice but to invade Ukraine, Byelorus, the Baltic States, and threaten use of nuclear weapons if NATO intervenes. Clinton scares me because she might just decide she has to be aggressive and send in the soldiers.
    One more reason I could not vote for Clinton even if I were the decisive swing vote: I am sick of Lesser Evilism. I had to hold my nose twice to vote for the vile John Bel Edwards for governor of Louisiana because Vitter would have been four more years of Jindal and this state should not endure any more of that torture. Edwards is vile, first, because he joined Vitter and Jindal in demonizing the Syrian refugees. I expect Republicans to be evil. Edwards proved himself to be a Republican, not a Democrat, when he did that. Second, Edwards is a member of the Women Enslavement Movement – he believes a woman becomes a slave of the government the moment she gets pregnant. I’m an abolitionist because I recognize that people have a right to contraception and women have a right to abortion. So I hated hated hated voting for a pro-slavery advocate. I felt I had no choice. But in Trump vs. Clinton, there is no lesser evil.
    Finally, the massive election fraud used to block Sanders from possible nomination must not be rewarded. There is no question that the DNC stole the election. The massive problems in the Dem. voting process cannot be explained by mere incompetence. It was deliberate. As a newspaper reporter/editor on daily newspapers in the Deep South for 40 years, I’ve seen plenty of elections up close, and this was rotten. Maybe Clinton would have eked out a victory in a fair and square vote, but we’ll never know. Tragically, Clinton’s flaws and weaknesses are so enormous that there is a very good chance she will lose to Trump, whereas Sanders would certainly crush him. So a vote for Clinton in the nominating process would then have been a vote for Trump. And I think that was obvious long before the primaries ended. So I do not pay any attention to Clinton supporters trying to tell me I’m voting for Trump if I don’t vote for her. If Trump wins, it’s Clinton, the DNC and Clinton voters who put him in the White House. No ifs, ands or buts.

  39. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Finally, the massive election fraud used to block Sanders from possible nomination must not be rewarded.

    Evidenceless assertion, like all the others in your inane screed, dismissed without evidence.
    Don’t want to vote for Clinton? Don’t do so. Now, shut up, as you offer no viable alternative.

  40. Vivec says

    I am sick of Lesser Evilism.

    But that’s exactly what you’re doing by voting green, unless you don’t think courting anti-science conspiracy nuts and being wishy-washy on transgender rights as bad things.

  41. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    re screed@48:
    so sick of “less evilism” you’d rather let the “greater evil” win? Okay, F.U. let the country burn, rather than use that yukky fire extinguisher that get covers you with ink while putting out the flames.
    The lesser evil regularly smashes your windows so let the arsonist burn down the block so the window smasher can’t.
    Consider: Hill is not “lesser of evils”, more like “not the best”. Subtle but significant difference..
    She is not perfect and flawed in many ways, Yet think of the alternative, which is more a destruction machine, unwilling to change and quite proud of destructive abilities. Hill is like a flawed machine that is willing (even if reluctant) to get repaired.
    .
    yikes, I warn I’m about to utter the hated word all Liburals use: Compromise. [read into it at will]

  42. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    small galley proof correction:
    “She is not perfect and flawed in many ways,…”

    this could be read as a contradiction:
    “she is not perfect and not flawed. in many ways”

    oops…let me rephrase it the way I actually intended:

    “She is not perfect. And she is flawed in many ways.”

    orally, it would be much more clear my intent with the original sequence of word with proper rhythm etc. Text is hard to convey oral nuance.

  43. says

    #48:wsierichs

    Sorry, but your lengthy rant is the type of nonsense I see every time I visit Infowars. Not sure what you’re doing here, in fact.

  44. wsierichs says

    I was about to start accusing people of being Clintonbots, but I recognize the very real fear of Trump, for good reasons. The problem is, even if I were in a swing state, I cannot see Clinton as less evil. I fear her as much as Trump, and maybe more if you understand how she is such a war hawk that she might very well start a war with Russia by pure miscalculation. Since a vote for her is pointless in La., I will vote my Green. If she wins I really really hope that some day I will have to eat a crow. But I doubt it.
    Again, I fear that Clinton’s flaws are such that – whatever opinion I have of her – even if I were to vote for her as well as many other people who will hold their noses one more time, she will hand the election to Trump. And I will blame the DNC as bearing very heavy guilt for that.
    And yes, the election fraud by the DNC is well-established and was obvious even before hard evidence, such as statistically impossible results, was revealed. I’m cynical enough that I doubt anyone will ever go to prison for it and it will happen again because both parties have a vested interest in keeping the voting system flawed and voting machines hackable. I have been forced to vote on electronic machines, with no paper trail, for years, and therefore don’t trust any election results in that period. Unfortunately, I’m not in any kind of position to push for change. Again, the parties’ leaders want an opaque voting system in which fraud can be readily committed and hard to prove before election results are finalized. Americans’ wishes for a clean system don’t count to them.

  45. rpjohnston says

    I call bullshit on refrains of “being sick of lesser evilism”. Anyone who is saying that is still choosing the lesser evil in letting Trump win. A greater evil would be suicide. An even greater evil would be suicide bombing. And you could do even MORE evil than that. But you won’t. You’ll just let the lesser evil of Trump win so that you can lie to your ego that you’re “principled” in not rewarding the even-lesser evil. There’s always a greater evil for you to sell out to – the only question is which evil you’re willing to sink to.

  46. Jake Harban says

    @38 Slithey Tove:

    Considering that you believe I should happily vote for Bush to prevent Trump winning, it’s a natural extrapolation.

    @39 Troll:

    You keep banging on about Stein’s poor chances, but you have yet to offer a viable alternative.

    @40 rpjohnston:

    You are clearly living in a fantasy world where Clinton supports LGBT rights, opposes wars of aggression against largely Muslim people, and I somehow care about “purity” whatever that means.

    Unfortunately, this is the real world. Declaring: “Muslim people’s lives are at stake, therefore you must support a candidate who has gleefully supported wars of aggression in five Muslim-majority countries or else you are personally responsible for their deaths” is beyond offensive.

    @41 Vivec:

    Exactly what does Stein do that’s beyond your threshold for irredeemable moral depravity?

    @42 throwaway:

    That’s just a childish insult of no relevance to anything.

    @43 consciousness razor:

    I’m not sure exactly what point you’re trying to prove. My point is clear; anyone who tortures innocent people and murders children has passed the moral event horizon; they have become so evil that they simply do not deserve to be supported under any circumstances. If you are willing to say a murderer/torturer deserves to be in a position of power, then I ask where your moral event horizon is, if you have one. Usually, no one can offer an answer; for the first time I did receive an answer, but the bar was set so low that even Trump isn’t too evil to support under the right circumstances.

    Somehow, the point eluded you and so you reached the asinine conclusion that just because murdering children is the moral event horizon, it means I’m OK with anything up to that.

    So basically, you’re arguing that I’d be willing to support any candidate who merely murders adults and that I’m only willing to support perfect candidates with “ideological purity” and you don’t notice or care that those two positions contradict each other.

    @44 a_ray:

    That you ask loaded questions that presume absurdities demonstrates that you have no interest in the truth, and as such there is no sense in offering you a serious response.

    @45 carlie:

    Your quote would be better directed towards the Clinton-or-bust crowd. I have, in fact, considered the consequences of voting for each of the four major candidates listed on the ballot and determined that voting for Stein yields the best outcome. This stands in stark contrast to the Clinton supporters, who seem to be motivated primarily (if not exclusively) by blind panic about what Trump might do if he became President.

    I’d be happy to explain my full reasoning, but I suspect it would be lost on many of the posters here.

    @46, 47 Azkyroth:

    I really hope that someday you’ll learn to appreciate the irony of declaring: “I’m voting for drone strikes on Syrians. Jake Harban is voting against drone strikes on Syrians. Therefore, I am a mature pragmatic realist who is willing to sacrifice other people’s lives in the name of ‘compromise’ while Jake Harban is an immature ideological purist who is against senseless killing. This proves that Jake Harban has no regard for the lives of anyone but himself, while I have nothing but concern for the lives of others.”

    @50 Vivec:

    Lesser evilism is inevitable to some extent, but it’s a question of degree— do you support the candidate who killed 50 children, the candidate who killed 33 children, or the candidate who flipped off one child and then stole their lollipop and popped their balloon? Sure, the third option is still evil, but not in any way comparable to the first two. In fact, I’d go so far as to say the first two are equally evil; once the term “child murderer” becomes apropos, you don’t get to claim to be a better person than other child murderers. This, of course, annoys the Clinton-or-bust crowd to no end; any time I mention that Trump and Clinton are equally bad, they immediately start counting bodies and indignantly declaring that Clinton’s body count is clearly smaller.

  47. says

    slithey tove @51:

    Consider: Hill is not “lesser of evils”, more like “not the best”. Subtle but significant difference..

    Except not true. Clinton is indeed evil, for most of the reasons that Wsierichs @48 (and Jake) has eloquently explained.

    I differ from them in that I personally would agree that she is a somewhat lesser evil, compared to Trump, for all the reasons that others have explained. And were I to vote in the US elections I probably would hold my nose and, yes, vote for her (and wash my hands after that, repeatedly, and feel sick). But that is about the maximum compromise that you can reasonably expect to achieve with any principled but realistic leftists. So please don’t try to pressure them into having to be enthusiastic about the “choice” that this fake election presents them with. It is bad enough as it is.

    On matters of international policy, like 99% of her predecessors, president Hillary Clinton is without doubt going to be just another bloody minded murderer. Her main opponent in the race is probably going to be worse only on the numbers dead, not on the principle that people around the world should die in the interest of American Capital. So all of you keep cheerleading for her if you like to be seen around the world as supporting murder. And call yourselves “liberals” and “progressives”.

  48. Vivec says

    Exactly what does Stein do that’s beyond your threshold for irredeemable moral depravity?

    Her and the green party’s promulgation of ~big pharma~ dog whistle politics in regards to vaccines and homeopathy, and stein’s wishy-washy stance on transgender bathrooms (when asked by Forbes, she deflected on it not really being a big deal, and suggested single-occupant bathrooms rather than affirming that transgender women are women) are all past the threshold for what I consider morally abhorrent. I have exceptionally high standards, though.

    In fact, I’d go so far as to say the first two are equally evil; once the term “child murderer” becomes apropos, you don’t get to claim to be a better person than other child murderers.

    I disagree. The person who murders one child ever and then stops isn’t a good person, but they are demonstrably better than the person who kills five, and that person is demonstrably better than the person that kills fifty.

  49. Vivec says

    For the record, I really don’t like Clinton or Kaine. But if my options are Big Evil, Slightly Less Evil, or Significantly Less Evil that has a low chance of getting elected and would have no friendly seats in congress, I’m either not voting or picking the second one.

    Ultimately, my vote is irrelevant, though. My state is on lockdown for the Democrats.

  50. qwints says

    I’m reminded of the choice people faced in 64 – a Democrat who shepherded the passage of civil rights act and was promising the voting rights act but who endorsed the “domino” theory and was expanding the US military presence in South Vietnam or a Republican who was opposed to the civil rights act and was even more bloodthirsty, including talking about using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

  51. rpjohnston says

    There’s also this quote from Stein:

    I got involved as a mother and a medical doctor. I had been, for a while, very alarmed about the public health calamities that I was witnessing as a new doctor and a mother of young kids. There were these new epidemics of asthma and cancer and autism and diabetes and obesity.

    I have autistic friends who took great exception to her characterization of autism as “public health calamity” and “epidemic” and that basically broke their support for her. I am autistic as well, though I have little involvement in autism issues and am not as offended. But yeah pick your poison – Stein’s got her ugly sides, and I had plenty of issues with Sanders too. I liked, and like, them both better than Clinton but compared to cordyceps-infested orange creamsicle they’re all basically on the same spot on the Calamity Scale.

  52. says

    Rob @62, to say that Clinton is not evil but only “flawed” or “imperfect” is practically cheerleading to me. As humans we are all flawed and imperfect so there is no news in that. People who say that about her would have us see her as an average human being, harmless and fundamentally a “good” person. Someone who just needs a bit of encouragement or something. But she has a track record and it is positively bad.

    Thank you for the music though.

  53. wsierichs says

    I can’t resist quoting Bob Dole’s comment once after seeing Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Richard Nixon sitting together at some event: “Hear no evil, See no evil, and Evil.”
    If I did not make it fully clear, I consider Trump and Clinton to both be equally evil, just in different ways. Someone who considers Kissinger to be a bff is just evil. If my vote counted and someone can make a case that Clinton is not as evil as Trump, I would seriously consider holding my nose and voting for her. I just don’t see any significant difference.
    To put it another way, I’m tired of voting for the lesser evil. I want to vote for the greater good. Clinton might squeak past Trump if enough people see her as the lesser evil. But on election day, a lot of people who love Trump and a lot of people who despise Trump but hate Clinton worse will vote against her. She has such a high negative perception that I greatly fear she cannot overcome that, that too many people just can’t vote for her. Which would put Trump in the White House.
    That would not be a problem with Sanders. Outside of Correct the Record trolls, most people recognizes he’s a decent, honest person. I don’t agree with some votes/positions he’s taken. But he’s clearly a member of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, and that’s what we need. He would easily crush Trump. He would get not only Democrats but a lot of Independents who are tired of decades of economic destruction and oppression of people’s rights, especially minorities’ rights. “Lesser evilism” is an argument that’s been used too many times to get people to vote for bad Democrats. It’s not a problem for Sanders. I wish he were the nominee, but barring some Deus ex machina, he won’t be. And that’s why I fear a Trump victory is a very real possibility.

  54. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    re 56:
    sheesh, you like to strawman?
    >blockquote>@38 Slithey Tove:

    Considering that you believe I should happily vote for Bush to prevent Trump winning, it’s a natural extrapolation.
    fuck off
    Where did you get the idea from my “outburst@38” that “Bush [W], vs Trump” is naturally extrapolated into “Hitler vs Trump vs Stein”?? or vice versa.
    And where did I ever give the impression one should happily vote for Clinton. My arguments have only endorsed her as the candidate to vote for and never advocated any particular emotional accompaniment. Grimace all you want, the check mark is the important thing, not the emotion behind it. So go ahead and hate her all you want but Trump is even worse, not just for you but for everybody but him.
    fuck off

  55. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    But that is about the maximum compromise that you can reasonably expect to achieve with any principled but realistic leftists. So please don’t try to pressure them into having to be enthusiastic about the “choice” that this fake election presents them with. It is bad enough as it is.

    A tell for hard leftists (or rightists) “there is no difference between the democrats and rethugs”. At that point, the bullshit starts, just as it did back during my college days, circa ’70.

    I don’t give a shit about the problems that “principled” leftists have. Either vote green, socialist workers (if they still exist and run candidates), or vote democratic. Your choice. But what is need is for the “principled” leftists to stop believing those of us who are in the middle, and see Trump with horror because of very clear positions he holds that are distinct from the democrats, have any other alternative to Hillary that will defeat Trump. Why not let down your blaring rhetoric, and let us do our strategic voting in peace. Your polemics are boring, and I stopped listening to them back in college from hard leftists.

    JH, You are the one presenting Stein as an alternative to Hillary. I knew I was voting for Hillary, if she won the democratic nomination, months ago. I don’t need an alternative. I keep showing you hard evidence Stein is NOT a real alternative so you understand you are full of shit even pretending Stein is electable. Your problem, as to change my mind, you have to have somebody who is capable of beating Trump in 2016. Stein can’t do that; the data says that. Hillary can according to the data. You lose, as usual.

  56. gmacs says

    Vivec

    Ultimately, my vote is irrelevant, though. My state is on lockdown for the Democrats.

    Just remember down-ballot. Always important. Although, in some instances, I’ve had to vote Republican on a couple of those because that person (shockingly) happened to be the most progressive candidate.

  57. Vivec says

    Well yeah, but once again, I’m in a soundly blue area. Even if I hypothetically wanted to vote red, I doubt it’d have an affect

  58. Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaiden says

    qwints@60:

    That’s a great comparison, esp with how Johnson empowered Kissinger.

    SC@69:

    And that is relevant as hell. I don’t know why people are trying to minimize that part maybe I’m too steeped in law, but I see precedent mattering in our elections. Clinton’s election would tend to empower dynastic candidates, and there are other precedents she would set that I wouldn’t like, but if you’re going to argue that she’s going to set dynastic precedents and that that matters, it’s pretty dishonest to argue it doesn’t matter that she is the first woman “major party” nominee.

  59. consciousness razor says

    I’m not sure exactly what point you’re trying to prove.

    Apparently not.

    Usually, no one can offer an answer; for the first time I did receive an answer, but the bar was set so low that even Trump isn’t too evil to support under the right circumstances.

    If it was either that or the entire human population being tortured and killed, you’re implying you’d prefer the latter. Why would you say shit like that? I’m assuming you don’t mean it. If that is your position, you may be the only one who has it, brave rebellious defender of humanity that you are. (But here’s a quick tip: write what you actually fucking mean to say, preferably something that’s also true.)

    Let’s suppose you really do think he (or rather voting for him) is worse than anything and everything. Maybe you just forget how thoroughly incompetent Trump is, how if he tried to do so, he wouldn’t be able to accomplish the worst things anybody could imagine. Because we’re talking about the fucking POTUS here, not an election for a comic book supervillain.

    I know, Trump (and Clinton, I’ll spot you that) does make it hard to tell the difference sometimes. But the lesson here is I guess that bullshit is no substitute for a little solid thinking.

    Somehow, the point eluded you and so you reached the asinine conclusion that just because murdering children is the moral event horizon, it means I’m OK with anything up to that.

    I didn’t claim there is a moral event horizon, nor did I say where specifically some such boundary is supposed to be drawn. I don’t think I even know what you might mean by that phrase. So, no, it wasn’t a premise that I had used, not to make your weird conclusion or any other conclusion.

    So basically, you’re arguing that I’d be willing to support any candidate who merely murders adults and that I’m only willing to support perfect candidates with “ideological purity” and you don’t notice or care that those two positions contradict each other.

    No, that’s also not the argument I made. To make it extra simple, as you’re demonstrating again, you need to work on your reading comprehension and/or your honesty.

  60. davidporter says

    I’m pretty far left. I think that there would be a reasonable, perhaps even clear cut, case for trying Obama and Clinton (and of course, Bush, Cheney, and the rest of that administration) as war criminals. And yet, I’m going to vote for Clinton and here is why:
    Clinton’s disastrous, immoral, and criminal approach to the Middle East is not something we can blame on her; it’s the product of being an American politician. Our country is geared in so many ways for murderous involvement in the rest of the world; politicians like Clinton are agents of our country when they conduct foreign policy in the way they do, they don’t drive that policy, they just don’t have the imagination or moral courage to move us away from it. None of that is great, in fact, given the scale of abuses we commit, it’s deeply, deeply wrong. But it’s necessary to realize that it could be a lot worse. Liberal interventionists like Clinton (and, in many ways, the neo-Cons fit in this too, which is why the Clinton/Obama/Bush Middle East policies look so similar) for all their blindness at least believe that what they do should benefit the countries we’re involved in, not just America. And I think it’s undeniable that this leads to some degree of restraint in our use of force against innocent people, far from enough, but very real restraint. Obama and Clinton don’t care about foreign Muslim lives enough to put the same degree of importance on them as they do on American lives, but they do make some efforts to avoid the killing of innocents. Trump wouldn’t; he’s made that very clear. He has explicitly discussed using the murder of Muslims as an instrument of policy to defeat “terrorism.” Clinton and Obama (and even Bush), have accepted the deaths of far too many Muslims abroad as the consequences of misguided foreign policy goals, but they have never made those deaths themselves a goal. Clinton and Obama believe in allowing Syrian refugees into America – not enough of them, but some, because they genuinely do assign value to those people’s lives. Trump doesn’t – a tiny increase in risk to America is enough for him to categorize whole categories of people as sub-human. This is a meaningful difference. So even on foreign/military policy, where the “Clinton and Trump are equally evil” crowd seems to have it’s best case, they’re wrong.

    But even beyond that, important as they are, it’s ludicrous to totally ignore everything but the wars. Donald Trump wants to build a wall on the Mexican border, wants to round up and deport 11 million people, wants to ban all entry by Muslims into the US. Clinton opposes all of those policies, strongly. That’s not just a difference of degree; it’s one of kind. Clinton’s policies on these issues certainly aren’t perfect, but Trump’s are morally abhorrent. Or take reproductive rights for women – Clinton believes that women are people with the right to control their own bodies, Trump (and the Republicans more generally) think they can be treated as incubators for babies (and even if you think Trump is insincere on this, it still is pretty clear that he will appoint judges who believe this). Or look at all of the classic “lesser evil” issues. Yes, Obamacare preserves an absurd and terrible health care system that doesn’t work for far too many people, when single payer would be much better. But it’s still something that helps a lot of people, and preserving it rather than repealing it makes a big difference in millions of people’s lives. Take climate change – yes the Dems have been far too timid in the face of a massive threat to the entire planet (though they’ve also been hugely obstructed by a Republican Congress). But using the EPA to regulate carbon emissions matters, and that’s something Clinton will continue that Trump would reverse. Actually attempting to produce international treaties that will limit emissions matters, and those treaties just aren’t going to happen if the US sits on the sideline.

    And finally, as always, the Supreme Court matters, and matters over the long term. And it’s notable that even on the issues that Democratic presidents have totally failed on, like torture, judges appointed by Democratic presidents have been far more likely to take the morally good position than those appointed by Republicans.

    So yeah, I’d say there’s a clear lesser evil. Trump and Clinton aren’t the same; it’s not even close. I’m deeply disappointed by the Democratic party. I think they work in service of a status quo that is terrible for minorities, the poor, women, immigrants, Muslims around the world, and the environment of the entire planet. And yet, given a choice between that status quo (and at least some gestures at attempting to make it better) and a party, and this Republican candidate in particular, who wants to make things far, far worse in every area in which we criticize the Dems for not being good enough, I don’t see how we can not pick that status quo.

  61. davidporter says

    Oh, and one more thing. Jake Harban has been making a big deal about having moral lines that one won’t cross in voting, and how morally superior it makes him that he won’t vote for a child murderer. He also seems to love absurd voting scenarios involving Hitler.

    So here’s a question, Jake. In a hypothetical election between Hillary Clinton, Adolf Hitler, and whatever fantasy left wing candidate with no chance of winning you would like, in which you know with absolute certainty that your vote will determine the outcome (that is, if you vote for left-winger/don’t vote, Hitler wins, if you vote for Clinton, she wins), who do you vote for?

    If the answer is Clinton, apparently your line isn’t quite so bright (or isn’t where you claim it is). If the answer is that you let Hitler win, then I think it should be clear to any decent person that your claim to moral superiority is a load of horseshit, and that in fact you are an absolutely reprehensible human being, who cares more about his own sense of purity than actual people’s lives.

    There’s a reasonable case for voting for Stein – it’s that you live in a safe state, and you think the message sent by increasing her vote total is more important than the message sent by increasing Hillary’s margin of victory (or decreasing Trump’s). But there is not a reasonable case for believing that it is morally acceptable to be content with letting Trump win just so you don’t have to vote for Hillary.

  62. says

    Well said David. Best comment I’ve seen on this thread (not that I agree 100% with everything).

    I would add that people too often forget that the goal of most of those who attend the first full security briefing with a new president is to scare the living bejesus out of them. For some in the room, it’s out of a genuine concern for American lives, for others, it’s out of political expediency, vested interests, or even personal prejudices, along with any number of combination of valid and invalid reasons. It’s the president’s job to figure all that out while weighing the heavy prospect of the loss of American lives on American soil, either through imminent terrorist attacks (9/11) or the rise of a threat not dealt with soon enough. Not easy, to say the least.

    Sure, different presidents deal with it in different ways, some better, some worse, but the pressures are the same, and they are immense, and unrelenting. Bernie Sanders would have faced the same situation had he somehow won the presidency and to say that he would have dealt with such threats far better that Clinton will or Obama did, is naive. We simply do not know, especially since his foreign policy experience was limited.

    It’s all to easy to wish for easy solutions. Hardcore Bernie supporters believe that if only he was president, the whole edifice built by the globalist elites will come tumbling down. Hardcore Trump supporters believe the same thing (though I can’t imagine why). The world simply doesn’t work that way. There are no easy fixes, not when you’re taking on entrenched interests with all the power and money on their side. It takes a lot of hard work to see incremental changes in the right direction until (with a lot of perseverance and a dollop of luck) a tipping point is reached. How long did it take after coming out as gay didn’t destroy your career before gay marriage became a reality? 40 years? It could take that long to reverse the wealth gap that’s been growing for the last three decades already. Depressing, maybe, but it’s more realistic than putting your faith in a single person to buck the entire system.

  63. says

    Well yeah, but once again, I’m in a soundly blue area. Even if I hypothetically wanted to vote red, I doubt it’d have an affect

    Not that I’m one to talk, but there is always the option of volunteering in another, less blue, location – get-out-the-vote efforts, and such.

  64. moarscienceplz says

    tacitus #74:

    I would add that people too often forget that the goal of most of those who attend the first full security briefing with a new president is to scare the living bejesus out of them.

    Oh, really?
    How many POTUS security briefings have you attended, or been told about by actual participants?

  65. Vivec says

    Not that I’m one to talk, but there is always the option of volunteering in another, less blue, location – get-out-the-vote efforts, and such.

    Were it only that I had the time and money to make day-long excursions outside of the fairly major city I live in.

  66. Menyambal says

    It doesn’t matter what your state is locked as. The main thing, the morning after, is the total popular vote. In most folk’s minds, that is all that will be remembered. The Green Party getting votes won’t even be a blip on the national consciousness, let alone the world’s. The margin by which the winner wins the nation is what will have an influence on national policy for the next years.

  67. chigau (違う) says

    Listened to a few minutes of a CBC (Canada) show on T.E. Lawrence.
    huh
    It seems We™ have been doing Disastrous Policies In The Middle East for over 100 years.

  68. consciousness razor says

    It doesn’t matter what your state is locked as. The main thing, the morning after, is the total popular vote. In most folk’s minds, that is all that will be remembered.

    But the main thing is the electoral college vote, since that decides who wins (they’ll probably remember who that is), so in that sense it does matter which state you’re in….

    The margin by which the winner wins the nation is what will have an influence on national policy for the next years.

    Smells a bit fishy when turnout is hovering just over 50%. Some will be thinking that America™ is now behind whatever the winner of that particular race wants, I’m sure, or they’ll say so on TV at least until they start talking about 2020. But I predict not many at all will care about margins in the popular vote, which is itself some fraction of the adult population (and which didn’t even determine the outcome, for whatever that’s worth). Whatever influence that may have, I think it’s going to be drowned out by all of the other influences.

  69. consciousness razor says

    Closer to ten centuries than a single century.

    Well, Alexander had a pretty disastrous policy too. That would make it about 23 centuries. But I don’t know who We™ are. Sometimes I don’t even know who I am.

    Lawrence of Arabia is certainly epic, and I love it. Still, it’s a little hard to watch nowadays, with so much of the picture left unpainted.

  70. chigau (違う) says

    I saw Lawrence of Arabia as a teenager. Looooved it.
    I read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Pillars_of_Wisdom as an undergrad in the 1970s and really did not get it. Did not see much relation to the movie.
    Re-read it about 15 years ago and thought T.E. was spot-on about alot of things.
    Now I cannot find my copy of 7Pillars.
    I probably loaned it to One Of Those People.

  71. Mrdead Inmypocket says

    @ 40
    This is not directed at you specifically.

    Clinton is not a centrist, her policies are not moderate. Around 60 years ago I became interesting in politics, that’s given me some perspective. So lets ask, if Clinton is supposedly a centrist, by what standard? We have to have some relative point to measure from.

    Okay so just looking at the present election. The common rhetoric is “Sanders is a socialist. Clinton is a moderate and Trump is insane”.

    But to accept that I have to ignore my first hand experience, the sixty plus years of historical stratification in US politics which I’ve observed pretty closely. Lets dispel the idea the Sanders is a socialist or radical left. His campaign’s policies align historically with New Deal democrats like FDR. Not far from LBJ in many respects, similarities to JFK. But the point is, historically, the Sanders campaign plots right down in center left.

    Also, from a historical perspective H Clinton is right of center. Clinton and the DNC’s policies align with Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Rockerfeller. In following Clinton’s career she started early on as a Goldwater supporter, developing into a Rockerfeller Republican. it wasn’t till the later in life that she hitched her wagon to the (D) party. Though in some areas like banking and Wall Street Clinton is certainly a deregulation neoliberal now, much further right than Rockerfeller ever was on that. A vehement supporter of Bill Clinton’s “New way” DLC happy crappy in the 90’s, So maybe Hillary is somewhat further right than those moderate Republicans in some ways. But Clinton and the Democratic party of the 90’s and today would fit very neatly into the slot of moderate Republican forty years ago. Nothing controversial about that.

    But what about another perspective, an international one? Is H Clinton a moderate in Britain, Canada, Germany, Sweden, France etc. No, of course not. On an international scale Sanders is center-left himself. Sander’s is right about where Francois Hollande is. Sanders policies would be middle of the road NDP in Canada. Sanders would be to the right of Olof Palme of Sweden. But where does that put Clinton on the political spectrum in relative terms? Absolutely not a centrist.

    So with some perspective can we claim Clinton is a centrist, only if we only myopically focus. But that’s just how distorted the American political system has become over the last few decades. Would that be considered cognitive dissonance, if we need to blur our perception of the political spectrum in the US, make it devoid of any other reference if we want to call Clinton a centrist? It’s a long way to go I think.

    Let me be clear here. I’m not saying “Hey look how great Republicans were back then, weeeee!”. Because they weren’t. I’m not trying to say “Hillary is evil”, which I’ve read a few times in the thread and… Ugh it’s not worth addressing. Listen, all I’m saying is lets have a rational perspective here.

    I had to make that all clear so I could say this. What I’m going to do is give the “Hillary is a moderate or centrist” argument the best case I can. Lets say that Clinton IS a centrist. Just for the sake of argument.

    Okay let me cut my bullshit rant in half, then maybe it’ll post. Cont…

  72. Mrdead Inmypocket says

    Part deuce. Welp I wrote the other half again now that I got a moment at work. I’m sure my employer wont mind paying for this screed.

    I see people deriding others as “Bernie Bros”, or saying that Sanders supporters wanted political “purity” as some kind of excuse as to why they simply have to support the centrist. This is asinine and you should cease that divisive rhetoric. The purpose of supporting the Sanders (progressive) campaign was to reestablish the political spectrum and a rational governance discourse in the US. Not to be “holier than thou”. It certainly has nothing to do with that weird conversation about “moral lines” going on here. That digressed into a bizarre game of capture the intellectual flag. Pointless posturing i think.

    An oversimplification, I’m constrained by the medium, my intellect and my internet skills here.
    When you’re trying to govern, you start with a position on the left and another on the right, obviously. Through negotiation you come to a bipartisan agreement that meets somewhere in the middle, more or less. There are major and minor victories/loses at times to be sure, but electing a president frames the arena where that discourse is going to happen and guides the countries policies as such. We all know that but I’m spelling this out meticulously anyway. So our complex political spectrum as follows:

    LEFT-(this area in between is the arena of possible bipartisan governance)- RIGHT

    If we assume that Clinton is a centrist. This was the choice as of the Democratic primaries.

    SANDERS-(this area is the arena ) CLINTON (of bipartisan governance)- TRUMP

    You see the entire political spectrum is still a possibility. But

    This is what was chosen when Clinton won the Democratic primaries.

    XXXXXXX-(XXXXXXXXXXXXX) CLINTON (this is now the arena of bipartisan governance)- TRUMP

    Sanders is out, Clinton is in. Of course the centrists always promise to throw a bone to the left. But it’s a vote gaining grift scheme at best. More importantly, the entire political spectrum has now moved right. The supposed “middle” is now between the centrist and the far right, that is where governance policy will be made from. This is not “holding the line” as PZ said in an earlier blog post it’s moving right. A successful progressive campaign would have reestablished the political spectrum the US enjoyed until around forty years ago.

    You see Clinton supporters are intensely focused on the short game. Getting their woman into office, then they suppose she can “maybe do at least some good, because some good is better than none” or at the very least “hold the line”. In reality if you look at the larger picture, that moves the country to the right of the spectrum once again. Which doesn’t make things better. Clinton is a short term, small problem and a step toward a long term, larger problem. You vote for a left candidate to offset the right. You don’t start in the center (Never mind center-right) when you debate and negotiate on governance, That is short sighted. Starting from the center is a stalemate for the left and a win for the right, Which is why Republicans can afford to be obstructionists and still have success. After that move right every victory, even small is gravy for the Republicans.

    So, the political arena is now on the right side of the spectrum because that’s where most voters are in the US, where progressive issues are off the table. It’s now an arena where Republicans who want to be seen as hard line conservative are able to move to the extreme right where there is no civic sanity at all. Political extremism like that is now a possibility because centrism is embraced by the Democratic establishment. it has allowed extremists like Trump or Cruz to be a political reality today. A where in the past when there was a more sensible political spectrum these extremists would be rightly ridiculed and unelectable. (Do you suppose that’s similar to the way religious moderates enable fundamentalism? I’ll think that through later.)

    Also politics is a nasty business. Enabling far right extremists in US poltiics is advantageous to the neoliberal Democratic establishment. Wacko’s like Trump and Cruz et al are useful as a sword of Damocles to keep the debate framed to the political right, far from progressive policies. Democratic voters have been falling for it for decades. “If you don’t vote for us then… crazy town”. Politics in the US has come down to political extortion. “What a shame it would be if we lost an election and some evil person came in here and wrecked the place”.

    But that’s all water under the bridge now isn’t it my right of center friends? The Democratic primary choice is made. Now we’re all just deciding where on the right we are going to govern from in the US. From the Hill or from the Drumpf. Yaay well done.

    In the long game if you’re progressive and supported Clinton in the primary you were dead wrong. She is the larger of two evils by moving the political spectrum right which not only means you have little to no representation in the Democratic party, it allows political extremism to be a viable position. You lose lose. Trump is here because Democrats have been making this irrational choice for decades. So own that moderates.

    HOWEVER. In the presidential end game, the choice between Trump and Clinton, I acknowledge that Clinton supporters are absolutely correct in their assessment that Trump would be a worse choice than Clinton. The time to make any kind of difference is far over. Voting for anyone but Clinton for president in order to change the DNC, well, that’s like saying “If I can just build this roof I can finish with the foundation and walls later”. It makes no sense whatsoever. PZ also asked people in a previous blog to go out and work for progressives. That’s good advice. The only route actually. Politics IS a long game despite peoples impression that you can pull a lever and that’s that “my jobs done”. Allow me to lament this lost opportunity when the Republican voters embraced their radical anti-Republican establishment candidate, while the Democrats actively worked against theirs. An opportunity to shift the political spectrum that we’ll probably not see in our lifetimes again.

    Lets all rejoin the death spiral and chant “The left candidate doesn’t have enough support” and “You have to vote XXXX because XXXX is worse”. Without end, without end.

    You’ll all be glad that this is my last word on here about this subject so let me take this opportunity to say fuck you very much for your support and defense of Clinton if you voted for her in the primaries, you know who you are. But yeah, the choice is clear now. You got us in a corner. We can choose THIS or THIS. Nicely played you right wingers you. See you at the booth.
    MMMMmmmm MMMmm what about this shit sandwich, how did you get that texture? Magnificent.

  73. Jake Harban says

    @58 Vivec:

    Her and the green party’s promulgation of ~big pharma~ dog whistle politics in regards to vaccines and homeopathy, and stein’s wishy-washy stance on transgender bathrooms (when asked by Forbes, she deflected on it not really being a big deal, and suggested single-occupant bathrooms rather than affirming that transgender women are women) are all past the threshold for what I consider morally abhorrent. I have exceptionally high standards, though.

    I didn’t ask what positions of Stein you found abhorrent, but rather which positions of hers you found so abhorrent that you couldn’t support her under any circumstances.

    I disagree. The person who murders one child ever and then stops isn’t a good person, but they are demonstrably better than the person who kills five, and that person is demonstrably better than the person that kills fifty.

    Except that in an election, we are being asked to use a candidate’s past actions as a guide to predicting their future actions. In that context, a person who has killed 50 children thus far and a person who has killed 5 children thus far are equally bad choices, and any claim that they’ve totally stopped murdering they swear should be taken with a bucket of salt.

    @60 qwints:

    I’m reminded of the choice people faced in 64 – a Democrat who shepherded the passage of civil rights act and was promising the voting rights act but who endorsed the “domino” theory and was expanding the US military presence in South Vietnam or a Republican who was opposed to the civil rights act and was even more bloodthirsty, including talking about using nuclear weapons in Vietnam.

    I’m more reminded of 68— a progressive Democrat runs against a warmongering establishment Democrat in a primary; the Democratic establishment disregards the will of the people and chooses the establishment Democrat, and “he’s the nominee, tough, you have an obligation to vote for him” proves not to be a winning argument.

    @61 rpjohnston:

    I have autistic friends who took great exception to her characterization of autism as “public health calamity” and “epidemic” and that basically broke their support for her.

    I am personally autistic and quite involved with autism issues, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with calling autism a public health calamity on par with cancer and obesity.

    @65 slithey tove:

    Where did you get the idea from my “outburst@38” that “Bush [W], vs Trump” is naturally extrapolated into “Hitler vs Trump vs Stein”?? or vice versa.

    Considering that all the people who denounced Reagan and Bush (HW) insisted that we had to vote for someone identical to them to prevent the disaster of Bush winning, and that all the people (presumably including you) who denounced Bush (W) insist that we have to vote for someone identical to him to prevent the disaster of Romney or Trump winning, it’s only natural to conclude that you’ll be insisting we have to vote for someone identical to Trump a few years down the line to prevent the disaster of someone even worse winning.

    And where did I ever give the impression one should happily vote for Clinton. My arguments have only endorsed her as the candidate to vote for and never advocated any particular emotional accompaniment. Grimace all you want, the check mark is the important thing, not the emotion behind it.

    There’s a saying around these parts that intent doesn’t matter. Asking me to vote for Trump with a smile and asking me to vote for Trump with a grimace is the same thing, and nitpicking the distinction is a pathetic attempt at distraction.

    So go ahead and hate her all you want but Trump is even worse, not just for you but for everybody but him.

    You know, I’m really sick of privileged people ablesplaining at me that Trump would be so much worse for me personally.

    Believe me, I’ve looked at both of them and from my personal perspective, Trump and Clinton are equally bad. Overall, Trump is the lesser evil but only because a Trump win will denigrate the Republican Party and spark a liberal backlash while a Clinton win will denigrate the Democratic Party and bolster Trump in the long run.

    @66 Troll:

    A tell for hard leftists (or rightists) “there is no difference between the democrats and rethugs”. At that point, the bullshit starts, just as it did back during my college days, circa ’70.

    A tell for hard rightists is claiming that hard leftists actually exist in any meaningful capacity.

    Another tell for hard rightists is whining about “campus radicals” and accusing anyone who supports health care reform of being a “Marxist.”

    Why not let down your blaring rhetoric, and let us do our strategic voting in peace.

    Pots and kettles in glass houses, dude.

    JH, You are the one presenting Stein as an alternative to Hillary. I knew I was voting for Hillary, if she won the democratic nomination, months ago. I don’t need an alternative.

    Yes, we know that you are a Bush Republican who is happy to see a Bush-like candidate on the ballot even as a Democrat— perhaps moreso, since voting for a Democrat means you get to pretend you’re a “centrist.”

    I keep showing you hard evidence Stein is NOT a real alternative so you understand you are full of shit even pretending Stein is electable.

    And here’s the straw man again. I didn’t say Stein has a good chance of winning the election— I said she was the only viable candidate on the ballot. You have made absolutely no attempt to show that Clinton is worthy of support; only that she is likely to win. The problem is that elections are about politics and governance. The idea is to produce the best outcome for the country, not to bet on whoever comes first.

    @71 consciousness razor:

    If it was either that or the entire human population being tortured and killed, you’re implying you’d prefer the latter.

    Another absurd straw man. If I was offered the choice between Trump being president or the entire human population being tortured and killed or neither, then I’d pick neither.

    Let’s suppose you really do think he (or rather voting for him) is worse than anything and everything. Maybe you just forget how thoroughly incompetent Trump is, how if he tried to do so, he wouldn’t be able to accomplish the worst things anybody could imagine. Because we’re talking about the fucking POTUS here, not an election for a comic book supervillain.

    Are you seriously accusing me of forgetting the facts underpinning most of my arguments?

    Of course Trump is incompetent, and of course the office of the Presidency has little real power. That’s why, despite all the hyperbole from the Clinton-or-bust crowd, the prospect of Trump winning is not an existential threat to the nation and world that we need to sacrifice anything and everything in order to avert.

    I didn’t claim there is a moral event horizon, nor did I say where specifically some such boundary is supposed to be drawn.

    And we’re back to vagueness— you may believe some things are too evil to support, but you won’t say what they are or if they exist.

    I don’t think I even know what you might mean by that phrase.

    Then maybe you should work on your reading comprehension and/or honesty.

    @72, 73 davidporter:

    Clinton’s disastrous, immoral, and criminal approach to the Middle East is not something we can blame on her; it’s the product of being an American politician.

    And the cops’ disastrous, immoral, and criminal treatment of minorities is not something we can blame on them; it’s the product of the white supremacist system that employs them.

    Seriously, “it’s not their fault it’s just how they were taught” is a really lame excuse.

    So here’s a question, Jake. In a hypothetical election between Hillary Clinton, Adolf Hitler, and whatever fantasy left wing candidate with no chance of winning you would like, in which you know with absolute certainty that your vote will determine the outcome (that is, if you vote for left-winger/don’t vote, Hitler wins, if you vote for Clinton, she wins), who do you vote for?

    That’s just a thinly-disguised version of the Trolley Problem, which is a ridiculously contrived situation so completely disconnected from reality that it’s almost literally impossible to imagine.

    @74 tacitus:

    Hardcore Bernie supporters believe that if only he was president, the whole edifice built by the globalist elites will come tumbling down.

    That’s an absurd straw man.

    There are no easy fixes, not when you’re taking on entrenched interests with all the power and money on their side. It takes a lot of hard work to see incremental changes in the right direction until (with a lot of perseverance and a dollop of luck) a tipping point is reached.

    Yes, but voting for Sanders or Stein would be/have been a good first step.

    It’s certainly preferable to sitting in an easy chair for eight years waiting for the weather to be pretty enough to make the first step by voting for Clinton.

    How long did it take after coming out as gay didn’t destroy your career before gay marriage became a reality? 40 years?

    Coming out as gay didn’t destroy your career in 1976? Yeah, not believing that.

    It could take that long to reverse the wealth gap that’s been growing for the last three decades already.

    Well actually, if we passed a law redistributing wealth, we could eliminate the wealth gap within a year of its passage.

    Of course, getting such a law passed requires electing people who would support such a law. And that requires not voting for people like Clinton who are working to make the wealth gap even bigger.

    @85, 86, 87 Mrdead Inmypocket:

    That’s a very good assessment overall, but I think it fails to account for a few important facts.

    Firstly, you disregard the history regarding politics and party dynamics. Right-wing Democrats tend to leave right-wing Democrats in their wake (Clinton —> Gore and a Republican Congress; Obama —> Clinton and a projected Republican Congress) while right-wing Republicans tend to spark liberal revivals (Bush —> Candidate Obama and a Democratic Congress). An evil Republican is better than an evil Democrat in the long run.

    Secondly, the idea that voting en masse won’t change the DNC is overly pessimistic. If Clinton loses the election because the left jumped ship for Stein, it would send a message that the DNC wouldn’t be able to ignore. In any case, what other options do you propose? Primary challenges are a fool’s errand; as we’ve learned, the primary process is completely rigged.

  74. dianne says

    I am personally autistic and quite involved with autism issues, and I see absolutely nothing wrong with calling autism a public health calamity on par with cancer and obesity.

    Why? That is to say, what public health issues do you see arising from autism and what do you propose to do about them? If you’re feeling really ambitious, you can also explain what obesity is actually doing that makes it a public health calamity.

  75. carlie says

    Secondly, the idea that voting en masse won’t change the DNC is overly pessimistic. If Clinton loses the election because the left jumped ship for Stein, it would send a message that the DNC wouldn’t be able to ignore.

    Sure. The DNC absolutely listened the last time there was a significant third party challenge. And the message the DNC got was a lot more people voted Republican than Democrat. And the Democratic party got more conservative as a result to try to get those voters. That’s what you want to say should happen?

    Primary challenges are a fool’s errand; as we’ve learned, the primary process is completely rigged.

    We have NOT learned that. We have seen complete outsiders on each side either win or almost win the primaries. Trump had nothing to do with the Republican party before he ran, he ran with most of the RNC establishmet looking on in shock and horror, and almost none of them actually endorse him even now, if you noticed who was conspicuously absent from the convention. Bernie Sanders has never been a Democrat. He had nothing to do with the Democratic party before he ran. And he almost won. The reason he didn’t win despite it looking from the outside like he might have is that his supporters were a) really loud for their size and b) also not Democrats, and the rules in most states clearly stated ahead of time that they had to register Democrat to vote but they didn’t pay attention and neither did his campaign.

    Look, your vote is your own. Nobody can tell you what to do with it. But there are not “four major parties” in this country as Jake said earlier, there are two. That is the reality. If you want to toss your vote to a third or fourth party candidate, that is entirely, 100% your decision. But to cast that vote morally and ethically, you have to first come to terms with the fact that doing so is equivalent to not voting at all in terms of the presidential result. It is the exact same as stating you do not give a damn which of the two major candidates wins, or what the results to the country of that election will be. A presidential election is a huge cruise ship heading to port at full speed, and your vote for president is just trying to nudge it into one dock or the other. You can’t build a new ship. You can’t change which continent it’s headed for. The time to make those moves was years ago when the whole thing was being created. By the time of the presidential election, it’s too late. Hell, by the time of the primaries it’s mostly too late. You can work as hard as you can to control the building of the next boat by working downstream, but as for the presidential election, yeah, there are two choices. And getting on a high horse about it one every four years is a guarantee that you’ll never make an impact.

  76. Vivec says

    I didn’t ask what positions of Stein you found abhorrent, but rather which positions of hers you found so abhorrent that you couldn’t support her under any circumstances.

    Every candidate in the running has already passed the “so evil I would never vote for them” line for me, including Stein for the reasons I gave.

    Seeing as there’s no not-evil option, and not voting at all doesn’t help, I can at least vote for the lesser evil that has the best chance of winning, if only to minimize the damage.

    If its inevitable to have an evil person as president, I’d prefer the least evil one I can get.

  77. carlie says

    If someone has been around long enough to have a realistic run for president, they will have made a lot of decisions that affect a lot of policies. They will have said a lot of things. Given that, there is no way that any candidate can line up exactly with what any individual person would agree with, because the only person who agrees with you 100% of the time is you. If you personally aren’t the candidate, the person who is is going to have angered you or disappointed you or disgusted you at some point along their trajectory. That’s simply reality. If there is a candidate you think you’re 100% with, it’s mostly likely because you either don’t know their whole history or they haven’t been around long enough to make their views clearly public. And even when you disagree with a candiate’s actions, you don’t know what circumstances were involved in their decisions – someone might share your view completely on a subject, but found themselves in a situation wherein they had to vote against it to broker a deal on something else they (and you) really care about. Those are back-room deals nobody ever knows about. There is nobody who is successful in negotiating with other people who can have a hard line all of the time, and nobody who would make every choice about it you would make. Every vote for a candidate is a compromise in the vein of choosing the “less evil”.

  78. hawkerhurricane says

    Hi.
    I am a White, Straight, Male, veteran, military contractor, and can pretend to be mainline Christian if I must. On the short term, a Trump Presidency would probably be good to me.
    But.
    I’m married. My wife is Hispanic. I have two daughters. I have a son approaching draft age. I have a grandson who is autistic.
    I am voting for what is best for my family and me in the medium to long term.
    I’m voting Democratic as the greatest good for the greatest number.

  79. dianne says

    I am a White, Straight, Male, veteran, military contractor, and can pretend to be mainline Christian if I must. On the short term, a Trump Presidency would probably be good to me.

    Are you sure? Trump has proposed defaulting on the federal debt. That would drop the US’s credit rating into the toilet as well as ruining the economies of at least China and Japan (major creditors of the US). I fail to see how that would be good for even a straight white man.

    Trump’s also proposing that wall. That wall that’s going to need a lot of concrete and steel, not to mention labor. That’s going to be money that’s not going to your company, military contractor or no. Between that and the drop in the economy, are you sure your job would be safe?

    Then too you say you’re a white guy. What if you get melanoma? What if you can’t get to a dermatologist for 6 months because foreign doctors can’t get in any longer and US graduates are fleeing for New Zealand and Canada, so now it’s metastatic. Now what? Well, thanks to the Clinton NIH funding boom and evil big pharma’s follow up of the results the NIH produced, your chances of surviving 1 year after diagnosis of metastatic melanoma have improved. But most people are not cured of metastatic melanoma with current therapy. We might be getting there. Another funding boom…say, under another Clinton, for example…and an economy prosperous enough to keep big pharma creative and we could get there. Or not, if Trump is elected.

    Working whites will be the first people Trump will stab in the back. Not the first people he will stab–that will be Muslims or Hispanics or maybe blacks–but they’ll see the knife coming. Middle and working class whites won’t see the knife until it’s buried in their kidneys. Vote Clinton to save yourself as well as your wife and children.

  80. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Some of Sanders supports are throwing temper tantrums that their candidate didn’t get the nomination.

    We all have this unrealistic dream that democracy is alive in America,” said Debra Dilks, of Boonville, Missouri, who spoke as a protest broke up near Philadelphia’s City Hall.
    She said she wasn’t sure she would even vote in November.
    “Hillary didn’t get the nomination. The nomination was stolen,” Dilks said.

    Lets check the validity of that statement.
    Popular votes Clinton, 16,847,084; Sanders13,168,222. Clinton got 3.7 million more votes over the primaries than Sanders. Did Sanders win? Nope, he lost, 55% to 43%.
    A similar split was seen int the caucuses, with Clinton getting ~55% of the delegates.
    The totals from the primaries and caucuses without the superdelegates was Clinton 2202; Sanders 1829, which reflects the popular vote, which means it was what democracy in action.
    How can those Sanders delegates say he won the nomination? I just don’t see it.
    Hopefully, they will follow the lead of Bernie Sanders, be gracious in defeat, and end up supporting the democrats at all levels.

  81. Vivec says

    Eugh. I wish they’d stop pulling antics like that, I don’t want to be tied in with them just because I supported Sanders in the primaries.

  82. gmacs says

    @97

    I wouldn’t worry too much. I caucused for him and I know plenty of Bernie supporters. I know some who are delusional, and I know some who are realistic. I also know others who are one or the other, depending on the day of the week.

    I think plenty of people understand that the Bernie supporters who are now calling him a traitor while still supporting him are the same loud gaggle of jerks who represent only a portion of his base.

    As far as lesser evils go, I actually think about how well an “evil” person can govern on behalf of the non-evil people who elect them. I trust Hillary far more than Stein in that regard.

  83. dianne says

    The Bernie supporters who are not listening to Sanders and are not interested in the fact that the Democratic platform is one of the most liberal ever are not Sanders supporters. They’re sexists dedicated to making sure that a woman doesn’t become president. That’s all. Not leftists of any sort.

  84. gmacs says

    @99

    Nope, they’re assholes, but they aren’t all sexist. At least not overtly.

    I know feminist women among that crowd. Granted, they’ve bought into a narrative that certainly has a sexist bent to it, and has been driven by sexism. (For all Hillary has done, would anyone besides progressives bat an eye if a man had done it?)

  85. slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem)) says

    re 95, I’ll pile on the imagined Drumph nightmare scenarios:

    every Veteran who suffers PTSD including a period of being POW, will be actively denied any support services. Drumph made headlines saying he prefers vets who were never captured, while mocking McCain.
    And imagine the potential nightmare of many, untreated PTSD, military trained veterans, with NRA selling them weapons at every street corner bodega. *shudder*

  86. dianne says

    gmacs@100: That doesn’t follow. Women can be sexist. Women who call themselves feminist can be sexist. In fact, it’s hard to imagine how one can avoid being sexist, on some level, if one lives in this society. As you said, they’ve bought the narrative.

    Nor do I find “But I’m voting for Stein, that proves I’m not sexist” a viable defense. Stein voters are voting for a woman that they KNOW will not win. In other words, one that is safe to vote for, not like scary Clinton and her unwillingness to disappear when commanded to by a man.

  87. gmacs says

    Oh, shit, was my comment @100 mansplaining? I’ve caught myself doing that a few times.

  88. dianne says

    gmacs@103: FWIW, I didn’t take it as mansplaining. I didn’t agree in every last little detail, but didn’t feel mansplained to, just disagreed with.

  89. gmacs says

    @102

    Oh, I’m aware that women can be sexist against other women. And I am aware that there is a lot of sexism among the Buster holdouts. I just wonder if a person must be sexist themselves to buy into a narrative that was originally driven by sexism. One can hear “Hillary is a crook” with all the misogynistic language removed and be swayed by it.

    Is it possible for one to cluelessly support sexism without being sexist? Then again, I suppose I should be asking myself “does it really matter?”.

  90. hawkerhurricane says

    Dianne@95,
    No, I’m not sure, that’s why I said probably.

    Yeah, he’d probably be good to me for about 2 years. He probably won’t crash the economy with his shenanigans before then. After that, I’d be just as screwed as everybody else.

    Skin cancer? I’m Irish with a family history and didn’t know it. Live in SoCal and worked topside on ships. So, yes. I stopped voting for Republicans in 1994, and I’m not going to start with a draft ducking, contractor robbing, Putin puppet (have you heard his latest? Asking the Russians to hack Clinton’s email some more?) now.

    Hillary Clinton, the greatest good for the greatest number, including me.

  91. Jake Harban says

    @89 dianne:

    Why? That is to say, what public health issues do you see arising from autism and what do you propose to do about them?

    Autism is a disease (or, more accurately, a category of diseases) which can be extremely damaging to anyone who has them. Research is required to develop more sophisticated methods of prevention, screening, and treatment (an outright cure is likely impossible, though I can always hope). When treatments are developed, they’re often expensive and that requires government funds to pay for them (getting disability benefits now is all but impossible). The (hopefully temporary) absence of treatment requires even more expensive accommodations and workarounds, and that also takes money.

    If you’re feeling really ambitious, you can also explain what obesity is actually doing that makes it a public health calamity.

    Obesity is correlated with a number of poor health outcomes. Research into the causal links and/or programs to address the underlying problems would probably be a good idea.

    @91 carlie:

    Sure. The DNC absolutely listened the last time there was a significant third party challenge.

    Which was when?

    We have NOT learned that. We have seen complete outsiders on each side either win or almost win the primaries. Trump had nothing to do with the Republican party before he ran, he ran with most of the RNC establishmet looking on in shock and horror, and almost none of them actually endorse him even now, if you noticed who was conspicuously absent from the convention.

    That the Republican Party is actually more democratic than the Democratic Party will be a point of considerable shame for many years to come, even if it doesn’t actually cost them this election.

    The reason he didn’t win despite it looking from the outside like he might have is that his supporters were a) really loud for their size and b) also not Democrats, and the rules in most states clearly stated ahead of time that they had to register Democrat to vote but they didn’t pay attention and neither did his campaign.

    Oh please. We already know the DNC rigged the primary; the leaked emails just confirmed it.

    But to cast that vote morally and ethically, you have to first come to terms with the fact that doing so is equivalent to not voting at all in terms of the presidential result. It is the exact same as stating you do not give a damn which of the two major candidates wins, or what the results to the country of that election will be.

    Don’t be absurd.

    First, claiming that third-party votes don’t count is a rationalization used by people voting against their own self-interest and principles to make themselves feel justified. If people stopped “strategically” voting for conservative Democrats, then the Greens could easily get enough votes to make a difference. Whether that difference was winning or spoiling on behalf of Trump doesn’t matter; either way, the Democrats would be forced to accept that they need to move to the left or risk losing their base.

    Second, unless you live in a swing state, voting for any candidate is the same as not voting at all. The results are already a foregone conclusion, so why not leave the top of the ballot blank?

    Third, not having a preference for Trump over Clinton or vice versa is not the same thing as not caring at all about the country. We are talking about one office with limited actual power, not the future of the country as a whole. When you consider what the President actually has the power to do, the clear distinction between Trump and Clinton all but evaporates.

    Hell, by the time of the primaries it’s mostly too late. You can work as hard as you can to control the building of the next boat by working downstream, but as for the presidential election, yeah, there are two choices.

    When I occupied Wall Street, I was told not to cause a disruption— if I wanted to see a change, the proper time to express my opinion was in the voting booth.

    When I walked to the voting booth, I was told to vote for a Bush Republican with a coat of blue paint— if I wanted to see a change, the proper time to express my opinion was on Primary Day.

    When I made my opinion known on Primary Day, it was dismissed out of hand, and I was told that if I wanted to be heard, I had to earn the right to my opinion over the course of many years.

    Somehow, I think you just want the left to shut up and accept whatever the 1% are willing to hand out.

    And getting on a high horse about it one every four years is a guarantee that you’ll never make an impact.

    Considering how often Clinton-or-bust-ers accuse me of having a smug sense of moral superiority, it’s getting hard to shake the sense that you’re really just trying to assuage your own guilty conscience.

    @92 Vivec:

    Every candidate in the running has already passed the “so evil I would never vote for them” line for me, including Stein for the reasons I gave.

    Except you just said you were voting for Clinton. If you are voting for Clinton, then by definition you don’t consider her too evil to vote for.

    @95 dianne:

    Are you sure? Trump has proposed defaulting on the federal debt. That would drop the US’s credit rating into the toilet as well as ruining the economies of at least China and Japan (major creditors of the US). I fail to see how that would be good for even a straight white man.
    Trump’s also proposing that wall. That wall that’s going to need a lot of concrete and steel, not to mention labor. That’s going to be money that’s not going to your company, military contractor or no. Between that and the drop in the economy, are you sure your job would be safe?

    Trump’s proposals for a sovereign default and a border wall are very good for scaremongering people into voting for Clinton, but the President doesn’t actually have the authority to do either of those things.

    @96 Troll:

    Popular votes Clinton, 16,847,084; Sanders13,168,222. Clinton got 3.7 million more votes over the primaries than Sanders.

    Pointing to the outcome of a race does not demonstrate that the race was fair.

    @98 gmacs:

    I think plenty of people understand that the Bernie supporters who are now calling him a traitor while still supporting him are the same loud gaggle of jerks who represent only a portion of his base.

    Calling Sanders a “traitor” is pure hyperbole. The Democrats let him run on the condition that he endorse them if he lost; he agreed, not knowing the race was rigged, and now he has to uphold his end of the bargain anyway or lose his pull with the Democrats. It was very good politics on the part of the Democratic establishment— they create the appearance of supporting the liberal base, they create the false impression that their right-wing views are actually the will of the people, and they force a well-known liberal to endorse their right-wing views. It was very bad politics on the part of Sanders, but he’s shown himself to be more than a little naive in that field.

    It doesn’t change the fact that I supported (many of) Sanders’s views but care nothing for the man himself. His endorsement will not convince me to support someone who opposes everything he stood for.

    @99 dianne:

    The Bernie supporters who are not listening to Sanders and are not interested in the fact that the Democratic platform is one of the most liberal ever are not Sanders supporters.

    The Democratic platform is a meaningless piece of paper that has no bearing on anything any actual candidates will do if elected. No one who pays even the slightest bit of attention to American politics is interested in it.

    They’re sexists dedicated to making sure that a woman doesn’t become president. That’s all. Not leftists of any sort.

    Oh please. This is completely ludicrous and you know it. Next, you’ll be claiming the only reason anyone opposed Margaret Thatcher was because they hated the idea of a woman being Prime Minister, or that unadulterated hatred of women is the only reason anyone voted against Michelle Bachman.

    @100 gmacs:

    (For all Hillary has done, would anyone besides progressives bat an eye if a man had done it?)

    Well considering that I raked Obama and Bush over the coals for doing everything Clinton did, I think it’s fair to say that her being a woman has no relevance whatsoever.

  92. gmacs says

    Jake Harban @107

    My question again:

    For all Hillary has done, would anyone besides progressives bat an eye if a man had done it?

    Your response:

    Well considering that I raked Obama and Bush over the coals for doing everything Clinton did, I think it’s fair to say that her being a woman has no relevance whatsoever.

    *Emphasis added.

    So, are you saying you’re not a progressive, or that you didn’t read the whole sentence?

  93. Vivec says

    Except you just said you were voting for Clinton. If you are voting for Clinton, then by definition you don’t consider her too evil to vote for.

    Fair enough. I guess I ultimately don’t believe in a “too evil to never vote for period” line, then. I think everyone in the running is pretty evil, though some more than others. If I’m going to end up with someone evil either way, I’m going to at least vote for the least evil person that has a chance at winning to minimize it.

    I’d much prefer a steady progression of worse and worse candidates to just cutting out the middleman and voting in a fascist that will deport me and my extended family asap, and move on to erode my civil rights and deny me health insurance that I literally only have because of the ACA.

    On the matter of protest voting, even if I was going to turn my useless blue state vote into a protest vote, it absolutely would not be for the greens. Call me when they fix their platform and I might make an ideological stand with them.

  94. says

    Now here’s a good opinion piece in the Guardian, for those who are interested:

    Democrats could lose the election this November: just watch Hillary Clinton being booed at her own party convention. But, if that happens, it won’t be the fault of Sanders’ supporters. No – the blame will fall on the DNC. They could have played to the future of our country and the economic vision we desire. Instead, they gave us “super-predator” Clinton and milquetoast, pro-banking Tim Kaine.

    Read the rest:
    Steven W Thrasher: If Hillary Clinton loses in November, it won’t be Bernie Sanders’ fault

  95. carlie says

    Which was when?

    Nader.

    If people stopped “strategically” voting for conservative Democrats, then the Greens could easily get enough votes to make a difference. Whether that difference was winning or spoiling on behalf of Trump doesn’t matter; either way, the Democrats would be forced to accept that they need to move to the left or risk losing their base

    It matters for that election. One of the top two candidates in the two main parties will win, so any vote not for one of those two means you’re leaving the decision up to other people. And again, it doesn’t mean that the Democrats will decide that they need to move to the left. They could just as easily move to the right to get the unenthusiastic voters on the Republican side.

    And I still don’t know what you mean by “rigged”. They did not force certain people to go out and vote one way or another. They did not control the purse strings of either campaign. The rule in many states is that you have to be registered to the party in order to cast an opinion within that party for whom that party will support. Those rules were not made on the fly after Bernie started running. They were not kept secret. No state has an amount of lead time required before the election that was longer than his candidacy. His campaign should have known at the beginning that their first priority was getting people registered in those states. Nobody hid that from him. The simple fact is that more people who voted voted for Hillary. Fair and square.

    The Democratic platform is a meaningless piece of paper that has no bearing on anything any actual candidates will do if elected. No one who pays even the slightest bit of attention to American politics is interested in it.

    At this point, you’re just declaring that everything means nothing and the only thing that counts is that you know in your head what people will do. No statement has validity, there is nothing substantial to the fact that, say, one platform explicitly supports citizens with disabilities and the other doesn’t, or that one states support for gay marriage and one absolutely refutes it. If you refuse to believe anything that either party says, then fine, make it all up in your own head. But realize that’s what you’re doing.

  96. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Please, all you saying the democratic primary elections, which showed 3.7 million voters approved of Clinton over Sanders, show how that vote was rigged with third party evidence, or shut the fuck up.

  97. Jake Harban says

    @111 Carlie:

    Nader.

    When did Nader get a non-negligible percentage of the vote?

    It matters for that election.

    Yes, and the short-term thinking that only considers the immediately next election is why we’re in this mess to begin with.

    At this point, you’re just declaring that everything means nothing and the only thing that counts is that you know in your head what people will do. No statement has validity, there is nothing substantial to the fact that, say, one platform explicitly supports citizens with disabilities and the other doesn’t, or that one states support for gay marriage and one absolutely refutes it. If you refuse to believe anything that either party says, then fine, make it all up in your own head. But realize that’s what you’re doing.

    That’s the most absurd false dichotomy imaginable.

    That party platforms are all but meaningless is hardly a secret— declaring: “Either you must accept my worthless evidence without question or you must reject all evidence no matter how strong” just makes you look like a fool.

    But then, the only reason you’re here is to try and defend your asinine belief that Trump and Clinton are the only two choices on the ballot, so I guess “false dichotomy” is just sort of your thing.

  98. Jake Harban says

    @108 gmacs: Sorry, I misunderstood your post. Given the context (you were accusing progressives of sexism) it seemed as though you were asking about progressives’ response to Clinton’s actions had she been a man.

  99. logicalcat says

    You know what? Help me out please, because right now I am seconding Nerd of Redhead over @112 in wanting to see evidence of election rigging. All ive ever seen is pure speculation and I am tired of hearing from everyone that Clinton stole the election. As if she is some fucking mastermind villain able to control so many people, to manipulate so many variables while leaving zero evidence. The closest Ive seen is that the DNC choose to shit on Sanders. You mean the Democratic National Committee choose to support a Democrat over the Independent socialist? Shocker. It was wrong for them to do that, but its hardly an indication that the election was rigged.

  100. ck, the Irate Lump says

    Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls wrote:

    Hopefully, they will follow the lead of Bernie Sanders, be gracious in defeat, and end up supporting the democrats at all levels.

    Hell, I’d say that Bernie won big. Sure, he didn’t get the nomination any way you care to look at it, but he fundamentally changed the way Democrats are talking. Obama tried it when he first took office, but backed away from it when the Republicans started chanting “Class Warfare”. Now “income inequality” has become part of the lexicon of virtually everyone, and it doesn’t seem likely to go away anytime real soon.

    I’ve often argued with others that Bernie didn’t need to win this in order for his ideas to win. All he had to do is get his message widely distributed, receive significant public support, and refuse to shut up and go away. He’s done all of that. The Busters can only undo this work at this point. There’s plenty of work still to be done (there are obscene numbers of conservatives running completely unopposed in state governments, but also a few nationally), and focusing on a fight that is already lost will damage those efforts.

  101. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    I’ve often argued with others that Bernie didn’t need to win this in order for his ideas to win. All he had to do is get his message widely distributed, receive significant public support, and refuse to shut up and go away. He’s done all of that.

    I won’t disagree with this. I was pleased to see his ideas adopted, for the most part, into the party platform.
    But there appears to be a lot of Hillary Haters who still think Sanders should be Democratic nominee for president. My asking for evidence is a challenge to them to back up their claim. Claims of rigging are cheap, providing evidence can be difficult. The evidence I see says HC won fair and square with a majority of the votes and caucus delegates, as did BO in 2008.

  102. Jake Harban says

    @96 Troll:

    Hopefully, they will follow the lead of Bernie Sanders, be gracious in defeat, and end up supporting the democrats at all levels.

    If Trump wins, will you follow that lead, be gracious in defeat, and support the Republicans on all levels?

  103. Jake Harban says

    @115 logicalcat:

    The closest Ive seen is that the DNC choose to shit on Sanders. You mean the Democratic National Committee choose to support a Democrat over the Independent socialist? Shocker.

    I challenge you to a 50-yard dash with a $50 prize.

    Several of my friends will help me win by sabotaging you, but since they’re my friends, that’s to be expected and not something you have any basis to object to. After the race, Nerd of Redhead can verify that I crossed the finish line first and conclude that this proves the race was completely fair.

  104. logicalcat says

    So you cant give me evidence? Should’ve just said so. Election rigging…go. The only thing those emails tell me is that Wasserman is an idiot, and conspiracy to screw over Sanders is a legit concern. But I don’t want conspiracy, I want evidence of execution.

    Sanders lost, fair and square. Show me evidence that he did not.

  105. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    fter the race, Nerd of Redhead can verify that I crossed the finish line first and conclude that this proves the race was completely fair.

    Nope, I don’t verify liars and bulshitters.
    No links to DNC really cheating, no evidence they cheated, making any claims by you lies and bullshit.
    You admit with you lack of linked to evidence you have no honesty, integrity, and EVIDENCE.

    Just like you have no evidence Stein and the Greens are electable in 2016. 3% is what the evidence says….

  106. logicalcat says

    I’d also like to point out that the rnc tried their hardest to stop Trump. The rnc being some of the most corrupt politicians ever, they weren’t even trying to hide the fact that they were working against him and yet they failed. If the most experienced corrupt politicians couldn’t not get it done, what makes anyone think the dnc has the power to do the same? I am very much considering voting for Stein but while I will say Jake you are the closest to get me to go through with it, you still failed. Why am I going to vote in horror (Trump) for the slim as fuck chance in getting the green party anywhere near electable?

  107. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    Popular votes Clinton, 16,847,084; Sanders13,168,222. Clinton got 3.7 million more votes over the primaries than Sanders. Did Sanders win? Nope, he lost, 55% to 43%.
    A similar split was seen int the caucuses, with Clinton getting ~55% of the delegates.
    The totals from the primaries and caucuses without the superdelegates was Clinton 2202; Sanders 1829, which reflects the popular vote, which means it was what democracy in action.
    How can those Sanders delegates say he won the nomination? I just don’t see it.

    Well, Hillary Clinton as I understand it won in large part because of non-white voters, so that claim makes perfect sense mathematically if that subset of Sanders supports is asserting that those should have only counted as 3/5 of a vote.

  108. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    Overall, Trump is the lesser evil but only because a Trump win will denigrate the Republican Party and spark a liberal backlash

    Can you point to a single example from history of someone like Trump getting into power and their party then being peaceably removed by a “liberal backlash?”

  109. Azkyroth, B*Cos[F(u)]==Y says

    And again, it doesn’t mean that the Democrats will decide that they need to move to the left. They could just as easily move to the right to get the unenthusiastic voters on the Republican side.

    AS THEY ALREADY HAVE A TRACK RECORD OF ACTUALLY DOING

  110. carlie says

    Overall, Trump is the lesser evil but only because a Trump win will denigrate the Republican Party and spark a liberal backlash

    So you are saying, outright, that you are willing to sacrifice all of the Americans who will lose their jobs, lose their healthcare, lose their civil rights, and lose their lives under 4 years of Trump, just to have the possibility of a liberal backlash. People’s lives don’t matter as much as your ideological purity. Got it.

    Hey, maybe you’ll listen to Trump. During a rally in Toledo, Ohio, Trump appeared to dismiss candidates outside of the two major parties.
    “I think a vote for Stein would be good — that’s the Green Party,” he said. “Because I figure anyone voting for Stein is gonna be for Hillary. So I think vote for Stein is fine.”

  111. logicalcat says

    Still waiting on evidence of rigging the election. Any evidence too. Including the claim that the DNC limited voting locations, or stealing delegates, or changing wrongfully the party of potential voters, and of course the classic rigging of the booth. All linked to Clinton. Anything otehr popular corruption claim that I missed? Take your time please, no rush. Potential Jill Stein voter here, no lie. I started reading these comments on this thread and the previous ones with the intention to vote for Stein, but now I am not.

  112. logicalcat says

    @130

    Its annoying, because I also really, really, fucking hate Hillary Clinton. I do believe she is a corrupt politician. I just dont think she is as corrupt to the degree that everyone that I know is trying to convince me she is. Especially when I have some friends trying to convince me that Clinton and Trump are the same level of evil. Its amazing.

  113. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Logicalcat, I’ve been asking for evidence that voting for Stein is anything other than a vote for Trump and will pull the democrats left for months. The same unevidenced miracle seems to be in play with that question.
    All I’m saying is take the Hillary Haters with a grain of salt. A grain the size of Montana is appropriate.

  114. logicalcat says

    Yea Nerd, I am a long time lurker. These forums made me go from a Bernie or Bust to a Hillary supporter. Thanks.

  115. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    My last post for the night, and the ultimate decider for me.

    Supreme Court Justices

    Nominated by rethugs
    Scalia (vacant)
    Roberts
    Kennedy
    Alito
    Thomas

    Nominated by Democrats
    Ginsberg
    Breyer
    Sotomayor
    Kagan
    Merrick Garland (no action by Senate likely in 2016)

    Trump say he will look at recommendations from the Heritage Foundation. Those mentioned are even worse than Scalia.

    Johnson (Libertarian, non-electable) would look at the same group as Trump.

    Clinton would look at those similar to the previous Democratic nominees.

    Stein (Green, non-electable), no record.

  116. dianne says

    Autism is a disease (or, more accurately, a category of diseases) which can be extremely damaging to anyone who has them. Research is required to develop more sophisticated methods of prevention, screening, and treatment (an outright cure is likely impossible, though I can always hope). When treatments are developed, they’re often expensive and that requires government funds to pay for them (getting disability benefits now is all but impossible). The (hopefully temporary) absence of treatment requires even more expensive accommodations and workarounds, and that also takes money.

    Not really a public health level explanation of why you think autism is a problem. For example, you didn’t mention incidence and prevalence at all, and that’s extremely important for determining how much of a public health issue a condition is. OTOH, it’s true that autism has a high prevalence. So high, in fact, that one might get suspicious that the genes causing it have positive effects in some doses and environments. (Spoiler: they probably do.)

    Now, taking this one bit at a time:

    Autism is a disease (or, more accurately, a category of diseases) which can be extremely damaging to anyone who has them.

    Describing autism as a disease is questionable. There is a school of thought that describes it as simply a different neurologic wiring that can, in some cases, be extreme enough to be damaging. It’s pretty clear in any case that autism is not a single condition the way, say, measles or CML is: there are almost certainly multiple gene and environmental interactions that lead to different phenotypes and different abilities and deficits. So the idea of A cure is as much a pipe dream as the idea of A cure for cancer. Or A cure for infectious disease, for that matter.

    Research is required to develop more sophisticated methods of prevention, screening, and treatment (an outright cure is likely impossible, though I can always hope).

    Research would come to a screeching halt under Trump. If you’re the least bit honest, you must know that. Trump’s an anti-vaxxer and does not like science. He will not fund the NIH if elected. Clinton, OTOH, if she follows in the footsteps of her husband, will expand the funding. Stein is an anti-vaxxer and might well fund yet more research into the thoroughly disproven vaccine-autism connection or maybe some CAM “treatments” like bleach enemas, but I find it highly unlikely that she’d go for anything substantial.

    When treatments are developed, they’re often expensive and that requires government funds to pay for them (getting disability benefits now is all but impossible).

    I know you’re having trouble getting disability and I’m sorry about that. Furthermore, I agree that it should be easier to get disability. However, “all but impossible” is not at all my experience. I’ve seen quite a number of people get disability for autism and other similar conditions. Nor does every person with autism need disability. Quite a lot are perfectly fine working with minor accommodations. (For example, spell correct. Gah! Took me five tries to spell “accommodations” correctly.) Disability will, of course, become more difficult to obtain under Trump as will any federal level programs to help treat autism and integrate people with autism into society.

    The (hopefully temporary) absence of treatment requires even more expensive accommodations and workarounds, and that also takes money.

    That’s the Republican fallacy about disability and treatment of disability at work here. Yes, the current treatments for autism are not easy. It is possible to improve, for example, your executive function or decrease sensitivity to triggers, but it’s not simple, easy, or perfect. And most companies find it sooooo inconvenient to have to provide accommodations for people with disabilities. But if they can provide ramps for people with paraplegia and braille in the elevators for sight impaired people, why can’t they provide quiet rooms and consistent goals for their autistic employees. Indeed, a number of companies have tried it and found it quite a profitable thing to do. Autistic people don’t like change and are therefore very loyal employees. Not to mention that autistic people tend to be quite literal minded about the rules and therefore harder to corrupt. (This can actually be a disadvantage in certain companies and situations but, well, I’m glad I’m not in that job anymore anyway.) So providing accommodations can be a money maker for the state and individual companies: some money needs to be invested, true, but in return you get a person who is working (paying taxes rather than receiving disability) and doing their best for the company they work for so making them money as well. The failure to provide those accommodations is a false economy at best. Not even to mention the human cost. So, no, I don’t think the accommodations are a problem.

    As for a “cure”, I’m not even sure what that would look like. I fantasize about having things like glasses with a little display that tells me what emotion the face of the person I’m talking to is displaying and similar technical workarounds, but as to an actual “cure”, that would probably change my brain so much that I wouldn’t be me any more. There are surely simpler and less expensive methods of suicide available.

  117. dianne says

    I challenge you to a 50-yard dash with a $50 prize.

    Several of my friends will help me win by sabotaging you, but since they’re my friends, that’s to be expected and not something you have any basis to object to.

    Heh. To be a good analogy with the DNC, your friends would have to be trying in a lackadasical manner to sabotage your opponent but end up having no effect at all on the outcome. Perhaps their sabotage would consist of writing emails to each other about how much they want you to win and considering tying your opponents shoes together but not actually doing it. And then a third party would have to come in and wave the emails around, saying how it proves that you’re corrupt, and steal the $50 prize from both of you.

  118. KG says

    Jake Harban@21 said:

    There’s nothing Trump could possibly do that the Pharyngula Horde won’t defend when a Democrat does it in 2024.

    @28, I provided a short list, while making clear it could be extended indefinitely.
    @34, Harban (as I knew he would), rather than admitting he had been proved wrong, immediately tried to distract attention from this simple fact. There is a genuine debate to be had about how evil the lesser evil has to be, before it is right to refuse to vote for it. But Harban isn’t interested in that genuine debate at all – simply in asserting his own moral superiority over the “Pharyngula Horde” (and what a telling phrase that is).

    I didn’t say that. I just asked what your dealbreaker was— the position or action so abhorrent that you would never support them under any circumstances.

    No, you didn’t. You asserted that there was no such dealbreaker.

    I will now respond to Harban’s own examples@34:

    But not murdering children? Torturing innocent people?

    Open advocacy of torture of anyone would be a dealbreaker for me. Of course, we only have one such open advocate running in this election. But you, Harban, like all your fellow deluded fanatics, do not feel motivated to do whatever you can to prevent an open advocate of torture becoming President – which means, if you are in a state that could possibly go either to Trump or to Clinton, voting and indeed campaigning for Clinton. Since you are so fond of hypotheticals, it seems fair to ask you whether there is any position Trump could take that would cause you to do so – but I predict that you will dishonestly refuse to answer the kind of hypothetical you are so fond of posing others, as you have before.

    As for “murdering children”, I’m not a pacifist. Specifically, I would have supported the war against Hitler, even though that inevitably involved what you call “murdering children”. So again, like all non-pacifists, I’m left needing to decide on a case-by-case basis whether a particular use of lethal force is justified – when, in other words, it’s the lesser evil. Occasionally, even the forces of western imperialism find their interests aligned with those of the local population. The clearest case I know of in recent times is the British military intervention in Sierra Leone’s civil war – at the invitation of the country’s recognised government, and under the war criminal Tony Blair. As far as the USA is concerned, if there was a realistic chance that a candidate who would radically chance American foreign policy in a peaceful, non-imperialist direction could win the election, I would advocate campaigning for that candidate. There isn’t, as you know as well as I do.

  119. freemage says

    Quick note: A lot of folks on all sides have been abusing the hell out of the Clinton term “centrist”. Centrism is not an ideological position. It’s a tactic used to win elections, in which your position on any given issue is determined largely by looking at your opponent and the general electorate; the goal is to find a position that is sufficiently ‘in the middle’ that you end up with a majority of voters supporting your position over that of the opposition. Bill Clinton’s centrist tactics DID break the deathlock on the White House that the GOP seemed to hold after 12 years in office; imagine what the country would have looked like if we had an additional four years of HW before getting Bill in. The Republicans adapted, using the centrist approach of the DNC to lose battles while winning the war, pulling the country ever towards the right. It would’ve been best as a tactic to be used only when you seem to be locked out of power. But it’s never been meant to mean the same thing as ‘moderate’, and shouldn’t be treated as a synonym.

  120. Jake Harban says

    @135, dianne:

    Describing autism as a disease is questionable. There is a school of thought that describes it as simply a different neurologic wiring that can, in some cases, be extreme enough to be damaging.

    There’s also a school of thought that says the Earth is flat.

    I know you’re having trouble getting disability and I’m sorry about that. Furthermore, I agree that it should be easier to get disability. However, “all but impossible” is not at all my experience. I’ve seen quite a number of people get disability for autism and other similar conditions.

    I’ve been at this for about a year now and I’m still in paperwork hell. “All but impossible” is the most accurate description I can think of.

    Just for clarification, the “disability” I’m applying for is a state program that specifically covers treatment; it’s not SSI/SSDI or other monetary benefits. Getting SSI/SSDI benefits is completely impossible; I’ve looked into both.

    Nor does every person with autism need disability. Quite a lot are perfectly fine working with minor accommodations. (For example, spell correct. Gah! Took me five tries to spell “accommodations” correctly.)

    And those are the ones who become “neurodiversity” fuckwits preaching about how autism is just a difference and not a disease.

    Disability will, of course, become more difficult to obtain under Trump as will any federal level programs to help treat autism and integrate people with autism into society.

    Federal benefits are already completely impossible to obtain; there is no way to make them more difficult.

    It is possible to improve, for example, your executive function or decrease sensitivity to triggers, but it’s not simple, easy, or perfect.

    If you know how, do tell. The existence of this treatment is why I’m going through paperwork hell trying to get benefits in the first place; if I can skip the wait, that’d be super.

    And most companies find it sooooo inconvenient to have to provide accommodations for people with disabilities.

    I’ll worry about that once I have enough spoons to work.

    I’ll start thinking about it once I have enough spoons to leave the house every day.

    Autistic people don’t like change and are therefore very loyal employees.

    Speak for yourself. I love new experiences and change.

    That it reduces me to a nervous wreck to the point where I actively avoid it doesn’t mean I don’t like it; it just means I want to not be reduced to a nervous wreck when it happens.

    If someone put a curse on you that causes you to experience physical pain if you leave your house during the day, you’d probably bristle at someone saying you prefer to stay home during the day.

    As for a “cure”, I’m not even sure what that would look like.

    I am. My symptoms basically went into remission for ~4 years, during which time I could work, live independently, have friends, and just generally pass for neurotypical. To me, a cure would look something like that.

    I fantasize about having things like glasses with a little display that tells me what emotion the face of the person I’m talking to is displaying and similar technical workarounds, but as to an actual “cure”, that would probably change my brain so much that I wouldn’t be me any more.

    I’ve never really understood this attitude. You can imagine a display that reveals people’s emotions but not being able to do so unassisted? Why not just imagine you automatically have access to the information that would have been on the display?

    Maybe it’s because I actually have something to compare my current disability against. Or maybe it’s because my symptoms are unique; it’s mostly just a non-stop mental fatigue where I can hypothetically do anything a neurotypical person can but the effort of it is completely exhausting.

    There are surely simpler and less expensive methods of suicide available.

    I have nothing but pure seething contempt for the idea that curing my disability is in any way comparable to suicide. The prospect that I might be cured is the only reason I haven’t actually commit suicide.